Chapter 18: Lips and Tongues Can Also Kill

Looking at the person who came to mourn, Xu Qing felt an inexplicable strangeness in his heart.

It was as if a character in a story he heard, who had nothing to do with him, suddenly came to reality, stood alive before him, and talked to him.

Xu Qing knew that the other party was harboring evil intentions, but he still pretended not to know and lit a stick of incense, wanting to see what kind of medicine the other party was selling in his gourd.

"Brother Li! My Brother Li!

Why did you leave without a word..."

A loud cry suddenly rose from the ground, making Xu Qing's eardrums jump.

No, you're crying for your own father here!

"Brother Li, you and I were brothers. I really can't bear to see you go. If I had known this would happen, I would rather have died too, so as not to feel like a knife twisting in my heart, living in such pain!"

Just as the crying was in full swing, more than a dozen people came to mourn at the shop entrance.

The leading man hurriedly helped Liao An up and sighed, "Brother Liao, don't be too sad. If Brother Li were alive, he wouldn't want to see Brother Liao like this."

Others also stepped forward to comfort and mourn.

Xu Qing saw this scene and was puzzled. He grabbed someone who had just finished offering incense and asked, "It's not time for the funeral yet, and you don't know how to follow the rules. I just finished dressing him, and he hasn't even put on his clothes..."

The young man wearing a lined jacket and a felt hat had red eyes. He wasn't annoyed when Xu Qing grabbed his arm, but looked up at the beam, trying hard not to let the little pearls fall, and said, "It's not our fault. It's Third Brother Liao who misses Brother Li too much. Third Brother didn't even eat lunch and came first, saying he wanted to see Brother Li, so that Brother Li wouldn't have anyone he knew by his side and be lonely when he left."

"We calculated, so we followed."

Xu Qing understood instantly. It seemed that this Liao wanted to act out a scene of brotherly love to reduce his own suspicion.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but ask, "Since you're afraid of being lonely, why don't I see any family members coming?"

The young man sniffled, held it in for a long time, but still couldn't hold it back. The little pearls fell down patter-patter. Xu Qing knew at a glance that this was genuine sadness from the heart, much stronger than Liao An, who only knew how to cry loudly!

"Sister-in-law wanted to come together just now, and Third Brother Liao agreed, but I persuaded her to go back." The young man sighed, as if his throat was stuffed with a whole piece of alum, bitter and astringent, "I saw the wounds on Brother Li's body clearly this morning. If sister-in-law saw them, who knows how sad she would be. And the little nephew and niece, so young and lost their father..."

Xu Qing didn't know what to say, so he patted his shoulder and said, "The person is gone, the living should restrain their grief. If your Brother Li were still alive, he wouldn't want to see you sad for him."

These words were familiar, but they were truly a panacea.

Hearing this, the young man raised his sleeve and wiped his tears with lightning speed, pretending to be fine, standing tall and chest out, saying, "You're right. Brother Li used to teach me that a real man shouldn't be like a soft egg, crying all day long!"

"..."

When he said this, Liao An, who was crying like a crocodile, had just reached the climax, and that heart-rending cry could simply cry the sky down!

When the idlers retreated and the mortuary shop fell silent again, Xu Qing went next door, saying he had received a big order, with seven or eight dead people waiting for the funeral, so burial clothes, coffins, incense, and candles all needed to be supplied.

When Wu Yaoxing heard this, he was overjoyed!

He called the neighbors, checked them one by one, and arranged everything properly in less than the time it takes to burn a stick of incense!

By the second day, Li Fan's parents, wife, and children, led by Liao An, came to the mortuary shop.

The old man couldn't bear to see the white-haired sending off the black-haired and only dared to stand at the door, saying nothing and refusing to enter.

Tremblingly, he said, "You got the wrong person, you must have got the wrong person. That's not my son. My son has high martial arts, how could he have an accident..."

As he spoke, the old man grabbed Xu Qing's arm, as if confirming the answer in his heart, and asked him, "Little teacher, that person is not my son, am I right?"

Xu Qing was about to reply when he vaguely heard this sentence from the shop—

"Sister-in-law, don't be too sad. Today, in front of Brother Li's spirit in heaven, I, Liao An, put these words here: I will definitely find a good family for sister-in-law in the future, so that the orphans and widows won't be bullied..."

Xu Qing frowned. Is this human language?

You must know that there are no shortage of people who eat people's property in this day and age. Not to mention anything else, if the other party really sells Li's wife and children to other places and puts on the name of "for her own good," what should Li's old man and old woman do in the future?

