Flower Maogwai was adept at reading people, and upon seeing Luo Laowai’s reaction, he immediately grasped the situation. He immediately adopted a fawning tone, saying, "To have zombies running wild in the Yizhuang is certainly understandable, as things should be. But what’s strange is that Old Lady Haozi’s face shows no trace of corpse poison, and it’s as if the poison was forced into her mouth only after death. I am dull-eyed and cannot judge high from low, so how dare I presume to show off in front of the Grand Manager and Marshal Luo, two great experts."

Luo Laowai had been waiting for this utterance from him, intending to explain the intricacies to Flower Maogwai. It turned out that the customs of Xiongling in Western Hunan were peculiar: in the first seven days after a person died, they would inject the corpse with corpse poison and stand it behind a door panel—this was called "Standing the Stiff." Any corpse, regardless of the cause of death, if it was to become a zombie, must contain corpse poison. Without the secret method of "Standing the Stiff," the body would rot and decay long before the remains could be returned to the hometown by corpse driving.

Except for Blind Chen, the other three had only heard of the corpse driving of Western Hunan by reputation, not by its actual practice. Only when Luo Laowai explained did they have a moment of sudden realization. Indeed, their curiosity was piqued, and with the long, dull hours of the rainy night, they begged Marshal Luo to enlighten them on the mystery.

Luo Laowai was eager to use this opportunity to boast a bit in front of Miss Hong. He did not decline; he was intimately familiar with corpse driving because he had been a corpse driver in his earlier years. When he was a teenager, he was so poor in Shandong that he couldn't make a living. He drifted to Xiang, seeking help from distant relatives, only to find upon arrival that his distant kin were long dead. With no money and no prospects, and due to his own ugly and wretched appearance, which suggested he was no good, no one would take him on as an apprentice for hard labor.

In desperation, he joined the Green Forest path, engaging in acts of 'robbing the rich to aid the poor.' However, this so-called 'robbing the rich to aid the poor' sounded better than it was, because robbing and killing the poor offered no financial gain, only earning him a bad reputation for harming the common folk. But as an outsider, he knew nothing of the local customs and terrain, making it impossible for him to establish himself. Finally, someone pointed him toward a way—to become a corpse driver, as corpse drivers took on apprentices. There were three absolute requirements: first, to be brave; second, to be ugly; and third, to never marry in one's lifetime.

Corpse driving in Western Hunan was mostly managed by Daoist sects. Chenzhou in Western Hunan, rich in cinnabar, had two major Daoist sects: the "Hu Family Thunder Altar" and the "Jin Family Thunder Altar." Historically, the business of corpse driving was operated under the auspices of these two Altars.

Hunan’s Western Hunan region has long been steeped in mysterious legends such as 'corpse sending,' 'cave dropping,' and 'gu poisoning.' Among these, corpse sending is precisely 'corpse driving.' Because the mountains of Western Hunan are rugged and many places are inaccessible, numerous merchants from the north transported timber for huge profits, mostly rafting the massive logs downriver during the flood season. The merchants would float down with their rafts, and after finishing their business, they would trek back home through the mountains and valleys.

Due to the prevalence of bandits in the savage territories, coupled with miasma, venomous insects, and the spread of various diseases, many northern merchants, unable to acclimatize, would often die en route from illness or robbery. The merchants from other provinces, feeling sympathy for the misfortune of their colleagues who died in foreign lands, would pool money to establish Yizhuangs (charitable lodging houses) and hire corpse drivers to ensure the deceased could be returned home for burial.

Speaking of corpse driving in Western Hunan, it is truly famous, spreading myths and earning awe; people change color just discussing it, fearing it like a tiger. In fact, the formal name for this strange art has always been 'Corpse Sending Art.' Only in modern times did the term 'Corpse Driving' appear. Westerners call it 'Corpse Hypnosis,' and in the eyes of foreigners, this practice is even more mysterious. Westerners have 'Hypnotism'—or 'mesmerism'—so they likely call it that because it suggests putting the corpse into a trance.

Because Western Hunan was a mix of ethnic groups and the geography was unique—countless perilous cliffs and strange peaks erupted from the ground, their pillars stretching continuously toward the Southern Heavens—the terrain was difficult and treacherous, with no roads deep in the mountains. After people died, carrying the bodies back to their hometowns for burial was impractical. This necessitated 'Corpse Sending Masters' to transport the deceased. However, some regions only had corpse senders visit once every six months, transporting multiple bodies at once.

If the deceased had been dead for a long time, decay was inevitable. In that era, cremation was strongly resisted, and the idea of urns was never considered. Therefore, anyone who wished for the body to be sent back to their hometown for final rest had to first turn the body into a zombie; this was a prerequisite.

How does one make a corpse stiffen and refuse to decay? One could inject mercury into the body to prevent decomposition, but that method was quite expensive, unaffordable for most people, and it would damage the corpse's internal organs. Some people used folk secret arts: when they sensed their end was near, they would begin taking small, controlled doses of arsenic over time—the dose being minuscule. The arsenic was mixed with Coagulation Pills, along with rare herbs like Yao Gu Cao and Yin Purple Cattail Flower. If the proportions were correct, these substances caused little harm while the person was alive. But once the person stopped breathing and the blood solidified, the body would stiffen without decaying, becoming the type of zombie transformed by the medicinal power. This is why the corpse had to stand on a door panel for several days until it was completely rigid before being placed in the coffin. If the injection happened after death, it was still possible, but the body preservation would be slightly worse, easily developing an odor. Old Lady Haozi’s corpse in the Yizhuang was injected with poison post-mortem and 'Stood the Stiff' behind the door panel.

