Chapter 52: Parasitic Stake Method, Puppet Technique

The government office was much quieter than usual today because many clerks and constables had been dispatched to the big courtyard next door to supervise the exam.

Old Man Qin at the gate recognized Xu Qing and knew he was the junior brother and student of Old Wang from the morgue, so he didn't care and let him come and go as he pleased.

The patrol office was neither big nor small. Xu Qing had wandered around it and was familiar with it. He nodded to those he knew and maintained relationships with those who held the power of the gate—like Old Man Qin, whom Xu Qing had brought a pot of wine and a strip of bacon last time.

These were indispensable interpersonal dealings in the business world. If Old Man Qin ever kicked the bucket, he would have to preside over the funeral.

There were also the fast-runners in the office. They were often exposed to high-risk events, and their death rate was much higher than ordinary people. These were potential stocks. As long as Xu Qing walked around the office often and became familiar, it would be a new business.

With Secretary Tang and Senior Brother Wang bridging the gap, this wasn't hard to handle.

After all, in terms of service, no other funeral shop in Linhe was more professional than his. Even in terms of price, he was the most affordable.

If funeral business wasn't naturally unsuitable for publicity, he would have learned the Heavenly Heart Sect's missionary propaganda methods, doing discount activities for customers, such as half-price for a second funeral in the same family, and 20% off for referrals...

It was just a pity that while the Heavenly Heart Sect's rebellion could be used for propaganda, he couldn't do that with his business.

In the coroner's room, Xu Qing's eyes were like a compass. As soon as he entered, his gaze couldn't help but drift toward the room where the corpses were kept.

Wang Lingyuan took on the airs of a senior brother and asked with a straight face why he wasn't at the exam hall but had run here.

"I missed you, Senior Brother. Everyone in the office ran to maintain order at the exam hall. I thought you wouldn't have anyone to talk to, so I finished the exam and just wanted to come by to chat and relieve boredom."

"Sweet talk. I think you just want the corpses here, you don't necessarily miss me!"

Wang Lingyuan scolded with a smile. He said it as a joke, but he felt warm in his heart.

He had no children, and he was mostly alone. Now that he had such a cheap junior brother thinking of him, how could he not be happy?

In the exam courtyard next door, the sound of pens on paper was like a death summons, making everyone who hadn't handed in their papers not dare to relax.

In the government morgue, separated by a wall, Xu Qing and Wang Lingyuan stood together laughing and talking, occasionally picking up brushes to circle one knowledge point after another on the corpses.

"This male corpse has 'Green Dragon' (penis) erect after death. If seen by secular people, they would say he was obsessed with lust and a ghost of lust."

"But in the coroner's trade, there is no such saying."

"Junior Brother, guess why he had this reaction after death?"

Xu Qing took a ruler used for forensic examination and measured it. The capacity was narrow and not worth mentioning.

He pondered for a moment and replied: "I guess this corpse died standing up, or died face down, which caused blood to fill the Green Dragon, making it stand erect."

Xu Qing had been reading forensic works these days. In a "Corpse Talk" written by a former official, there was such an anecdote: a young couple, the husband accidentally fell face down one day and died.

Although the person was dead, his personal belongings were spirited, as if he were alive.

The wife was also a lecherous person. When guarding the mourning hall for her husband, she didn't know how she saw this scene.

Seeing her husband like this, she thought it was her man's ghost not dissipating, wanting to do that thing.

So she did a shameful act in the mourning hall.

Relatives who came to mourn heard the movement, walked into the mourning hall, and were all stunned.

As the saying goes, good deeds don't leave the door, bad deeds spread a thousand miles. This matter became bigger and bigger, more and more outrageous, and finally reached the ears of the prefect.

The prefect summoned the parties involved. After questioning, the woman insisted that her dead ghost husband couldn't change his lustful heart and wanted to have another spring night before burial.

Coincidentally, the local prefect happened to be a master of solving cases and had quite a bit of insight into forensic examination. He immediately ordered the "lustful ghost" to be brought for detailed examination.

After an examination, the prefect learned that the deceased had fallen face down, so he gave the conclusion: there was no such thing as a lustful ghost; the deceased was like this because of blood accumulation...

Xu Qing finished telling the content of "Corpse Talk," and Wang Lingyuan couldn't help but sigh: "Junior Brother's forensic ability is already no less than mine. Senior Brother has nothing left to teach you."

"Senior Brother, where are you talking about? I still have much to learn. If not for Senior Brother's guidance, I don't know when I would learn..." Xu Qing was humble in his words, but he had full confidence in his heart.

Not to mention that the Transcendence Sutra could read a person's life, just in terms of understanding corpses, he hadn't seen a second person stronger than him. After all, he was a walking corpse himself. Whether a zombie could stand up, wouldn't he know?

After chatting with Wang Lingyuan, Xu Qing finally had the opportunity to "patronize" the corpses of the Heavenly Heart Sect rebels.

The Transcendence Sutra turned pages, and the rebels' history appeared.

Xu Qing started from the first lackey and patronized all the way to the corpse of the Heavenly Heart Sect branch section chief in the innermost room.

A total of twelve corpses. Although most were of average grade, the quantity was large. After transcending them all the way, the rewards were almost enough to offset the funeral shop's monthly revenue!

Common Strength Pills, Disease-Removing Talismans, Dog-Skin Plasters, etc., went without saying.

There were also novel ones: Light-Body Technique, Snake-Returning Technique, Child-Stopping-Crying Curse, Aphrodisiac Recipe, Battle Technique, etc.

The Aphrodisiac Recipe and Battle Technique even came from the same corpse.

Xu Qing pondered: is this trying to create a perpetual motion machine?

Besides these low-grade rewards with strange functions, what Xu Qing cared about most was the "Earth-grade, Lower-class" reward from the Heavenly Heart Sect section chief: Parasitic Stake Method and Puppet Technique.

Parasitic Stake Method, as the name suggests, is to entrust one's body to other objects through spellcasting. After being given the Parasitic Stake Method, the person's body can withstand knife cuts and stick strikes without feeling pain.

Conversely, the "substitute object" given the Parasitic Stake Method will bear all the damage for the caster, but this technique has a limit: if the substitute object is destroyed, the caster can no longer offset subsequent damage.

Besides the Parasitic Stake Method, this section chief also had a matching left-handed strange technique called Puppet Technique.

Simply put, it is to make a puppet to carry with you. Whether doing daily work or fighting with others, you can make the puppet a helper, becoming a capable minister like a left and right arm.

After Xu Qing understood the mystery, he found that the Puppet Technique had many commonalities with the "string-pulling shadow play," except that the puppet had an extra layer of strange method of hiding in the shadow, which could not be operated by those without cultivation.

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 53 =====