Seal the Coffin!

Li Xiang stood before the pitch-black coffin but made no move to seal it.

Instead, he pulled a bronze ever-burning lamp from beneath the counter, lit it, and placed it at the coffin's southeast corner.

The flame was no bigger than a bean and glowed a ghastly green.

The moment he set it down, the flame lunged wildly toward the coffin, as though something were dragging it in.

"That flame..." Wang Shuo's eyelid twitched sharply. His beastlike left hand went instinctively to the holster at his waist.

"Don't panic." Li Xiang did not turn around. His voice was a little cold. "This old lady's resentment runs deep. She's drawing in the Yang Fire.

"As long as the lamp stays lit, you'll be fine. If it goes out, gentlemen, you'd best throw away your guns and run as fast as your legs can carry you."

With that, he ignored the deathly pale soldiers and took three long sticks of purplish-black incense from his toolbox.

Unlike the delicate sandalwood burned for Buddhas in ordinary temples, this incense carried a pungent smell of mugwort and a faint scent of scorched grease.

"This is Soul-Locking Incense. It's made from mugwort aged at least three years, mixed with air-dried corpse oil and rolled into sticks."

As he spoke, Li Xiang lit their tips with the candle flame.

The blue smoke did not drift away. As though guided by an invisible hand, it rose straight up, then slipped through the gap in the coffin lid that had yet to close.

"It... it went in too?"

Third Master Huang swallowed and shrank behind Wang Shuo.

"That's called asking the way." Li Xiang looked calm, as though he were doing an everyday chore.

"That old lady lost her way when Killing Intent rushed to her head. That's why she bit anyone she saw.

"Once she takes in this incense, she'll have a path to the Yellow Springs. Then she won't decide my hands were too rough and climb up to make trouble again."

Wang Shuo watched the wisps of blue smoke enter the coffin. His expression shifted, and his grip on his gun loosened a little.

He had dealt with ghost-catching Daoists before and could recognize a bit of what was happening.

This young shopkeeper had real skills—and plenty of them.

[Corpse soothed. Embalmer experience +1]

The notification flashing through his mind steadied Li Xiang's heart.

He took a row of iron nails, each about three inches long, from his toolbox.

Their surfaces were dull, almost rusty, yet under the lamplight they glimmered with a dark red, bloodlike sheen.

"Soul-Sealing Nails?" Wang Shuo's eyelid twitched.

"You could call them that." Li Xiang offered no further explanation.

In truth, they were ordinary coffin nails. He had simply soaked them in chicken blood for seven times seven—forty-nine—days to fool outsiders and intimidate common wandering ghosts.

"Everyone, take three steps back. Don't let the Yang energy of the living disturb her."

The soldiers and Third Master Huang retreated to the doorway as if granted a pardon. Only Wang Shuo, relying on his martial skills and demonic limb, stood just beyond three steps and stared fixedly at Li Xiang's movements.

Li Xiang drew a deep breath. His gaze turned razor-sharp.

"Up!"

With one hand, Li Xiang gripped the edge of the coffin lid and heaved.

Crack! The heavy lid, which had been knocked out of place, snapped back into a perfect fit.

Then Li Xiang held a nail in his left hand and raised the black-cloth-wrapped hammer in his right, aiming at the first hole near the head of the coffin.

Bang!

The first blow landed with a dull sound, as though the hammer had struck rotten leather.

But the nail went in only a third of the way. After that, it would not budge.

"Hm?" Li Xiang frowned slightly.

"What's wrong?" Wang Shuo's heart tightened. He was afraid something else had gone awry.

"Her bones are too hard. They're pushing back." Li Xiang lowered the hammer and felt the slightly bulging coffin lid.

This iron-skinned monster was harder to handle than he had expected.

The corpse's muscles and bones were still wound tight from its transformation. Hard as a steel plate, they were pushing up the lid.

It was like an overstuffed suitcase whose zipper would not close.

"Brother Wang, looks like the old lady ate well when she was alive."

Li Xiang glanced back at Wang Shuo. "Her flesh and bones were trained harder than steel. Even in death, that breath of energy is locked in her marrow.

"If I force the nails in, one flying loose would be the least of our worries. If I damage the old lady's golden body and the Marshal blames us..."

Wang Shuo's eyes flickered. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

"Ahem... well..." Wang Shuo lowered his voice, as though sharing a secret that could not bear the light of day.

"The Marshal did give his concubine quite a few specially supplied meat pills to restore her health."

"In that case, we can't bury her the usual way." Li Xiang set the nail aside and flexed his long fingers.

"I'll have to dislocate her bones first."

