Strange Happenings Can Wait, Lessons Come First!

Darkness began swallowing the entire Earth God Shrine, and the wind swept away the scent of incense.

In the darkness, every knock at the door seemed to strike Xu Feng's heart.

The lanterns were going out. Only the torch in Xu Feng's hand and the lantern in the main hall still gave off light. He glanced toward the sound, then ignored it, pretending he had heard nothing.

If he had seen correctly, something was climbing up the wall when he looked toward the gate.

Xu Feng had seen two hands!

When Xu Feng turned back toward the main hall, he saw the curtain he had propped up slowly falling.

As though the Land God could not bear to watch.

Xu Feng's heart went cold, but he still rushed into the West Room.

The entire West Room was bathed in a sickly green. Every candle gave off that ghastly light. Only after Xu Feng charged in with his torch did their flames gradually return to normal.

Xu Feng rounded the screen with his torch and saw the corpses lying inside.

His master set a large bundle on the floor and slung a small satchel over his shoulder. Xu Feng looked over and saw that incense had already been lit at one corpse's feet!

One by one, his master had already begun.

Seeing his master, Xu Feng felt inexplicably calm. His master worked without haste. Of course, if Xu Feng had read them correctly, the three incense sticks beneath this corpse indicated a "Minor Ominous Sign"!

And one of the corpses was trying to "sit up."

Some force held it down, preventing it from rising.

As for the roof tile that had originally been propped up with a bamboo pole, it could no longer release Killing Intent! Of the seven corpses here, only the male corpse remained covered by a straw mat, with a broken blade hanging above its head. The other six had all been uncovered!

How could he put it? The moment Xu Feng saw the female corpses, his hair stood on end!

Because there was something unnatural about them.

Someone had dressed them up.

Far from making the corpses look lifelike, someone had deliberately exaggerated their deathly appearance!

Their faces had been painted with heavy, unmistakable "dead person's makeup." In the firelight, every one of them looked especially terrifying!

"Master."

Xu Feng spoke as he stood beside his master, torch in hand. At that moment, he finally remembered what he had forgotten.

Master never recited the sacrificial text before the Land God, so he shouldn't have received any blessing!

Xu Feng's heart gave another thump.

By rights, his master was an old hand and would not slip up over something like this. But nothing was certain. Xu Feng said nothing for now. He brought the torch closer, examined the female corpses, and found what was wrong with them.

These bodies were incomplete, too.

It was not that they had been beheaded and needed their heads sewn back onto their bodies. These corpses were all terribly "thin."

As though they had no organs.

So the first thing Xu Feng thought of was "filling"!

Fill first, then sew. But beneath the torchlight, Xu Feng suddenly saw white hairs sprouting from under the corpses' skin, fine as the hair on an ox!

When Xu Feng had downloaded books such as the Forensic Medicine Illustrated, he had read that, under certain conditions and given enough time, corpses could "weep," "sigh," "fart," and even suffer bursting bellies.

All of that was perfectly normal.

But dense hair growing like the fine hair on an ox was absolutely impossible!

"Dust them with powder! Clean the bodies, then prepare the Filling Method."

His master's voice was as still as an ancient well.

He handed Xu Feng a paper packet and said, "Back when you read those books, they never really explained that the work we Corpse Sewers do looks like one trade, but it's actually two.

"Everyone thinks our craft is all about sewing things shut?

"Wrong!

"The first part of our work is sewing a person back into one whole body, so they can be buried with every last part intact and with some dignity.

"That dignity is for the living, but isn't it for the dead as well?

"The second part is drawing the Killing Intent out of the corpse.

"So the person can depart in peace.

"After someone dies, the worst thing is for a breath to remain trapped inside the body.

"Whether it's Killing Intent, a breath born of violent death, or a deathly miasma.

"If it gets stuck in the throat, the corpse becomes a stiff. If it lodges in the windpipe and meets Killing Intent, the corpse rises. And if it's—

"Forget it. I've said so much, but you won't remember it all, my apprentice. Of everything I've told you, the most important part comes down to a few words.

