Especially someone like Old Ma.

Without someone like him, there was no way to get things done in Luoyin.

The sun had risen fully, and Master was exhausted.

But he could not go back yet.

It was not because he had yet to receive his share.

Old Owl had left some loose ends the night before. Officially, Master was helping Liu Sheng handle the remaining funeral arrangements.

No one could find fault with that.

Funerals and weddings varied from place to place. For a funeral in particular, the family handled the major decisions, while the Funeral Manager and the family's other relatives and friends helped with countless smaller tasks. Master was there as one of those friends.

Hearing that his apprentice was safe put his mind at ease. But as he turned to deal with the loose ends, his exhaustion-slowed thoughts finally caught up with him.

His apprentice had brought three corpses back to the Earth God Shrine.

"Where did those three corpses come from?"

Master felt something was wrong.

Two men had gone out, yet three corpses had come back?

A Corpse Sewer stitched corpses; he did not collect them. Where had the other two come from after a trip to the Yellow River?

Master could not sit still. He found Old Ma among the mourners and asked whether he knew the three. Sure enough, besides a man from Fisherfolk Village, there was an old hand at Cauldron-Banking and tomb raiding!

The last one was wrapped so tightly in quilts that even torchlight could not penetrate them.

Old Ma did not say it outright, but Master understood.

"That's something big from a tomb!"

Every place had its own customs for weddings and funerals, sometimes changing within ten miles, but some practices were much the same. Corpses in large tombs,