I was forced to cultivate immortality when I just wanted to lie down

Chapter 22 Cocoon

On the last day of the first lunar month, Xu Qing closed the shop door and held three incense sticks in his hands.

In front of me are the altar tablets of Yang Taigong and Liu Youdao.

Xu Qing offered incense silently and looked at the rising white smoke, feeling surprisingly calm.

Compared to wild zombies, he felt that he was lucky enough.

If it were a wild zombie, it might still be sitting on some lonely mountain grave, gazing at the moon and enjoying the wind, or trying to steal something from the territory of the living, but failed and being chased all over the mountain by a group of strong laborers with hoes and machetes.

It could also be even worse, where you'll be pulled out of your coffin by a passing corpse driver or a Taoist priest with straight eyebrows, and slapped twice in the face. When you wake up, they'll send you on your way.

Fortunately, Xu Qing is not a self-taught person. He has inherited the legacy of a corpse driver and knows how to practice better than any other zombie. Even if there is no material for raising corpses, he can integrate into the territory of the living and exchange gold, silver and other mundane items for various resources for practice.

This is an advantage that other zombies of the same kind cannot match, so he has some respect for the two corpse drivers enshrined on the incense table. It is they who have given his zombie the capital to grow bigger and stronger and create greater glory.

"Master Liu and Master Yang, I am in seclusion today for seven days. I hope that Master and Master Yang will bless me with learning and success in my Taoist practice."

Although Liu Youdao was not a human being before and was transformed into a zombie, he also gained a new life in another sense.

After that, he inherited the coroner's shop and studied the art of corpse-driving diligently, so as not to let the lineage of Yang Yingqi and Liu Youdao be cut off. It was reasonable that they had some teacher-student relationship.

Therefore, Xu Qing felt that it was reasonable for teachers and advisors to give their students some support in their studies.

Anyway, he had already made up his mind. If he failed to transform into an armored zombie this time, he wouldn't have to burn incense and offer sacrifices during festivals.
A teacher who doesn't protect his students and causes them to fail their courses probably doesn't have the audacity to enjoy incense and offerings, right?

After fulfilling the traditional filial piety, Xu Qing, with the pioneering spirit of "die if he fails", took out an axe, chisel, scissors and needle and thread, and started tinkering on the workbench.

The so-called workbench is actually a simple table made of two coffins put together, with a flat black lacquered wooden board on it. It is also used for burials and makeup.

At this time, there was a wooden stake made of dark wood in front of Xu Qing. He was not familiar with carpentry, but he was able to hollow out the wooden stake and make a simple coffin.

The sunken wood is used as a container for sealing corpses. It is chopped with a knife and chiseled with an axe to make a hollow pile, which is then placed aside for future use.

The main event came next. Xu Qing took out the large corpse nails that had been soaked in secret by the corpse driver, and used a hammer to nail them firmly onto the skin of the mountain thug, which was as hard as iron and stone.

When nailing this kind of complete yin fur, the selected places are also very particular. First, cinnabar must be applied to seven acupoints of the mountain bastard's skin, including the center of the forehead, the center of the back, the palms of both hands, and the soles of the feet. After affixing the magic talisman, you can swing the hammer and start the process.

The nearly twenty-year-old old skin contains an lingering evil, which is the heavy resentment accumulated by the alien creatures in the mountains after being persecuted before they were about to become monsters.

After using nails to stretch out the leather and secure it, he was still not at ease, so he found some colorful cloth strips to tie it tightly.

When everything was ready, Xu Qing lit the green lamp on the table, took a deep breath of the spiritual fragrance to refresh himself, and after confirming that all the doors and windows were closed, he took out the wolf-hair brush, used his own dead blood as ink, and carefully outlined the corpse shadow talisman on the inside of the leather.

There were a total of thirty-six corpse shadow Yin Talismans. Every time he carved one, the leather on the table that was fixed with corpse nails would twitch and jump for a moment, just like freshly cut beef after being slaughtered.

When Xu Qing carved the twenty-seventh Yin Fu like a tattoo artist, the "beef" on the chopping board began to go crazy. Countless hairs began to grow wildly from the back of the leather, and then emerged and climbed to the edge of the entire leather, as if trying to find a new body to parasitize.

