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

Chapter 25: Melon Eaters

After pushing those useless and nonsensical rewards aside to gather dust, Xu Qing finally looked at the only useful thing in his hand, a Mantra Pill.

The so-called truth pill, as the name suggests, is a pill that can make people tell the truth.

This miraculous elixir came from a beggar family in Tianjin, the third generation of beggar Zhu Youshi.

Zhu Youshi originally had no name or surname. He wandered around when he was young and found a beggar as his godfather. His godfather gave him the surname Zhu. From then on, he inherited the family business and started begging with his ancestral broken bowl.

There are tricks to begging. You need to be led by an elder, know how to navigate the streets and alleys, where there are gatherings on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, which families are kind-hearted, when the kind people in the mansions will come out to give alms, where you cannot go, and where the people are vicious. These are all things to know.

Once you know the place you are in very well, you won't have to worry about three meals a day. You can even beg for some extra money to buy a pot of wine and some meat and have a good time.

Zhu Youshi has been guided by his father, a gold medal lecturer, since he was a child. At a young age, he has become a leader in the begging industry. There is no place in Tianjin that he doesn’t know or is not familiar with!

On this day, the careful Zhu Youshi went out to beg on the street as usual, but found that the city of Tianjin had suddenly changed for some reason.

He looked around the familiar yet unfamiliar street, and after careful consideration, he finally found the reason why something was wrong.

It turned out that there were fewer beggars on the streets of Tianjin City. No wonder he always felt that the streets in front of him were out of place.

Zhu Youshi was so puzzled that he even lost his appetite for food. Whenever he had free time, he would wonder where everyone had gone to make their fortune.
Could it be that there are hidden begging places in Tianjin that he doesn't know about, and everyone has gone there in groups to beg?

Zhu You had no appetite and no desire to eat or drink until that night when a masked gangster put a knife to his neck. Only then did he understand the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the beggars in Tianjin.

The masked bandit had a long upper body and a short lower body, and spoke with a distinct Tianjin accent. Zhu Youshi knew who he was at a glance.

"Brother Cai Jiu, why are you here to trouble me when you're not working in the government office?"

Seeing his identity exposed, the masked man simply took off his mask and said bluntly, "Since you know my identity, you should know that I came to you because you have committed a crime!"

"What crime could a beggar like me have committed? Is begging a crime?"

As soon as Zhu Youshi finished speaking, he saw Cai Jiu nodded.

"You've finally come to your senses. Begging in Tianjin is a sin!"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Youshi widened his eyes and slapped his face to confirm whether he was still living in a dream.

"Brother Cai Jiu, don't be ridiculous. I've been a beggar in Tianjin for over forty years and have never heard of such a thing."

"Never heard of it? Well, now you have! To tell you the truth, our Tianjin is the most prosperous area in the Great Yong Dynasty. If you come here to beg for food, you are bringing disgrace to the current emperor and the crown prince who is here to inspect."

"For the sake of our old acquaintance, I'll give you one night. If you know what's good for you, leave Tianjin immediately!"

Inside the abandoned house, Zhu Youshi said angrily, "My father picked me up. I've been begging in Tianjin since I was little. My godfather was also a beggar. How can I survive if I leave Tianjin? Brother Cai Jiu, don't forget two years ago, you fell under the Water Gate Bridge and nearly drowned. I had to jump in and pull you out."

"You can't repay kindness with enmity!"

Cai Jiu was about to put away his knife and leave, but when he heard this, his face suddenly turned gloomy.

"Don't bring up old matters with me. If I let you go, where will the prefect stand? Will I still have my job? I'm telling you this today. If you don't leave, I'll see you tomorrow. Don't blame me for not remembering our friendship."

After saying that, Cai Jiu spat on the ground, turned around and left the abandoned house.

The next day, Cai Jiu returned to the dilapidated hut. Before he even entered, he saw a hemp rope hanging from the beam, and someone was putting the rope around his neck. Who else could it be but Zhu Youshi?
When Zhu Youshi heard the noise, he turned his head to look at Cai Jiu, and immediately had an idea in his mind, but when he saw that the other party suddenly stopped and refused to take another step forward, he completely gave up.

In this way, a beggar family that had lasted for three generations came to an end.

Xu Qing looked at the Mantra Pill in his hand, not knowing what to say for a moment.

You say that Cai Jiu doesn't remember their friendship, but he at least had a heart-to-heart talk with Zhu Youshi, told him the truth, and gave him a chance to leave.

But if you say that he cares about old friendship, then how could Cai Jiu sit by and watch his former savior being forced to hang himself, but he refused to take a step forward? He is extremely cold-hearted.

The human heart is truly unpredictable. Who would have thought that those high-ranking officials in red and black robes were the real murderers who killed these beggars?

However, its purpose was simply to rectify the atmosphere in Tianjin and to please the crown prince's inspection tour.

Connecting the clues obtained from the salvation tonight, Xu Qing thought about it for a while and figured out the connection.

In today's world, Emperor Longping is over eighty years old, and even the crown prince is sixty-three years old.

At this critical moment, as long as Emperor Longping cannot catch his breath, the old prince will become the new emperor.

"Wait! The Tianxin Sect rebels also came to Tianjin a few days ago. Why did they come when the crown prince came to inspect?"

Xu Qing felt like he had accidentally discovered an invisible big net, which contained countless big melons.

Having just finished the salvation of the corpse in Courtyard C, he turned around and set his sights on Courtyards A and B.

In addition to obtaining the reward of saving people, Xu Qing now has a new motivation, which is to see if he can eat all the melons tonight!
At five o'clock in the morning, the night watchman was beating the gong and shouting the old tune of "early to bed and early to rise, take care of yourself". Xu Qing, who had been working in the workshop most of the night, stopped reluctantly.

After much haste, he finally managed to liberate the corpses in several courtyards. Although he no longer tasted the big melons, he still had quite a few small ones.

Things like a father-in-law cheating on his daughter-in-law or a brother-in-law attacking his sister-in-law at night are just appetizers.

If Xu Qing had not saved the souls of so many people from all walks of life, how would he have known that the prefect had a secret that he could not tell. The daughter of the Baishahe County Magistrate turned out to be a tofu-grinding saint. Her favorite thing was to dress up as a man and go to brothels to chat with those beautiful girls all night long.

We don't know what they talked about. This is the information Xu Qing got from a brothel hanger-on.

That bunch of hangers-on witnessed something they shouldn't have seen, and they shouldn't have used it to blackmail the county magistrate's daughter for money, so he deserved this disaster.

Look at you, you were allowed to watch a rich young lady do that for free, and it would be fine if you weren't satisfied, but why did you rush up to ask for money?

Even freeloaders are not as patient as you!
The reward from that bunch of hangers-on was also quite interesting, it was a book of erotic pictures of a hundred beauties.

Moreover, this picture is not an ordinary static picture. As long as you look at it attentively, the various beautiful people who are generously sharing their feelings will make you feel ecstatic.

But once you really give in to the desire and get lost in it, the characters in the Hundred Beauties Picture will instantly transform into emaciated, terrifying ghosts that want to take lives, and stick to the picture, as if they want to break through the scroll and kill people!

When Xu Qing saw this, he was caught off guard and almost threw the scroll in his hand out of the wall.

How could this be considered spiritual nourishment? It was clearly something terrifying. Fortunately, he had a strong mental state. If it were a timid man, he would have become a fellow sufferer of the Jinmen prefect and would never again have the desire to do so.

(End of this chapter)