Bureau of Corpse Management
The Corpse Mender of Autumn Execution Grounds
Biodata
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Name | Bureau of Corpse Management (殡尸司) 3 |
| Affiliation | Ministry of Rites, Great Jing Dynasty 3 |
| Occupation/Role | Manages the capital’s corpse stitchers and assigns bodies for preparation and burial 3 39 |
| Status | Active 46 |
| First Appearance | Chapter 3 3 |
Organization and Operations
- Corpse-stitching shops: The Ministry of Rites and Imperial Medical Academy established twenty-four shops near the capital’s Caishikou execution grounds. Their stitchers are hired workers given room and board, not shop owners 1.
- Recruitment: The bureau selects people from refugee camps, generally favoring disabled applicants without family ties, and trains them for corpse stitching 3 8.
- Assignments: Clerks deliver bodies to shops. A registrar allocates corpses according to a stitcher’s assessed sha fate, aiming to match them with bodies their birth charts can suppress 14 39.
- Death response: When the stitcher at Shop No. 20 dies, clerks collect the bodies and seal the shop for three days to purify its sha. The bureau also investigates his death before releasing his body for stitching and burial 3 14.
- Other personnel: The bureau has a Corpse-Salvaging Team, two of whose members are killed in a clash with the Shallow Water Pier Canal Gang 20.
The bureau operates from a courtyard in Black Tortoise Ward, next to the Imperial Medical Academy. Its entrance has a spirit wall carved with tomb imagery and a large character for “Corpse,” intended to suppress through-hall sha 17 18.
History
After a grave robber’s corpse kills the stitcher at Shop No. 20, the bureau continues trying to have it sewn. Three more stitchers die after being summoned to its premises; each completes one of the remaining stitches. Lin Shou is summoned next and finishes the work with remotely operated wooden hands, surviving where the others did not 17 18 19.
Sun Xianfu responds by raising Shop No. 9’s corpse quota to match Shop No. 1’s and directing more problematic bodies to Lin Shou. The bureau subsequently rates both stitchers as top-tier “Heavenly Sha Lone Star” cases 20 39.
During the Autumn Examination, Lin Shou persuades the registrar to assign him the Examination Hall’s corpses. He handles nearly all of them over the nine-day examination, and no corpse stitcher dies that year. The bureau reports this result to its superiors 39 46.
Relationships
- Ministry of Rites — The bureau’s parent ministry 3.
- Imperial Medical Academy — Jointly established the twenty-four corpse-stitching shops with the Ministry of Rites; its independently run Six Afflictions Pavilion handles corpses of people who died from plagues or disease 1 35 39.
- Sun Xianfu — The bureau’s director; sets Lin Shou’s increased quota and receives the Autumn Examination report 20 46.
- Lin Shou — Shop No. 9 stitcher. Clerks initially deal with him chiefly on official business but grow friendlier through his invitations and food 3 20 36 39.