Chapter 183

On Jingxia Street, Xu Qing carried bags of capital specialties, looking no different from a commoner who had just returned from trading abroad.

Although this trip had cost him quite a bit of incense and almost wiped out his capital, he had at least managed to bounce back.

In the mortuary, seeing a familiar figure appear at the door, a tall woman suddenly darted out and lunged at Xu Qing.

"Hey, hey! Do you still think you're a cat? I'm carrying things here!"

Xuanyu had been managing the shop and was still possessing Sun Erzhuang's body. The tall female zombie lunged over, and a headbutt hit Xu Qing right on the chin.

It didn't hurt, but sparks were flying!

The silver-armored female zombie was already impervious to swords and spears; hitting the gold-armored Prostrate Corpse Xu Qing was like a hammer hitting an anvil.

In the incense shop, Cheng Caiyun heard the commotion and came to the door with her rice bowl.

Boss Cheng stood at the door and took a look: in broad daylight, a pair of "dogs" were stuck together at the door of the mortuary, not even paying attention to their reputation.

Looking at the pair of swallows chirping and flying back and forth under the eaves of the mortuary, Cheng Caiyun felt her breakfast wasn't even tasty anymore.

In the mortuary, a zombie and a cat lived together.

Xu Qing stewed a pot of fish, and the cat hissed at the heat, wanting to eat but afraid of burning its mouth.

Generally, even the hottest soup has a limit, but the spirit fish Xu Qing stewed was, for some reason, exceptionally hot to eat.

As an expert at eating fish, Xuanyu spotted the problem at a glance.

Usually, clear-stewed fish soup is milky white, but today's soup was golden.

The taste was also different from ordinary spirit fish.

Facing Xuanyu's question, Xu Qing nonchalantly fished out a bowl-sized scale from the pot.

"What is this?" Feeling the thick blood energy coming from the blue-gold scale, Xuanyu widened its eyes.

"I don't know, perhaps a scale that fell off some demon fish. Judging by the look of it, it must be a great demon..."

As he spoke, a fingernail with a dark golden matte luster emerged from the tip of Xu Qing's index finger.

The nail only extended half an inch, and then a wisp of eerie, smoldering flame suddenly shot out, instantly wrapping around the corpse armor.

The scorching temperature combined with the sharp nail sliced through the blue-gold scale, and in no time, the hard scale was cut into several pieces.

Xu Qing's elegant movements were like cutting a steak. Xuanyu looked at the prepared ingredients and for the first time doubted whether its teeth could handle this fish scale.

Looking at Xu Qing again, he was crunching away as if eating pebbles.

Since breaking through to the Prostrate Corpse level, Xu Qing had gained two extremely convenient abilities. One was that after subduing the Tiger Lord of the mountains, his nails could freely extend and retract, up to a foot long or completely hidden under the skin.

The other ability was his corpse teeth.

Now, even if Xu Qing were to eat copper or iron pellets, it would be like eating beans; a simple chew would crush them to pieces.

Similarly, his inch-long corpse teeth could also retract at will.

Xu Qing estimated that those cultivators with copper heads and iron bones might also have the ability to swallow copper pellets.

But comparing them, at the same level, I'm afraid no human or demon's bite force could compare to a zombie's.

"If Xuanyu can't bite it, I can chew it for you first."

"..."

Although Xuanyu's teeth weren't as good as Xu Qing's, it was a cat demon with several hundred years of cultivation; no matter what, it wouldn't be reduced to eating pre-chewed food.

Although ordinary kittens sometimes need humans to chew food for them, it was not one of those useless kittens that only relied on humans!

After finishing the breakfast of "waste teeth," Xuanyu couldn't wait to take Xu Qing to the side room.

Looking at Xuanyu's mysterious behavior, Xu Qing was confused.

Until he pushed open the door, Xu Qing stood frozen on the spot!

In the frost-filled side room, it was piled with all kinds of corpses.

Men, women, old, young, with heads, without heads, wide-eyed, closed-eyed, and some wearing prison uniforms.

Xu Qing roughly estimated that there were at least seventy or eighty corpses.

To prevent decay, many Ice Soul Talismans were pasted in the room, and the corpses also had aloe powder to prevent moisture and rot.

"These corpses..." Xu Qing looked at Xuanyu with shock and suspicion.

The latter jumped onto a coffin lid, raised its neck, and displayed its masterpiece without reservation.

"These are all the corpses the shop received while you were away."

"Some are from the government office, some were sent by Fourth Master Li, and a few are petty thieves who broke into the Water Gate Bridge villa wanting to steal but were scared to death."

Xuanyu listed them like counting family treasures.

Xu Qing identified them one by one, and as Xuanyu said, these corpses all matched.

Even those petty thieves who were scared to death still had expressions of terror, as if they had seen a ghost.

