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

Chapter 56 Fake Corpse
On the sixth day of March, there are still five days before the provincial examination for admission to the imperial court.

Xu Qing turned a deaf ear to what was happening outside the window, waving his shovel and hoe, digging holes in the yard.

If zombies simply rely on devouring the moonlight and yin energy to practice, their transformation speed will be extremely slow. Therefore, zombies often eat raw meat and drink blood, kill living creatures, and rely on seizing the vitality of living people to improve their cultivation.

Xu Qing was not very interested in finding human blood for food because it was too easy to cause trouble and it was also unethical.

After all, who can guarantee that when foraging, you won’t encounter a master who can subdue demons and defend the way of justice?
After much thought, the safest way is to follow the vegetarian methods in the Corpse-Nourishing Sutra and find various materials to speed up the progress of cultivation.

This is no different from practitioners collecting precious materials and refining elixirs to improve their cultivation.

Among the key Yin objects needed to train the Silver-Armored Zombie, Xu Qing has already found the highest quality Yin Ling Jade, as well as the Old Cat Evil concocted using a special method. This thing was extracted from a cat-faced zombie. The only Yin object missing now is the three feet of ghost-faced soil from the grave.

The so-called ghost face soil is that if you dig three feet below the grave, there will be a layer of soil that looks like a ghost face. That layer of soil is the ghost face soil you need.

This type of evil object is often born in places with strong evil energy, and the most common places are mass graves and ancient tombs in cemeteries.

Xu Qing didn't want to go to that kind of place. If he met a zombie of the same kind, it would be fine. He might even chat with them in zombie language.

But if you encounter other underworld things, it won’t be so fun.

A gentleman does not stand on a dangerous wall. Xu Qing believes that his strength is not yet enough to run rampant in the Novice Village.

Based on the principle of do it yourself and have enough food and clothing, since there is no ghost-faced soil, then we will cultivate it ourselves!

Although there were no graves in Xu Qing's house, underneath the flat ground were corpses of people from all walks of life, lying quietly there, absorbing the evil spirits of the house.

Xu Qing examined them one by one, and when he found a corpse without the ghost-faced soil, he buried it again.

When it was bright, Xu Qing, who had plowed almost all the land in the yard, finally stopped.

At this time, there was already one and a half bags of ghost face soil in the ash bag beside him.

Xu Qing put away his farm tools and looked at the newly transformed land, feeling extremely fulfilled.

A life like this, collecting corpses, planting corpses, and cultivating the fields, is the life he longs for.

In the next few days, in addition to running the shop and other business at the coroner's shop during the day, Xu Qing would return to the house at night to "make a nest" for himself and prepare all matters related to the evolution of the silver-armored zombie.

Whether it's bears, wolves, dogs, cats, mice, or rabbits, when they're about to give birth, they all go out to forage for various types of hay and down and bring them back to their dens. Some animals, like rabbits, will even bite off clumps of their own fur to pad the nests of their soon-to-be-born cubs for warmth.

Xu Qing would not be like these wild animals, plucking the hair from corpses to make a nest for himself, as he does not give birth to cubs.

The reason why he had to make these preparations was because the last time he evolved into an iron-armored corpse, he spent seven days and nights in the coffin before coming out.

Now we have to cultivate the Silver Armored Corpse. Who knows how many days it will take to successfully transform into a cocoon?
Therefore, preparing a nest in advance and making defensive measures before going into seclusion became his biggest concern at the moment.

The number of traps in the Feng Shui house was doubled. Under the bed in the bedroom, Xu Qing dug a coffin pit, which was where he practiced in seclusion.

There was also a simple puppet he made on the bed as a decoy.

The only thing missing now is timing.

During the days that Xu Qing was in Linhe, he was no longer the wild zombie who was unfamiliar with the place. If he disappeared for no reason, not only the neighbors in the funeral street, but even Wang Lingyuan, who was looking for a job in the government office, would be looking for him like crazy.

