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

Chapter 4: Walking Through the Forest and the Graveyard
In addition to the hard laborers, Cui's Mill also had many living servants who did odd jobs to maintain the daily operations of the workshop.

These people are all from the Linhe Cui family, and the few outsiders are also loyal to the Cui clan, so they naturally have a strong sense of belonging.

Upon hearing that something had happened in Courtyard C, a group of people gathered at the gate and stared at the corpse driver who came in with scrutiny.

A large number of people brings momentum, and the reason why a clan is strong is because of this cohesion.

A strong dragon cannot defeat a local snake. Judging from the situation now, if the corpse driver dares to fool him, he will definitely suffer a lot!
When he arrived at Courtyard C and saw the corpses neatly arranged in a row, Liu Youdao, who was wearing a satin navy blue Taoist robe, immediately frowned.

"Finally, Mr. Liu has been invited here!" Manager Cui came forward with a smile.

After asking about breakfast and exchanging a few polite words, Manager Cui got down to business.

"These are all new items I bought from you, sir. Now they have problems for no apparent reason. I would like to ask you for an explanation."

"Of course, it's not that my Cui's Workshop is trying to embarrass you, sir. We are just a small business and can't afford it."

Liu Youdao was about fifty years old, tall and thin, with a pair of cloudy eyes that held the sinister look of an old fox.

Liu Youdao glanced at the zombies in Courtyard C and said nothing. He took off the corpse-controlling bell tied around his waist and began to ring the bell and chant incantations.

"The old bird transforms into a clam, controls the nine corpses, and the body of the earth, obeys my command, quickly manifests, and displays its power."

The first thing the old Taoist used was a large soul-catching bell, and he chanted the General Clam’s corpse-exorcising spell.

"rise!"

The soul-capturing bell kept swinging, and when Liu Youdao issued a spell, the rhythmic swinging sound of the bell stopped abruptly.

You could hear a pin drop in the yard, and the zombies on strike were still lying on the ground, without any reaction.

Liu Youdao was finally moved. His voice was hoarse, as if he had swallowed a mouthful of iron sand, and he said, "Someone broke my spell. This is not my fault. It's your fault for not taking good care of me."

Manager Cui's face darkened when he heard this.

This Taoist Liu claimed to be a corpse driver from Xiangyin. His background was unclear. When he was approached to sell corpses, he would not have facilitated the deal if his price had not been much lower than that of other corpse dealers.

I had thought that with direct supply, I would save the difference in price earned by brokers. However, I never expected that the new supply would have quality problems so soon, and the other party even implied that they would not be responsible for the sale.

The Cui family has been doing business in Linhefang for a long time and has never suffered such a setback.

Manager Cui was immediately unhappy and said bluntly:
"The zombies in this yard were all purchased from you. There's no problem with the zombies in other yards. Before cooperating with the old gentleman, my Cui's workshop had never encountered such a thing!"

"Don't think we are easy to fool, old man!"

As soon as he finished speaking, more than a dozen guards and servants rushed into Courtyard C. Looking at their appearance, they seemed ready to overturn the table if they disagreed with them!

Liu Youdao's slightly hunched back slowly straightened. After looking around, he finally lowered his eyelids.

"I've been driving corpses since I was twelve. I know everything about locating graves, both white and black. You said your family's business has never made a mistake, so could it be that I've made a mistake in these past few decades?"

Liu Youdao muttered something, but did not stop walking. He slowly came to a stiff and straight corpse and looked at the collar of the clothes that had been lifted by Manager Cui earlier.

On the chest of the corpse, there was a vermilion corpse talisman with the words "Imperial Command of the Sun and the Moon Penetrating the Spiritual Feathers" written on it. Below the talisman were various lines carved with a knife.

Reaching out to straighten the corpse's clothes, Liu Youdao stood up and turned to look at the group of people in front of him.

"But what the Cui family's shopkeeper said is right. After all, everyone makes mistakes. Maybe this time it was me who ruined everything." Liu Youdao sighed.

"The problem with the goods is that I'm not very skilled. I take responsibility for it."

Manager Cui's expression softened slightly upon hearing this, and he said with a smile, "Even if the deal doesn't work out, we still have friendship. My Cui family has been doing business for so many years, and we've made many friends in the underworld. Even though there's a problem with the goods this time, we won't really hold it against you, old gentleman."

"As for these defective products, sir, you can just return 90% of them. I can handle the rest. As long as there are no problems in the future, you can use them for now."

Liu Youdao waved his hand and said indifferently, "I dare not keep these defective products. Ruining my reputation is a small matter, but damaging your business would be a serious sin."

As if he didn't understand the hidden meaning of the corpse driver's words, Manager Cui laughed and actually agreed.

