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

Chapter 281 Neighbors' Joint Grave, God's Fall

As dusk fell, thirteen brand-new corpses were displayed in the mortuary. A cool autumn breeze blew into the shop, causing the paper quilts covering the bodies to sway.

The constables shivered, and only after they stepped out of the shop did they feel warm again.

"The job that Manager Xu does is really not something that just anyone can do."

"Who says otherwise? It was pitch black, and there were more than a dozen corpses in the room, yet he didn't feel scared at all."

Another constable said, "I'm afraid that if something happens to us brothers one day, we'll end up in Manager Xu's shop too."

"Fifth brother, if you can't speak properly, then shut up!"

In the quiet streets below the mine, the sounds of yamen runners spitting and joking could be heard far and wide.

In the coffin shop, Xu Qing began by examining the remains of the Cui family members, whose bodies were covered with white paper, and then proceeded to perform the rituals for their souls to be released from the dead.

After watching the slideshow of the Cui family's corpses, Xu Qing remained silent for a long time. Over the years, he had seen corpses with various causes of death, but this was the first time he had encountered someone who, after trying to bully others, ended up killing his entire family.

However, there are still many details that have not been fully clarified.

With the attitude of wanting to see the whole story unfold, Xu Qing began to investigate the Li family members who had posted the black paper.

However, even after watching the entire series, Xu Qing still couldn't connect all the clues.

The case of the massacre of both the Li and Cui families is clearly missing a crucial link.

Xu Qing finally turned her attention to the old man from the Li family, who was the only one who hadn't accidentally eaten the mushrooms and knew the whole story.

As the pages of the "Scripture of Salvation" are turned, the Yinchuan Stele Forest appears. When Old Man Li's story begins to unfold, the life experiences of everyone in the Li and Cui families are instantly connected.

The story goes back three days. Outside Linjiang County, there was a village called Baijia Village. As the name suggests, this village was full of all sorts of people, and each family had a different surname.

At the east end of the village, there are two families, one surnamed Cui and the other surnamed Li.

The head of the Cui family was called Cui Dazui, who had a wide mouth and sharp teeth and loved to take advantage of others.

The other manager was named Li Duoji, and as his name suggests, he was a master of scheming.

These two families are considered half neighbors. Why half? Because there is an honest family living between them, and there is only one person in the family, named Han Gui.

Han Gui was a kind-hearted man. When he first arrived in the village, he was a quiet and reserved person. The villagers said he was "hard to talk back to," and that he was as stubborn as a mule.

Hearing that Magistrate Chen was going to build a school in the village, the two families next door, Cui Dazui and Li Duoji, asked him to work as a carpenter, chopping wood to earn quick money.

Han Gui did not refuse and went with him.

However, halfway through the work that day, a light drizzle suddenly started to fall from the sky, and it seemed to be getting heavier.

Cui Dazui and Li Duo, both cunning and shrewd, were quite different. One said he had just caught a cold the day before and couldn't withstand the wind and rain; the other said there were mushrooms in the mountains. He had known a barbarian from Yunnan years ago who taught him how to pick mushrooms. He said the mushrooms were so fresh they could make your tongue fall off. He said he would share the mushrooms with Han Gui so he could take them back and enjoy them.

The two had their own reasons. Han Gui smiled honestly, seemingly believing it to be true, and then moved the timber alone in the rain.

Deep in the mountains and dense in the forest, Cui Dazui and Li Duoji found an old tree that was so thick that it would take three people to hug it. The old tree was hollow inside, which was just right for them to rest and take shelter from the rain.

During this time, Cui Dazui asked Li Duoji, "Did you really learn how to pick mushrooms from people in southern Yunnan? I've heard that if you don't eat them properly, they can kill you!"

Li Duoji chuckled and said, "I've never learned that, but when I was working in Tianjin, I did eat a whole mushroom feast made by people from Yunnan. The taste was beyond words!"

Cui Dazui laughed and scolded, "Then why did you say you were going to pick mushrooms for Han Lengzi?"

"Hey! Do you even know anything? That Han Lengzi is a complete idiot. If I say I didn't encounter any, or that I did encounter some wild wolves or bears and accidentally lost all the mushrooms I picked, he'll still ask me if I'm okay. We two brothers should just rest and not worry! Let that idiot do the work, we'll get the same pay anyway."

Is this even human language?!
Upon hearing this, Cui Dazui chuckled, and the two rested for a good half day.

When the rain stopped in the afternoon, the two yawned, stretched, and walked back.

Perhaps it was the rain, or perhaps the forest was just damp, but as Cui Dazui was using a thin stick to beat the grass and drive away the dew, he suddenly noticed patches of fungi growing on the rotten soil and wood in the deep grass.

The mushrooms were fresh and glistening with dew, just like colorful, newly opened umbrellas.

"Duoji! Look at this!"

Li Duoji looked in the direction of the sound and his eyes lit up immediately.

This thing is exactly the same as the mushrooms he ate in Tianjin two years ago!
"Hey, you know we're lucky to have such a good meal! That Han Lengzi was always busy working, how could he have had this chance?"