"Let the person depart whole and unblemished.

"Don't defile the corpse.

"We're people with hard lives ourselves, and people with hard lives ought to look after others like them."

As his master spoke, Xu Feng took the paper packet in one hand and listened carefully.

Was this the guiding principle of their line of Corpse Sewers?

Xu Feng opened the packet and found what looked like a mixture of incense ash and burned paper ash.

After examining the corpse, his master said, "This one was given a proper burial. From the looks of it, she wasn't from a wealthy family, but she wasn't destitute, either.

"Ordinarily, these corpses wouldn't have come out on their own. Someone must have dug them up to harm people.

"The work of a beast!"

With that, his master told him to dust the body with incense ash and set some aside as a base to put in the Yellow Cloth Bag for the filling.

"This ash has two uses. It absorbs the thick fluids and blood from a corpse, keeping it dry so maggots won't breed.

"You can also put it inside the corpse to suppress that bit of evil energy."

Once Xu Feng had done so, his master took out a needle and said, "There isn't much to say about the Large Needle. It has just one method, and you've probably learned it already. That was the method you used on your first job."

As his master spoke, the thump, thump, thump from outside finally reached the West Room. Not only that, the sound of roof tiles falling came from above them.

The wind carried the cries of cats inside. Something was trying to enter through the West Room doorway. Out of the corner of his eye, Xu Feng saw the other female corpses moving, along with the straw mat over the male corpse. Most importantly, there was water.

Water from nowhere crossed the threshold and spread inward.

But faced with all this, his master said, "It's all right. It will be a while before the corpses rise. Watch the needlework first. When I'm done, you'll sew this corpse yourself.

"Remember this, no matter what: these people were once living people, just like you and me. I had your Uncle Liu take you to watch an execution so you would remember to have empathy and a kind heart, before gods and men alike.

"That matters most. I don't care whether you understand it now. I've taught it to you, and one day you will."

With that, he motioned for Xu Feng to watch his hands. Hearing those words, Xu Feng felt a solemn resolve settle over him.

He watched his master sew the corpse.

Then he saw his master close his hand into a fist, tuck his thumb between his middle and index fingers, and begin to "smooth the breath" from the corpse!

He showed Xu Feng how to force out the breath the corpse could not release on its own.

"If it rises, let it out through the mouth; if it sinks, release it below."

"If it's hollow, fill it; if it's missing, mend it."

"Serve the dead as you would the living."

At that moment, his master neither smiled nor frowned. Nothing remained in him but concentration. He even inserted Small Needles along the corpse's meridians as though performing acupuncture, guiding the breath outward.

Once he had forced the breath up, he suddenly pinched the corpse's mouth and said to Xu Feng, "Move!"

Xu Feng immediately stepped back. Sure enough, the corpse opened its mouth and expelled a breath of poisonous gas!

When it came out, Xu Feng saw his master breathe a sigh of relief and gesture for him to burn the gas with the torch. Xu Feng swept the flame through it. The whole torch turned green for an instant, then returned to normal.

"Good."

With that done, his master continued, "See? That's the Large Needle finished. The Small Needle has three methods, and the Hooked Needle has six. Watch me!"

Hearing this, Xu Feng held the torch in one hand and studied the needlework intently, shutting out everything around him.

He pretended everything around him was normal, that the terror was gone!

He forced himself to become wholly absorbed in learning!

As his apprentice studied, the Corpse Sewer glanced around. A thin haze of moisture had gathered nearby, and it was condensing into a distinct shape on the wall.

The Corpse Sewer was not surprised.

He simply lowered his head. It was not yet time for him to act. He said to Xu Feng, "Good lad, watch closely. Everything we corpse-sewing craftsmen know lies in the stitching, in the needle.

"My master left this set of needles to me. Someday, I'll leave it to you.

"But not today. Not now.

"And certainly not because of what happens today!"