Chapter 38

Life is like mist and also like a dream; love is like morning dew, departing in a hurry.

To learn the Dream-Weaving Technique, one must first act out the law with one's own body, personally experiencing a life-and-death dream as fleeting as a white colt passing a crack, only then can one grasp the true essence within.

In the mortuary, Xu Qing only felt light-headed; the flickering candlelight before his eyes seemed to be separated by a layer of mist, making it impossible to see clearly.

He stumbled over to an empty mortuary bed, and unable to suppress the sleepiness any longer, he collapsed and fell asleep.

Recently, a new performer had arrived in the pear garden troupe, whose stage presence and singing were both top-tier.

"The young man is in the place of my heart's desire, the concubine is in the moment of heartbreak; the moon knows the aggrieved feelings."

"Guess, my lord, you are spying on my long-term illness becoming consumption; you won't be heartbroken for me everywhere."

"Is this Sai Yuxian? That Constable Zhao's family is truly wealthy; even though the man is dead, the family still insists on hiring the best performer from the opera troupe to sing a funeral opera for him." In the audience, Xu Qing listened to Sai Yuxian's desolate and melodious tone, inexplicably feeling it was familiar, always feeling he had heard it somewhere, yet unable to recall.

But these things were not important; after all, today was a good day for the funeral of his own nemesis, and no other matter was more important than this!

After listening to the "Meeting at the Pavilion," Xu Qing went backstage to discuss the funeral opera arrangements with the delicate-flower-like Sai Yuxian.

Two days later, Zhao Zhonghe, having heard the funeral opera, was buried. After the figure of the Zhao surname disappeared from Linhe Ward, Xu Qing's luck seemed to have improved significantly.

Indeed, Sai Yuxian, whom he had met at the funeral, had been coming to the mortuary shop every few days to sing songs and relieve his boredom ever since they had interacted. She said that the first time she saw him, she was completely bewitched and lost her soul.

Xu Qing initially didn't take it to heart. As an ageless zombie, would he really marry a woman of the red dust who would be old and withered in twenty or thirty years?

Time flew by, and the winds and clouds changed.

One day, the Heavenly Heart Sect, which had been coveting the world for a long time, suddenly led troops to revolt. Sai Yuxian, who spent her days singing and dressing up, transformed into a princess of the former dynasty and a Saintess of the sect!

From that day on, Sai Yuxian, having sensed that Xu Qing had a "corpse-loving" tendency, began to brazenly transport various corpses to the mortuary shop.

At this time, the Heavenly Heart Sect was leading the rebel army to fight the imperial court; as the sect's Saintess, would she be afraid of not being able to get corpses for her lover?

One must know that Sai Yuxian was a person of love and loyalty!

It must be said that although the Saintess's way of confessing was a bit extreme, it was indeed simple and effective!

When the Heavenly Heart Sect attacked into Luojing, broke into the imperial city, and beheaded the Longping Emperor, Sai Yuxian, who had ascended the throne as Empress, ordered the Ministry of Rites to invite Xu Qing to the capital to marry her according to the specifications of the marriage rites of past emperors.

Xu Qing was reserved and refused, so Sai Yuxian promised him the corpses of death-row prisoners from the Imperial Prison and the jail, and even used the corpse of the Longping Emperor as a token of love, just to win a smile from him.

Xu Qing, a mere corpse-driver at a mortuary shop, had never seen so many corpses in one day. With such overwhelming wealth and power before him, how could he resist such a test!

Under the heavy bait, Xu Qing completely forgot who he was. He closed the mortuary shop overnight, went to the imperial city, and from then on lingered day and night among power, beauty, and corpses.

Sai Yuxian was broad-minded. Because she was busy with her own affairs and feared neglecting Xu Qing, she ordered that all the female relatives of the former dynasty rebels who had been sent to the Imperial Music Bureau be granted white silk and poisoned wine, so that Xu Qing could refine them into "corpse concubines" to serve her husband.

With such an understanding wife, why worry about not achieving the Great Dao of the Corpse Immortal?

Xu Qing's former professional ethics of skulking in a single shop and collecting unclaimed corpses seemed to have become a joke. At that time, the number of corpses he collected in a year probably wasn't as many as those sent to him in a single day!

Thereafter, Xu Qing, increasingly obsessed with the progress of his cultivation, began to drastically change the feng shui of the imperial city, persuading the Empress to build the Moon-Gazing Terrace to draw in moonlight and earth energy, to help him become an immortal and ancestor sooner.

