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

Chapter 158 The Granary Monster
Time flies like water, and a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

The mortuary shop saw a constant flow of people coming and going, handling seven funeral arrangements, two memorial services, and some other miscellaneous funeral transactions.

Xu Qing estimated the customer flow and continuously improved the business strategy.

Those who could afford to hire him for his funeral were mostly well-off families. Occasionally, someone in financial difficulty would come to visit, but they were just an ordinary family who had enough to eat.

But those disaster victims and beggars would never patronize his shop or come here to make their funeral arrangements.

To avoid losing potential customers, Xu Qing added new notices to the bulletin board at the city gate, and also promoted the business extensively in places where vagrants and beggars liked to gather, such as under the dry bridge, dilapidated houses, and abandoned temples.

These days, the eight major martial arts sects have many disciples, and the imperial court can't keep track of them all. Those beggars who perform lotus flower ballads and sing rat-themed folk songs are quite skilled. After receiving a bribe from Xu Qing, they widely publicized his funeral shop.

Nowadays, whenever someone passes under the dry bridge, they can always hear the beggars playing clappers and singing lyrics. Those beggars are also very good at getting things done. They don't sing these unlucky lyrics when they are begging for food, but when they have nothing to do, they play the clappers as a pastime.

Right now, right next to the Shuimen Bridge, there's a beggar striking a clapperboard:
"The lame beggar froze to death in the City God Temple."

He borrowed incense and candles on credit and borrowed a cart.

He hadn't eaten much before he died.
Today, I made two paper horses.

White lanterns, paper money floating.
The old shops in the south of the city are always brightly lit at night.

Three copper coins for a thin coffin.
There is still a kind-hearted person named Xu in the world.

These words are hardly elegant, but they are easy to pronounce.

Besides these talented beggars, Xu Qing also turned his attention to the children who spent their days running and playing on the streets.

Children carrying sugar figurines, windmills, and other trinkets ran and jumped in the street, singing nursery rhymes.

A filial son should bury his ailing mother in her own clothes.

An orphan girl mourns at a funeral, lacking proper mourning clothes.

He cut up the cloth from his own coffin.

Take this to wrap your parents' bones.

The wind and cold are severe on the road to the underworld.
There are always warm-hearted people in the world.

Another storyteller, having received a storybook from Mr. Xu, began to insert funeral advertisements into his performances for free; one often heard this in teahouses—

"Offer a seat to greet him before the Hall of Yama, the King of Hell"

The mortal realm owes you a fortune.
The underworld grants you a name to guide you.

Ten thousand lights illuminate the road to the underworld.
They were all people who had owed money to others before their deaths.

The atmosphere in Linhe had become sinister at some point. During this time, the yamen (government office) talked to Xu Qing many times, but since he was a legitimate businessman, and the clerks, coroners, and constables in the yamen knew him well, they all turned a blind eye, treating it as a young man's nonsense. They thought things would get better after this period.

Besides the shop's thriving business, the incense offerings at Cat Fairy Hall have also exceeded 10,000 in the past month.

The phrase "ten thousand strands of incense" often refers to the flourishing of incense offerings at temples and monasteries, and these "ten thousand strands" are usually associated with large temples and monasteries.

It took a month for the Cat Fairy Hall to fully develop the aftereffects of punishing the shepherd, demolishing the Temple of Fertility, and subduing the demon tiger. Xu Qing also witnessed the change in the number of incense sticks burned at the hall from about a hundred a day to three or four hundred a day.

However, by today, the growth in incense offerings has begun to decline.

Xu Qing wasn't surprised, after all, most people don't pray to Buddha regularly, but only seek help at the last minute.

Those who have received the blessings of the Cat Fairy Temple and have burned incense once as a token of gratitude are already considered to be devout. When they think of worshiping again, they may only light incense during festivals or when they need something from the deities.

During this time, Wu's sister-in-law, who lived next to the paper-making shop, was accompanied by her daughter-in-law and her whole demeanor improved. Xu Qing also gave Zhang Wan a job, asking her to help run the funeral clothing shop not far from the paper-making shop.

As long as a person has something to do, they won't think about too many extreme things.

With Zhang Wan running the funeral clothing shop, the brothers Dazhuang and Erzhuang returned to Guanmen Village to continue running the branch temple. However, before Guan Dazhuang left, Huang Xiaoliu, who was in charge of the main temple, got a job for the main temple—a rat infestation at the Tianjin grain warehouse.

The granaries in Tianjin were not like ordinary granaries; they contained numerous storage rooms, and the granary managers and supervisors often had to deal with these rats.

They used plenty of rat poison and hired many cats, but nothing worked. It wasn't until the granary official was inspecting the granary and caught a glimpse of a huge rat that he realized a rat had become powerful and was now the rat king, which was why it wouldn't eat the poisoned bait and wasn't afraid of the ordinary cats.

After learning about this from Huang Xiaoliu, Xu Qing took Xuan Yu and Guan Dazhuang to Tianjin.