However, Li Duoji knew perfectly well that mushrooms were always unpredictable; what looked the same to you might not taste the same to you.

Li Duoji was quick-witted. He immediately said, "If we eat it at home, wouldn't it be a waste if we got poisoned? Why don't we let Han Gui try it first? If he's fine, then we can eat it."

Cui Dazui immediately clapped his hands and said, "You're so clever, otherwise everyone would call you 'Smart Bean'!"

The two of them weren't enthusiastic about working; they slacked off when picking mushrooms, but they were more diligent than anyone else in satisfying their appetites.

Cui Dazui wrapped a whole bag of mushrooms in his blue cloth jacket, while Li Duoji tied a knot in the long sleeves and collar of his jacket to use as a pocket.

Once back outside the woods, Cui Dazui pretended to be generous and stuffed a small bag of mushrooms into Han Gui's hands, saying, "Brother Han, these things are precious! Take them back and try them; this is a token of our good neighborly friendship!"

Li Duoji chimed in, and the two of them sang in unison, their performance even more convincing than the real thing.

Han Gui couldn't refuse, so he smiled honestly as usual, thanked him, and accepted the gift.

When the group returned to the school, Han Gui was still carrying the timber.

Li Duoji and Cui Dazui, carrying their respective packages and the freshly picked mushrooms, went to collect their wages for the day.

Midway through, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Han Gui, while carrying timber, supported his waist with his hand, causing the mushroom bag hanging from his waist to fall to the ground.

The bag landed on the ground. Han Gui shrugged, straightened his back immediately, and walked with a lighter step than when strangers were around. No one knew that shortly after Han Gui left, the bag was picked up by a pretty young woman.

When Xu Qing saw this, he even took out the cloth bag from the landscape painting to compare it, and it really was the bag that Boss Liu had picked up.

But the matter didn't end there. Li Duoji, greedy and impatient, brought Cui Dazui to Han Gui's door before dawn the next day, grinning and asking, "Brother Han, are the mushrooms delicious? Are they fresh to the bone?"

Han Gui was silent for a moment, then said in a deep voice, "Delicious, even better than big fish and meat."

Upon hearing this, the two neighbors on either side felt relieved and immediately went home, where their families prepared the mushrooms, and they all enjoyed a hearty meal together.

However, within an hour, both families were wracked with abdominal pain, some of them were still muttering loudly, shouting "Don't steal my money!" and acting as if they were fighting.

Only one elderly member of the Li family, who remained lucid throughout, was so anxious that he kept slapping his thigh, but there was nothing he could do.

When the villagers heard the commotion and rushed over to check, all five members of the Cui family and seven members of the Li family were already lying on the ground, poisoned and beyond saving!
But only Li Duoji's father, Old Man Li, is still alive and well.

Everyone's attention immediately turned to Old Man Li.

The villagers had heard about the Li family's affairs. The old man, Li, who was over sixty years old, was disliked by his unfilial son, who thought he was old and useless. He wouldn't even share a bowl of hot soup with him, but would only give him leftovers like feeding a dog.

It's hard for people not to suspect that this was caused by Old Man Li deliberately poisoning the plants.

However, when confronted with the questioning, Old Man Li beat his chest and cried out with snot and tears streaming down his face, "No matter how unfilial my son is, he is still my son. How could I harm him? It was that Han Gui! That murderer Han Gui knew that the mushrooms were poisonous, but he said they weren't, which is why he killed seven of my children and grandchildren. This is an outrage against heaven!"

After the commotion, the group went to Han Gui's house and took Han Gui and Old Man Li to the yamen to ask the county magistrate to make a judgment.

In the courtroom, Han Gui rushed forward and knelt down without saying a word, saying, "Your Honor, I deserve to die! It was I who forgot the mushrooms given to me by Cui and Li. I couldn't bear it and was afraid of damaging the friendship between neighbors, so I made up a story because I was clumsy with words, saying that eating the mushrooms had caused the deaths of two families!"

Chen Guangrui was a shrewd man. As soon as Han Gui opened his mouth, he caught the information in it. So he asked Han Gui how he had made up such a stupid story and how he got the mushrooms.

After questioning Han Gui, Chen Guangrui verified the information with Old Man Li and the villagers. Finally, Zhao Zhonghe, the head constable of the yamen, rushed to the school and found several craftsmen who had seen Cui and Li returning from picking mushrooms.

After investigating the matter thoroughly and clarifying the facts, Chen Guangrui slammed his gavel in court and declared: "Although Han Gui lied, he had no intention of killing; Cui Dazui and Li Duoji were scheming on their own and brought this upon themselves, and it has nothing to do with Han Gui!"

With just a few words, Chen Guangrui concluded that Han Gui was innocent.

Han Gui remained standing to the side, his face expressionless, truly living up to the villagers' description of him as a quiet, good-natured man.

When Old Man Li heard that Chen Guangrui had acquitted Han Gui, he was furious!

He was hoping that a righteous official would redress his grievances, but in the end, he was sentenced to "those who do many unrighteous deeds will surely perish."

