I Only Want to Lie Flat But Am Forced to Cultivate Immortality

Two cherubic little dolls blinked, and in a fleeting moment, transformed into two streaks of golden light, disappearing into the water.

Xu Qing's gaze was fixed tightly on the Baisha River, his eyes unknowingly had turned pitch-black like ink.

Xuan Yu perked up his ears, seemingly frozen in place, staring motionlessly at the river's surface.

When the zombie and the cat released the goldfish, neither noticed anything unusual about the fish, but who would have thought that as soon as it neared the water, the overwhelming humidity would roll in, transforming the fish into human form.

"Mermaid..." Xuan Yu muttered two words, snapping back to reality.

"It's the incense."

Xu Qing withdrew his gaze and offered an explanation.

The two goldfish had little cultivation, but when they approached the Baisha River and transformed, Xu Qing caught a peculiar scent of incense.

He smelled this fragrance before, during the annual river festival at Baisha River, when people worshipped the Water Dragon King.

In the realm of the Dayong Dynasty, natural disasters and human calamities mixed together like a rotten stew.

One day there's a river bursting its banks, the next, locusts darken the skies. The people burn incense and worship Buddha, pray to gods and ghosts, wearing down the thresholds of the City God Temple flat and even knocking pits into the floor like iron before the statues!

Many would kneel and kowtow before problems, yet none dared to rise and direct a questioning gaze at those high above, untouched by mortal affairs, living like immortals.

Kneeling is so easy, yet standing up is exhausting!

Who loves seeing everyone kneel the most? Apart from the master on the dragon throne, there is no one else!

The master is worried about having no reason to evade. Since you've found a reason for him, naturally, he'll follow through.

"Ah! This is too obvious!"

The old Emperor ordered the Ministry of Works to build a hundred-zhang high Heavenly Sacrifice Platform, the new Emperor ascends and oversees its construction, with beams of golden nanmu and stairs paved with white jade.

The higher the Heavenly Sacrifice Platform rises, the deeper the people's suffering grows, isn't it strange?

River God, Plague God, Wealth God, Joy God...you wouldn't think of them, yet there is no immortal that the Dayong Dynasty lacks.

Each year's festivals are full of novelties, during drought they sacrifice to Dragon King, during floods they worship River God, for locust plagues they invite the Chicken Lady God, for epidemics the Five Plagues God...

The incense money burns even more vigorously than a blacksmith's forge.

Back then, Xu Qing's Cat Immortal Hall had just established, without much incense money in the account, from afar on the riverbank he smelled the incense aroma, and fantasized about if someday his hall could flourish so bountifully with incense.

Now recalling this, everything has changed, and he no longer sees the incense of Baisha's river festival as anything noteworthy.

After all, no one ever saw the Dragon King, those places supposed to be dry remain dry, how could such deceitful incense possibly last for long?

Just like when people have nothing to eat, their bodies can't produce waste, yet those destined to heal the nation prescribed laxatives, how much deceptive incense could such hollow recipes ultimately yield?

But Xu Qing is different, he acts by the rules, exerting effort, you grant eight-tenths incense, counting the remaining two-tenths as incense money.

The business philosophy of Cat Immortal Hall is like so, as is Baosheng Temple.

The result of this continuity is that if people must offer incense anyway, they'd rather offer it to gods willing to get things done.

Otherwise, Xu Qing wouldn't wave his hand in the Imperial Mausoleum during a thunderstorm and receive hundreds of thousands, millions in incense.

Hearing Xu Qing's words, Xuan Yu curiously asked, "Are there immortals in the river too?"

"No immortals in the river, but it might be hiding something else."

"The scent of this incense is mixed; it surely comes from the river festival's incense. Xuan Yu, think about who the past river festivals worshipped?"

"Dragon!"

Xuan Yu's eyes sparkled.

Xu Qing pondered silently.

Is there truly a dragon in Baisha River?

The zombie and the cat arrived at the spot where the little boy stood earlier, laying in the wet sand was a Kohong cup, jade-like in appearance, its surface radiating with light.

Xu Qing carefully inspected it, discovering inside the Kohong cup a mass of golden blood bobbing up and down.

As if it were alive.

"This blood..."

Zombies have a keen sense for blood, although the liquid before them was golden instead of the usual red, Xu Qing immediately recognized it as blood, and not just any ordinary blood.

Frowning slightly, beside him Xuan Yu's nose twitched, puzzled, "What a fragrant aroma, have we tasted it before?"

"It's the azure scale!"

Xu Qing took from the Mountain and River Map a scale stewed two or three times, its color already faded, its scent almost identical to the viscous blood inside the Kohong cup.

Only the Kohong cup's aroma was even more intense.

"Dragon battles in the wilderness, its blood is mysterious yellow."

Observing the vibrant, neither stiff nor transformed golden blood before him, Xu Qing's expression turned particularly strange.

This thing seems truly to be dragon blood!

...

When Xu Qing returned to the Funeral Shop, a sudden rainstorm fell, the entire Baisha River surged, mist enveloped it, faintly revealing a giant creature leaping towards the clouds, roaring thunderously.

As that enormous creature opened its eyes, lightning split the clouds.

Ascending to a certain height, a portal appeared above the dense clouds.

But just as the giant creature attempted to venture further, from the boundless void, a boundary stone engraved with flame runes descended from the sky, brutally falling.

Among the thunderstorm sounds, along with an angry and unwilling cry, the gigantic creature darted into the swirling waters before the boundary stone crashed down.

Inside the Funeral Shop, Xu Qing turned a deaf ear to the noises outside the window, focusing entirely on the Kohong cup before him.

Zombies are of utmost yin, apart from death qi, yin qi, corpse qi, to find a bit of vitality is harder than ascending to heaven.