The carriage ambled along the official road. Neglected for years, the thoroughfare was full of potholes, yet the old horse trotted across the pitted surface as though walking on level ground; the two inside felt not the slightest bump.
"We've reached Huangzhou," Lu Yang said, unrolling a map. A dot of light on the map represented them—a dharma treasure that could roughly show their current location, an essential item for travel.
"It's getting late. Let's find a place nearby to rest," Meng Jingzhou suggested. Seeing dusk falling and knowing they had reached Huangzhou, there was no need to rush their journey.
"Hey, look! There's an inn over there. We can stay for the night!" Meng Jingzhou spotted an establishment not far ahead. Its signboard was teetering precariously, the name barely legible, and the overall state of the inn looked questionable.
Lu Yang eyed the building suspiciously. It gave off an eerie chill, looking as though any random gust of wind might blow it right over.
"Let's just make do. It's better than spending the night in the carriage," Lu Yang consoled himself.
The two young men and their horse arrived in front of the inn. The front doors stood wide open, but the interior was pitch-black and deserted, looking as if it had been abandoned for a long time.
The two finally made out the name on the board—Qingming Inn.
"That's not a very auspicious name. Has this place gone out of business, or is it open?" Meng Jingzhou muttered before striding inside and shouting, "Anyone here? We'd like a room!"
There was no reply.
Meng Jingzhou called out once more, "Is anyone here? We'd like a room!"
Suddenly, a dull thud echoed from behind the counter, like a corpse dropping to the floor.
"Who's making such a racket? Don't you even know the rules for staying at an inn?" A man wearing a white paper hat grumbled as he crawled out from behind the counter, glaring at Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou with an unfriendly scowl.
"We want rooms—give us your two best!" Meng Jingzhou had always stayed only in the finest accommodations.
"You two... want to stay here?" The man in the white paper hat stared at them in surprise. He craned his neck to peer behind them, but found no one else following.
"Shoo, shoo! Quit causing trouble! This isn't a place for you. Go find somewhere else to stay." The man in the white paper hat impatiently waved them away.
Meng Jingzhou was baffled. In all the times he had stayed at inns, this was the first time he had ever been turned away.
"Is your inn full?"
"Half the rooms are empty."
"Then why won't you let us stay?"
Seeing that the two genuinely did not know the rules, the man in the white paper hat was about to explain when noise came from upstairs.
*Thud... thud... thud...*
Rhythmic, synchronized footsteps echoed from the upper floor—so unnervingly uniform that it set one's heart on edge.
A cultivator clad in Daoist robes descended from the second floor. Following behind him was a procession of figures draped in black cloth, completely silent, looking exceptionally horrifying in the dark of night.
There were so many people wrapped in black cloth that Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou wondered whether the second floor even had enough rooms to house them all, especially when the man in the white paper hat had just claimed half the rooms were vacant.
Could a dozen people be cramming into a single room?
How could they even sleep like that? Were they propped up against the wall sleeping on their feet?
"Checking out, brother. This is the worst Qingming Inn I've ever stayed at." The Daoist-robed cultivator tossed a string of copper coins to the man in the white paper hat. The design of the coins was something the two young men had never seen before; faint ripples of dharmic power lingered on them, suggesting some specialized purpose.
The man in the white paper hat chuckled and didn't bother to argue—money in hand was all that mattered.
Lu Yang was puzzled. Night had just fallen, so why check out now?
Once Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou got a clear look at the figures wrapped in black cloth, both were startled.
Their eyes were vacant and lifeless. Some had their mouths and noses stuffed with mud and grass; some were hideously disfigured, as though crushed by something; others looked decrepit and emaciated, reduced to mere skin and bones.
"Drowned, crushed to death, died of old age... These are all corpses!"
"The corpse-driving art?!"
No wonder they checked out the moment night arrived. Resting by day and driving corpses by night—that was exactly what the books described.
