Chapter 43
Chapter 43
My heart skipped, but I did not look up.
“Yes. The storm left the ground slippery. Even you fell, Master Cao, so why wouldn’t a middle-school student just beginning this work make a mistake? That would be stranger.”
“Hahaha!”
Old Cao laughed, then coughed violently and clutched his chest. He patted my shoulder and sighed.
“I meant nothing by it. The timing was simply too perfect. You were two seconds late, just enough for the vicious corpse formed from Miss Duan to kill her enemies. And you happened to fall in exactly the best place to stab backward without the slightest error. Perhaps it was heaven’s will.”
I murmured agreement and remained silent.
I knew he had seen through me–or at least guessed.
Yes!
I did it deliberately.
I intentionally gave Miss Duan the chance to take revenge with her own hands!
I could have stabbed the corpse through the back and ended her immediately.
But I did not.
I estimated the angle. By pretending to slip, I could fall to her right front and stab backward through her heart from the front.
It would destroy her just the same!
The only difference was two seconds and a different posture.
But for pitiful Miss Duan, it was her final chance for revenge!
I did not care whether becoming a vicious corpse had erased her humanity and left only limitless baleful cruelty. Duan Ren, Duan Yi, and Duan Tianbao were undeniably scum.
They did not deserve to live!
Earlier, after Duan Ren confessed and Big Bull kicked him, Yuan Fei said matters of the living should be left to the police. I asked how the three would be punished…
Unfortunately, they had destroyed the photographic evidence, and Miss Duan was dead. Without firm proof, they might escape all punishment.
Even if everything remained, they probably would not pay with their lives!
In my simple view, what they did deserved death.
If the laws of the living could not punish them, let Miss Duan take revenge herself!
It had nothing to do with me.
What responsibility could I bear?
While bravely destroying a vicious corpse for everyone’s sake, I had merely slipped and eliminated her two seconds late.
No one could say I had done wrong!
The ground was slick after a storm. If Master Cao could fall, why couldn’t I?
And because an evil transformed corpse was involved, the police probably would not investigate closely.
Ultimately, everyone could judge for themselves!
Whether Old Cao understood made no practical difference.
When I stayed silent, he sighed again.
“An esoteric practitioner already defies heaven by studying the esoteric arts. If we act entirely as we please, we may accumulate too much karmic debt. That may not end well. Matters of the living are best left to the police.”
I remained silent.
After helping him farther, I answered softly, “If I didn’t know, that would be different. Once I do, I must satisfy my conscience. If caution binds my every limb and I cannot decide even basic right and wrong, why struggle to learn magic?”
Old Cao stopped and stared at me before sighing.
“Xiao Wu, you’re only thirteen and already think this way. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.”
“I’ll ask Master when I go home.”
Old Cao paused, then laughed. “Right! You’re Immortal Lady Qin’s disciple. Who am I to worry? If the Immortal Lady says you’re right, you’re right. If she says you’re wrong, you’re wrong.”
Uh…
Old Cao was a famous coffin bearer and a formidable funerary-paper artisan. His techniques tonight had honestly looked even more spectacular than Master’s.
Yet whenever he mentioned her, his face showed extreme reverence.
“Old Cao, what was that red spirit money you used at the end? Your blood ignited it into a flame blade capable of killing a vicious corpse in one strike. It was incredible.”
“That was divine paper, one of a funerary-paper artisan’s ultimate techniques!”
Since Old Cao had promised Master to teach me, he explained without reservation…
Funerary-paper artisans could make four varieties: ordinary spirit money, silver spirit paper, gold spirit paper, and red divine paper!
Ordinary spirit money required little explanation. It was burned in large amounts and could be made by ordinary people or machines, though an artisan’s version was said to be more welcome after crossing into the underworld.
Most paper-cutting techniques, including people and horses, used ordinary spirit money.
Silver spirit paper served for worshiping ancestors on important occasions.
Gold paper served for worshiping deities.
Red divine paper contained considerable power. It resembled the talisman paper Taoists commonly used, but was harder to make and more powerful.
Producing divine paper consumed energy, its supply was scarce, and only a funerary-paper artisan’s blood essence could activate it. Mysterious and powerful, it also harmed the body.
It was an artisan’s final resort!
All Old Cao’s earlier techniques had only tired him. Once he used divine paper to create the flame blade, he vomited blood, turned pale, and weakened…
The corpse had not injured him. This was the price of the technique!
There was no need to visit a hospital for depleted blood essence. Several quiet days would restore him.
…
We talked as we walked.
By the time I helped Old Cao back to the coffin shop, it was five in the morning.
He told me to open an old coffin in the corner and retrieve a wine jar.
When I removed its lid, a bracing fragrance filled the shop and refreshed my mind.
“Come, Xiao Wu. One bowl each. This is excellent stuff! I brew it by secret methods–coffin wine. The name sounds awful, but it tastes wonderful and works even better. Drink it, and I’ll teach you how to sleep.”
Teach me to sleep?
I stared blankly.
Who did not know how to sleep?!
But I asked no questions. We each gulped down a bowl.
“Cough, cough…”
I wiped my mouth. “It’s strong! My parents would beat me if they knew I drank secretly.”
“Brat! No amount of money can buy this wine. It replenishes qi and blood and strengthens the body. Combined with sleep cultivation, it’s exceptionally effective. If the Immortal Lady hadn’t given me something valuable, I would never teach you.”
Old Cao jokingly scolded me.
Then he taught me how to “sleep”…
Both coffin bearers and funerary-paper artisans dealt with yin objects. Their schedules often reversed day and night, sometimes preventing proper sleep for long periods.
No matter how marvelous their methods, they remained flesh and blood!
Chronic sleep deprivation inevitably damaged them.
The funerary-paper lineage therefore possessed the secret of sleep cultivation.
Using it, half an hour of sleep restored as much as seven or eight hours of ordinary rest.
Someone unwilling to wake could sleep ten days or half a month!
True experts had even slept for more than half a year.
In short, a brief sleep restored energy and banished fatigue, while sleeping longer could itself become cultivation.
The details depended on the user’s condition and attainment.
Old Cao said the Patriarch Ge Hong first created sleep cultivation. He passed it to the Fire Dragon Immortal, who passed it to Patriarch Lu Dongbin; Lu passed it to Chen Tuan, the Master of Fuyou; and Chen passed it to Zhang Sanfeng…
Somehow, during the wars of the late Qing, this miraculous art descended from orthodox Taoist schools into the folk funerary-paper lineage.
Old Cao concealed nothing about its origins.
Next, he taught me the formula and accompanying posture.
Leaving the formula aside, the physical posture of sleep cultivation was not difficult…