In Xu Qing's hand, he was also holding a memorial tablet with Hu Baosong's name inscribed on it.
"Senior Sister, may you find peace in your grief."
Seeing Yizhen remain silent, Xu Qing had no choice but to place the tablet before the altar and light a stick of incense.
"Senior Sister, Senior Hu entrusted his final wishes to me long ago. I might as well be half a student of his. Two days ago, the elderly master felt his time was up. Perhaps not wanting to see you sad, he instructed me to go to the Yin River to send him off at his burial..."
"In the future, if Senior Sister encounters any exceptionally difficult matters, you can come to me. As long as it's within my ability, I will surely assist—a promise Senior Hu made before his passing..."
Xu Qing mumbled some private words, and Yizhen numbly echoed them.
Once Xu Qing left the coffin shop and only Yizhen remained, the belated sorrow finally welled up in her heart.
...
There is a time for gathering and parting, like a fleeting dream.
In the following two days, Yizhen went to visit Xu Qing once again.
Under a peach tree that had lived for nearly five hundred years, Yizhen brought out a jar of wine and said, "I haven't had the chance to thank Junior Brother these past few days. This is the aged brew my master buried for himself. Unfortunately, he never got to taste a sip."
"Senior Sister, there's no need for such formality. Since this wine was left by your master, it should be well preserved. Even if you wish to drink it, you should choose an appropriate time, perhaps on a festive occasion..."
"A festive occasion?" Yizhen suddenly recalled something Hu Baosong mentioned in his will...
Aside from the wishes in Hu Baosong's will, it is said that in the Zhao residence, whenever a daughter is born, the parents bury a jar of daughter wine to use when marrying her off.
Her master, Zichen, happened to be from the Zhao residence.
Yizhen suddenly realized, and then awkwardly put away the jar of wine on the table.
If not for Xu Qing's reminder, she wouldn't have remembered this.
Thinking back now, when her master buried this jar of wine, there must have been other reasons.
Xu Qing was unaware of Yizhen's thoughts. He refused purely because before a zombie evolves into a Hidden Corpse, it shouldn't eat or drink carelessly. Even if forced to enjoy, the taste wouldn't be much to savor.
One must know that tasteless like wax is the norm for ordinary zombies.
Zombies are numb. Although Xu Qing possessed nearly five hundred years of cultivation, until now, his seven senses were far from those of others at the same cultivation level.
Hu Baosong once told him that all cultivators have the opportunity to activate the Nine General Knowledge, namely 'Eye, Ear, Mouth, Nose, Tongue, Body, Mind, End, Store.'
Whenever a person or demon opens a sense, they gain many mysterious abilities.
However, human lives are short. Many people spend their whole lives opening only one or two senses to aid their cultivation.
Xu Qing has the Heavenly Eye Yin Pupil and doesn't need to open the Eye Sense. As for the other senses...
Before breaking through to a Golden Armored Corpse, and avoiding the lightning calamity to become a Hidden Corpse, ordinary zombies originally couldn't rely on common methods to open senses. But once they become a Hidden Corpse, over long years of cleansing and polishing, they can gradually open the Nine General Knowledge.
In the Nine General Knowledge, the nose is the Multisensory Sense, and the tongue is the Five Taste Sense. Xu Qing thought to himself that if he truly wanted to savor fine wine and delicacies, he would have to wait until after becoming a Hidden Corpse to open the Multisensory Sense and Five Taste Sense.
Otherwise, it would be like a cow chewing on peonies, a sheer waste of things.
"Senior Sister might as well bury this wine under the peach tree. When the time is right, when the peach blossoms bloom, it won't be too late to dig it up and enjoy."
Peach blossoms in bloom...
Yizhen was momentarily lost in thought, then nodded in agreement.
"I am best at digging, so let me take on this task for Senior Sister!"
Xu Qing reached behind his back, and somehow pulled out a shovel.
With just a few strokes, he dug a pit two feet deep, and Yizhen carefully placed the wine jar inside with both hands.
"This is the ancestral wine from Senior Sister, so let it be sealed by Senior Sister."
Handing the shovel to Yizhen, Xu Qing suddenly remembered something.
If he wasn't mistaken, two hundred years ago, in a dream, Hu Baosong met a powder-clad woman who enlightened him, and he vowed to quit drinking, burying his personal wine flask under the peach tree.
Rubbing his chin, Xu Qing pondered that once he opened the Five Taste Sense one day to savor grain and wine, he would dig up that flask and indulge heartily.
...
At the beginning of September, the heavens were like looms and the clouds like fabric, with the autumn rain weaving obliquely like dense stitches.
