Beside him, Zuo Zixiong stepped forward and pulled Cui Yuanlong's hand away. He spoke calmly, "Sir, you might want to reconsider carefully. As long as you tell the truth, we won't make things difficult for you."
As he said this, Zuo Zixiong's hand naturally rested on the hilt of his blade at his waist.
"..."
Liu Youdao had struggled in the underworld for many years, encountered all kinds of ghosts, seen various kinds of people, and dealt with authority figures who often fell somewhere between humans and ghosts and were more difficult to deal with than spirits.
After a moment of silence, Liu Youdao finally relayed the incident of the white-robed man asking for directions. Upon hearing this, Zuo Zixiong and Cui Yuanlong immediately sharpened their focus.
Hiding in plain sight!
They had been pursuing the demon from the Capital City but never expected he would dare to return.
The two did not hesitate and immediately turned to chase towards the Prefecture City!
Watching them disappear, Liu Youdao felt a growing unease, sensing that something was wrong.
Unable to understand it, he continued towards the nearby funeral home, deciding to keep tonight's events to himself.
"Where are you heading, old man?"
Just as Liu Youdao prepared to leave, a familiar voice sounded behind him.
"Old sir, I should thank you for betraying my whereabouts. If not for your betrayal, they would never have lost track of me. Yet, I hate traitors more than anything. What do you think I should do?"
Liu Youdao's thin frame shuddered violently. Summoning all his strength, he turned around to see the Celestial Heart Sect demon who had asked him for directions standing behind him.
The flash of a sword cut through the air. Liu Youdao wanted to explain, but could only emit a choking sound.
His vision began to tilt downwards, and he saw his own neck pumping blood, his slightly bent back, and the yellow dirt road behind him.
The white-robed man, whose gaze was as eerie as a ghost, sheathed his sword and glanced at the standing, unmoving zombies still holding their stretchers.
"Mere tricks, not worthy of greatness."
With a dismissive remark, the white-robed man looked towards the north, then flew swiftly towards the southwest.
The night wind gently brushed, and the strong scent of blood wafted from the front of the stretchers.
Witnessing everything, Xu Qing still hadn't recovered.
The Corpse Driver who had turned him into a zombie was just killed?
Xu Qing held the bamboo pole, standing still, not daring to move.
Only after confirming that the decapitated Corpse Driver wouldn't get back up did he dare to move.
The cold moon and sparse stars cast a blood-soaked atmosphere. He feared attracting unwelcome entities and didn't dare linger but had no idea where to go.
The funeral home ahead was a place for corpse traders, certainly not a destination he could go to!
He couldn't just blend into the forest and become a Wandering Corpse, right?
Suddenly, a flash of insight crossed Xu Qing's mind as he gazed at Liu Youdao's severed body.
Of course! He had the Sutra of Salvation and could gain more information from exorcising souls!
With this thought, Xu Qing felt as if the clouds had parted to reveal the clear sky.
He released the bamboo pole and, with a mix of tension and excitement, approached Liu Youdao's corpse.
The blood-scent in the air was like an intoxicating poison, causing his throat to unconsciously bob up and down.
A delightful aroma, so enticingly fragrant...
Xu Qing restrained the instinctive desires within him, calming his mind and striving to keep his thoughts clear.
The neat cut on the Corpse Driver's neck still oozed thick blood, which the dry yellow soil was unable to absorb fully.
Suppressing his discomfort, Xu Qing placed the Corpse Driver's head back on his neck, aligning it with the cut.
In the tide of desire, life's unpredictability loomed.
As he flipped through the Sutra of Salvation, the gears of the Corpse Driver's life began to turn backward.
...
The Corpse Driver was an orphan, known in the village as Iron Egg because he always wandered around wearing crotchless pants.
On the day of the Qingming Festival when he was twelve, the village-fed Iron Egg sneaked to the nearby grave hills at night to scavenge for food.
Be it dried meat, buns, or candied fruit, he would take and eat it all without reserve!