As for whether to offend this old gentleman or not.
Manager Cui is really not afraid of him from the bottom of his heart!

When it comes to underworld tricks, the Cui family is the leading expert in Linhefang.

However, even in the vagina business, there is a clear chain of contempt.

Things like corpse driving, funeral procession, and shoemaking are not worthy of being presented in public, and Manager Cui looks down on them from the bottom of his heart!
Xu Qing, who was mixed in with the corpse workers, looked at the hustle and bustle in the yard and dared not move.

I don’t know if it’s because he was purified by the Sutra of Salvation, but the corpse-calming talisman stuck on his forehead seems to have no effect on him.

He could sense this from the way his toes moved and the way his buttocks muscles clenched and relaxed.

After Manager Cui and Liu Youdao came down to explain, the zombies in the yard went back to the hands of the corpse driver.

At least Manager Cui did not go too far. He called the coachman and put all the zombies in Courtyard C, whether they could move or not, onto the cart. Then he pulled a piece of linen cloth and covered them.

Xu Qing was lying among a pile of corpses, not knowing what to do.

When the wheel hubs creaked, he looked outside through the holes in the burlap.

There were already traces of pedestrians on the bluestone-paved streets. As soon as the vendors and hawkers who got up earlier than the chickens started singing, the streets that had been silent all night suddenly came alive.

The steamed buns are fragrant, and the hot tofu has a unique bean aroma.

The bean lady selling soy milk scooped out the milk with a bamboo spoon. The bright white milk drew a soft ribbon in the air and fell into the soup bowl.

Xu Qing peered through the crack, observing the bustle outside. Perhaps the raw materials for the soy milk were ground by him two days ago, and perhaps the flour for the steamed buns also had his share of contribution.
The corpse carriage rolled through the streets filled with the strong atmosphere of the market, but Liu Youdao, who was following behind the carriage, did not feel any excitement at all.

He just found it noisy.

The dead are still quiet.

Thinking of what happened at the Cui family workshop this morning, Liu Youdao felt increasingly depressed.

Although he was not a very glamorous figure in the underworld business, who would not give him face during his years of driving corpses in Xiangyin?

Who would have thought that as soon as he arrived at Linhe, he was suppressed by a group of local tyrants and couldn't even raise his head!
Others might not understand, but he understood it very well! The corpse crafts he refined wouldn't be damaged for ten or twenty years, let alone three to five years, as long as they were used properly.

The people from Cui's workshop were obviously bullying him as an outsider.

"Huh—bah!" Liu Youdao spat out a mouthful of thick phlegm, thinking that the local chamber of commerce was too rude.

In the final analysis, this matter is nothing more than one side thinking that outsiders are unreliable, while the other side thinks that locals are immoral. If there were no such prejudices, and everyone was in a friendly mood to find the root of the problem and talk about what happened this morning, perhaps they could follow the clues and find the "flaw" hidden in the corpse work.

In front of the bun shop, Zhao Zhonghe, the captain of the police who was chasing the naked young man last night, was having breakfast.

There were a few officers following behind him, chatting casually.

When the carriage carrying zombies passed by, Zhao Zhonghe subconsciously took a look, then looked away and continued to chew the bun in his hand.

Behind the carriage, Liu Youdao's mouth was moving and his wide sleeves were shaking slightly.

This is the dog-mute spell used in the corpse-driving method. Combined with some powder, it can prevent others from smelling the zombie's corpse gas. At the same time, it can also control the zombie to close its seven hearts, making it look like a stone or wooden sculpture.

After passing through several popular streets, Liu Youdao followed the carriage to a shop on Jingxia Street.

This is the shop he bought. It was previously a coffin shop. He thought the feng shui of this place was good, so he took out the gold and silver he had saved and bought the shop and the yard behind it, intending to do some small business here in the future to support himself in his retirement.

However, before he could even get his business off the ground, he encountered such a bad thing today.

Liu Youdao unloaded the goods returned by the Cui family. The coachman who came with him drove the empty carriage back to the mill without even looking back.

"unlucky!"

After closing the shop door and looking at the pile of corpses covered with sackcloth, Liu Youdao cursed in his heart.

In comparison, the people in Xiangyin are simple and honest, unlike the people in Linhe, who are all as thin as ghosts!
Under the sackcloth, Xu Qing could not see what the corpse driver was busy doing in the shop. He only heard occasional spitting and cursing, as well as the clanging sounds of hammering on bamboo poles and wood.

He didn't dare to breathe. For ordinary zombies, meeting a corpse driver is like a mouse meeting a cat, and Liu Youdao is like an experienced old cat. If he notices anything unusual, the consequences will be unpredictable.

Xu Qing had never felt that time was so long. It was not until the evening, when people were most relaxed, that the linen covering his body was suddenly lifted up by a skinny hand!

