Chapter 267

After Kong Youde's corpse was given rites, Xu Qing obtained a technique: Horse Grooming.

So-called horse grooming is the skill of training horses, treating their illnesses, and breeding them.

Xu Qing had previously obtained a horse-appraisal technique from the old Crown Prince Zhao You, but that old Crown Prince held a lofty status and, although he had played the role of a groom, had never truly performed the work of a horse groom.

Kong Youde was a groom by proper lineage; his grandfather raised horses, his father raised horses, and he had been a companion to horses since he was small. It could be said that his family learning was profound, his inheritance orderly, and the horse-grooming technique he practiced was also highly skilled.

However, Xu Qing had no great interest in this horse-grooming technique. He had never managed the funeral horses at the Mortuary Shop, and when feeding them, he just gave them whatever was available. Several years had passed, and the horses were still living well, even possessing several decades of cultivation, looking as if they were about to become spirits.

Furthermore, who among those cultivating immortality would go to groom and raise horses? Being a groom while human was already lowly enough; if one had to raise horses after cultivating immortality, wouldn't that cultivation be in vain!

And if word got out, it would be embarrassing, wouldn't it?

Xu Qing withdrew his thoughts and looked at the two people in the mortuary, saying: "The corpse is heavy and difficult to transport. Liuliu Street and Tanggu River are east and west of each other, separated by seven or eight streets and alleys. The deceased's body was buried under a willow tree on Liuliu Street, yet the head was thrown into the Tanggu River. Why do you think that is?"

Song Tu realized: "The deceased must have been a person from near Liuliu Street. To prevent the body from being recognized, yet finding it difficult to transport the whole body, or perhaps fearing complications during transport, the perpetrator deliberately cut off the head and carried it to the Tanggu River to throw into the water."

"The head is easy to hide and convenient to carry. By doing this, even if someone discovers the body under the willow tree one day, they cannot determine the identity of the deceased based on a headless corpse. Once the body decays, this case will become a cold case."

Shang Shaoyang said: "This is easy to handle. Tomorrow, we will have Constable Zhao and the others post portraits on Liuliu Street to investigate this person's identity. If they are truly from near Liuliu Street, we will surely find clues."

Xu Qing said nothing. The Qiao family was in the East Entrance Alley, which was east of Liuliu Street. If the notice were posted tomorrow, they would surely find out the origins of the little girl and Kong Youde.

But he did not want to benefit the true culprit. All truth needed to be clarified by the government and brought to light. At the same time, Xu Qing also wanted to let the deceased have their wish fulfilled and let the true culprit receive the retribution they deserved.

Because this was a vow undertaken by the Baosheng Temple.

At the third watch, outside the government office.

Xu Qing walked slowly forward, with a little girl following closely behind him.

"Your surname is Qiao, your father Qiao Fang named you Tian, you live in the East Entrance Alley of Liuliu Street, and your mother's surname is Ye, right?"

The little girl stared with her dark, round eyes, looking at Xu Qing in disbelief. She could barely remember the name of the East Entrance Alley on Liuliu Street; how could this person know it better than she did?

"I also know that you made a vow at the Baosheng Temple, wanting the Baosheng Goddess to manifest and seek justice for you."

Xu Qing stopped, waved his hand forward, and a piebald horse appeared out of thin air.

He turned his head, looked at the shocked little girl, and asked: "Do you want to take revenge yourself, or let the Baosheng Temple do it for you?"

"I, I want to find my mother..."

Xu Qing was silent for a moment and said: "If your mother saw you like this, I fear she would not be able to rest in peace in the netherworld."

"Do you want to cultivate?"

"Cultivate?" The little girl looked blank.

"It means the same as the Baosheng Goddess, seeking the Dao and cultivating immortality."

"Can I see my mother if I become an immortal?"

"Perhaps, but unfortunately, my cultivation is low, and I do not yet know the methods of immortals."

Xu Qing mounted the horse, and the little girl climbed onto his back as if possessed by a ghost.

On the pitch-black, moonless street, a ghost rode a zombie, and the zombie rode a horse, galloping all the way.

After arriving at the Baosheng Temple on Ziyun Mountain, Xu Qing summoned Bai Xiaoxian to act as an intermediary, leading the little girl to worship at the temple and enter the register.

After the ghost girl's corpse left the burial site, her spiritual body became increasingly faint, and she would completely dissipate in a few days.

But as long as she worshipped at the Baosheng Temple before then and became an immortal being enshrined in the temple, she could stabilize her spiritual body and also step into the gate of cultivation.

The little girl was very obedient. After performing the formal kneeling ritual, Xu Qing took out the Mother Qi Bottle and sprinkled it with his fingers. As the water from the bottle dripped down, pure vitality merged into her spiritual body, and a glowing white light suddenly bloomed from the little girl.

Xu Qing said: "From today on, you are the Property-Protecting Girl of the Baosheng Temple. I will give you a new Daoist name, called Shiyue. 'Shi' means planting seedlings and nurturing sprouts, implying a new birth; 'Yue' is taken from the meaning of ten months of pregnancy. What do you think?"