If Huang Xiaoliu had brought him other jobs, he wouldn't dare to guarantee that he could handle them, but this rat problem...
The big and small cats in his Cat Fairy Hall are not just for show.

Upon arriving in Tianjin, Xu Qing, following established practice, asked the eloquent Guo Dongyang to act as a mediator, seeking the granary official in charge to introduce him to his family's branch.

The Yongzheng Emperor had suffered many disasters in recent years. During his reign, Emperor Longping often failed to reflect on his own faults and instead attributed the country's misfortunes to ghosts, gods, and external forces.

At that time, Emperor Longping was reluctant to allocate disaster relief funds, but he was willing to spend a lot of money to supervise the construction of a sacrificial altar that was over a hundred feet high. At the same time, he promoted sacrificial ceremonies and advocated that wherever there was misfortune, sacrifices should be offered.

After Emperor Jingxing, Zhao Rong, ascended the throne, he not only inherited the imperial lineage but also the nearly completed altar for worshipping Heaven. Zhao Rong also pushed the sacrificial rites of the Yong Dynasty to an unprecedented level.

In Xu Qing's view, the sacrificial practices of the Dayong Dynasty, in a sense, also reflect the extent to which it was terminally ill.

Otherwise, after the Tianjin gang was wiped out, the government would not have held Buddhist ceremonies at the port and allowed the monks of Baishui Temple to preach Buddhism.

The granary officials in Tianjin were clearly well-versed in this matter. Since the Cat Fairy Hall was so effective, they allocated some money and grain from the granary to be used for sacrificial rites.

Logically, Cat Fairy Hall doesn't need these superficial formalities, but the granary official said that if you refuse to accept the grand celebration, then Cat Fairy Hall doesn't need to handle the granary matters either; he can do the same by going to the monks at White Water Temple.

Monk catching mice
Xu Qing found it hard to imagine how the clerk had managed to put these two things together; the procedure just didn't seem right!

Xuan Yu was excited all day because of the sacrificial ceremony. This was a treatment usually reserved for grand temples and monasteries. If the Cat Fairy Hall could be treated like this by the government, wouldn't that mean that it and the hall opened by Xu Qing had also entered the upper class?
However, when Xuan Yu looked at the small altar, which was only three feet square, and the meager offerings on it, Maomao was so shocked that she couldn't speak for a long time.

Five thousand taels of silver were earmarked for a special sacrificial offering, and all they managed to set up was this tiny altar?

Even the altar where Xu Qing recited the incantation to summon the rampaging soldiers was much larger than this small table.

Guo Dongyang was not surprised. He was not very interested in the sacrificial ceremony, but he was quite concerned about Xu Qing's ability to get rid of the rat infestation.

A young scholar who ranked fourth in the first imperial examination had no interest in pursuing fame in the officialdom. Instead, he started a funeral business. Now, he even brought a black cat with him and wanted to eradicate the demonic rats in the granary. Such bizarre and strange things are rare. If Xu Qing really subdues the demonic rats...
Guo Dongyang felt that he might be able to add another chapter to his travelogue of Dongyang.

The Tianjin granary covers a vast area, measuring approximately 240 zhang from east to west and 320 zhang from north to south. Inside are dozens of underground grain cellars, the largest of which has an opening nearly 10 zhang wide and the deepest is 5 zhang below the ground. The total storage capacity can reach tens of millions of shi (a unit of dry measure).

This place is not only a place for storing rice and grain for a long time, but also a hub for transporting grain and fodder through the Tianjin Grand Canal.

Xu Qing used his Qi Observation Technique and found that the granary was full of the Qi of grains, with no trace of demonic energy visible.

"Are there really demonic rats in the granary?"

"Of course, I saw it with my own eyes, how could it be false?"

Xu Qing asked suspiciously, "If there really are demon rats, why not send the Demon Suppression Division to capture them?"

The granary official shook his head and said, "The people from the Demon Suppression Bureau did come once, but these demon rats can burrow underground. The granaries and cellars below are quite deep. We can't just empty the millet wherever the demon rats go."

"The demon rat is hiding deep in the grain and grass, which has become its only support. The Demon Suppression Division cannot set fire to it or poison it. It's no exaggeration to say that this is a stubborn ailment. Otherwise, why would we be so desperate as to seek any cure and trust you, this 'folk doctor'?"

Xu Qing glanced at the clerk. Could a local doctor be worth five thousand taels of sacrificial silver?
"You should see how to punish that demon rat. If you really have no other choice, leave some poisoned bait or leave the cat behind. You can't come here for nothing."

Xu Qing squinted at the outspoken official and said, "You only say that you can't get rid of the demon rat, but what if I do get rid of it?"

The granary official laughed and said, "There will be a reward for getting rid of the demon rat."

Xu Qing shook his head and said, "We shamans don't covet worldly money. We only hope that you can parade that demon rat through the streets and tell the people of Tianjin about the achievements of my Cat Immortal Hall."

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(End of this chapter)