The weather in May wasn't exactly cold, but the Funeral Shop lacked the warmth of living people, and its feng shui was peculiar. Now, with a gust of wind, one could easily catch a chill.
Xu Qing walked around the counter, intending to ask a question, but unexpectedly, the little girl in front of him spoke first.
"Sir? Is that you, sir?"
Xu Qing was baffled. Who was this child, and why did she seem to recognize him?
Xuan Yu stopped licking its fur and stared intently at the two of them.
"Who are you?" Xu Qing asked, full of confusion.
The little girl, with a sallow complexion, noticed that Xu Qing didn't recognize her, and her voice turned timid again.
"Wang Liang is my brother. Doesn't sir remember me?"
Wang Liang... Xu Qing suddenly recalled that he once buried a deeply loving couple in Wanshou County, who had two children, one of whom was named Wang Liang.
The kid was quite clever, seeing Xu Qing lift a coffin weighing over several hundred pounds by himself, he begged to become his apprentice to learn the skills.
Xu Qing was used to being free and wouldn't want to take a human as a disciple, worried that he might have to care for him in old age and death, which would be too troublesome.
So at that time, Xu Qing only taught Wang Liang some martial skills and gave him some pills like the Strength Pill and Qi Nourishing Pill.
Now, two years had passed, and Xu Qing had long forgotten about this matter, never expecting that the young sister of the Wang Family would meet him again in such a way.
"What about your brother? How did you end up in this state?"
The young sister of the Wang Family replied, "My brother left with an honored guest over a year ago and hasn't been heard from since."
"An honored guest? Do you know who that could be?"
The Wang Family's young sister shook her head, "My brother didn't say, only that it was a wise and virtuous man who invited him to work together. Since then, my brother hasn't returned."
Xu Qing frowned. Why did this sound like he was abducted by a broker to be sold?
"After my brother left, he left behind two hundred taels of silver and an old man with a limp that the honored guest arranged. Later, Wanshou Village was changed to Wanshou County, and suddenly a group of people in the village said they wanted to turn the village into a market..."
Listening to the Wang Family's young sister narrate, Xu Qing finally understood the inside story.
After Wanshou Village was elevated to a county, profit seekers came to acquire village houses to make a profit. Originally worth only a few taels of silver, the village homes saw their prices inflated to dozens of taels in the blink of an eye.
With Wang Liang gone and only the young sister, grandmother, and an unknown limping old man at home, they became targets for those with ill intentions.
The Wang Family's young sister didn't want to sell their ancestral house, so the brokers in Wanshou County frequently sent agents to persuade her, but in the end, they resorted to hiring ruffians to create trouble and coerce her.
When these ruffians came with buckets of dung, intending to throw them at the Wang Family gate, the limping old man responsible for the house suddenly transformed into a martial expert, beating the troublemakers to retreat, fear-stricken.
But the matter wasn't over. The brokers sent skilled people over several times, but after repeated failures, someone from the Capital City arrived, said to be the boss behind the brokers in Wanshou County.
That person was quite skillful. Coming to the Wang Family, he merely exchanged a glance with the limping old man, said a few words, brushed past each other, and with a touch on the shoulder, the old man collapsed silently to the ground.
Without the old man's protection, how could the Wang Family's young sister and grandmother possibly contend with those villains?
They demolished the old house, stole the two hundred taels of silver hidden in the rice jar, and drove the Wang Family's young sister and grandmother outside the city...
During this time, Wang Liang still hadn't appeared, and the Wang Family's young sister's grandmother fell ill with worry, passing away within a year.
The Wang Family's young sister had no money for a burial and had no choice but to put straw in her hair and sell herself by the roadside to bury her relative.
It was at this time that a kind passerby approached, saying there was a notice on the bulletin board at the Linjiang County city gate, offering post-burial credit; there was no need to sell oneself, just take the corpse to the establishment, and the shopkeeper would naturally handle the funeral.
Upon hearing this, the Wang Family's young sister found her way to Xu Qing.
"Where is your grandmother's body now?"
"In a small temple outside the city."
Taking a look at the increasingly heavy rain outside, Xu Qing turned back inside and said, "Erniang, take care of this little girl for me. I'll be back shortly."
Saying this, Xu Qing donned a rain cloak and turned to leave the shop.