Feeding on Qi

Still, although the black cloth wrapped Young Master Shen's remains and not a drop of blood had seeped out along the way, pedestrians on every street the grandfather and granddaughter passed through could not get out of their way fast enough.

Even the beggars kept their distance from them.

Collecting corpses was not a respectable occupation in this era.

It even carried a touch of ill fortune.

Never mind marrying and having children-even the neighbors used to take a detour whenever they saw Old Lu.

And so Old Lu had neither wife nor children.

Fortunately, several years earlier, in the depths of winter, Old Lu had found Lu Mingyue abandoned at the foot of his courtyard wall.

With a lively, endearing granddaughter beside this harbinger of death, the neighbors had grown less afraid of Old Lu over the years.

But when Old Lu took Lu Mingyue out to collect corpses, they would never come over to say hello, no matter what.

"The Shen Household is one of the great households in town, truly rich! I wonder how much they'll give us as a reward tomorrow?"

Lu Mingyue had long since grown used to other people's stares. She cared more about how much she and her grandfather could earn. They needed money to live well, didn't they?

For unclaimed bodies, they received only the reward from the authorities, and once they had finished preparing them, they still had to take them outside town to Old Crow Mountain for burial.

Lu Mingyue did not like going to Old Crow Mountain. At its foot lay a mass graveyard, while untouched forest covered its slopes. Chilly gusts blew there even in broad daylight, enough to silence a crying child, so most of the time her grandfather went alone.

"Don't go talking nonsense like that again."

Old Lu reached over and flicked Lu Mingyue on the forehead. After pushing the handcart into a side room in the courtyard, he told her:

"Go fetch the tools."

Lu Mingyue rubbed her forehead, went over to the nearby table, and took down a willow-wood box.

Meanwhile, Old Lu carefully undid the two knots at either end of the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth.

Over the course of their journey, the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth had long since been stained dark red, yet not a single drop of blood had fallen from it.

"Mingyue, we could do without this home, but we must never lose this Corpse-Wrapping Cloth... That's what your great-grandfather told me. You must remember it from now on, too!"

As Old Lu instructed Lu Mingyue, he spread the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth open to either side, revealing the body of Yulang of the Shen Household within.

The severed head and body were indeed rather frightening. Although Old Lu had barely managed to piece the head back together, it had, after all, been split open. Blood was still welling from the wound, and the eyes stared straight ahead, wide open, as though fixed on the grandfather and granddaughter.

He could not close his eyes even in death!

"Gulp."

Lu Mingyue could not help swallowing, her eyes darting from side to side, reluctant to look at the dead face of Yulang of the Shen Household.

"Every grievance has its culprit, every debt its debtor. Stop glaring at me. I'm a good man helping collect your body!"

Old Lu spoke with a solemn expression and reached out to close Shen Yulang's eyes, but even after he tried for quite a while, those eyes remained stubbornly open.

"Hey, Young Master Shen, now you're being unreasonable!"

Old Lu grew a little angry. He glanced up at the morning sun slowly rising beyond the courtyard. Not daring to delay any longer, he called to Lu Mingyue, and together they moved the body onto the nanmu table in the room.

Old Lu rolled up the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth and covered Shen Yulang's face with it, then opened the willow-wood box, took out a needle and thread, and began stitching the young master of the Shen Household's head to his severed neck.

It was an extremely intricate task, but Old Lu performed it with great patience.

Moreover, his skill with a needle might well have surpassed that of most women.

After all, over the years, if a thousand corpses had not passed through Old Lu's hands, then at least eight hundred had.

Although Lu Mingyue had already inherited Old Lu's family craft, it was not yet time for her to try her hand at it. For now, she could only cup her little face in her hands and watch from the side.

"Whew... Done!"

Only after a full two hours had passed did Old Lu cut the thread in his hands. Lu Mingyue hurriedly took out a cloth to wipe the sweat from her grandfather's forehead, then helped him stand and walk two circuits around the room.

"You take over. My back aches terribly, and you'll have to get some hands-on practice sooner or later."

Once he had caught his breath, Old Lu put away the needle and thread and watched Lu Mingyue from the side.

With the head already stitched to the body, however, the remaining steps were relatively simple.

All she had to do was wash the grime from the body, tidy up the deceased's appearance, then wait for the Shen Household's people to come collect him tomorrow.

Although Lu Mingyue was afraid, after all this time, she had grown used to Shen Yulang's wide-open eyes.

This part took Lu Mingyue only an hour.

Only once the clean body of Yulang of the Shen Household lay on the nanmu table did Lu Mingyue finally let out a breath of relief. Both her little legs were trembling slightly.

"Tired?"

Old Lu took out his tobacco pipe, took a puff, and asked Lu Mingyue with a smile.

"Grandpa, I'm not tired!"

Lu Mingyue immediately straightened up, holding her little face taut as she answered with utter seriousness.

"Then take this Corpse-Wrapping Cloth and wash it."

Old Lu smiled and shook his head. He did not coddle this granddaughter he had found, handing the folded Corpse-Wrapping Cloth to Lu Mingyue.

This was the final task.

Ever since Lu Mingyue was five, washing the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth had been her responsibility.

Old Lu said she needed to get used to this sort of dirty work.

Otherwise, his craft might die out someday.

"Splash!"

Lu Mingyue knew her grandfather only entrusted the family's most precious possession to her for washing because he trusted her, so naturally she had no complaints.

But this time, after Lu Mingyue dropped the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth into the bucket, stirred it around a few times, then lifted it again, her eyes suddenly widened.

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"This is..."

This Corpse-Wrapping Cloth had been left to her grandfather by his grandfather, and it was the keepsake the old man treasured most.

Lu Mingyue was quite certain that, aside from being just the right size to wrap an adult's corpse, this Corpse-Wrapping Cloth-

At least from her experience with it over the past few years, the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth merely had a somewhat unusual material, capable of wrapping a corpse without letting any blood seep through.

Today had been no different.

Yet at this very moment, Lu Mingyue could clearly see several lines of writing that had actually appeared on the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth!

"Mortal. Newly entered Spirit Mansion. Qi-Feeding Spirit-Opening Art."

These were three lines of egg-sized characters, blood-red against the black Corpse-Wrapping Cloth, as though written in Shen Yulang's blood.

Had the color not been so striking, Lu Mingyue would never have noticed them!

And Lu Mingyue was absolutely certain that these words had not been on the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth before!

"Splash!"

Abruptly coming to her senses, Lu Mingyue hurriedly fished the Corpse-Wrapping Cloth out of the bucket and placed her fingers on those three lines of writing.

The next instant, image after image flooded into Lu Mingyue's mind.

First came a baby's birth, accompanied by loud wails, followed by his infancy, his childhood...

When he was nine, an immortal flying through the sky descended upon Yangguan County Seat, seeking to recruit those possessing a Spirit Mansion to enter an immortal sect and cultivate.

Unfortunately, after searching, the immortal did not take a single person away.

The boy was deeply unwilling to accept this.

He had thought himself extraordinary from birth, capable of becoming an immortal cultivator, standing high above and looking down upon the ordinary mortals here.

But after the immortal examined him up close, he received only the verdict, "You possess no Spirit Mansion. Leave at once."

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