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

Chapter 265 Let me borrow your head
These past two days, the yamen's coroner's office has received a new piece of good stuff: a big head that won't rot.

Upon hearing this, Xu Qing reacted like a cat smelling fish.

Humans have heads, and heads have bodies. Since there is a head, how far away can the corpse be?
"Sir, I know this well! Preserving a corpse from decay is a basic skill for us underworld craftsmen. This body might have been handled by a fellow craftsman. Why don't you let me take a look? Maybe I can find some clues!"

Chen Guangrui felt very gratified to see Manager Xu stepping forward and willing to contribute to the case.

"Very well! I will allow you to accompany the coroner to the coroner's office. If you find any clues, I will reward you handsomely!"

After saying that, Chen Guangrui instructed his men, "Xu Qing is right. It is not necessarily supernatural that a corpse can remain incorrupt. Officer Zhao, tomorrow you will take the constables to various funeral parlors to investigate this matter."

Just as Constable Zhao was about to reply, Xu Qing, who was about to leave, kindly reminded him: "Sir, there are no other funeral parlors in Linjiang County besides my Xu family's funeral chain. The others are only in the villages and towns outside the city. If Constable Zhao wants to find one, he can go and visit outside the city."

Chen Guangrui frowned and said, "I remember there is still a Shi family brothel in the city."

"The Shi family's brothel went bankrupt and lost all its assets. I have now acquired it and converted it into the Xu family's brothel."

"."

These days, can you go bankrupt even if you're doing business with the dead?

Chen Guangrui waved his hand, signaling Xu Qing to follow Song Tu down. When he saw that Shang Shaoyang was also going, Magistrate Chen frowned, but ultimately did not stop him.

It's better to have this spoiled brat help investigate cases in the government than to let him get out of his sight and cause trouble everywhere. He doesn't believe that anything can go wrong under his nose.

After watching the group leave, Chen Guangrui suddenly slapped his forehead: "How could I have forgotten about this?"

"What is it?" the advisor asked curiously.

"What else could have happened? Someone replaced the armchair in my study with a small stool. Who do you think did that?"

Chen Guangrui snorted coldly, turned around and left.

In the coffin room, after Song Tu properly placed the little girl's body, he led Xu Qing to the head that the angler had caught.

"Uncle Xu, this person's death was extremely gruesome. Judging from his appearance, he must have suffered a great shock before his death, and he was probably killed in front of the perpetrator!"

Song Tu lifted the white paper quilt covering the corpse, revealing the true face of the bodyless corpse.

But when Xu Qing saw the face in front of him, he couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

He recognized the man. Half a month ago, someone had ordered a small, narrow coffin from his mortuary shop, and then disappeared without a trace. The man's appearance matched the head in front of him perfectly.

Xu Qing did not hide anything and told the truth in front of Shang Shaoyang and the other person. He then added, "This person said that the weather was hot and his child drowned in the river while playing in the water, so he needed to make a coffin for his burial."

"Song Tu, you can inform Officer Zhao tomorrow and have him search around based on this clue. Perhaps he will find something."

Although the case is not yet fully investigated, the reason why the mortuary's customers failed to show up seems to have become clear.

Since the guest died, the coffin that had been ordered was naturally left unclaimed. This was an unavoidable event, so Xu Qing didn't think much of it.

He reached out and touched the head on the cold bed, but Du Renjing did not respond.

As expected, a corpse that is too mutilated cannot be properly exorcised.

The head before them was neither decayed nor damaged, just like the body of the obedient one. If the body had not been deliberately damaged, then his torso must still be somewhere.

"Song Tu, after this man's head was discovered, did the authorities search for his body?"

Song Tu nodded and said, "I've looked. Jiang Shi, who lives in Tanggu Street, often fishes in front of the Tanggu River."

As if afraid that Xu Qing and the other two might not understand, Song Tu added a sentence in the middle: "Jiang Konglou's original name was Jiang Maocai, also known as Jiang Konglou, because he always returned empty-handed from fishing, so he got this nickname. Jiang Konglou is a bit of a pro. He doesn't catch fish, but he catches all sorts of other things."

"I heard they even caught a cow not long ago."

Song Tu recalled Jiang Konglou's past and couldn't help but say a few more words. However, he quickly got to the point and said, "After Jiang Konglou caught a human head, he did not report it to the authorities directly. Instead, he put the head next to his fish basket and continued fishing. This was because he had passed by Tanggu Bridge early in the morning and consulted a fortune teller. The fortune teller said that he would definitely not have an empty basket today and would catch a big catch. So he refused to leave."

"It wasn't until the sun was almost at noon that Jiang Konglou came to his senses. It turned out that the big cargo the fortune teller was talking about was the head next to him."

Song Tu said helplessly, "When Jiang Konglou reported to the authorities with his head in his hand, it was already afternoon. If the body had been swept downstream from the Tanggu River, it would probably have been washed into the Baisha River by now. How easy would it be to find it then?"

