Chapter 207: Hu-Guang Cup, Paper People

The two pink-carved, jade-like dolls blinked, and in the blink of an eye, they turned into two golden lights and disappeared into the water.

Xu Qing's gaze was fixed tightly on the Baisha River, his eyes having turned as black as ink at some point.

Xuanyu pricked up its ears, looking as if it were frozen, staring motionless at the river surface.

When the zombie and the cat were releasing the golden carp, neither had noticed anything wrong with the fish, but who could have imagined that as soon as they approached the water's edge, the overwhelming water energy rolled in, and the fish turned into human form.

"Merfolk..." Xuanyu, having regained its senses, spat out two words coldly.

"It's incense."

Xu Qing withdrew his gaze and explained.

The two golden carp didn't have much cultivation, but when they transformed near the Baisha River, Xu Qing smelled a peculiar scent of incense.

He had smelled this scent before; in previous years, when the Baisha River held river sacrifices to worship the Water Dragon King, there was this scent.

In this territory of the Great Yong Dynasty, natural and man-made disasters were stirred into a pot of rotten porridge.

Today the river breaches, tomorrow locusts block the sun. The common people burn incense and worship Buddha, seeking gods and ghosts, able to trample the threshold of the City God Temple flat, and able to knock a hole in the iron-hard ground in front of the statue!

There were many people who knelt and kowtowed when encountering problems, but no one was willing to stand up and cast questioning glances at those high-and-mighty adults who lived like gods, untouched by the mortal world.

After all, kneeling is so easy, and standing up is so tiring!

If you ask who likes to see everyone kneeling the most? Besides the one on the dragon throne, there is no one else!

That master was just worrying about having no reason to shirk responsibility. Since you found a reason for him, he had to go down the slope.

"Yes! This is exactly it!"

The old emperor ordered the Ministry of Works to build a hundred-zhang altar for heaven worship, and the new emperor followed suit, supervising the construction. The beams had to be made of golden silk nanmu, and the steps had to be paved with white marble.

The higher this altar for heaven worship was built, the deeper the suffering of the people became. You say, isn't that strange?

River God, Plague God, God of Wealth, God of Joy... there is no god you can't think of that the Great Yong Dynasty doesn't have.

The annual sacrificial ceremonies were even more varied: pray to the Dragon King in times of drought, worship the River Earl in times of flood, invite the Chicken Mother God for locust plagues, and invite the Five Plague Gods for epidemics...

The incense money burned was even more vigorous than the furnace of a blacksmith forging iron.

At that time, Xu Qing's Cat Immortal Hall had just been established and didn't have much incense income. He smelled that scent of incense from far across the river bank and fantasized about how great it would be if his own hall's incense could be so prosperous one day.

Now, recalling this matter, things had changed. Xu Qing couldn't even look at the incense from the river sacrifices held at the Baisha River.

In the end, no one had ever seen the Dragon King in the Baisha River in Jinmen. Those places that should be drought-stricken were still drought-stricken. How could incense cheated in this way last forever?

It's like the common people having no food to eat and being unable to defecate, while the officials who treat the world's illnesses prescribe a laxative. You say, how much incense can this empty prescription cheat out in the end?

But Xu Qing is different. He does things according to rules. You put in one part of effort, and you get eight-tenths of incense; the remaining two-tenths is considered incense money.

The business philosophy of the Cat Immortal Hall is like this, and the Baosheng Temple is the same.

And the result of this continuation is that since everyone has to offer incense anyway, it's better to offer it to a god who is willing to do things.

Otherwise, when Xu Qing was hiding from the thunder disaster in the imperial mausoleum, he wouldn't have had a hundred thousand or a million incense offerings with a wave of his hand.

Hearing Xu Qing's words, Xuanyu asked curiously: "Are there immortals in the river too?"

"There are no immortals in the river, but who knows what other things are hidden there."

"These incense scents are mixed; they must be the incense of the river sacrifice. Xuanyu Immortal, think about who was sacrificed in the river sacrifice in previous years?"

"Dragon!"

Xuanyu's eyes lit up.

Xu Qing pondered silently.

Is there really a dragon in the Baisha River?

The zombie and the cat arrived at the place where the little boy had stood earlier. In the wet sand, there was a Hu-Guang cup, the cup looking like emerald jade, with light halos flowing on its surface.

Xu Qing examined it carefully and found that inside the Hu-Guang cup, a mass of golden blood was floating up and down.

It looked like a living thing.

"This blood..."

Zombies are very sensitive to blood. Although the liquid before him was golden and not the common blood-red, Xu Qing saw at a glance that this thing was blood, and not ordinary blood at that.

Xu Qing frowned slightly. Beside him, Xuanyu's nose twitched, and it blinked: "What a fragrant scent. Did we eat this before?"

"It's that green-gold scale!"

Xu Qing took out a scale from the Mountain and River Map that had been stewed two or three times and whose color had faded. The scent on it was almost exactly the same as the viscous blood in the Hu-Guang cup.