Old Wang is still waiting for his cheap junior brother to take care of him in his old age and see him to the end of his life. To Wang Lingyuan, even if the current emperor gets Alzheimer's one day, gets lost, and can't find the way back to the palace, it is not as serious as a hair of his junior brother getting lost!

"It's really troublesome. It seems that I can only wait until the provincial examination is over. Then I can make up an excuse to go out for study, and then secretly come back to retreat and break through." After making up his mind, Xu Qing resumed his usual routine. After locking the gate of the house, he returned to the shop to continue taking care of the funeral business.

Three days before the provincial examination, the government office, which had stopped supplying funds for half a month, finally resumed business with the coroner's shop.

This time, two ownerless male corpses were delivered.

However, what surprised Xu Qing was that among those who came to deliver the corpse was Senior Brother Wang.

Avoiding the yamen runners, Wang Lingyuan dragged Xu Qing to the counter and said in a low voice, "Junior brother, Master Tang's price for these two bodies is one hundred taels of silver."

"One hundred taels? Why doesn't he just rob it?"

Wang Lingyuan hissed, "Don't worry, Junior Brother. I'm not asking you for money, but I'm offering you the silver. But only if you can handle these two bodies. If not, I'll take them away and let you find someone else."

Xu Qing heard the hidden meaning and frowned, "Is there something wrong with these two bodies?"

Wang Lingyuan nodded and explained, "Two months ago, the government took in a corpse. The painter was a painter. While the coroner was watching over the body, he discovered that the painter would resurrect at night, looking for brushes and ink to paint. Cases like this would usually be referred to the Demon Hunting Division, but the painter had a reputation during his lifetime, and his paintings fetched high prices."

"Could it be that the master wanted to profit from the dead, so instead of reporting the matter to the Demon Hunting Bureau, he used this corpse to paint for him and profit?"

Xu Qing immediately had a guess when he heard this.

"That's what happened." Wang Lingyuan sighed. "Master Tang is just too greedy. In order to make money by painting the corpse, he secretly colluded with the coroner and kept the painter in the morgue."

"A free painter, without even having to pay for food, isn't that a good thing for the master? Why should I spend money to deal with this corpse?"

"That's not a good thing! If there really was such a good deal, I wouldn't have come to Linhe!" Wang Lingyuan said helplessly, "On the third day after Master Tang left the painter, the coroner died in the morgue. Can you guess how he died?"

Xu Qing's eyes were dim. His senior brother was good in every way except that he couldn't change his bad habit of keeping people in suspense.

I don’t know if it’s because I go to teahouses too often and get led astray by those storytellers.

"How could I possibly guess that? Just continue, Senior Brother."

Wang Lingyuan stroked his beard and smiled when he heard this. In the past, his junior brother could guess everything, but now he has turned the tables.

"The coroner was skinned alive, and there was a picture of a horse painted on his skin!"

"If this incident hadn't happened, I, your senior brother, wouldn't have been recruited to be a coroner."

Xu Qing looked at the two bodies tied up like dumplings on the table, pointed at the other one, and asked, "What about this one? What's going on with this one?"

"I picked this up for free, and it's just for my junior brother."

Xu Qing smiled brightly upon hearing this. It is said that it is easier to get things done when one has connections in the government office, and now he is enjoying this convenience!
But before he could be happy for long, he heard Wang Lingyuan continue:

"He was a porter carrying heavy bags. He was hit on the back of the head by a heavy object while carrying the goods and died. No one knows where he came from. Perhaps he was one of the refugees who had recently flooded into the neighborhood.

This guy doesn't have any major problems, except that he occasionally gets up at night and carries bodies out of the morgue."

"Fortunately, I followed Master Liu for a while and have more experience. Otherwise, I would be frightened to death!"

After listening to Wang Lingyuan's words, Xu Qing did not find it difficult. Corpse drivers often encountered such cases of corpses resurrecting from the dead, and this kind of corpse was also the easiest material to be refined into zombies.

(End of this chapter)