"Dislocate her bones?"

"If the bones are too rigid, I dislocate the joints. If the membranes are too tight, I loosen the major tendons. Once that trapped breath disperses, the body will go soft."

As Li Xiang spoke, he stepped forward and leaned half his body over the coffin.

He did not lift the lid. Instead, he slipped both hands through the gap beneath it.

Through the Embalmer's Corpse Sense, the cold, rigid beauty inside the coffin became a precise three-dimensional anatomical diagram.

Crack!

A sharp snap that set teeth on edge came from inside the coffin.

Wang Shuo and the soldiers around him felt their scalps prickle.

Crack, crack...

Then came a rapid series of shifting bones, as though someone inside the coffin were snapping a handful of dry twigs.

Li Xiang concentrated, his hands moving quickly within the coffin. Using his Profession's absolute command of a corpse's structure, he precisely dislocated the dead beauty's shoulders, elbows, and hips.

Each time a joint came loose, the coffin lid sank a little lower.

[Bones dislocated. Embalmer experience +1]

[Corpse Qi dispersed. Embalmer experience +1]

Watching Li Xiang work as smoothly as flowing clouds and running water, Wang Shuo sucked in a cold breath. He swore that from then on, he would treat anyone in a Profession that dealt with ghosts and gods like his own grandfather.

Just as Li Xiang reached the corpse's throat, preparing to dislocate its jaw and disperse the last of its resentment, something changed.

A rapid gurgling rose from deep in the throat of the corpse that had supposedly been subdued.

Then a warning of extreme danger exploded in Li Xiang's mind.

His Corpse Sense was sounding the alarm in a frenzy.

"Ugh—!"

A muffled roar came from the coffin. Black vapor, visible to the naked eye, was about to burst through the gap beneath the lid.

It reeked of rot. If it struck someone's face, half that face would likely decay on the spot.

"Damn it—it's Calamity Qi!"

Li Xiang barked the warning, reacting at once.

He did not retreat. Instead, he lunged closer, pressed down with his left hand, and unleashed the Embalmer's power without holding anything back, pinning the corpse's forehead in place.

At the same time, his right hand flashed forward. Two fingers slipped into the corpse's slightly open mouth and caught the throat just as it was about to erupt.

Why was there a piece of metal in there?

Li Xiang's heart lurched.

The dead were often buried with jade cicadas or copper coins in their mouths, but this was the first time he had encountered metal.

Against his fingertips, it felt cold and slick. And... it was moving.

What the hell? Living metal?

The thing writhed in the corpse's throat like an octopus, trying to crawl out—or burrow into Li Xiang's fingers.

"Get me a basin!" Li Xiang shouted, urgency sharpening his voice.

"Quick! The old lady's Calamity Qi is stuck in her throat. If she can't spit it out, she'll burst!"

His shout left everyone stunned.

"A basin! Get a basin!" Wang Shuo kicked a terrified soldier in the backside.

The soldier scrambled to a corner, grabbed the copper basin normally used for burning paper money, and held it beside the coffin.

"Hold it steady. Don't spill a drop. This thing takes root wherever it lands, and one touch will kill you!"

Li Xiang's warning worked. The soldier's hands shook like chaff in a sieve, but he held on to the basin for dear life.

Inside the coffin, Li Xiang thrust his right hand deeper, then clamped his fingers together.

Forceps?

He did not need them.

His two fingers were now more precise and powerful than the finest surgical forceps.

Come out!

Li Xiang gripped the wildly struggling object tight.

Sensing the threat, it pierced his fingertips with tiny mechanical legs and drank a drop of blood. Pain bored straight through him.

Li Xiang did not even frown. Using the pain to spur himself on, he yanked it out.

"Urgh—!"

A strange noise like a living person retching came from the corpse's throat.

Clang!

Li Xiang dragged something black through the gap beneath the coffin lid. Trailing foul black blood, it struck the copper basin hard.

Almost the instant it landed, Li Xiang slapped down the yellow talisman he had ready in his left hand.

In truth, it was just a piece of rough paper covered in scribbles. He laid it over the basin, hiding the thing completely.

Sizzle...

Perhaps the drop of blood it had swallowed had taken effect. Or perhaps leaving the corpse had robbed it of its vitality.

After a faint metallic scraping from inside the copper basin, all fell silent.

"Phew..."

Li Xiang let out a long breath. He looked as though he had just been hauled from the water, with a large patch of his back soaked through.

He was not putting on an act. He was genuinely exhausted.

That move had cost him not only physical strength but also a great deal of mental energy to maintain the Soul-Summoning Hand.

"What... what is it?"