Neither of them had expected that right after entering Huangzhou, they would run into the famed corpse-driving art.
Stashing the copper coins, the man in the white paper hat shot them a sideways glance. "This place is a corpse inn, a resting stop for corpse drivers. The rooms are all for the dead. If you don't mind the taboo, you're welcome to stay."
The corners of their eyes twitched. Staying in rooms meant for dead bodies was a bit too much to swallow.
"That man knew the corpse-driving art. Was he from the Corpse Driving Sect?" Lu Yang asked. If he was from the Corpse Driving Sect, they could take the opportunity to chat with him.
The man in the white paper hat shook his head. "You two must be from out of province. I was wondering why any living person would recognize the Qingming Inn name in Huangzhou and come here looking for a room."
"We're from Yunzhou."
The man in the white paper hat had a sudden realization. "A major province of the Central Plains, no wonder. I hear that one of the Five Great Immortal Sects, the Dao Seeking Sect, is located there, making all of Yunzhou extraordinarily prosperous, with convenient transport, a thriving economy, and experts as numerous as the clouds."
He corrected their misconception. "The Corpse Driving Sect isn't the only one that knows corpse driving. Plenty of rogue cultivators among the common folk know it too, only far less formally than the sect.
"Here in Huangzhou, whether they're rogue corpse drivers or disciples of the Corpse Driving Sect, they're collectively called corpse drivers. The currency they use between them isn't spirit stones, but copper dharma coins."
The man in the white paper hat jingled the string of coins in his hand. "Like this."
The two thanked the man and decided to look for another inn.
Leaving Qingming Inn, Lu Yang noticed a fallen wooden board near the entrance and, out of goodwill, propped it back up for the establishment.
The board read: *Due to operational adjustments, this branch has relocated twenty li east of Baiquan Town. We apologize for any inconvenience.*
The date inscribed at the bottom was five years ago.
"What?!"
The two jerked their heads up, staring in shock at Qingming Inn before them as a chill rose from the depths of their hearts.
If the real Qingming Inn had already moved away five years ago, who was the person they had just met?
They rushed back inside. The interior was completely deserted—there was no sign of the man in the white paper hat.
"Was that a person just now, or a ghost?"
The two were terrified. They hadn't noticed anything abnormal about the man in the white paper hat from start to finish! Moreover, seeing Meng Jingzhou, who possessed a Pure Yang Body, the man hadn't reacted at all. Just how high was his cultivation? A Ghost King?!
A crisp, commanding voice barked an order, and a squad of cultivators dressed in constables' uniforms swarmed in from all sides, charging into the inn.
"Damn it, he slipped away again!"
The leader, sporting a full beard, looked thoroughly disgruntled upon finding no trace of the man in the white paper hat inside.
"Brother, may I ask what's going on here?" Lu Yang inquired politely.
Seeing Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou step out from the inn, the bearded constable recognized they weren't suspicious characters and explained:
"This Qingming Inn has been abandoned for five whole years. Yet throughout these past five years, people kept claiming they had stayed here. Thinking it was haunted, they came to report it to us. After secret investigations and cross-checking statements, we finally figured out what was happening.
"There's a fellow wearing a white paper hat who posed as the shopkeeper and pretended the place was open for business, taking in corpse drivers to make a profit.
"Since corpses aren't picky about where they stay, somewhat shoddy conditions were understandable. But eventually, a corpse driver couldn't take it anymore. Feeling that this Qingming Inn's environment was downright atrocious, he filed a complaint with Qingming Inn's headquarters! Qingming Inn's headquarters was completely bewildered and said this branch had closed long ago. That's how the case came to light.
"Once we uncovered the truth, we planned to lie in wait and catch the white-paper-hat guy red-handed. Who would've thought he'd manage to slip away!"
Lu Yang: "..."
*Do people in Huangzhou really stoop to such lengths just to make money?*
Chapter 401