Otherworldly Merchant

I had yet to get a hold of myself when Senior Shu raised his arm and chopped down on Jiang Jincheng’s hand with his blade. The hand fell on the wooden beam, and blood spurted out like a small stream.

Jiang Jincheng didn’t mind his bleeding arm and grabbed the cut-off hand, throwing it into the coffin and shouting at Senior Shu, “Burn the coffin!”

Senior Shu didn’t hesitate and threw an igniter into the coffin. Afterward, he threw two bottles of gasoline.

When the gasoline met the igniter, it exploded then burst into flames. Jiang Jincheng exhaled then leaned against the cliff.

What’s going on? I exchanged looks with Li Mazi. Just a bite from some insect and he had chopped off his hand. That man was crazy!

“Why are you just standing there? Help him! Stop the bleeding!” Senior Shu yelled at us. Li Mazi and I rushed to press on Jiang Jincheng’s wound while Senior Shu used another igniter to burn the wound.

One could imagine what kind of pain he had to bear as his wound burned. Jiang Jincheng had cold sweat all over his forehead, his face twisted in agony.

However, he didn’t make a sound. His bright eyes gazed at the burning coffin.

I thought Jiang Jincheng was trying to distract himself and reduce the pain, so I asked him, “Why did we have to burn the coffin? What if the other coffins on this cliff also caught fire?”

“The life-bound poisonous insect had entered my palm. Unless it was destroyed with fire, the corpse in the coffin won’t decompose. If the corpse doesn’t rot, we can forget about getting the Perpetual Joy Coffin.”

It turned out he was keeping an eye on the life-bound poisonous insect. If the insect escaped, he would have to burn down all the coffins, so he couldn’t afford to let it run away. The Miao King’s life-bound poisonous insect wasn’t something ordinary people could handle.

After hearing this, I became more serious and watched the burning coffin.

Although we thought that the big fire would be able to burn the insect to death, four or five ‘flies’ flew out from the coffin shortly after.

I was scared. I thought that the insects wanted to attack us, so I immediately dodged.

However, the insects ignored us and hid into the nearby coffins, disappearing from our sights.

“That’s bad.” Jiang Jincheng scoffed and said, “The poisonous insect reproduces too quickly. It seems we’ll have to deal with all the coffins here. Take the Perpetual Joy Coffin and leave.”

Jiang Jincheng stood up, wrapped his wound, and ran.

Li Mazi and I didn’t hesitate. We stood up and followed him.

Senior Shu pulled us back. “You jerks, you’re giving up the Perpetual Joy Coffin? It's worth several million renminbi!”

“If we don’t run, we won’t be able to keep our lives. How could we use the coffin then?!” said Li Mazi.

Senior Shu coaxed us and said, “Listen to me. Just move the coffin down. Jiang Jinchang knows how to deal with the insects.”

After seeing Senior Shu’s expression, I knew that even if we wrestled this matter back and forth with him, we wouldn’t be able to do anything. Reluctantly, we helped him carry the heavy coffin by holding onto each end. We moved it down the stairs.

After struggling hard to carry the coffin down the cliff, we were exhausted, with our limbs numb and paralyzed. Still, it was fortunate that we had to descend the stairs. If we had to go up, I was afraid that we would have died from exhaustion.

As soon as we got down, Jiang Jinchang gathered all the dried branches and twigs that were flammable and threw them at the foot of the hanging coffin cliff. Then, he burned them with some gasoline.

The gasoline burned heavily. Since the gaps between the coffins were small, layers of coffins were burned one after another.

Most of the coffins were hundreds of years old. They were all dried up so they burned quickly. The fire dyed half the sky red.

I was worried that the fire could burn the entire woods. However, Senior Shu said that both sides of the hanging coffin cliff had heavy Yin energy, strong enough that not even the fire couldn’t burn through it.

I heaved a sigh of relief.

However, since we had burned the hanging coffin cliff, the Miao people wouldn’t let us go. They would capture Jiang Jincheng as well, and possibly kill him.

Jiang Jincheng sighed. “I will move somewhere else. My father is gone, and I don’t have anything to hold me back here.”

We put the Perpetual Joy Coffin on the car then left.

I suggested throwing the Miao King’s corpse away. However, Senior Shu stopped me. “The Miao King’s corpse is also a relic, and it would be a waste to throw it away. Also, we need to keep an eye on his corpse. If his corpse has some abnormal changes, we have to be careful while bringing the Perpetual Joy Coffin back.”

Senior Shu and I stayed at the back of the pickup truck to watch the coffin. Li Mazi drove while Jiang Jincheng nursed his wound, his face pale.

I was puzzled. What could even happen to the Miao King’s corpse? Could he become a walking corpse?

Shortly after, the Miao King’s corpse began to change.

At a speed visible to the naked eye, his corpse withered away.

The body eventually became a dried corpse. The fresh and glowing skin was gone, and it looked like I could create a hole in the body just with the touch of my finger.

Senior Shu sighed. “He used to be the great Miao King, and even if he got his hands on the Perpetual Joy Coffin, he finally became a dry corpse. He would be thrown in the wild, and wolves will come to eat his remains.”

Then, Senior Shu grabbed the Miao King’s legs. He lifted him up and threw him into a ditch by the road.

I was startled. Didn’t Senior Shu just say that the Miao King’s body was also a relic?

Senior Shu explained, “The corpse was a relic only if it was in good condition as it could prove the power of the Perpetual Joy Coffin. But since his life-bound poisonous insect was killed, those hundreds of wandering souls were able to ascend, and the karmic reward he had taken from them also vanished. This only proves that the Perpetual Joy Coffin has side effects. Since it affects the value of the coffin, we would rather throw it away.”

I was speechless.

Senior Shu then told me, “Although the Miao King wasn’t the one to invent the poisonous insect technique, he was the one to spread it and make it thrive. However, this didn’t give him a good reputation as he was brutal and cruel. He had captured countless Miao people to feed the insects. The number of people who had died in his hands was more than the number of casualties on the battlefield.”

Senior Shu gave Jiang Jincheng a huge amount of money, which he used to move to another place. After we returned to the city, the news of the Perpetual Joy Coffin spread in the entire circle.

Every day, Senior Shu checked in the circle to find a chance to sell it. In the end, he found a suitable buyer.

A rich man’s mother had just passed away in Beijing. To show his filial piety, he was willing to spend ten million renminbi to buy the Perpetual Joy Coffin for his mother.

The moment I praised this rich man’s filial piety, Senior Shu snorted. “Filial piety my ass! When his mother was still alive, she lived in the countryside. Every month, he sent her a large sum of money but he rarely went home to visit her. What can an old mother do with a lot of money? Her biggest wish was to have a reunion dinner with her family. People nowadays don’t take care of their parents, and when their parents die, they cry to show their filial piety. It’s just a show for other people to see.”

I remained quiet.

The Perpetual Joy Coffin did not bring perpetual joy. It prevented natural disasters but not supernatural ones. So what if it could steal other people’s karmic reward? Eventually, the user would be punished for it and would have to pay the price.

If you took something that didn’t belong to you, you would have to pay it back in full plus the interest!