The little girl was confused, but upon hearing Xu Qing's gentle question, she nodded subconsciously.

Not to mention nine or ten months, even if Xu Qing gave her a name like "Cat or Dog" now, she would nod and agree.

Although the little girl didn't understand why the Baosheng Goddess was a man, this didn't stop her from believing in the Baosheng Goddess.

The reason was simple: under the blessing of the Blood Lake Dharma Realm, the young man before her seemed to be bathed in a holy radiance. Not to mention Shiyue, any child who saw him would likely be unable to resist the natural desire to approach him.

Xu Qing was completely unaware. Until the two walked out of the temple gate and were about to return, the little girl suddenly said: "You are like my mother."

Xu Qing glanced at little Shiyue, then looked down at his own frame, nearly eight feet tall. How could he look anything like the delicate Lady Ye?

"From now on, Shiyue, you must call me Headmaster, or Mr., and don't think of any unrealistic titles."

Shiyue nodded and said "Oh." Seeing that the little girl seemed even less intelligent than Xuanyu, Xu Qing hesitated and said: "Since that's the case, call me once and let me hear it."

The little girl, who was small and not even as tall as Xu Qing's leg, looked up at the mountain-high young man and said with clear eyes: "Headmaster Mr."

"..."

Fine, putting them together isn't impossible. At the very least, it proves the girl's memory is not bad, and the future is promising.

After being baptized by the incense of the Baosheng Temple, little Shiyue could now manifest her form and choose whether to be observed by people. However, little Shiyue never knew she had become a ghost.

The little girl's cognition still remained at the level of being abandoned by her family and rejected by her father.

When her father, Qiao Fang, returned to Linjiang County from Jinmen and passed by the street where the big locust tree was, little Shiyue had run around him, tugging at his clothes and wanting to pull him to look at her, but he seemed not to want her and refused to look down at her.

Even then, the little girl didn't realize she was already dead; she only felt that her father didn't want her, and she had become a homeless wild child.

Xu Qing took the newly adopted little girl and galloped without stopping. When they returned to Linjiang County, the sky had not yet brightened.

Passing the big locust tree, Shiyue walked up and knelt to kowtow several times. Although the child's cognition was shallow, she knew who was good to her and who had been kind to her.

Xu Qing didn't urge her. After worshipping the old locust tree, Shiyue turned and walked to the street corner, outside a food shop across the way.

She stopped and looked at the shop door for a long time.

Xu Qing came up and asked: "What's wrong?"

The little girl pulled Xu Qing's sleeve, looked up, and said: "Human head, rice."

Human head rice?

A sentence without head or tail; not to mention Xu Qing, even if a real immortal came, they wouldn't be able to guess what it meant.

Xu Qing asked carefully, but the little girl gestured for a long time, and except for being hungry and being given food, she didn't explain anything else.

Fine! I'm afraid this little ghost needs to be enrolled in a class as soon as possible.

Xu Qing pondered the child's education while thinking about what the little girl said.

Although the child's ability to express herself was lacking, Xu Qing could piece together some things.

"Human head" might be the literal meaning, and "hungry" and "someone giving food" in Shiyue's mouth were also literal.

Ghosts eating offerings and consuming incense was a common occurrence. Earlier, when Xu Qing served mung bean porridge to Chen Liuer and little Shiyue, the porridge in front of little Shiyue went bad and sour because the "vitality" in the porridge had been sucked away.

But combining "human head rice" and "eating" was a bit underworld-like.

Xu Qing asked her: "When you were hungry, did the people in this food shop give you food?"

Little Shiyue nodded.

"Then do you want to thank them now?"

Little Shiyue nodded and shook her head.

"..."

"He is gone."

Finally, just when Xu Qing was at a loss, little Shiyue refreshed with a new sentence.

Raising children is really tiring!

Xu Qing understood what "gone" meant in Shiyue's mouth. After Lady Ye died, every time the little girl mentioned Lady Ye, she always said her mother was gone.

Translated, it meant the person who had given the little girl food had died.

A person who gave food to a ghost? Xu Qing became interested. He took out the Corpse-Seeking Compass and walked back and forth around the food shop in front of him.

As long as a dead person had not been transported far away to be dumped or buried, they could not escape the search of the Corpse-Seeking Compass.

A moment later, the Corpse-Seeking Compass pointed in a direction.

Xu Qing climbed over the outer wall and came to the backyard of the food shop. In a vegetable garden, there was a patch of land with obvious signs of being newly turned.

And while other parts of the vegetable plot were planted with various seasonal vegetables, only this patch was barren.

Xu Qing took out an iron shovel and became a diligent gardener.

When he dug to a depth of three feet, a corpse wearing a short jacket appeared before Xu Qing's eyes.

"..."

Xu Qing was silent for a moment. Is killing people and burying corpses a trend lately? Counting the two corpses from the Qiao family, this was already the third corpse he had dug up.

It seems his Mortuary Shop was opened in vain; one by one, they didn't come to him, the funeral director, but started teaching themselves how to bury the dead!