During this time, the Prime Minister of the new dynasty, the former White-Clothed Protector of the Heavenly Heart Sect, spoke with loyalty and directness, criticizing Xu Qing for over a hundred crimes in the imperial court. He said that he himself had a heart of pure loyalty, while the likes of Xu Qing harbored the intention to bring chaos to the world, deceiving the monarch above and fooling the common people below. He was truly a demonic leader who brought disaster to the country, a crime that could not be forgiven!

Sai Yuxian was furious upon hearing this and immediately scolded sternly: "You say you have a heart of pure loyalty? If so, then cut open your chest and cut out a piece, let me see if your heart is truly as red as blood!"

The Prime Minister, hearing this, said righteously: "When the master is worried, the minister is humiliated. We are loyal to the country, how can we let monsters and demons run rampant? If sacrificing one life can clarify the Emperor's heart, what does it matter if I die a hundred times?"

Having spoken, he took out his heart before Sai Yuxian in the palace. The officials were all filled with grief and indignation at the sight.

Subsequently, the ministers of all departments and the three ministries and six bureaus jointly submitted memorials to impeach him. Even the common people, who did not understand the situation, believed that the chaos in the world was related to a certain Xu-surnamed favorite in the harem.

For a time, public sentiment was outraged, and the label of "demonic husband ruining the country and poisoning the people" was pinned on Xu Qing.

A tree that stands out in the forest will be destroyed by the wind.

Xu Qing, who practiced his own way without any concealment, completely became the target of public criticism.

The Empress, unable to withstand public opinion, had no choice but to cast Xu Qing into the cold palace, though his daily food and clothing expenses were not reduced in the slightest.

Xu Qing originally thought the matter would end there, waiting for the day he achieved the Dao and became real, at which point no one would be able to restrain him.

But human calculations are ultimately no match for heaven's.

This day, several rainbows suddenly descended outside the imperial palace, accompanied by magnificent sounds.

One claimed to be a loose cultivator from Songyun Temple on Mount Henglu, named Ge Hongwen.

Another claimed to be a Daoist practitioner from Yuchi Mountain in Lianhua County, named Zhuang Tongsheng.

Following them, several others responded. These people, without exception, had all responded to a summons to come to the imperial palace to kill the imperial favorite who was bringing disaster to the country and the people.

Xu Qing's cultivation had not yet been achieved, and facing the siege of the crowd, he was ultimately unable to resist, and his great path was cut short within the Shenque Imperial Palace.

At the moment of his passing, he suddenly realized: how could he have forgotten that there were still many reclusive, true cultivators in this world? Wasn't that Zhuang Tongsheng the immortal master he saw when he was performing the transcendence for Mr. Liu?

And Ge Hongwen of Mount Henglu—this person's name was also exceptionally familiar. Wasn't he the teacher of the old physician Yang Chunfu, the cheap father of Li Siye!

Xu Qing felt dizzy and nauseous, regretting his loss of original intent and his greed for the progress of corpse collection, which had brought about his own destruction. At the same time, he felt that this life had passed like a dream, as if he had suffered a blackout; many things were wrong and missing, extremely hallucinatory.

That Sai Yuxian was originally a lovesick actress; how did she become a princess of the former dynasty, a Saintess of the Heavenly Heart Sect, and the current Empress?

And that fellow Zhao Zhonghe, who was clearly living well, how did he suddenly become a dead man?

In the silent mortuary, the person lying on the board suddenly opened his eyes, followed by a crisp "slap."

After giving himself a heavy slap, Xu Qing was completely awake.

When he saw the surrounding environment and the corpse of Sai Yuxian laid out on the table, he fell into silence again.

He did not expect that this Dream-Weaving Technique had actually created a world of desire in his dream.

Looking at the candles on the table, they were still flickering, as if the life he had just experienced in the dream had only taken an instant.

Xu Qing pondered and had an epiphany, knowing that the Dream-Weaving Technique was a form of illusion; the people, events, and scenery in the dream all had references in reality and were not truly created out of nothing.

The ancient book "Record of the Pillow" states that there was once a man of the Dao named Lu Weng who used immortal arts to let a young man named Lu Sheng have a great dream.

In the dream, Lu Sheng experienced a whole lifetime, and when he woke up, the millet rice before his eyes had not yet finished cooking.

Xu Qing had no millet rice as a reference and did not know how much time had passed, but he had another way to verify it.

At this moment, at the door of the mortuary, Wang Lingyuan, who had just finished relieving himself, was returning from outside.

Seeing this, Xu Qing understood in his heart: so that life of white clouds and blue dogs, of morning silk and evening snow, was nothing more than a dream of untying one's sash.

(End of chapter)