Chapter 9: Verification And Gains
On the way sending Chen Mian home, Jiang Ce learned some inside information about the recent personnel changes.
Because Chen Mian had been soaking in the morgue for years, leading to an excess of yin and deficiency of yang on his body, he contracted many hidden ailments. It was fine on sunny days, but as soon as it was overcast, his whole body ached in pain, so he really couldn’t continue working.
Although the funeral home had other funeral directors, Chen Mian was undoubtedly the most outstanding among them. His departure would be a loss for the funeral home, so the higher-ups issued instructions for him to do a proper handover of work before leaving.
To put it bluntly, you can leave, but you have to train someone as capable as you.
Whether Jiang Ce or Fang Yihang, both were young men whom Chen Mian had interviewed and deemed worth cultivating. In the general environment where work at the funeral home was unpopular, it wasn’t easy to find two satisfactory people.
But there was only one position for Chen Mian, so naturally, choosing who to succeed him became an issue.
Originally, after Jiang Ce was falsely accused of stealing a ring, the successor was practically set in stone, but who would have thought that not only did Jiang Ce clear his name, but tonight he also earned such great merit.
Others might not know, but Chen Mian knew very well that if a corpse with such deep obsession wasn’t handled properly, it would lead to endless future troubles. Not to mention a reanimated corpse—even in the most optimistic scenario, in as short as a few months or as long as several years, the funeral home might experience various supernatural events. If all the employees ran away and other deceased families found it inauspicious and stopped sending people over, the losses at that time wouldn’t be as simple as just one person’s funeral expenses.
So in this way, in Chen Mian’s mind, the scales naturally tipped toward Jiang Ce.
Learning these inside details, Jiang Ce was naturally overjoyed. Most people have a natural aversion and prejudice toward work at the funeral home, which is why it’s hard for the funeral home to recruit people. Even temporary workers get much better treatment than in other industries, let alone full-time employees with permanent positions.
If he turned permanent, it would mean Jiang Ce could at least get a guaranteed salary several times higher than now. There was no reason not to strive for it.
Because of this, when Jiang Ce got home, he was excited for a long time. He even planned for the future: once his cultivation succeeded, he could draw a salary while taking private jobs, earn a fortune, marry a beautiful rich woman, and reach the peak of life!
After he calmed down, he started researching cultivation matters again.
When he came back to his senses, it was almost dawn. He then realized that after getting home, it was already early morning. At that time, because he was excited and not sleepy, it was fine, but until now, after staying up all night, not only was he not sleepy, he actually felt full of spirit.
Baffled, Jiang Ce could only attribute all this to the benefits brought by cultivation.
And this night’s research wasn’t without gains; he had figured out the positioning of Great Shamatha.
The monk didn’t seem to intend for Jiang Ce to become a true Jianghu sorcerer, because Jiang Ce discovered that Great Shamatha could only help him convert merit into a very special power, but it lacked methods to use that power.
In other words, Jiang Ce now had the hardware of a Jianghu sorcerer, but lacked the software to make use of that hardware.
Simply put, he had maxed out his level, but hadn’t learned any skills.
Fortunately, at the cost of most of the furniture in his home, Jiang Ce had figured out some rudimentary ways to use the power.
It was rudimentary because it was indeed too crude.
No little ghosts, no witchcraft, no fancy tricks—just adding a tiny bit of malice while verbally attacking.
Telling the mobile phone not to be noisy, so the mobile phone exploded; yelling “die” at the alarm clock, so the alarm clock disintegrated; verbally abusing wild cats and wild dogs, so the wild cats and wild dogs directly collapsed unconscious; verbally attacking himself in the mirror, then lying on the sofa to recover for half an hour.
This wasn’t even recorded in Great Shamatha—it was Jiang Ce’s exclusive True Verbal Assault Attack.
Through a night of training, Jiang Ce finally preliminarily mastered this technique. For him, adding malice was still a bit unfamiliar because he was a mischief maker with self-restraint. Whether cursing or attacking others, he never got personally involved and had hardly ever truly lost his temper.