Xu Qing looked at the well-behaved and sensible Xuanyu, speechless for a long time.

How much virtue must he have accumulated to hire such a virtuous cat?

At noon, after digesting his meal, Xu Qing went to visit a circle of acquaintances.

Daoist Yizhen hadn't been back long, and Xu Qing had nothing to give, so he simply gave some self-made rouge and powder. Having often applied makeup to the dead, he could be called a top-tier makeup artist, and the cosmetic products in his hands were naturally high-end goods for "corpse beauties."

As for the acquaintances in the government office, such as Secretary Tang Zhou, Gatekeeper Old Man Qin, and some familiar bailiffs, Xu Qing was much more perfunctory. He soaked the "wine worm" in a water jar, and gave each person a jar, and that was it.

However, even the "fake wine" Xu Qing gave away casually was streets ahead of those good wines; even the signature Drunken Immortal Brew of the Drunken Immortal Tower wasn't necessarily better than his wine.

The wine worm is originally transformed from the essence of wine; store water in a jar, stir it with the worm, and it becomes fine wine.

This method has already reached the level of the profound and divine, naturally incomparable to ordinary brews.

In addition, people like Senior Brother Wang from the mortuary, Fourth Master Li from the agency, and Second Master Feng from the Flower and Bird Street were all Xu Qing's close friends.

The fact that they could provide Xu Qing with a steady source of corpses and yin-industry items was secondary; the key was that the brothers had a harmonious relationship, so the gifts he sent naturally had to be more thoughtful.

As for Guo Dongyang of the teahouse, Xu Qing had long forgotten him. If he hadn't passed by the Fulai Teahouse and heard the familiar storytelling inside, he would have forgotten such a person existed.

He turned in to listen to the storytelling. At this moment, Guo Dongyang happened to be talking about the segment half a year ago when gods descended to save the suffering in Linjiang and Wanshou counties.

"Ladies and gentlemen, today's story is not about talented scholars and beautiful women, nor about princes and generals, but about a strange tale of a Mysterious Maiden manifesting to save the common people."

"Two years ago, the Yaozhou river flooded, drowning two commanderies and sixteen counties..."

"Right in the middle of this hell on earth, a Mysterious Maiden Temple appeared twenty miles outside Wanshou County."

"No one knows when this temple was built. Think about it, how many local elders and young men are there in Wanshou County? With so many people coming and going—woodcutters, hunters, mountain travelers—not a single person knew the origin of this temple."

In the teahouse, Xu Qing found an inconspicuous place and listened to Guo Dongyang tell the story. When he heard him talk about the origin of the Mysterious Maiden Temple, he was slightly stunned.

Did this old guy specifically go to Wanshou County to investigate? Otherwise, how would he know so many details?

Continuing to listen, Guo Dongyang tucked his fan into his hand, scanned the room, and said:

"That Mysterious Maiden Temple is not as grand as big temples, and no one goes to worship. The blue tiles on the roof were covered in dust, the gold paint on the statue had faded, and the incense was so cold it could freeze."

"But in this cold temple, one day a disaster victim suddenly broke in. Can you guess what that victim looked like?"

Guo Dongyang laughed: "This person was so thin that his cheeks were sunken enough to hold two taels of water, and his eye sockets were deeper than a well. He was wrapped in a tattered cotton coat, spinning in the wind, looking like the thousand-year-old bark hanging on a poplar tree."

"This person walked without a sound, floating like he was stepping on cotton. Those who didn't know would think it was a reed stalk that had become a demon..."

Some tea drinkers laughed, but only Xu Qing remained silent.

He had seen the appearance of those refugees, and now he couldn't laugh no matter what.

"The man entered the Mysterious Maiden Temple, clearly on the verge of starving to death, but he didn't beg for his own life; instead, he opened his arms and took out a baby that was yellow with hunger."

"The man placed the child on the altar and, without a word, knocked his head three times until it bled!"

"Mysterious Maiden, please open your eyes. It doesn't matter if I live or die, but this child has a hard life. His mother breathed her last yesterday, and this morning the baby was still clinging to the cold corpse looking for milk..."

"I really can't find anyone to save him, so I can only beg you."

Guo Dongyang told it as if it were true. Xu Qing originally didn't care, thinking it was just some nonsense legend the old man had heard, until he heard the Mysterious Maiden holding a pure vase and picking up a willow branch to manifest, at which point Xu Qing finally couldn't hold it together.

Is this the Mysterious Maiden you're talking about?

"The Mysterious Maiden held a willow branch and tapped lightly, and the incense ash in the burner turned into white rice and white flour. From then on, the refugees within a hundred miles had food to eat."

"Strange to say, no matter how many thousands of troops came to take the grain, the mountain of rice never seemed to decrease, and the flour at the temple door was never scraped clean."

