Folklore simulation, starting with the mortician

"The master craftsman is dead?!"

Li Feng was somewhat taken aback. He thought that he had no grudge against the craftsman and had no intention of harming him.

Not to mention that he had only met that craftsman once yesterday, so how could he have died?

Mr. Lin looked even more surprised, and he kept glancing at Li Feng with a furtive look in his eyes.

"You did it, so you did it!"

The monkey jumped around, pointing at Li Feng and shouting loudly.

Upon hearing this, both Lu Junyi and Mr. Lin blushed. Mr. Lin stepped forward, grabbed the monkey by the throat, and stuffed two beans into its throat.

After swallowing it, the monkey immediately stopped making a racket, pointed at its own buttocks and groaned in pain, then ran towards the backyard.

"What happened?"

Li Feng frowned and looked at Yang Liuzi.

Yang Liuzi shook his head. "I don't know the details of this matter. I only heard the craftsman's wife say that last night the craftsman got up for some reason, shouting that he wanted to change his luck. Then he screamed, and when they went to check, he was already gone."

As he spoke, Yang Liuzi pointed to the mule cart behind them, which had a straw mat on it, covered with a lid, and a mother and daughter riding with it, crying their eyes out.

"I was worried the craftsman might have some trouble, so I thought I'd bring him over to have the master craftsman take a look. At least I could get him a proper service. I'll pay for it!"

As Yang Liuzi spoke, he reached for his money.

Li Feng pushed the money away. Yang Liuzi had already done him a great favor, and no matter how thick-skinned he was, he couldn't possibly accept the money.

I didn't expect Yang Liuzi to be such a kind-hearted person, that he would even think about arranging the funeral for the craftsman.

Li Feng took on this job, but he was also very anxious and didn't know what the situation was all about.

How could someone who was perfectly healthy just suddenly be gone?

After exchanging pleasantries, Yang Liuzi didn't linger at the temple and hurriedly returned to the county.

As the sun set, Li Feng finished his meal and went back to Lu Junyi's room. He saw that Lu Junyi was alone and didn't see the monkey. He then realized that the monkey was still squatting in the latrine.

After chatting with Lu Junyi for a while, Li Feng went back into the house. Touching the few ingots in his hand, he couldn't help but shake his head. How come Mr. Lin, his sworn brother, is so poor and doesn't even have many ingots?

When they met earlier, Li Feng hadn't received many ingots, which is why he came to Lu Junyi's house. He didn't expect to have such an unexpected gain.

After Li Feng left, Lu Junyi suddenly came to his senses. He hurriedly rummaged in his pocket and looked inside. His face instantly turned pale, and he muttered to himself, "Good heavens, what kind of sect does this master chef belong to? How come he's even more skilled than the Ghost-brand Buddha's Hand? Our shabu-shabu is ruined!"

Back inside, Li Feng filled the furnace with the remaining ingots, lit a fire, and began carefully polishing the holes, waiting to mend them.

After about half a day, seeing that it was getting late outside, Li Feng went out by himself. Seeing that Yu Ya was still busy, he casually told her to rest early.

Then they walked towards the main hall and offered three incense sticks to the local earth god. The incense burned beautifully, and there were no mishaps.

Li Feng pulled up his sleeves, set up the shelf, and pushed open the west wing. He lit three incense sticks and offered them to the craftsman, whom he had met once before.

After the incense was lit, Li Feng picked up his needle and thread and quickly sewed the garment for the craftsman. Then he turned and went back to his room.

Pushing open the curtains, one is immediately greeted by a biography of this craftsman.

You grew up working as a carpenter with your father. He was an honest man who only knew how to do his work diligently. He never thought about getting rich or changing his luck. He lived an honest life, without much success but also without making any major mistakes.

[Your father, such an honest man, is utterly despised by your mother. She always feels he's a burden, preventing her from living a life of luxury. She frequently beats and scolds him, yet never mentions breaking up the marriage. As time goes on, you also come to think that your father is truly useless.]

[Then you see your mother following a wealthy widower from the county, thinking she can live with him until he dies so she can inherit his fortune. Unexpectedly, the affair is exposed early on; your father catches them in the act, and in the ensuing struggle, the widower falls and dies on the spot.]

When your mother arrived at the county magistrate's office, she tearfully recounted your father's brutal murders, but made no mention of her own sordid deeds. The magistrate, a muddle-headed man, simply imprisoned your father. Your honest and upright father, unable to bear such humiliation, lost all hope and took his own life.

When you returned home, your mother had already taken all the valuables. You didn't seem to mind too much, just lamenting your bad luck, and took up your father's carpentry skills, living a frugal life.

Later, you learned that your mother had been brought to your door by the widower's old acquaintances, and had been forced to drink a pig cage and drowned in the river. This had nothing to do with you. Later, you saved up some money, got married, and had a healthy son. But this wasn't the life you wanted. You constantly thought about your father's past and vowed to live a decent life.

But in this world, where can the poor get ahead? The main roads are all blocked. So you think about using unconventional methods to change your luck. You've heard that there's a skilled craftsman in a certain business who can find a way to change your fate, which would be excellent.

One day, you were doing carpentry work for a farmer in the county when you encountered an old carpenter driving a mule cart. When the old carpenter's mule reached you, it stopped and refused to move. The old carpenter stopped and asked if you needed any help.

[You later learned that he was a mortician from the village temple of the previous Da Miao, nicknamed "the one who doesn't accept ghosts." He was quite famous for sewing corpses. You found it intriguing and told him your thoughts. The old master smiled and told you to come back to see him in ten years, where you would have a chance to change your fate.]

[You waited ten long years only to learn that the old master had died on the path of sewing corpses. You thought it was a tragedy, but unexpectedly, Yang Liuzi, a constable from the county, recruited people to repair the temple. You volunteered and went without pay. When you arrived, you saw that the boat-propulsion beam was not a boat-propulsion beam at all, but a transport beam.]

[So you had an idea, and you placed your birth date and time under that luck-suppressing beam, thinking that it would change your luck. You went to the county to gamble, but you lost most of your money, and even your entire savings. In your despair, you got drunk and actually got...]