The secrets of corpse sending in Western Hunan are impossible for outsiders to know unless they have been a corpse sender themselves, because this trade is extremely mysterious, and the techniques used are never taught outside. Within the Daoist sects, there is no mention of corpse driving or sending; those are external labels. Daoist practitioners always refer to it as the "Water Guiding Art."

"Water Guiding Art" is the formal general term, but in the underworld's slang, it is called "One Bowl of Water." Encountering a corpse-sending procession was considered highly inauspicious. In the Green Forest circles, such an event was called 'running into water' (zhuang shui), which is now also used to mean 'encountering evil' or 'encountering a ghost,' because in the actual process of sending a corpse, the entire technique relies on a single bowl of clear water, and it is only effective when two people travel together.

The two people take positions, one at the front and one at the back. One corpse sender walks in front, carrying a cloth banner, guiding with the art; the other person walks at the rear, holding a bowl of clear water levelly. No matter how many corpses are being transported, they walk in the middle of the group, bracketed by the two senders.

The two corpse senders are referred to as the 'Banner Holder' (Zhi Pan De) and the 'Water Bearer' (Peng Shui De). In this trade, the Water Bearer is the most crucial role. After walking a certain distance, a talisman must be added to the water bowl. This talisman is the "Burning Talisman to Gather Water and Awaken the Soul Charm": Open the Celestial Court, grant eternal life; Three Souls reside left, Seven Spirits reside right; Listen silently to the divine command, travel unseen by man, sit unnoticed by all; Haste as the law commands! This talisman must be a "Chenzhou Talisman" from Western Hunan; talismans from other Daoist sects would be completely ineffective.

As long as the water bowl held by the Water Bearer is not spilled or broken, the corpses will not fall. During the corpse-sending process, the dead behave much like the living, except they cannot speak. Their gait is slightly different from that of the living, completely following the movements of the Banner Holder. When the Banner Holder walks, the corpses walk; when the Banner Holder stops, the corpses stop. Such corpse-sending teams were extremely common in the Western Hunan region during the late Ming Dynasty. A local saying goes, "Three people share a room, two people eat," which refers to the corpse senders—meaning, of the three, the one who doesn't eat is the dead body.

The day before the corpse-sending team arrives at the deceased’s hometown, the dead person is guaranteed to send a dream to their family. The family will immediately prepare the coffin and burial clothes. When the corpse arrives home, it will stand before the coffin, and the Water Bearer will splash the water. The body will immediately fall into the coffin, at which point they must quickly arrange the burial; otherwise, the body will instantly transform, revealing the level of decay expected for someone who has been dead for a month.

In reality, this arcane art involving a bowl of water was a practice of the early days, having been entirely lost by the Qianlong era. The reason for its disappearance was likely its extreme secrecy, leading to fewer and fewer practitioners. Even those most knowledgeable only retained a vague outline, and no one could articulate the principle behind carrying the water to guide the corpse.

It wasn't until the Guangxu period that many people, seeking huge profits, began smuggling opium produced in Qian into the region and started plotting to use corpse guiding and water carrying as a cover to traffic narcotics and military supplies. They utilized corpse sending as camouflage, which was vastly different from the genuine ancient practice. The only similarity was that they became more theatrical and mysterious. Back then, although Luo Laowai never learned the secret art of corpse sending, he used his identity as a corpse driver to transport illegal goods extensively. This is how he amassed his fortune and eventually became a powerful warlord dominating the three Xiang provinces. That is why Luo Laowai was so unconcerned about the ugly female corpse; he and Blind Chen knew perfectly well that the corpses in this Yizhuang had been treated with preservative medicine to become stiff and would never spontaneously reanimate.

The deceased stored here were destined to become the human-skin sacks used by these corpse-driving smugglers for illicit trade. However, after using the dead to transport contraband, those people would still find a way to send the corpses back to their native soil for burial. This was not out of benevolence or morality, but because if they didn't, they would lose the guise of 'corpse driving' to frighten people in the future. The local people, unaware of the inside story of corpse sending techniques, feared it like a tiger. Furthermore, corpse senders treated this as their livelihood and naturally were unwilling to reveal the details to others, making the practice seem all the more sinister and mysterious.

Flower Maogwai, Miss Hong, and the others listened in amazement. Regardless of Luo Laowai's squinting eyes, vulgar manners, and his history of 'drinking, gambling, whoring, and arson,' his detailed knowledge of these folk secret arts proved he was indeed the formidable warlord leader who held sway over a region, and as sworn brother to the chief of the Xieling Bandits, he clearly possessed extraordinary abilities. Flower Maogwai quickly gave him a thumbs-up and fawned, "Brilliant, truly brilliant! Marshal Luo, you originated from the Daoist sects; no wonder you possess such rare talent!"

Luo Laowai took two swigs of strong liquor, looking quite pleased, but feeling it improper to show off excessively in front of Bandit Chief Chen Xiazi. He mocked himself, "Damn it all, what rare talent or crooked talent? I was too young when I learned corpse driving; I never learned even a tenth of my master's full skill, often just pretending to know what I don't. My aide told me a scholar recently emerged in the South who writes excellent essays. He said that originally no one truly understood things, but once many people pretend to understand, then gradually they do. That scholar speaks the truth. In the future, this commander plans to invite him over for a chat, to help Old Luo learn a bit more about the art of pretending to know." After saying this, he crooked his mouth, shook his head, smiled, and finished every last drop of the liquor in the flask.