Only the scent in the Hu-Guang cup was stronger.

"The dragon fights in the wilderness, its blood is black and yellow."

Xu Qing watched the golden blood before him, which was full of activity and neither stiffened nor hardened, his expression extremely strange.

This thing really seemed to be dragon blood!

When Xu Qing returned to the Mortuary Service Shop, a heavy rain suddenly fell. The entire Baisha River churned, water mist filled the air, and in the indistinct shadows, it seemed as if a behemoth leaped toward the clouds, emitting a rolling roar like thunder.

When that behemoth opened its eyes, lightning tore through the clouds.

When it leaped to a certain height, above the thick clouds, a portal seemed to appear.

But just as the behemoth wanted to go further, in the boundless void, a boundary marker engraved with flame runes fell from the sky, and then fell ruthlessly.

In the thunder and rain, accompanied by an angry and unwilling roar, the behemoth dodged into the churning river water before the boundary marker fell.

In the Mortuary Service Shop, Xu Qing turned a deaf ear to the sounds outside, his attention entirely on the Hu-Guang cup before him.

Zombies belong to the extreme yin. Besides death energy, yin energy, and corpse energy, finding a bit of life energy is harder than ascending to heaven.

The three categories of wandering corpses and the three transformations of lying corpses—no matter how they change, they cannot escape this category. Only when they reach the "Non-Decaying Bone" stage does the true beginning of change occur.

The "Non-Decaying Bone" is to refine a bone to the extreme. When spirit is injected into it day after day, and a certain bone in the body gains spirituality, it can be considered a small success.

So when can the "Non-Decaying Bone" be considered a great success?

When the bone is cultivated to the point where it can contain spirituality, that is not enough. You must use extreme yin objects to continuously deepen the death energy in your body until the bone you are refining dies and then gives birth to life—only then is the "Non-Decaying Bone" considered complete.

Taoism has three treasures: essence, qi, and spirit. The "Non-Decaying Bone" is, to a certain extent, the gathering place of the zombie's three treasures.

As long as the three treasures are still there and the spiritual essence is immortal, the "Non-Decaying Bone" can regrow flesh and blood, allowing the zombie to reach a state of immortality.

Xu Qing often uses yin evil and gloomy objects to refine his left hand. In time, the death energy in this hand will reach its extreme, but to die and then give birth to life, he lacks a treasure that provides vitality.

Death energy is nourished by suppression objects, yin objects, and evil objects. Vitality also requires corresponding cultivation treasures.

Vitality, spirituality, essence. Xu Qing doesn't worry about vitality. In his Baosheng Temple dharma realm, there is a "Duer Blood Lake," which contains vigorous vitality. Besides that, in the "Mother Qi Bottle" held by the Baosheng Goddess, there is also a continuous supply of vitality.

As for spirituality, it is a matter of grinding work. As long as he cultivates for a long time, there will be a day of success.

Only essence and blood are what Xu Qing lacks the most.

For a zombie, even if you drain all the corpse blood from his body, you will never find a bit of essence or blood; there will only be endless dead blood and yin energy.

The key point for the "Non-Decaying Bone" to reshape the corpse is that it hides a bit of immortal vitality, essence, and blood.

This vitality and essence will not flow to other parts of the body but will stay inside the "Non-Decaying Bone," just like there must be a wisp of yin energy hidden at noon, and a wisp of yang energy must be born at midnight.

Xu Qing has often worried about this medicine primer, and now, in the Hu-Guang cup before him, there happens to be a mass of highly active essence and blood.

This essence and blood is a consumable. When stored in the "Non-Decaying Bone," when the physical body is gone one day, this essence and blood can be consumed to provide the most basic nutrients for the "Non-Decaying Bone" to regrow flesh and blood.

Then if there is no sufficient essence and blood to provide power, is it completely hopeless?

Not necessarily.

"Non-Decaying Bones" that don't have basic essence to feed on can only rely on their own crawling, jumping, and hunting for blood food to reshape the corpse.

Hands are the most flexible. If it's inconvenient bones like the tibia, sacrum, or skull, reshaping the corpse is much more difficult.

At this time, if there is help from others, soaking the "Non-Decaying Bone" in blood food every day to nourish it will allow it to grow skin, flesh, tendons, membranes, arms, heads, and even the body torso faster.

Xu Qing looked at the dragon blood in the Hu-Guang cup. If his physical body were damaged one day, using this dragon blood as a primer, combined with enough vitality from the blood lake, he would probably be full of vigor immediately!

Seeing Xu Qing staring at the Hu-Guang cup and laughing, Xuanyu finally couldn't help but ask: "When does the Xu Immortal plan to go out next time?"

"Why do you ask this?" Xu Qing was puzzled.

Xuanyu sat on the counter, staring at Xu Qing without blinking: "Every time the Xu Immortal goes out, you always bring back some strange things. I'm wondering what the Xu Immortal will bring back next time..."