What will happen to Li's two children?

You must know that Li Fan had taken two hundred taels of settlement money before the accident. With this money, even if Li's wife didn't remarry, she could live a good life for the rest of her life.

Xu Qing couldn't be blamed for thinking too much. The world was like this in the first place. Based on Liao An's urine-like behavior of betraying his brothers, his character could be imagined. Maybe he was already eyeing the Li family's property!

After sending away Li's family, Xu Qing picked up the corpse-driver's housekeeping skills again at night.

With the agency clerk responsible for leading the way, he had to carry these corpses one by one to each mourning hall to be settled before dawn.

With outsiders present, it was inconvenient for him to perform the corpse-driving method, so he could only use the simplest and easiest corpse-carrying method to transport the corpses.

By the fifth day, after each family had kept the mourning for three days, Xu Qing put on the ritual robe for hosting the funeral and led a group of neighbors whose professionalism didn't need to be mentioned to start the funeral and burial for Li Fan and others one by one.

After finishing the rituals during the day, Xu Qing sat alone under the pomegranate tree in the backyard at night, but the image of Li's family being eaten out of property by Liao An always appeared in his heart.

"Beasts are easy to transcend, but people are hard to transcend. Li Fan, oh Li Fan, you made your family worry while you were alive, and you don't let them rest after you die..."

Sighing, Xu Qing stopped swallowing moonlight and instead put on finger tigers and corpse-driving instruments, and walked into the dark toward the residence where Liao An lived.

He had been there once during the funeral during the day, so he was familiar with the road.

When he arrived at the room where Li's wife and children were, he saw Li's wife sitting in front of the bed, staring blankly through the door crack.

That Li's wife had finished crying during the day and had just coaxed her pair of children to sleep.

Deep in the night, she sighed faintly and walked to the window.

At this time, there was a slanted moon and a few stars outside the window. Li's wife felt a sour nose for no reason, and all the emotions that could not be revealed in front of her parents-in-law and children surged into her heart.

Her husband died inexplicably.

Her children lost their father at such a young age.

And she, a woman, lost her husband halfway. Who knows when the neighbors will spread rumors about her.

Saying she cursed her husband to death is already being polite!

Thinking of Liao An's disgusting words during the day about wanting to make decisions for Li Fan and help him find a new family, she realized what it felt like when the sky fell.

Just as Li's wife was sitting by the window mourning, a hoarse and rough man's voice suddenly came from outside the window, near the wall!

Li's wife was startled, thinking it was some hooligan who heard that she had just lost her husband and wanted to come and bully her, a widow with children.

She quickly grabbed the scissors from the sewing basket and was about to call for her parents-in-law and neighbors, but heard the man whisper:

"Madam, don't make a scene. I came here to tell you the true cause of Li Fan's death, so that Madam can understand who is hiding evil!"

Li's wife swallowed the words that were on her lips. After hearing the true cause of her husband's death, she widened her eyes, her whole body trembling.

Liao An, the person who often pulled her husband to drink and play, and even bought sugar figures and toys for her pair of children, was actually the real murderer who killed her husband!

"Madam, go to the agency tomorrow to find Fifth Master Chang. Remember not to show any flaws. Once you see Fifth Master Chang, tell him everything, and Fifth Master will naturally make the decision for Madam."

With that, it became completely quiet outside.

Li's wife hurriedly opened the door and looked around, only to see the courtyard empty and silent. There was no sign of half a person to pour out her heart to!

Early the next morning, Xu Qing chatted with Wu Yaoxing and Old Man Hu from the coffin shop for a while.

By noon, when the yang energy was at its peak, he returned to the mortuary shop, found a cool place, and had a comfortable sleep.

In the evening, when the yang energy receded, Xu Qing closed the shop door and was planning to go to the backyard to practice a set of Tiger Seal Dragon Elephant boxing to stretch his muscles and bones, but someone beat him to it and called open the shop door.

It was still the agency clerk, and still the cart pulling corpses.

The clerk said with great hatred, "Boss Xu, Fifth Master said this corpse is handed over to the shopkeeper for disposal for free, but there is one point: whether it's sent to the mine or somewhere else, in short, don't let him have a good time! Make him a cow or a horse in his next life, and never think about being reincarnated as a human again!"

Xu Qing thought, who is this unlucky person who offended Fifth Master Chang again?

Thinking this, he lifted the corpse-wrapping cloth, and when he saw the corpse that was not in human shape, Xu Qing was happy!

Isn't this Liao An who wanted to eat people's property!

One day later, why is he so miserable?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 19 =====