The sky was filled with powdery dust, and Xu Qing's nerves were like a rebounding bowstring, instantly tense.

"The sun is setting. Brothers, eat your fill so you can be energetic and go to the charity cemetery with me." Liu Youdao's voice was surprisingly gentle and calm, as if he was talking to an old friend, or as if he was training his own cats and dogs.

Beside Xu Qing, the zombies that had not been liberated by him slowly straightened their upper bodies, their nostrils flaring.

He followed suit and when he stood up, he saw Liu Youdao holding a handful of yellow incense. The thick white smoke was like the mist exhaled from a cow's nose in the cold winter, emitting a captivating fragrance.

There are a total of seven zombies in the shop now. Liu Youdao lets the sitting corpses inhale the spiritual incense from right to left one by one.

Xu Qing glanced at them out of the corner of his eye and saw that the chests of the zombies that had inhaled the spiritual incense had become bigger, as if they had eaten protein powder and worked out for a whole year.

Soon, Liu Youdao came to him holding incense.

Xu Qing was originally attracted by the strange fragrance, and now in order to get away with it, he followed suit and performed an epic lung-burning performance!

"Look at how much they've starved you! These profit-seeking profiteers deserve to be wiped out!"

Liu Youdao cursed, then put away the spiritual incense and began to shake the soul-capturing bell.

Pulled by the soul bells, seven zombies lifted a stretcher tied with bamboo poles. Their movements seemed to have been replicated, and they took steps in unison.

Xu Qing was at the end of the stretcher, and on the stretcher was the body of the person he had previously performed a salvation for.

There are old beggars, infatuated scholars, and some beggars begging in the city.

Liu Youdao came to the shop door, opened it a crack, and looked out. He saw that it was dark and the pedestrians on the road were not aware of the weather at night. Then he changed out of the satin Taoist robes he wore during the day and put on the corpse-driving clothes.

He wore straw-toe sandals, a green cloth robe, a green cloth hat on his head, and a black belt around his waist.

This is the unique outfit of a corpse driver. If he meets some disciples of the Yin Sect while traveling at night, they will not deliberately make things difficult for him when they see this outfit.

After all, people who work as corpse drivers are notoriously poor in the industry.

And it’s the kind that even ghosts would find shabby when they see it!
It is customary to drive corpses at night.

Liu Youdao packed his luggage, put on a corpse-driving bell, and led a team of ghosts to the charity cemetery.

After leaving Jingxia Street and turning around Caishikou, the group chose to walk in places with less light and shadow.

Xu Qing followed at the end and did not dare to think of leaving the team. Although the corpse driver was at the front, who knew if he had a third eye on the back of his head.

After walking about five or six miles, the bluestone road under my feet began to turn into loess road.

After another dozen miles, Liu Youdao suddenly took a different route and turned from the flat official road into the nearby woods.

Xu Qing listened to the rustling of leaves in the wind and the chirping of unknown night birds in the distance, and felt a chill on his back, as if countless eyes were staring at them.

After passing through a forest, the outline of a tomb with a flashing green light appeared in front of us.

Xu Qing suddenly felt a little admiration for the corpse driver who was leading the way in front.

Not to mention that no ordinary person would dare to walk through the woods and visit graveyards at night, just leading a group of dead people following behind is something that requires more courage than one can do.

Just as Xu Qing was lost in thought, he suddenly heard a buzzing sound from the graveyard he had just passed behind him, like mice, or a few children playing in the woods.

The shrill, childish voice was a little vague at first, but after a few breaths it became clearer, as if it was echoing in my ears.

Xu Qing felt a chill on his neck, and that thing seemed to be coming over!

He didn't dare to lower his head. He felt something behind his butt crawling along his heels to his back, then to his shoulders, and finally to the top of his head.

Xu Qing screamed in his heart. He had never hoped so much that Liu Youdao would turn around and take a look!
Fortunately, the unknown creature above his head didn't stay there for long before jumping down, as if it was just trying to catch a ride.

When it got darker, Liu Youdao at the front of the team took out an incense burner from somewhere and lit it with a fire stick. Suddenly, wisps of misty smoke floated from both sides of the queue, like two thin silk ribbons, protecting everyone inside.

Xu Qing felt hazy and felt the wind under his feet. Every step seemed to be on the clouds, and he took a long and vague step of about three meters.

Looking at Liu Youdao again, the old man was no longer leading the way, but sitting in front of the stretcher, holding the incense burner in one hand and the corpse-driving bell in the other, shaking the bell to make a strange rhythmic sound.

At this moment, they were like clouds floating in the mountains and breeze blowing through the woods. In a short time, they crossed the mountains and forests and came to an unfamiliar dirt road.

(End of this chapter)