CHAPTER 565: CHAPTER 288_2

How much strength could Boss Liu possibly have to pull Xu Qing, who was like an iron weight?

"Come on! Watch this show first, then you can sing to me when we get back. How great is that!"

Boss Liu sat down helplessly. During this time, she couldn’t help but glance at the stage, and when she saw the dancers in cheongsams slit up to the thigh, Boss Liu’s face instantly turned crimson, spitting, "This outfit is no different from wearing nothing. I don’t know which tailor made it..."

Xu Qing, with his keen hearing, caught Liu Su’e’s mutterings and casually said, "It was made by the embroiderer."

Embroiderer?!

Liu Su’e’s almond-shaped eyes widened, this crazy girl was just too...

Before Liu Su’e could think more, Xu Qing continued, "This clothing is called a cheongsam. I had the embroiderer make it. If Boss Liu wants one, I can have the embroiderer specially make a few for you another day."

"Pah! I’d never wear that!"

Liu Su’e’s ears turned red-hot. This cheongsam nearly slit up to the armpit; she wasn’t that bold!

The funeral feast started in the morning and didn’t end until nighttime.

During the night segment, there was a small incident. One of the dancers on stage got so excited, she actually ran over to Master Bai’s memorial tablet and started shaking her hips.

No one present had seen such an exhilarating show. Those old scholars, those young scholars, and some distinguished guests were all saying how it was inappropriate, yet their eyes couldn’t bear to look away for even a moment.

Bai Zhaocai was inwardly amused. Ordinarily, who would want to linger at a funeral feast? Before nightfall, most of the guests would’ve already left.

But today’s funeral feast at his house was different. Those who initially planned for a brief appearance and then leave, were first enticed by the delicious dishes full of color, aroma, and taste, then by the grand opera started by the ghost troupe, and most crucially, the exceptionally thrilling finale that followed.

A funeral feast that unexpectedly gave the feeling of a palace royal banquet.

No, it surpassed the palace royal banquet by far!

The feast hadn’t even ended when many people sought out Xu Qing to ask how much silver this impressive yearly funeral feast cost.

Most of these people were servants or attendants, but there were also some young gentlemen, local gentry, and wealthy merchants who came to inquire.

"Shopkeeper Xu, my grandfather passed early; in his generation, he was very poor and didn’t enjoy any blessings while alive. I truly can’t bear it. Can you arrange a funeral feast for him with a setup like today’s..."

"May I ask, how many years has it been since the old gentleman passed away?"

"Let me calculate carefully... It must have been roughly twenty years."

"..."

Your family is holding a funeral feast for a twenty-year anniversary?

Xu Qing’s head ached just thinking about it. He didn’t need to ask; the young master in front of him, playing with a jar of crickets, definitely just wanted an excuse using his family’s grandfather’s name to have a fun time at a funeral feast.

"Then you’ll have to wait in line. Our shop has a rule: priority goes to those in urgent need, sorted by the anniversary year of the deceased. For your twenty-year case... you’ll at least have to wait until next month."

"Next month? That’s too long! I’m afraid my grandfather can’t wait!"

Xu Qing glanced at the troublemaker and said, "Funeral feasts also require the right timing; it must be on an auspicious day and time. That’s the rule in the bereavement business."

"I can pay extra!"

"Do your family members know about this?"

"..."

Xu Qing couldn’t be bothered to waste words with these idle second-generation rich kids. He called over the Funeral House attendants to delegate the funeral feast arrangements, while he acted as the hands-off shopkeeper, only dealing with cases that had ready corpses.

Xu Qing always understood that the development of all business in the funeral trade had a single purpose: to build the reputation of the Funeral Shop and attract more clients—and more corpses!

All the other various things were merely necessary means to achieve that goal, and nothing more.

Xu Qing wouldn’t spend too much effort on these matters. He just needed to start it off, and the entire bereavement chain would continue to operate for him. All he needed to do was one thing: continuously cultivate and improve his own rank.

Unlike spiritual beings like Zombies and Nine-Life Profound Cats born from the essence of heaven and earth, he had to relentlessly elevate his "lowly" rank, climbing step by step to the highest level, reaching the legendary state of the Corpse Immortal, to ensure that the funeral sects, halls, and temples he founded would continue to be passed down.

In other words, as long as he remained in the secular world, there would be incense for him.

People are born and people die—it’s the natural order of the heavens and earth.

The funeral sect sends off the deceased, and Bao Sheng Temple receives the born. Xu Qing’s path was established on life and death, knowing that between life and death lies no great matter; beyond that is only chaos and annihilation, but isn’t annihilation itself a kind of death?