"..."

"I'm not running a flower and bird shop; where would I get so many strange things?"

"The earlier sleep-inducing bugs, the big guy and the little white snake from two days ago, and the two little golden fish that could transform today..."

Xuanyu counted them like family treasures, leaving Xu Qing speechless.

The things he had brought into the shop recently were indeed a bit complicated.

"I won't go out for these two days. Now Xuanyu doesn't have to worry about me bringing anything back, right?"

Xuanyu looked at Xu Qing, its gaze revealing some distrust.

Early the next morning, the wind stopped and the rain cleared.

Xu Qing opened the shop door and did business as usual.

Just before noon, a guest came to the shop.

Xu Qing took a look and found him familiar. Isn't this the owner of Tongyue Restaurant!

"Shopkeeper Yan, you are..."

Shopkeeper Yan of Tongyue Restaurant had a very bad complexion. He sighed and said: "Mr. Xu, I heard that in the Jinmen territory, among all the funeral businesses, the Xu shop on Jingxia Street is the most capable and has the most ability."

"Right now, I have a corpse here that is in a mess. I would like to trouble you to take care of it. No matter how much the funeral and burial costs, I will pay for it..."

In a mess? Xu Qing didn't pay much attention. He had the "Mother-Child Needle Technique"; he could sew up any corpse, no matter how messy. Even if it were a corpse with missing arms and legs, he could replace them with paper arms and legs, and the appearance would be just like the real thing. No one would be able to tell that the corpse wasn't complete before death.

"Specialization is the key to success. Shopkeeper Yan, put your heart at ease. Let me see the guest's appearance first..."

Walking out of the shop door, Xu Qing lifted the shroud on the cart and took a look—

Good heavens, so this is what "in a mess" means!

I saw a corpse like a big pancake spread on the cart, bloody and messy, just like a freshly fried egg pancake.

"How could this person end up like this? Was he crushed by a roller on the threshing floor?"

Shopkeeper Yan shook his head and sighed: "It's all my fault. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have died."

"How do you say that?"

Seeing Shopkeeper Yan hesitate to speak, Xu Qing reminded: "Shopkeeper Yan, you must tell the truth. If there is a blood case on this corpse, send it to the government office early."

"There is no blood case, Mr. Xu, you can rest assured. I have the documents issued by the government office, and the neighbors at the east entrance can testify..."

Xu Qing was even more puzzled upon hearing this. Since the corpse has nothing to do with you, why do you say you killed him?

After taking the government documents, Xu Qing took a look. The deceased was named He Xiaosheng, a fisherman, from the east entrance, and the cause of death was being crushed by a carriage.

Seeing Shopkeeper Yan was in low spirits, Xu Qing didn't continue to ask.

After returning the documents, Xu Qing carefully lifted the corpse from the cart, wrapped it in the shroud, and then successfully transferred it to the morgue.

Leaving Shopkeeper Yan waiting outside, Xu Qing went to the side room alone and began to transcend the corpse before him.

He turned the pages of the "Duren Sutra" as usual, but when the "lantern of life" of the corpse appeared before him, Xu Qing was stunned for a moment.

There was no other reason than that he recognized this corpse; it was the fisherman Eagle-beak who sold golden carp to Zhang Jun outside Deshun Restaurant a few days ago.

Eagle-beak, originally named He Xiaosheng, had known how to fish since he was a child. Others used the best fish hooks and lines, while he only used a bamboo pole and a thin rope for sewing shoes to catch fish that others couldn't.

How good was he at fishing? When he ran around naked, he fished out all the fish in the pond behind the house. When he was a teenager, he took a fishing rod to the river, and in just seven or eight days, he could fish a pond to extinction, not even letting the small fry escape.

Later, when he grew up, Eagle-beak restrained himself a lot, only fishing for rare and good-looking fish.

What fish are good these days? Besides spiritual fish, golden carp are rare.

Eagle-beak was a mortal and couldn't catch spiritual fish, so he tried every means to catch those golden carp.

Early in the morning when the sun just came out, the river surface was sparkling, and there were always a few golden carp popping their heads out to play on the river surface.

Eagle-beak kept it in mind and observed the movements of the golden carp nest along the river bank every day. Two months later, he finally found a way to catch fish.

Whenever it thundered and rained, these golden carp would always try their best, jumping against the waves as if they were crazy or possessed.

Eagle-beak was happy. He didn't even need bait. He took a landing net, and when those golden carp were exhausted and brought near the shore by the water, he would pick up the net and scoop them up gently. The golden carp were in his hands.

Catching the golden carp wasn't the end of it. Eagle-beak loved vanity. He even threaded the fish hook into the golden carp's mouth, and after seeing blood, he put the fish back into the fish basket.

Now, whoever saw it would say he was capable and could hook a whole nest of golden carp.

But it was precisely because of this golden carp that Eagle-beak gained fame but lost his life!

As for what exactly happened, it had to start from yesterday...

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 208 =====