Xu Qing jumped into the pit and placed his hand on the corpse, determined to see what was going on.

This kind of unhealthy trend of disrupting the supply chain must not be allowed to spread!

The Scripture of Salvation turned a page. The corpse before him had nothing special about him in life; he was originally a waiter at this food shop.

The food shop was not large, and he was the only waiter, doing all the odd jobs of serving customers and cleaning rooms.

One day, the waiter was busy until late at night. Just as he was about to close the shop door, he heard the sound of a child coming from the street.

"Mother, where are you? Be good and listen..."

When the waiter heard this, a sense of compassion arose.

In the middle of the night, if a child got lost, it would be bad if she were abducted by traffickers!

"Why don't I go and bring her into the food shop, and when her adults come looking, I'll let her go back."

The waiter put down the door panel and followed the sound. When he reached the big locust tree, through the moonlight, he vaguely saw a faint, transparent figure of a girl, like cicada wings, walking back and forth.

The waiter was stunned, then realized he had run into a ghost! That was no child who couldn't find her home; that was clearly a little ghost wanting to harm people!

When the waiter turned around, intending to run back to the food shop in one breath, the voice changed again.

"Hungry, so hungry, I want to eat..."

The waiter didn't dare to look back and ran back to the shop, holding his breath.

He tossed and turned all night. The next day, the waiter, with dark circles under his eyes, took a few steamed buns, a stick of incense, and some paper money, and sneaked to the big locust tree, kowtowing and worshipping:

"No matter which ghost immortal you are, this meal is on me. If you are full, please be merciful and go somewhere else; don't stay here..."

The waiter thought the little ghost had set her sights on him and spent the whole night thinking about how to solve this. Now that he had burned paper money under the old locust tree, he indeed didn't hear the child talking for the next few nights.

It was just that during the day, there was an extra child with pigtails sitting under the locust tree, talking to herself.

The waiter thought the ghost had returned, but when the shopkeeper heard about it, he slapped him on the head.

"What nonsense are you spouting! That is the young master of the County Magistrate's manor."

"But why is he sitting there talking to himself?"

"So what? He is the young master of the County Magistrate's manor. Not to mention talking to himself, even if he were a mute or a fool, his life is born more precious than yours!"

After the shopkeeper scolded the waiter, he suddenly said: "Money is tight in the shop this month. Your firewood wages will have to wait another two months; I'll give them to you all at once then."

"Shopkeeper, I've been waiting for my wages for half a year..."

"Wait a little longer; it's not like I'm not giving them to you. Besides, what do you need money for? You aren't lacking food or drink. Just work diligently, and when you need money, I will naturally give it to you!"

That night, after the shopkeeper finished checking the accounts and was about to leave, he heard a loud "bang" outside the door.

He told the waiter to go and look, and the waiter came back carrying a package, saying: "It's a cloth bundle, and it's quite heavy. Maybe someone dropped it; I'll go out and look for them."

Seeing this, the shopkeeper immediately stopped him: "Wait, bring it here and let me see!"

The waiter obeyed. The shopkeeper took it, and it was a heavy bundle. Could it be wrapped with something valuable?

The shopkeeper couldn't wait to untie the cloth bundle. At first glance, ho!

What a big head!

The shopkeeper was so scared that he immediately ordered the waiter to throw it as far away as possible.

The waiter had never encountered such a thing and had to go out and find a place to throw it.

However, early the next morning, before the sky had brightened, someone came to the food shop. The person was shocking, starting with: "I already know about you killing people and throwing away heads!"

"Jiang Konglou, what nonsense are you spouting? Who killed anyone?"

The person who came was none other than the angler who fished out a head by the Tanggu River, Jiang Maocai, Jiang Konglou!

This person had no proper job. Every day, besides wandering around to extort money, he would go to the river to fish.

In Jinmen, he was a proper hooligan.

He didn't rob houses or break into locks; he just liked to play some schemes that made people unable to defend against them.

"Heh! Shopkeeper Yu, if you don't admit it, that's fine. I'll take people and that head to the government office right now and let the officers handle this!"

"But I'll say the ugly words first. Even if you didn't kill this person, the head came out of your shop door. If others know about this, I'm afraid no one will come to your place to eat anymore, right?"

Shopkeeper Yu's face changed again and again. He regretted it now. If he had listened to the waiter and not brought the package containing the head into the shop, how would he have gotten into this trouble!

"That head is indeed not from our shop..."

"It's useless to tell me; my brothers and I all saw it."

"Jiang Maocai! You just want to extort money. Name your price..."

In the end, the food shopkeeper spent ten taels of silver to settle the matter. When he closed the shop door, he found the waiter staring at him.

"What are you looking at me for?"

The waiter's eyes flickered, and he gathered his courage: "Shopkeeper, you owe me more than half a year's wages..."

"What can you do if I don't give them to you?"

The shopkeeper had just lost silver and was feeling awkward. Suddenly hearing the waiter ask for wages, the flames in his eyes shot straight out!

"If the shopkeeper doesn't give them, I'll tell everyone about the head."