If defining Jiang Ce’s lack of merit, it was simply interest-driven lack of merit, without mixing in any personal emotions.
He simply enjoyed the process of losing merit.
Although, he was indeed a very pure person.
As for what the book said about frequent visualization to seek progress, Jiang Ce planned to take a break first. He didn’t want to see that monster again in the short term.
Moreover, for some reason, he always had a feeling that thing was very dangerous. If it weren’t for the phone ringing at that time and him actually touching it, his current situation would be hard to say.
Checking the time, it was six in the morning. After a simple wash-up, Jiang Ce went out the door, munching on an oily dough stick from the breakfast cart downstairs, striding toward the funeral home.
By the time he arrived at the funeral home, it was already lively, holding a farewell ceremony for the body of who-knows-which family.
Without thinking, Jiang Ce clocked in and went straight over to join in the fun.
Normally, farewell ceremonies for bodies are very formal with no fun to be had, but the farewell hall provides drinks and snacks, so Jiang Ce often pretended to be a relative or friend of the deceased, sneaking in during work fatigue to mooch food and drink.
Nibbling seeds, listening to the deceased’s life story—it was also an elegant pastime.
Occasionally encountering a respectable good person, Jiang Ce wouldn’t hesitate to silently chant sutras for deliverance.
By coincidence, while Jiang Ce was listening to the deceased’s life story and looking around in the farewell hall, he happened to see Chen Mian and Fang Yihang talking in the corner, and only then realized that the protagonist of this farewell ceremony was that old man from last night.
He crunched on his seeds and leaned over, but unexpectedly heard Fang Yihang badmouthing him.
“Uncle Chen, there’s something wrong with this corpse! I slept in the morgue all last night, I can swear that body was absolutely abnormal! Hey, Uncle Chen, I’m not doubting your judgment. You said it was fine then, so I definitely believed you had thoroughly handled it. What I’m saying is Jiang Ce must be the one messing around!”
Jiang Ce leaned against a pillar not far away, listening as if nothing had happened, even taking the time to comfort a few deceased’s friends he didn’t know at all to grieve and accept fate.
To him, Fang Yihang’s current behavior was purely that of a clown jumping around.
He wanted to flatter Chen Mian while slandering Jiang Ce, but actually ended up slapping the horse’s leg instead of its butt.
Because last night’s result had nothing to do with Chen Mian himself; it was resolved thanks to Jiang Ce. For Chen Mian, Fang Yihang’s words weren’t flattery at all but rather slapping his face hard. Plus, Chen Mian was a very principled and extremely aloof person who disdained taking others’ merit, so he was even more repulsed by these words.
Sure enough, looking at Chen Mian again, his face was almost as black as charcoal.
But Fang Yihang seemed completely oblivious, still chattering nonstop.
Finally, Chen Mian coldly interrupted him: “Enough, stop talking. I have my own judgment, and I know what you’re thinking. To tell you the truth, the matter of turning permanent has been decided—it’s Jiang Ce. I know you have some connections and somehow learned I’m retiring. I won’t pursue past matters, but from now on, I advise you to drop those little schemes of yours.”
At these words, Fang Yihang froze in place, unable to say a word for a long time.
“Maintaining me because of last night’s matter.” Jiang Ce muttered.
But he thought it through quite openly and didn’t feel Chen Mian was wrong for doing so. The two weren’t relatives; before he demonstrated his value, even knowing Fang Yihang had backstabbed him, Chen Mian had no reason to help him.
In the end, this was reality.
Jiang Ce sighed. Although he understood the reason, he still inexplicably felt a bit unhappy.
“I” Fang Yihang was just about to explain something to Chen Mian when suddenly he felt like he had fallen into an ice cellar. In that instant, every terrifying thing since he could remember flashed before his eyes like a lantern show.
Seeing Fang Yihang suddenly stiffen, Chen Mian was startled and watched as the back of his head hit the ground with a crisp sound.
