Chapter 22: Cocoon

On the last day of the first month, Xu Qing closed the shop door and held three sticks of incense.

In front of him were the memorial tablets of Master

Silently offering incense, Xu Qing watched the wisps of white smoke rising, his heart unusually calm.

Compared to wild zombies, he felt he was already lucky enough.

If he were a wild-path zombie, he might currently be somewhere on a desolate mountain or an old grave, staring at the moon and eating the wind, or perhaps he would have tried to steal a snack in human territory and failed, only to be chased across the mountains and plains by a group of strong laborers wielding hoes and machetes.

It could even be worse—being dragged out of a coffin by a passing corpse-driver or some Daoist priest with thick, joined eyebrows, getting slapped across the face a couple of times, and then, once you wake up, being sent on your way.

Fortunately, Xu Qing is not a wild-path zombie. He has the inheritance of a corpse-driver and knows how to cultivate better than any other zombie. Even without corpse-nourishing materials, he can integrate into human territory and trade common gold and silver for various cultivation resources.

This is an advantage that others of his kind cannot compare to, so he harbors a certain amount of respect for the two corpse-drivers enshrined on the altar. It was they who gave his zombie body the capital to grow strong and create new brilliance.

"Master Liu, Master Yang, above, your disciple is sitting in seclusion to cultivate today for a period of seven days. I hope that you both, with your spirits in heaven, will bless your disciple to gain knowledge and achieve success in the Dao."

Although Liu Youdao didn't act like a human earlier and enlightened him into a zombie, he also gained a new life in another sense because of it.

After that, he inherited the Mortuary Shop and studied the art of corpse-driving diligently, not letting the lineage of Yang Yingqi and Liu Youdao be severed. In terms of both emotion and reason, he had developed a bit of a teacher-student bond.

Therefore, Xu Qing felt that it was only reasonable for his teachers and grand-teachers to bless their student's studies a little.

In any case, he had already made up his mind: if this transformation into an Iron Armored Wandering Corpse failed, he would save himself the trouble of burning incense and making offerings during future festivals.

A teacher who doesn't bless their student and lets them fail their exams probably doesn't have the thick skin to enjoy incense offerings, right?

After fulfilling the traditional filial duties, Xu Qing, harboring the pioneering spirit of "succeed or die," took out an axe, chisel, scissors, and needle and thread, and began to tinker on his workbench.

The so-called workbench was actually a makeshift table made by joining two coffins together, covered with a smooth, black-lacquered wooden board. This was the same thing he used when performing mortuary makeup on the deceased.

At this moment, a wooden stake made of sinking wood lay before Xu Qing. He was not familiar with carpentry, but he could still manage to hollow out the stake to make a crude coffin.

The sinking wood served as the corpse-sealing container; he used the axe and chisel to turn it into a hollow stake and set it aside for later use.

Next was the main event. Xu Qing retrieved the large corpse nails that the corpse-driver had soaked in a secret method and used a hammer to drive them firmly into the hide of the mountain beast, which was as hard as iron and stone.

There is a technique to nailing such a complete yin-object hide. First, one must smear cinnabar on seven acupoints—the center of the forehead, the center of the back, the palms of both hands, and the soles of both feet—and apply divine talismans before one can swing the hammer to process it.

The hide of the old beast, nearly twenty years old, contained an undissipatable yin-turbidity; this was the heavy resentment accumulated after the strange creature of the mountains was tragically persecuted just before it was about to become a spirit-monster.

After using the nails to spread and secure the hide, he still felt uneasy, so he found five-colored cloth strips to bind it tightly.

Once everything was ready, Xu Qing lit the green lamp on the altar, took a deep breath of spiritual incense to refresh his mind, and after confirming that the doors and windows were all closed, he took out a wolf-hair brush. Using his own zombie blood as ink, he carefully outlined the Corpse Shadow Yin Talismans on the inside of the hide.

There were thirty-six Corpse Shadow Yin Talismans in total. Every time he carved one, the hide secured on the altar by the corpse nails would twitch and jump for a moment, looking exactly like freshly cut beef right after being slaughtered.

When Xu Qing, like a tattoo artist, had carved the twenty-seventh yin talisman, the "beef" on the altar had already begun to grow restless. Countless hairs began to grow wildly from the back of the hide and then climbed toward the edges of the entire skin, as if trying to find a brand-new body to parasitize.