Wang Shuo leaned in and reached to lift the yellow talisman.

"Don't touch it!"

Li Xiang caught Wang Shuo's hand. "That's a Throat Baleful Entity, a poisonous growth formed from all the resentment in her body.

"If you want to look, I won't stop you. But if its poison gets into you and your sons are born without little birds, don't say I didn't warn you."

Wang Shuo's hand froze in midair. His expression shifted several times before he withdrew it awkwardly.

"Fine, I won't look. What rotten luck."

He was a soldier, and he believed in things like that more than anything.

To him, a curse that left his sons without little birds was worse than being shot.

"All right. She's expelled that breath, so now she's truly clean." Li Xiang drew everyone's attention away from the copper basin.

"Something this baleful has to be burned. I'll set up a separate altar later and burn it there."

With that strange thing no longer causing trouble and the Calamity Qi no longer pressing against it, the corpse in the coffin finally went limp.

The rest went much more smoothly.

Li Xiang picked up the hammer again.

Bang, bang, bang!

He drove seven Soul-Sealing Nails into the coffin lid, one after another, in the pattern of the Big Dipper.

This time, the nails sank deep into the wood without resistance.

With every blow, some of the shop's chill dispersed.

As the last nail went in, the rain outside miraculously stopped. A deathly pale moon emerged from behind the dark clouds and spilled clear light across the ground.

[Coffin sealed. Embalmer experience +1]

"Done."

Li Xiang set down the hammer, brushed the sawdust from his hands, and put on his humble smile again.

"Brother Wang, I'm glad I didn't let you down. The old lady will sleep for at least seven days and nights."

Wang Shuo looked at the coffin, now nailed shut, and his taut nerves finally eased.

He stepped forward and took out another money pouch he had prepared moments ago.

"Take it." Wang Shuo grinned broadly. "But, young shopkeeper, about tonight..."

"Tonight?" Li Xiang looked baffled. "The rain was so heavy tonight that I went to bed early. I didn't see or hear a thing."

Wang Shuo paused, then smiled. "You're a straightforward man, young shopkeeper. I was in the wrong earlier. Once this is over, I'll come by and apologize properly."

He shoved his Mauser back into his waistband, turned, and left without wasting another moment.

"Men, lift the coffin!"

At Wang Shuo's wave, several soldiers lifted the coffin again.

This time, it seemed a hundred pounds lighter, and the soldiers' steps were much brisker.

"Huang San, lead the way!"

Third Master Huang hurried to bow and scrape as he ran ahead. Before leaving, he glanced back at Li Xiang, his expression complicated.

As the disorderly footsteps faded, the old Shroud Shop fell silent once more.

Li Xiang stood at the entrance until he was certain they had gone. Then he quickly shut the door.

Once that was done, it was as though his bones had been pulled from his body. He slid down against the door and sat on the floor, gasping for breath.

The clothes on his back were soaked with cold sweat, clinging to his skin, sticky and uncomfortable.

"Fortune is found amid danger. The ancients never lied."

Li Xiang gave a self-mocking laugh and pulled the two heavy money pouches from his robe.

In an era when money still had decent purchasing power, thirty Silver Dollars were enough for him to go into the county town, find a Martial Arts Hall, train, and unlock a related Profession.

But that was not his greatest gain.

Li Xiang tossed the pouches aside and carefully picked up the object wrapped in yellow talisman paper.

By the last of the candlelight on the table, he peeled back the bloodstained paper.

"Hiss..."

Even though he had braced himself, Li Xiang could not help drawing a sharp breath.

Lying in his palm was a cicada the size of his thumb.

But it was no creature of nature.

Its wings were made from some kind of translucent metal.

Thin as cicada wings, they refracted a rainbow halo in the candlelight. Tiny talismans etched across them pulsed faintly like blood vessels, giving off a trace of warmth.

Its body, meanwhile, was a lump of bright red flesh. The metal patterns on its abdomen expanded and contracted as though it were breathing.

This was the thing lodged in that dead woman's throat?

Li Xiang gently prodded a wing with a silver needle.

It did not feel cold like metal as he had imagined. Instead, it was soft and strangely resilient, like a fusion of living metal and flesh.

"Screech—!"

Just as Li Xiang leaned closer to make out the dense, veinlike talisman patterns beneath its abdomen, the Golden Cicada that had been playing dead

let out an ear-piercing shriek.

Li Xiang's head rang. Before he could react, the Golden Cicada sensed a living person's vital warmth and breath and suddenly beat its wings.

Too fast.

A flash of light streaked past, and the Golden Cicada darted straight into Li Xiang's slightly open mouth.