As long as there is death, there is rebirth.

Xu Qing walked the road back to Underground Street, with a solitary shadow behind him, sometimes fierce, sometimes compassionate.

But when he stepped out of the shadows, his body bathed in moonlight, the exposed figure on the ground returned to an ordinary human form.

As if it were just a speck of dust in the mortal world.

...

Ziyun Mountain, Bao Sheng Temple.

An old woman and a lady appeared outside the temple gate.

The night was silent, and a crescent moon in the sky cast its light.

The old woman’s eyes flickered, looking at the temple before her with a gaze of anticipation, excitement?

It was an indescribable expression, like a lost person in the desert hearing the sound of water from afar; a terminally ill patient encountering a famous doctor who specializes in his illness.

And the deity in Bao Sheng Temple seemed like the old woman’s life-saving remedy.

Far away at the Funeral Shop, Xu Qing suddenly froze, motionless.

In the courtyard, under the peach tree, Boss Liu, unaware of the situation, continued performing a new play for Xu Qing.

When Liu Su’e noticed Xu Qing dazing off, she thought this blockhead had finally come to his senses and realized her worth.

On the old peach tree, two red ribbons swayed in the wind, and a lady in a peach pink dress sat among the branches, eagerly listening to Liu Su’e’s performance.

In Bao Sheng Temple, the statue of Bao Sheng Niang Niang suddenly opened its eyes.

Under the altar, the old woman pressed her hands on a cane, looking up and meeting its gaze.

Beside her, Sister Jin had already been led out of the Incense Hall by Sister Liu, and even the little Willow Immortal raised in the hall lay at the statue’s feet, its head drooping, prematurely entering hibernation.

After Xu Qing opened his eyes, without saying a word, he immediately unfurled the Blood Lake Dharma Realm, enveloping the entire Incense Hall.

The old woman felt the dense merit incense within the Dharma Realm, and her originally dim eyes grew even brighter.

Xu Qing used the statue in Bao Sheng Temple as a medium, his divine sense covering the temple, but he couldn’t find a trace of little Shiyue.

"Big girl, what are you looking for?"

The old woman asked.

Whom are you calling big girl?

Bao Sheng Niang Niang’s eyes grew cold, and she said in a chilling voice, "Where have the temple’s protective maidens gone?"

The old woman chuckled, "You mean the ghost girl outside the temple? On the mountain path on the way here, I encountered her cultivating under the moonlight. I guided her a bit and gifted her a method suitable for ghost spirit cultivation."

Looking at the smiling old woman, Xu Qing suddenly recalled Xuan Yu.

Sugar-coated words, hiding a knife beneath a smile.

Perhaps back then, Xuan Yu, under a similar smile, chose to trust and was thus betrayed, losing his life.

But the current Xu Qing wouldn’t fall for that!

With two hundred thousand blood lake incense grasped in his hand, the jade ruyi in his other hand began to tremble and hum.

When the incense turned into a chain lock, surrounding the old woman from all sides, a wave of energy different from any magical power suddenly surged!

Xu Qing felt merit magical power as boundless and rushing as a river, but it vanished in an instant.

As if everything that happened before was an illusion, while those chains were indeed blocked an inch away from the old woman.

Xu Qing’s heart sank, realizing that Bao Sheng Temple’s Dharma Realm was supposed to suppress evil, but the old woman evidently wasn’t an example of that.

Yet, even so, within the Dharma Realm, ordinary deities or cultivators wouldn’t be a match for him...

Xu Qing calculated whether to unleash all the accumulated blood lake incense at once.

The old woman seemed to perceive his thoughts and strangely said, "Old body and you share no grudges, why do you harbor such animosity towards me? These incense are the fruits of your long years of accumulation; do you truly wish to discard them?"

Seeing Xu Qing raise the jade ruyi, and the blood lake’s hundreds of thousands of merit incense being instantly drawn out and injected into the ruyi, the old woman’s eyelids twitched uncontrollably. She hastily exclaimed, "Hold on! Why is a junior like you so temperamental? If the old body has done something wrong, speak it out, or else I won’t be wronged without reason."

Xu Qing suppressed the impulse to fight to the bitter end and said, "My Bao Sheng Temple specializes in protecting life and ensuring safe childbirth. Granny, are you here to give birth as well?"

"..."

The old woman was silent for a moment, then in a melancholy tone, she said, "The old body intends to offer you a grand blessing."