"It's just a pity that the Mysterious Maiden released grain without permission, causing the Heavenly Emperor's dissatisfaction. Just when the refugees had secured their lives, heavenly fire suddenly descended and burned the Mysterious Maiden Temple to the ground."

"It wasn't until this spring, when sweet rain fell, that a clear spring suddenly appeared in front of the Mysterious Maiden Temple. A stone tablet by the spring revealed four lines of poetry: 'Mud statues can save those in urgent need, true gods are not found in high incense. If the officials of the world were upright, why bother the gods to manifest?'"

The tea drinkers discussed it heatedly. Someone said: "Could this really have happened? I heard that Wanshou County does indeed have a new spring and a stone tablet, and what is carved on it is indeed these few lines."

Xu Qing frowned slightly. He didn't set up any tablet, let alone have the leisure to dig a spring.

Who did this?

Leaving the teahouse, Xu Qing didn't do anything else, but he remembered the tablet set up by a mysterious person outside the ruins of the Mysterious Maiden Temple.

Remember this; there might be more to this tablet in the future.

Back at the mortuary, after strolling around and visiting friends, Xu Qing returned to his "morgue."

Closing the door and looking at the warehouse full of corpses, Xu Qing rubbed his hands excitedly. The half-year he spent in the imperial mausoleum had made him feel like he was growing fur. Now that he was back, except for a brief taste at the noodle stall, this was his first time enjoying "corpse touching."

The "Scripture of Saving People" flipped pages, and the revolving lanterns of all kinds of people from all walks of life appeared before his eyes.

Old regulars like "Power Pill" and "Dog Skin Plaster" go without saying; he just treated them as stocking his inventory. During this time, besides some common folk arts, Xu Qing also obtained an interesting little technique—the "Art of Passing Off the Fake as Genuine."

This is a small trick of the underworld for forgery. Antiques, calligraphy, paintings, and rare treasures—as long as they are objects whose authenticity is judged by appearance and texture, they can be forged using this technique.

Xu Qing was somewhat interested in this little technique, but he was more interested in this person's revolving lantern.

This person was a regular at the Flower and Bird Street, often reselling forged items. Several paintings bought by Second Master Feng came from this person's hands.

Later, this person's crime was exposed, and he was imprisoned.

According to Dayong law, as long as you don't forge money or fake medicine that kills people, you are generally sentenced to imprisonment, not death.

But when this person's case was exposed, he was directly thrown into death row by the government office.

The reason was simple: many merchants and wealthy gentry in Jinmen had spent a lot of money buying fakes from him, and there were even some officials from Jinmen among them.

It's just that those fakes were too realistic, but because they were too realistic, the official in charge of the case directly sentenced him to death.

The charge was "minting fake silver."

Outsiders didn't know the inside story, and after the autumn execution, those fakes became "genuine."

Including those paintings of Second Master Feng, if Xu Qing guessed correctly, Second Master Feng was still in the dark, holding the fake paintings and appreciating them all day long.

Besides Second Master Feng, the genuine "Gift to Yu Qianwen" poem, which the Jinmen Prefect had invited into his mansion to worship, was also fake. There were also the "Horse Stepping on a Flying Swallow" in the Governor's mansion, the "Treasure Basin" in Squire Zhang's house, and the "Lady Painting" treasured by Master Chu...

Xu Qing read through it all and clicked his tongue in wonder.

Whether this person's forgery skills were superb or not, his guts were truly huge!

Any one of these people could take his life, yet he dared to scam them all.

Xu Qing counted the other party's experiences of forgery and deception, but didn't find a single case of scamming ordinary people.

The victims were at best wealthy squires.

This method of deception was somewhat similar to the "Ma Sect" of the underworld's Eight Sects.

The scammers of the Ma Sect were, without exception, all lone-wolf con artists.

These scammers were all skilled, mostly disguising themselves as monks, Daoists, or hidden masters, specializing in scamming money from wealthy families.

And most of the unique skills they learned were related to forgery.

The common street tricks like "white paper revealing words," "fishing objects from boiling oil," and "breaking stones on the chest" all belonged to this category. However, street performers wouldn't pretend to be masters of the world to engage in healing the sick or catching ghosts.

In the Ma Sect, the top-tier forgers were those who went to scam the imperial family. It is said that the founder of the Ma Sect once used this technique to sit on the position of National Teacher, and until his death, no one discovered the flaw.

Or rather, even if it was discovered to be fake, the royal family at that time had to bite the bullet and accept it as real for the sake of their face.

As long as it is fake to a certain degree, it is real!

"He's a talent. It's just a pity that a good craftsman almost let this craft be completely lost. It's a good thing he met me..."

There are no zombies in the Book of Life and Death. Xu Qing had learned many unique skills, and as long as he existed in the world, the skills on these corpses would not be lost.

(End of chapter)