The Imperial Mortician of the Great Zhou
In a world where immortality is but a legend and spirits and demons roam unchecked, the dead are ominous, the deceased restless. Thus, their faces are adorned and their wounds concealed; in this age o
Chapter One: Entering the Great Zhou as a Mortician, Sewing Corpses by Night to Summon the Record of Departed Souls
Song Mo opened his eyes, his left hand holding needle and thread, his right hand gripping a paintbrush.
Outside, dark clouds blotted out the moon, and the room was swept by chilling drafts.
In the northwest corner, a bronze lamp burned, its pea-sized flame illuminating only a small patch of the chamber.
The cold was bone-deep. On the table before him lay a corpse, cold and rigid.
Wait—a corpse?
A surge of terror seized Song Mo. Where was he?
The next moment, a searing pain exploded in his mind. Fragmented memories crashed into his consciousness, and soon Song Mo understood.
He had crossed into another world.
This world was not any dynasty recorded in history, nor was it Earth at all.
The present era was the thirteenth year of Jian’an under the Great Zhou. The court was in turmoil; famine and corpses lined the land, the people were destitute, and demons roamed unchecked.
His identity in this life was that of a mortician in the southern part of Jian’an City, working at a mortuary, preparing the dead for burial—a craftsman of faces. Coincidentally, this body’s former owner had also been named Song Mo.
What was a craftsman of faces?
In times of war, corpses littered the land. In this age of rampant demons, if the dead did not rest in peace, catastrophe would surely follow.
They would become vengeful corpses, their unrest spreading chaos.
To allow the dead their peace and safeguard the nation’s tranquility, the court established official posts known as the Four Gates of the Underworld.
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