Chapter 5

Lin Shou stared at the silver scattered across the ground, thinking to himself, Well damn, I've turned into a printing press, just tossing money everywhere.

This Paper-to-Silver Art was actually quite interesting.

The paper-folded money looked exactly like real gold and silver, indistinguishable from official silver—even the Silver Casting Workshop couldn't tell the difference.

But if it were really that simple, Lin Shou would've achieved "financial freedom with one technique." How could such a pie-in-the-sky deal exist?

He snapped his fingers, and the silver ingots all over the floor sparked with flames, instantly burning into green smoke, leaving not even a trace of ash.

Lin Shou felt a sudden lightness in his heart—pure, desireless, free of greed. The craving in his mind had been burned clean.

This Paper-to-Silver Art folded Greed-Abstinence Silver.

It turned the greed in a person's heart into silver coins, then burned it all away with fire—a method of self-cultivation and moral refinement.

What would happen if you didn't burn the Greed-Abstinence Silver and used it instead?

Greed-born silver brings calamity, and great misfortune follows.

The sky was faintly lit, and the fifth watch's clapper sounded.

The breakfast stalls at the execution grounds were setting up. Lin Shou left the Corpse-Stitching Shop and jogged around the beheading grounds—exercise was good for health.

The neighbors all saw this and shrank back in fear, muttering that the little fool from the stitch shop was having another one of his crazy episodes.

After his morning run, he found a breakfast stall, bought some soy milk and fried dough, and sat down to eat. He happened to glance at the stall owner and thought he looked familiar.

Ah, he remembered now.

Wasn't this the cook from Wealthy Master Gao's house?

The night before, Lin Shou had stitched up the corpse of Wealthy Master Gao, who had killed his daughter in Changchun Township in the dead of night. The family cook had witnessed the crime, reported it to the authorities, and Gao was convicted and executed.

After Gao's death, the household fell apart. The servants and cooks were dismissed. This cook, now jobless, set up a breakfast stall at the execution grounds, selling fried dough, and Lin Shou happened to run into him.

The events in the Lantern of Life weren't just stories—they were the big and small happenings unfolding every day inside and outside the capital, the daily lives of ordinary people.

This chance encounter made Lin Shou realize that while the capital was vast, the world was ultimately made of people. He wasn't completely disconnected from those he'd seen in the lantern.

After finishing the crispy, fragrant fried dough and downing a steaming bowl of soy milk, his stomach was full.

Lin Shou wiped his mouth and slapped down three copper coins—the meal allowance issued by the Bureau of Corpse Management to stitchers. It was a bit tight each month, but enough.

He figured it was about time for someone to come claim the corpse in the shop. Just as he was about to head back, a figure stumbled out of a nearby alley, footsteps unsteady, and walked right into the middle of the main street at the execution grounds.

He lay down on the ground and died.

In broad daylight, within the capital of the Great Jing Dynasty, a man dropped dead in the middle of a bustling market. The surrounding townsfolk were unmoved, as if they'd grown numb to such scenes.

Lin Shou glanced at the corpse—a sallow face, withered like a living zombie, body hollowed out. He understood at once: this man had smoked himself to death with opium.

In these turbulent times, life was cheap. Dead bodies inside and outside the capital were common. People dying from opium, or hanging themselves because their families had no money for food—it happened all the time. Nothing strange about it.

Look, there was even an old cripple with a cane, pulling the felt hat off the corpse. Autumn had passed, winter was coming—that warm hat would come in handy.

Wait, that cripple looked familiar too. Wasn't he the stitcher from Corpse-Stitching Shop No. 6?

Lin Shou had seen the man a few times. From what he remembered, this lame old man had been a stitcher for nearly a year. Tough as nails—nothing had ever happened to him.

Lin Shou looked at the corpse lying across the street and the man stripping it, and sighed at the Great Jing Dynasty's peaceful prosperity and honest folk.

Then he went back to his own stitch shop.

Rogue Wang's corpse was taken away by the authorities and buried in a mass grave. That shameless thug clearly had no friends—no one held a funeral for him.

But even with everything stripped down to the bare minimum, the authorities still handled the full process from stitching and embalming the corpse to burial.

Lin Shou had always found this strange. The importance placed on funeral rites here was excessive. Even corpses with no relatives were sent by the government to be stitched, coffined, and buried.

Though everything was simplified—cheap wooden coffins and mass graves—the funeral ritual was always complete. It was as if failing to finish the burial process would cause something terrible to happen.

The Imperial Medical Academy explained it as a measure to prevent corpse plagues. That kind of nonsense was clearly meant to fool the common folk.

Lin Shou didn't believe for a second that stitching a corpse's limbs back on and applying makeup counted as epidemic prevention. If you really wanted to prevent disease, you'd burn the bodies.

He shook his head. With so little information available, he'd just have to lie low in this stitch shop, develop slowly, and gradually uncover the secrets of this world.

No corpses were delivered tonight.

For other stitchers, that would be good news. Stitching corpses was risky. A peaceful night meant one more day of life—a blessing.

But for Lin Shou, it was the opposite.

He was hoping for corpses to feed the Record of Selling Corpses. No corpses meant no gains. The Bureau of Corpse Management's work ethic was seriously lacking.

Late at night, Lin Shou lay on the cold mortuary slab, feeling like he'd been shortchanged.

Just as he was thinking this, he heard a bird's beak pecking at the door outside. A mournful announcement echoed through the capital's night:

"Corpse-Stitching Shop No. 6 stitcher position vacant! Corpse-Stitching Shop No. 6 stitcher position vacant!..."

The Corpse-Stitching Shop had claimed another life.

Lin Shou heard the Obituary Bird's cry outside and jolted upright from his cold cot.

Not because another corpse stitcher had died—death in the shop was routine, something he'd grown used to.

The problem was that it was Shop Six. The lame old man who'd been stealing felt hats off the dead—Lin Shou had seen him just this morning. Was it a coincidence?

The next day, at the crack of dawn, in that hour when ghosts bared their fangs.

Lin Shou rose early from his cold cot, lifted the door plank, and left the Corpse-Stitching Shop. He walked along the market street to Shop Six.

Two clerks from the Bureau of Corpse Management were already there—the same two who'd handled Shop Twenty last time.

They remembered Lin Shou too, having seen him just two days ago. Spotting him from a distance, they called him over to help.

The old routine was second nature. A basin of scalding hot dog blood was splashed into the shop. Lin Shou craned his neck to peer inside.

The old cripple's body lay sprawled across the floor. His skull—gone without a trace.

Just the single corpse. The cold cot was empty.

"Shop Six. No corpse was assigned last night," the two clerks said from outside the door.

This man's death hadn't come from stitching the dead.

Lin Shou's mind churned at those words. He stared at the bloody head, then searched the shop carefully. Sure enough, the felt hat the old cripple had stolen yesterday was nowhere to be found.

"Honored officers, I witnessed something yesterday. I don't know if it's connected..."

"Speak freely."

Lin Shou told them about seeing the old cripple steal a felt hat off a dead man at the breakfast stall yesterday.

The two clerks exchanged glances. As soon as they heard this, they seemed to understand immediately. They told Lin Shou to lead them to the dead man's family.

When Lin Shou brought the two clerks to the alley, the family had already set up a mourning shed for the funeral. The body lay in the coffin.

Lin Shou peeked inside. The felt hat the old cripple should have stolen was sitting squarely on the corpse's head.

One of the Bureau clerks murmured an apology for the intrusion. With one hand smoothing his official robes—as if the uniform could ward off evil—he lifted the felt hat with the other.

Beneath the felt hat lay the cripple's missing skull.