However, he had already surrounded the edges of the hide with candles; those wriggling hairs touched the heat and, like startled snails, quickly retracted.

Deep in the night, the lamps in the Mortuary Shop flickered. The cold, twisted cries of wild beasts were sealed within the twitching animal hide by the rustling blood-talisman brush. The young corpse-driver looked at times like an old tailor in a tailor shop, at times like an old painter in a painting studio, but he looked even more like a shadow-play master dancing with knives, spears, swords, and halberds, able to manipulate all complex lines with his deft hands.

Countless talismans were outlined, and the entire hide was now divided by the talisman brush into eleven regions, corresponding exactly to the human internal organs.

When the sky turned bright, he pulled out all the corpse nails, and the old beast hide, full of wrinkles, lay quietly on the altar, looking exactly like a young bride who had been tossed and turned all night on her wedding night, with no temper left at all.

At this time, besides the scattered nails, hammers, and talisman brushes, the altar was covered in the remnants of various materials. Xu Qing had fought a battle all night using blood as ink; he was now lightheaded and heavy-footed, and truly too lazy to clean up the mess.

He opened the shop door and, holding his waist, walked to the front of the paper-effigy shop. Wu Yaoxing, who had just woken up, poked half his body out, shivering.

"Hiss, Brother Xu, what happened to you! Why are you so haggard?" Wu Yaoxing looked in horror at the gaunt young man who seemed like he would fall over if the wind blew, his sleepiness vanishing instantly.

"Cough, I stayed at the Cuiyun Pavilion for a night. That's the only hobby I have. I'll be fine after resting for two days."

Making up a random excuse to brush it off, Xu Qing brought up the real business: "Old Wu, I recently took a job in feng shui and geomancy—it's about looking at graves and setting burial sites. I probably won't be back for the next seven or eight days. If anyone comes looking for me during this time, I'll have to trouble you to tell them."

Wu Yaoxing was still a bit worried and said: "Are you really okay? How about I accompany you to the pharmacy to see a doctor and get some nourishing medicine..."

"By the way, I still have a few old hens in my old courtyard..."

Xu Qing ultimately refused his neighbor's concern. He knew his own situation; if he really went to a medical clinic, whether he was okay or not was secondary—he was afraid he would scare the doctor into having a health problem.

He was a proper zombie, after all; why would he need to see a doctor?

Returning to the shop, he locked the door from the outside, strolled to the backyard, climbed over the wall, and returned to the shop.

On the altar, the eerie, pitch-black mountain beast hide still lay quietly. Xu Qing stripped off his clothes, took a deep breath, said a prayer for his ancestors' protection, and reached out to wrap the old hide, which was covered in talismans and soaked in various materials, around his body.

The next moment, the dead, silent old hide suddenly showed signs of life. Countless blue-black blood vessels grew and emerged from beneath the skin, like buds sprouting after the rain, using their sharp, thin tips to drill into every part of Xu Qing's body.

The bright red and purple talismans flashed with light. Before Xu Qing could think, his entire body was completely wrapped and swallowed by the wriggling, twisted old hide.

Enduring the numbing pain on his body similar to a short circuit, Xu Qing, temporarily blinded, stumbled toward the hollow sinking-wood stake lying horizontally.

Once his body, which could no longer be distinguished as beast or human, rolled into the hollow stake, he struggled to feel for the coffin lid nearby and sealed himself in completely.

Outside the window, the cold wind howled, and the sun rose and the moon set.

Bright sunlight shone through the cracks in the door and windows.

The first spring rain arrived silently.

One day, there was a knocking and talking at the door of the Mortuary Shop, and then it never appeared again.

The night watchman's clapper and gong sounded for seven days.

The wooden stake coffin lying in the Mortuary Shop was like a throne forgotten by time in ancient ruins, left for crows and magpies to chatter upon.

On the eighth day of the second lunar month, a pupa in the corner of the Mortuary Shop broke its shell. The only ray of light through the window crack shone into the corner, and a blue-and-black newborn butterfly spread its wings, fluttered across the altar, and landed on one end of the wooden coffin stake.

At this moment, the long-silent coffin wood suddenly trembled slightly.

(End of chapter)