"Later, a group of constables searched along the river for half a day, but they could not find the body, and the matter was dropped."

After hearing the whole story, Xu Qing had already made up his mind. He said, "How about this, Young Master Shang and I will go to the riverbank and see if we can find the body."

“This body is not easy to find, and it is already late. If Uncle Xu insists on searching, he might as well wait until tomorrow and find a constable to accompany him.” Although Wang Lingyuan often said that Xu Qing’s autopsy skills were superb, Song Tu did not believe that Xu Qing could find the body.

This is beyond his comprehension. Could Xu Qing possibly find out where the body is from inside its head?
Moreover, the body had been separated for several days, so even if the head could talk, it might not know where its body was.

A few years ago, when Song Tu and Dou Yun, the two fellow apprentices, occasionally received autopsy skills from Xu Qing, the two inexperienced students may have admired Xu Qing very much. But now, three or four years later, the two, who believe they have thoroughly understood all the ins and outs of autopsy, have abandoned the idea of ​​looking up to their Uncle Xu as a towering mountain.

It's understandable that young people have naive ideas.

Song Tu offered a final word of advice: "If Uncle Xu insists on going, please wait a moment while I go and fetch a lantern for illumination."

Looking at the meticulously crafted Song Tu in front of him, Xu Qing always felt that the other party was taking care of him as an old man out of touch with the times.

Upon hearing that they were going to find a corpse, Shang Shaoyang seemed more enthusiastic than anyone else!

"This head might be the father of the darling." Shang Shaoyang cupped his hands towards the head on the cold bed and said, "Brother, don't worry! We'll take care of this! We'll definitely find the mastermind behind this and bring him to justice!"

Xu Qing ignored Shang Shaoyang. He vaguely felt that things were not so simple. After all, Guai Guai kept saying things like, "My mother is gone, and my father doesn't want me anymore."

There might be some hidden story behind this.

Xu Qing took a lock of hair from the cold bed and hid it in her sleeve.

When Song Tu delivered the lanterns, he and Shang Shaoyang left the yamen together and headed towards the Tanggu River.

On the way, Xu Qing took out the corpse-finding compass, lit a hair he had taken from his sleeve with a yellow talisman, then silently recited the corpse-finding incantation and pointed the burning yellow talisman onto the compass.

Seeing this, Shang Shaoyang asked curiously, "Brother Xu, what's going on?"

"I have poor sense of direction and can't recognize the path. I use a compass to check if I've gone the wrong way."

"Directional blindness? Brother Xu, you must be kidding me."

"No way, I'd be a monster to lie to you."

Seeing that the other party had put it so plainly, Shang Shaoyang began to believe him to some extent.

The two wandered around, stopping and starting, until they arrived at the pitch-black Liuqing Street, when a strange sound suddenly rang out behind them.

The voice didn't seem to come from the mouth, but rather from the chest cavity, muffled, with a trembling sound from the trachea. "Lend me your head."

In the dead of night, with the streets deserted, a sudden sound like that behind you is terrifying!

A head? What head? Who's talking?

Shang Shaoyang instinctively wanted to turn around, but Xu Qing slapped him back.

"It's haunted, don't turn around."

"If you turn around, you'll lose your head!"

Shang Shaoyang had never encountered anything like this before. The more Xu Qing tried to stop him from turning back, the more he felt like he was being pricked by needles.

"What should we do, Brother Xu?"

At this moment, Xu Qing used his double-edged sword technique, seeing the scene behind him through the second face that appeared behind his head.

He pondered for a moment and said, "Walk forward a bit, see that old willow tree? Go around it in circles. As long as we go around faster than it, we can get behind it, and then its magic won't work!"

With Shang Shaoyang by his side, Xu Qing couldn't rely on brute force to create miracles, but that didn't mean he wouldn't use other methods to solve unexpected problems besides violence.

Following Xu Qing's advice, Shang Shaoyang and Xu Qing went to an old willow tree that was so thick that it would take three or four people to hug it, and began to walk around it.

At first, the head-borrowing ghost was quite fast, and the two of them could always feel gusts of cold wind coming from behind them, as well as the catchphrase, "Lend me your head."

But after the two had run around the tree fifty times, the headless ghost finally realized something was wrong.

Why does it feel like someone is following it all the time?
Sure enough, the headless ghost heard a voice behind him the next moment: "Lend me your body."

The headless ghost turned around instinctively, but by the time it saw Xu Qing and Shang Shaoyang behind it, it was too late.

"Now your body is mine!" Xu Qing pointed at the ghost, grinned, and the headless ghost fell to the ground.

Shang Shaoyang thought it was Xu Qing's idea that broke the other party's spell, but was that really the case?

There are also levels among evil spirits and ghosts. Earthbound spirits like headless ghosts often only have a single way of harming people. If an ordinary person breaks through the predicament created by such a ghost, the ghost will give up hunting, but will not be killed by its prey.