Today is the day of the autumn execution. Unknown since which dynasty, for all judicial executions that required public beheadings, except for those extremely heinous crimes executed immediately, the remaining death row prisoners are executed in the autumn and winter seasons.
The Office of Astronomy also provides an explanation, saying that during the autumn and winter seasons, gods descend, and after execution, celestial beings sense and collect these grudging ghosts and souls into the Netherworld for re-trial.
This is called the dual judgment of yin and yang.
Besides this mystical explanation, another one is that late autumn is a time of agricultural leisure, allowing people more time to gather at the bustling market to watch the executions, giving the Imperial Court an opportunity to intimidate those with unlawful intentions.
Additionally, the weather in September gradually cools, which helps preserve the bodies. If it were in the heat of summer, the corpses might rot and smell not long after execution.
In any case, the day of autumn execution is not considered fortunate; on this day, there are ignorant citizens who want to dip their bread in blood, bold ones who dare to intervene in the execution, and many spectators who enjoy watching the chaos...
However, comparatively, more people deliberately avoid the bustling market and do not join the excitement at the autumn execution site.
Xu Qing belongs to another 'group' entirely independent of everyone else. For him, the day of the autumn execution is undoubtedly the most prosperous time of the year for his business.
No one is probably happier on this day than him!
On this day, Xu Qing got up early and changed into a white and gray robe, which he only wears when performing funeral rituals. In his hand, he held a banner that read "Autumn Execution Special Offer, Half Price for Funeral and Burial Services."
Some of those executed have family members who arrange for the bodies to be collected, and as the leading figure in the funeral industry in Linhe, Xu Qing must seize this rare opportunity to develop all potential customers.
As for executions after autumn, autumn executions last at least two months, and if there are many death row prisoners, executions continue until the twelfth lunar month, which is not uncommon.
Xu Qing didn't even bother to eat; he stuffed a couple of candles in his pocket, took a few bites of food, and cheerfully headed to the Vegetable Market.
On the first day of execution, the most heads are taken. At dawn, Xu Qing arrived early at the Vegetable Market, and set up his business banner beside the execution ground.
A constable preparing the execution ground was setting up the execution stand.
The lead constable was the nephew of Zhao Zhonghe. Seeing Xu Qing planting the banner, he went over to ask.
"Shopkeeper Xu, what are you doing here?"
Xu Qing touched his advertisement banner, smiling as he said, "Today, isn't it the autumn execution? I'm thinking, as a member of Linhe, I'm here to help collect the bodies, clean them up, and arrange burials. You just carry on with your work and don't mind me..."
In the past, Zhao Yuan would surely think this person had some serious issues. Who brings business to the execution ground? Isn't that nonsense!
But as it stood, it wasn't Xu Qing's first time doing this. Even when there were no autumn executions, he often went out to attract business, and now half of the notices on the bulletin board at the city gate are for funerals.
The people at the Government Office were already used to it. In addition, having someone come to the execution ground to attract business wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
"Can others see your banner if you place it here?"
Zhao Yuan looked at the banner that was about a person's height, gesturing with his hand, and found it not much taller than himself.
"I was just afraid of causing too much commotion and didn't dare make it too high, thinking it might affect the Government Office's autumn execution."
Zhao Yuan replied straightforwardly, "Hah! What's the big deal? We are all part of the Government Office. Even if it's higher, are my brothers and I going to tear it down?"
"Great, with you saying that, I'm relieved!"
At this point, Zhao Yuan didn't fully grasp the seriousness of the matter. He chuckled and turned back to his tasks at the execution ground.
When everything was finally settled, Zhao Yuan, leading his brothers, planned to have a meal, and he spotted Xu Qing returning from the Funeral Shop with a roll of red cloth and two bamboo poles.
"What's Brother Xu up to?"
"Oh, I thought the banner was too short, so I looked for bamboo poles to see if I could raise it a bit higher."
Glancing at the pole about fifteen feet high, Zhao Yuan felt inexplicably uneasy.
But recalling how he had just promised Xu, Zhao Yuan suppressed his jitters.
"All right, Shopkeeper Xu, you go ahead. My brothers and I are off to eat, or we'll lose our appetite when it's time for the execution."
As the group of Government Officials left, Xu Qing unfurled the red cloth banner, attaching each end to the bamboo poles, tightening them with rope, and then firmly planted the poles in front of the execution ground.
The chilling autumn wind blew, making the words on the red cloth banner— "Funeral Shop Autumn Promotion: Heartfelt Gratitude"—particularly eye-catching.