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.

These were: the coroner, the paper effigy maker, the executioner, and the craftsman of faces—the one who sews the dead.

Official envoys maintained order; the underworld envoys placated grievances.

Only by granting the deceased dignity and peace could disaster be averted.

Thus, Song Mo served as a craftsman of faces in a mortuary in the southern city, preparing the dead for burial—a task known as “walking the face.”

This preparation required cleansing the blood, concealing the wounds, and restoring the corpse’s appearance, so it might be interred decently.

If bodies were buried haphazardly, resentment would breed, turning the dead into vengeful spirits.

The mortuary was under the jurisdiction of the Demon Suppression Bureau. To ensure the souls of the dead found rest and their grudges did not fester into corpse demons, thirty-six mortuaries were established in the southern city to restore the dead and soothe their grievances.

This profession was not for just anyone—especially not the craftsman of faces, who must be someone marked by five misfortunes and three lacks.

Otherwise, lacking enough baleful energy in their fate, they would be easily haunted by unclean things—at best losing their souls, at worst losing their lives.

Just a few days prior, three wolf demons from the northern desert had slipped into the capital and were discovered by the Northern Garrison. Cornered, the wolf demons, in a final frenzy, stormed into a refugee camp and slaughtered indiscriminately.

Song Mo had survived by crawling out from a pile of corpses, fate-marked for death, and was thus chosen by the Demon Suppression Bureau to become a craftsman of faces.

In these turbulent times, with famine and refugees everywhere, to have secured work in the mortuary was no small blessing. By modern standards, Song Mo considered it a stable, official job—a true iron rice bowl.

Clang, clang, clang, clang—

From outside came the sound of a bronze gong, urging the craftsman of faces to hurry and not miss the appointed hour.

Song Mo glanced at the bronze oil lamp in the northwest corner and breathed a long sigh of relief. The flame burned steady, and half a shallow dish of oil remained—enough to last until dawn.

Summoning his courage, Song Mo looked at the corpse on the table.

The body lay stiff and straight, stabbed several times. Especially on the face, knife scars crisscrossed, and a pair of lifeless, gray-white eyes stared unblinkingly at Song Mo.

Eyes that could not close in death.

This was a vengeful corpse—if it was not given a proper burial,

It might soon become a corpse demon.

Song Mo stepped back two paces, a chill running down his spine.

Stifling the urge to flee, he moved forward and gently closed the corpse’s eyes.

He began the burial preparations.

It was a male corpse, but the frame was delicate and the fingers long and fine, the face marred by ghastly knife scars.

The preparation of the face followed four steps: washing, setting, stitching, and molding.

Washing was to clean the blood and grime; setting was to realign any displaced bones; stitching meant sewing the wounds; molding meant repairing any missing parts.

Corpses sent to the mortuary had usually been cleaned by their families, so washing could be skipped.

This one bore only knife wounds, and no bones were out of place. Despite the many gashes, the body was intact, so only stitching remained.

The thread for sewing corpses was specialized: thick thread for large wounds, fine thread for small, gold thread for bone and joints, and transparent thread for the features.

Threading the needle, stitching the wounds, combing the hair, applying powder, and dressing the body in funeral clothes.

By the fourth watch of the night, a lifelike corpse lay serenely on the table.

The attire was neat, the visage peaceful.

Though clearly a man, the corpse bore a woman’s delicate features—a curious sight.

Song Mo put away his needle and thread, wiped the sweat from his brow, and was just about to rest when a wave of dizziness swept over him.

A mist rose slowly before his eyes.

Within the fog, a lonely world unfurled like a painting—towering waves, endless forests, birds clutching stones, and countless ancient beasts.

In this land of mountains and seas, a soul-summoning banner was raised, beneath which was enshrined an iron-bound volume, its cover inscribed with three gleaming golden characters.

The Record of Soul Summoning!