“When the Host lives long enough, you will discover that nothing in this world remains forever unchanged.”
“The Heavenly Dao is thus, and so are mortals.”
“Hehehe.”
“A System will always be a System, spewing philosophical jargon one structured line at a time.”
Chen Changsheng chuckled as he stood up. Glancing at the first light of dawn bleeding over the horizon, he casually kicked dirt over the campfire and resumed his trek south.
When a person possessed a boundless, endless lifespan, they didn’t just become extremely cautious; they became incredibly bored.
To combat this soul-crushing boredom, Chen Changsheng set a minor goal for himself.
He would go check on Li Niansheng and see if she was living well.
However, while slowly working toward this minor goal, Chen Changsheng discovered a new hobby.
Learning. Whenever he encountered a trade that piqued his interest, he would halt his journey and spend a few years mastering it.
Over the past two decades, Chen Changsheng had worked as a beggar, peddled tofu, and even mastered the craft of brewing wine.
Yet, among all these diverse industries, his absolute favorite—and the one he was most skilled at—remained the one-stop funeral service.
The reasoning was entirely practical. In any other industry, even begging, disputes were inevitable. Beggars had to fight over turf.
In contrast, the coffin retail business was incredibly stable.
Thieves wouldn’t steal them, and bandits wouldn’t rob them. Whether you were a high-ranking official, a prominent noble, or imperial royalty, you couldn’t escape being boxed into those few planks of wood eventually.
Furthermore, Chen Changsheng’s feng shui skills—finding dragon veins and pinpointing auspicious burial sites—advanced by leaps and bounds.
Other feng shui masters merely recited theoretical knowledge from ancient texts. Whether their chosen sites actually blessed the descendants was anyone’s guess.
But Chen Changsheng was different. After burying a client, he could simply wait and leisurely observe the subsequent rise or fall of their family line.
Over the past twenty years, his longest continuous observation study lasted a full five years.
It was precisely because of this erratic, stop-and-go pace that Chen Changsheng had only covered three thousand miles in two decades.
……
Linglong Town.
Watching the Cultivators streaking through the sky overhead, Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue and sighed.
“No wonder that old hag looked so utterly disgusted when I said I wanted to visit. It took me a full fifty years just to walk here.”
“An ordinary mortal with bad luck would struggle to even live to fifty.”
After a brief moment lamenting the ruthlessness of time, Chen Changsheng began scouting the town for a suitable commercial property.
This was a settlement situated right at the foot of the Linglong Sect’s mountain gate, serving as a bustling hub for low-level Cultivators and the sect’s miscellaneous servants.
Originally, Chen Changsheng planned to infiltrate the Linglong Sect to check on Li Niansheng. But the moment he arrived in Linglong Town, he scrapped the idea entirely.
Because within a hundred-mile radius of the Linglong Sect, legends of Li Niansheng were inescapable.
The Linglong Sect had produced a once-in-a-millennium prodigy. Merely fifty years after becoming a Novice, she had reached the grand completion of the Golden Core stage. Her terrifying talent had even alarmed the Sect Leader, drawing him out of his long-term Secluded Cultivation.
Faced with such a proud daughter of heaven, countless young talents swarmed her like ducks, desperate to become her Dao companion.
Yet, in response to the endless parade of geniuses, Li Niansheng always issued the exact same rejection.
“All of you combined cannot compare to a single Changsheng.”
As time passed, Li Niansheng earned the title of the purest Cultivator in the realm. Her absolute obsession with longevity—changsheng—was unmatched by anyone.
In stark contrast to Li Niansheng’s blazing prominence, Chen Changsheng’s presence was practically nonexistent.
Not a single soul in the entire Linglong Town noticed when, tucked away in the most remote corner of the streets, a cramped coffin shop—barely large enough to display two or three caskets—quietly opened for business.
……
“Excuse me, is anyone here?”
A tiny, bald head peeked cautiously into the dim shop.
Hearing the voice, a figure abruptly sat straight up from inside a display coffin.
Watching a “corpse” suddenly rise from the wood, the little monk jumped back in fright.
Only after confirming the man breathing before him was actually alive did the little monk pat his chest to soothe his racing heart.
“Benefactor, how can you sleep inside a coffin?”
“Coffins are meant for the dead.”
Looking at the little monk’s dead-serious expression, Chen Changsheng smiled.
He had been operating this shop for three years now, and business was practically nonexistent. If he didn’t occasionally grow and peddle low-level Spirit Grass on the side, the business would have filed for bankruptcy long ago.
“Little monk, your logic is fundamentally flawed.”
“Whether they are mortals or Cultivators, in the end, no one can escape death.”
“Since that is an absolute certainty, why should the living discriminate against their final piece of real estate?”
Hearing this, the little monk tilted his head in deep thought. He then solemnly clasped his hands together. “Amitabha!”
“Thank you for your profound guidance, Benefactor. This little monk was overly attached to superficial appearances.”
“Hehehe.”
“For someone so young, you’ve got quite the head on your shoulders.”
Chen Changsheng vaulted smoothly out of the coffin and appreciatively rubbed the little monk’s perfectly round, bald head.
“So tell me, little customer, what brings you to my humble establishment?”
The little monk lowered his head. “Recently, the Heavenly Buddha Temple and the Linglong Sect launched a joint operation to subdue a Demonic Cultivator guilty of countless atrocities.”
“The Demonic Cultivator fought to the bitter end and was ultimately executed by a Linglong Sect Elder.”
“Although that benefactor committed grave sins, this little monk cannot bear to see his corpse left to rot in the wilderness. I wish to purchase a coffin to grant him a proper burial.”
Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue. “Do you have the funds?”
“This is a commercial enterprise. I don’t run a charity.”
“I have the payment ready.”
The little monk reached into his Storage Bag, pulled out three medium-grade Spirit Stones, and offered them up.
Looking at the highly valuable currency, Chen Changsheng smiled and plucked just a single stone from the boy’s palm.
“One medium-grade Spirit Stone fully covers our premium one-stop funeral package. When do we depart for the work site?”
“We can leave immediately. If we delay any longer, the benefactor’s remains will begin to attract flies.”
Without a second thought, Chen Changsheng grabbed his tools and followed the boy out.
As for shop security…
He didn’t even bother locking the front door. The inventory consisted entirely of two empty wooden boxes. Unless a thief was mentally defective, no one was going to break in just to steal a pair of cheap caskets.
……
The Wilderness.
Led by his young client, Chen Changsheng arrived at the scene and finally laid eyes on the notorious Demonic Cultivator.
At this exact moment, the man looked no different from any ordinary, dead mortal.
Well, with the minor exception that half of his skull had been completely caved in.
Surveying the messy crime scene, Chen Changsheng couldn’t help but sigh. “Little monk, are all you Cultivators this lacking in basic professional courtesy?”
“Never mind what he did while he was breathing. You people went through immense effort just to take him down.”
“Killing a man is just business, but leaving him unburied is simply bad form. The least you could do is dig a hole!”
“Dumping a biohazard in the middle of the wilderness? Unacceptable.”
“It seems in this entire Cultivation world, only you have an ounce of civilized decency.”
In response to Chen Changsheng’s professional critique, the little monk simply closed his eyes and silently chanted sutras.
Shaking his head at the shoddy cleanup, Chen Changsheng rolled up his sleeves and began the manual labor of bagging the corpse.