Xu Qing, however, was different. He was not an ordinary person. When he joined the game of the headless ghost, the nature of the game had already become a mutual hunt between evil spirits.

Similarly, the relationship between Xu Qing, who is at a higher level, and the headless ghost is just like that between the headless ghost and an ordinary person.

Xu Qing may lose, but he won't lose his head. However, if the headless ghost loses, its body will no longer belong to it.

"Brother Xu, look! What a huge pit!"

After the headless ghost's corpse fell, Shang Shaoyang picked up his lantern and shone it on the ground. He saw that the originally intact ground suddenly collapsed, and the headless ghost fell into the pit along with it.

Xu Qing jumped into the pit and threw the headless corpse out. After jumping out of the pit, he was possessed by the detective Shang Shaoyang and said, "Brother Xu once said that there are five ghost trees in the world, and the locust tree is the first of the five trees. The corpse of Guai Guai was buried under the old locust tree. This headless corpse is buried under the old willow tree. Could it be that the willow tree is also one of the five ghost trees?"

"Pine, poplar, locust, willow, mulberry, this willow is indeed a ghost tree."

Xu Qing looked at the corpse in front of him, somewhat puzzled: "I wonder if the murderer was just unlucky or did it on purpose. Why does he always choose these shady and damp places to bury the bodies?"

Shang Shaoyang, a seasoned traveler in the martial world, guessed, "I've heard that the most ruthless villains in the martial world like to bury corpses under trees. The reason is that the soil can mask the stench of the dead, the roots of these trees can absorb nutrients from the corpses, and the shade under the trees makes the place more humid, so the corpses decompose faster."

Anyone who frequently commits murder knows that killing is easy, but disposing of the body is difficult; Shang Shaoyang's analysis is not without merit.

However, none of that matters anymore. Once the murderer is brought to justice, the truth will naturally come to light.

Xu Qing had been secretly holding back a lot of energy. Ever since the little girl's body appeared in front of him, he had been determined to investigate the case thoroughly.

This body, which is very likely connected to the little girl, may be the key to uncovering the truth.

The two men traveled without stopping, and when they returned to the coroner's office, the new candle that Song Tu had lit earlier had not yet burned out.

"You actually found the body?"

Song Tu was dumbfounded.

Xu Qing patted Song Tu on the shoulder and laughed, "It's just that I was lucky, it's nothing."

The latter chuckled dryly and quickly lit a lamp for Xu Qing.

"You're the one examining the body, so am I?"

Upon hearing Xu Qing's question, Song Tu's eyes lit up and he said, "It would be best if I could get guidance from my martial uncle."

Xu Qing smiled, then pieced together the head on the cold bed with the newly found headless corpse, and the two fit together perfectly.

"It really is the same corpse," Song Tu exclaimed in surprise.

Xu Qing glanced briefly at the deceased's body from beginning to end, then placed his hand on it. The next moment, a slideshow of images of the corpse appeared in his mind.

There is a family surnamed Qiao in Dongdaokou Hutong in the city. The head of the Qiao family is a son-in-law who is "half-married into the family". What does "half-married into the family" mean?

Those who make their fortunes by relying on the woman's money, assets, and connections, but still retain their own family name and do not take the woman's surname, are called "semi-married-in-laws."

The head of the Qiao family, named Qiao Fang, was known in Dongdaokou Hutong as a henpecked husband.

Qiao Fang and his wife, Zhang, had been sleeping together for five years without having a child. Qiao Fang believed the problem lay with his wife and had nothing to do with him, while his wife, Zhang, believed it was Qiao Fang's fault.

The two had a very unpleasant argument because of this, and Qiao Fang ended up leaving early and returning late. Rumors circulated that he was keeping a mistress and planning to have an heir for the Qiao family, which would be an illegitimate child.

Because Zhang's belly hadn't shown any signs of pregnancy, no matter how arrogant and domineering she was, she couldn't control Qiao Fang, who considered it his duty to carry on the family line.

Several more months passed, during which Qiao Fang never shared a room with her again. Zhang Shi harbored resentment and, in a fit of pique, decided to have an affair with Qiao's groom.

The coachman was a widower who hadn't been with a woman for decades; one can imagine the repression he felt inside.

With the two exchanging glances like that, it was no surprise that they hit it off immediately!
Zhang was in her early thirties, a time when her desires were at their peak. The groom tried his best, but after half a year, not only did Zhang's belly not show any signs of pregnancy, the groom almost collapsed from exhaustion in the stable.

That day, Zhang, disheveled and cursing, walked out of the stable. The groom followed closely behind, grinning obsequiously, and said, "Madam, don't be angry. I have some news for you. Would you like to hear it?"

"What news? Has the flagpole that was broken by the wind been able to stand up again, or have the palace eunuchs learned to crow?"

The coachman chuckled sheepishly and said, "No, I found out where the master's mistress is. The master has secretly fathered a beautiful daughter without his wife's knowledge!"

(End of this chapter)