But he had already lined the edges of the hide with candles, and the wiggling hairs, exposed to the heat, quickly retracted like startled snails. Deep in the night, the lights flickered in the coroner's shop, and the cold, twisted cries of the beasts were sealed within the twitching hide by the rustling of the blood-marked brush. The young corpse driver sometimes resembled an old tailor in a tailor's shop, sometimes a veteran painter in a painting studio, but he was even more like a shadow puppet master wielding swords, spears, and halberds in a shadow play, able to manipulate all the complex lines with his delicate hands.

Countless runes were outlined, and the entire leather was divided into eleven areas by the rune pen, corresponding exactly to the human internal organs.

When it was bright, he pulled out all the nails, and the wrinkled skin of the old bastard lay quietly on the chopping board, just like a young lady who had been tormented all night on her wedding night and had no temper at all.

At this time, apart from the scattered hammers and talisman pens, the table was littered with remnants of various materials. Xu Qing used blood as ink and fought fiercely all night. At this time, he felt dizzy and was too lazy to clean up the mess.

He opened the shop door and walked to the paper-making shop with his waist pounded. Wu Yaoxing, who had just woken up, leaned half of his body out with shivering arms.

"Hiss, Brother Xu, what's wrong with you? Why are you so haggard?" Wu Yaoxing looked at the thin young man with a haggard face, who looked as if he would fall down with a gust of wind, in horror, and suddenly all his sleepiness disappeared.

"Well, I stayed at Cuiyun Tower last night. It's my only hobby, so I'll just have to keep it for two days."

After making up a random excuse to get by, Xu Qing got down to business: "Old Wu, I recently took on a Feng Shui job, which involves looking at graves and locating burial sites. I'm afraid I won't be back for the next seven or eight days. If anyone comes looking for me during this time, please let them know."

Wu Yaoxing still had some concerns and asked, "Are you really alright? How about I go with you to the pharmacy and get some nourishing and invigorating medicine?"

"By the way, I also have a few old hens in my old yard."

Xu Qing finally rejected his neighbor's concern. His family knew his own business. If he really went to the clinic, whether he was okay or not would be secondary. He was afraid that it would scare the doctor into falling ill.

He is a real zombie, why does he need to see a doctor?
After returning to the shop and locking the door from the outside, Xu Qing strolled to the backyard, climbed over the wall, and returned to the shop.

On the chopping board, the dark and eerie skin of the mountain thug was still lying quietly on it. Xu Qing took off all his clothes, took a deep breath, prayed for the ancestors to bless him, and then stretched out his hand to wrap the old skin that was covered with runes and soaked in various materials around himself.

The next moment, the dead old skin suddenly moved, and countless blue-black blood vessels grew out from under the skin, like branches sprouting after the rain, and used their sharp branches to drill into various parts of Xu Qing's body.

The crimson and purple runes flashed with light, and before Xu Qing had time to think, his entire body was completely wrapped and swallowed by the wriggling and twisted old skin.

Enduring the numb pain similar to a short circuit in his body, Xu Qing, who was temporarily blind, stumbled and came to the dark wooden pile lying across.

When the body, which could not be distinguished as that of an animal or a human, rolled into the empty pile, he struggled to grope for the lid of the coffin next to him and sealed himself in completely.

The cold wind howled outside the window, and the sun rose and the moon set.

The bright sunshine shines through the cracks in the doors and windows
The first spring rain came silently.
One day, there was a knock on the door and voices at the coroner's shop, and then they disappeared.

The night watchmen's gongs and drums continued for seven days.

The wooden stake coffin lying across the coroner's shop was like a throne forgotten by time in an ancient relic, with crows and magpies making noisy noises on it.

On the eighth day of the second lunar month, a pupa broke free from its shell in the corner of the coroner's shop. A ray of light from the window shone into the corner, and a blue and black newborn butterfly spread its wings, fluttered over the table, and landed on one end of the wooden coffin.

At this moment, the coffin, which had been silent for a long time, suddenly trembled slightly.

(End of this chapter)