Old Man Li was taken home by his fellow villagers that day, who told him to prepare a coffin and funeral arrangements. But when he saw that there was no one at home, he couldn't bear it. Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, he found a rope and hung himself from a beam. By the time people found him, he was already dead.

The strange thing about this world is that 'human calculations are no match for divine calculations'.

Cui and Li were too clever for their own good. In the end, the honest man lived, while the cunning man lost his life. Old Man Li also lost his life. It really seems like a muddled case, all caused by inner demons!
But did Han Gui really not know that the mushroom was poisonous?

Or rather, are honest people really as honest as they appear to others?
Xu Qing shook his head as he recalled the honest carpenter he had brushed past on his way to school that day.

As the saying goes, good and evil are determined by one's own actions, and fortune and misfortune are brought about by one's own actions. Cui and Li are guilty of reaping what they sowed. Regardless of whether Han Gui acted intentionally or unintentionally, Xu Qing will not investigate.

As for what kind of person Han Gui really was, it probably had nothing to do with him, the funeral director.

After the rituals for the thirteen corpses were completed, Xu Qing counted the rewards, which were mostly fungi such as Dream Mushroom, Hitting Mushroom, Weeping Mushroom, Immortal Mushroom, and Belly-Holding Mushroom.

The Dream-Remembering Mushroom can cause men to have nocturnal emissions and women to experience orgasms; the Attacking Mushroom can cause people to lose their minds, mistakenly believing that everyone around them is an enemy, and thus fight wildly; the Weeping Mushroom can make people cry uncontrollably; the Immortal Mushroom can make people become immortals in their dreams; and the Laughing Mushroom can make people laugh uncontrollably.
Xu Qing held a bunch of mushrooms of different colors and remained silent for a long time.

What kind of strange and unusual bacteria are these?

As Xu Qing played with the various mushrooms, she suddenly remembered her flower-cultivating and flower-inducing techniques, wondering if these mushrooms could be mass-produced.
After counting the rewards, Xu Qing looked at the corpses again and found that there was no trace of mushroom toxin left.

Inside the Han family courtyard in Baijia Village.

Han Gui packed his bags, picked up the walking stick he used to carry timber, and pulled hard, revealing a cold blade!

After closing the wooden staff with the hidden knife in his hand, Han Gui looked up at the thatched hut and mud house in front of him, then left the house without looking back, showing no regret.

Upon arriving at the village entrance, Han Gui was blocked by a flamboyant swordsman wearing a silver crown, a plain white cloak, an indigo cloud-patterned brocade robe, and a sword slung across his waist.

"Han Renshan, the Holy Leader of the Heavenly Heart Sect, once cleverly used methods to wipe out the entire family of Cao Xiuying, the Female Salt King, and seized control of the six salt gangs in Tianjin. He dominated Tianjin and was invincible."

The swordsman, riding a tall horse, deliberately lowered his body and looked down at Han Renshan, saying, "How did a grandmaster, a hero-like figure, become a farmer, stuck in such a poor place?"

Han Renshan looked up at the middle-aged swordsman in front of him and said expressionlessly, "Ji Lingzhou, Tianjin is not as simple as you think. How glorious was my Tianxin Sect in the past? Yet three of our five protectors have been lost, and we still do not know who our adversary is."

"As far as I know, the incense master of your Cangyi Group in Tianjin and the branch leader of Linjiang County have been missing for a long time, and those who have fallen into Zuo Zixiong's hands are just insignificant pawns." Han Gui, who always had a simple and honest expression, finally laughed out loud.

"Do you think I, Ji Lingzhou, am easily intimidated?" The middle-aged man narrowed his eyes and suddenly asked, "Lord Tianxin, you're hiding outside Linjiang County, dressed like this. Are you perhaps afraid of that so-called enemy and dare not easily enter the city?"

"."

“You’re right, I am indeed afraid!” Han Renshan was silent for a moment, not caring about the embarrassment: “Someone who doesn’t even know whether he’s male or female, or his name, knows everything about us. Doesn’t Marshal Ji fear?”

Han Renshan grinned and said, "If I'm not mistaken, Marshal Ji came to see me personally because of this matter, right?"

Ji Lingzhou was silent for a moment, then took a breath and said, "Brother Han, now that we face a formidable enemy, and we share a common foe, why don't we join forces and fight together?"

Han Renshan did not respond directly. He suddenly said, "It is said that there was once a celestial being in Tianjin who rode a black tiger and held a golden dragon ruyi. He passed away in the Yinhe Ancient Road. Although this may not be true, it is certain that there was indeed a person from the sect, and at least a celestial being, who ascended to heaven in the Yinhe."

“If Brother Ji is willing to help me find the place where that person passed away, I will agree to cooperate with you.”

When gods die, their paths return to nothingness. Whether there are still gods in this world is another matter, but the place where celestial beings ascend to immortality must surely contain great treasures.

Ji Lingzhou's eyes flickered. This wasn't the first time he'd heard this news, but he'd always treated it as a joke. However, anything that Han Renshan cared about must not be a joke.

(End of this chapter)