This day was happier than New Year's for him, and he never understood why the adults were so saddened.
No one managed the wild child, and he hadn't heard the saying about the dangers of night roads and eating offerings!
That night, as Iron Egg was eating fruit near a rich family's grave, a pair of bony white hands with sharp nails suddenly emerged from the mound behind him!
Iron Egg didn't know the body in the grave was freshly buried, nor the severity of zombie transformation!
Dragged forcefully into the grave by the ghostly hands, he cried for his foster mother to save him.
An orphan, grown up eating village meals, how could he have a foster mother?
Yet strangely, he did!
But the foster mother he spoke of wasn't human—it was an old willow tree at the village entrance.
Counting on a tree for rescue would be wishful thinking!
And yet, in the realm of mystics, who could say?
Just as Iron Egg was nearly pulled into the grave, a Corpse Driver rang a bell, descending like a divine being, brutishly pulling Iron Egg back from the gates of death!
The Corpse Driver told Iron Egg that as he passed the village's east end, feeling tired, he rested beneath an old willow tree. There, he dreamt of an old lady in a green jacket with lush hair asking him to retrieve her playful son lost at the village's west end.
And so, he came.
Iron Egg sniffled, and from then on, he decided to follow the Corpse Driver and roam the world.
The Corpse Driver had no apprentices or children and found Iron Egg clever, so he took him in.
Years passed, and while the Corpse Driver grew more hunched and aged, Iron Egg grew taller and started ringing the bell himself.
But Iron Egg was flexible, unlike his master who upheld strict codes.
The old master repeatedly warned that corpse driving had strict boundaries, excluding those who died from illness, drowning, hanging, lightning, fire, or with incomplete bodies.
However, those beheaded and then sewn back, or executed by hanging or standing cages, were permissible.
Indeed, the intricacies ran deep!
Despite promising adherence, after ensuring his lame master was cared for in his final days, Iron Egg released restraint.
Regardless of unjust deaths or poisonings by adulterers, he dared to drive all types of corpses home!
Additionally, he expanded his business, learning corpse crafting and becoming a black-market intermediary, selling corpses far and wide.
Thus, his reputation grew in Xiangyin, earning him the name Liu Youdao.
His surname Liu was because his foster mother was the old willow tree.
Youdao, meaning knowledgeable, was attributed to his reputed expertise!
An old saying goes: good and evil come with consequences, fortune and misfortune are self-provoked.
Liu Youdao, having expanded his business widely, gained much fame and fortune, yet also secretly offended many with his dishonorable actions.
As age advanced, he grew paranoid, fearing sudden hands might pull him into a grave any night!
What's to be done? After much thought, Liu Youdao devised a plan.
The saying goes, a tree moves to die, a person moves to live.
Why not pack up, leave, and find a place where no one knows him, starting a business of relocating spirits for burial and fortune-telling? Surely better than his current life!
With his mind made up, he packed his bags and settled in Linhe District, opening a Funeral Shop on Underground Street. Within days, his adept skills had secured several deals.
The largest of these deals involved providing corpse workers for Cui's Mill!
By this point, Xu Qing had understood most of what happened next.
He sighed deeply.
Liu Youdao's death was deserved!
You intended to retire quietly and not break rules anymore, so why couldn't you control yourself and continued engaging in foul trades?
...
The Sutra of Salvation says: Human Dao cherishes longevity, divine Dao cherishes life, ghost Dao cherishes demise.
Besides divinity, all under heaven face an end.
The Sutra of Salvation evaluated Liu Youdao's life, ranking him Earth Grade, lower class.
This was Xu Qing's first time seeing an Earth Grade rating!
Aside from the unexpected rating, the rewards from exorcising Liu Youdao were delightful!
He received a Soul-Driving Bell, a Corpse-Driving Whip, and several books imprinted in his mind: "Thirty-Six Corpse-Driving Spells," "Funeral and Mourning Scripture," "Yin Track Acupoint Technique," "Corpse Talk," and one "Corpse Nourishing Scripture."