It turned out that the original owner of this body had the unfortunate timing to fart during the Rites of Heavenly Worship!
These rites were hosted by the most sacred temple in the country, and attended by the king and all 108 Eastern Kingdom nobles in order to pray for King Eastern Lu’s beloved daughter.
The king and his nobles had commenced many preparations before the rites were held, such as forgoing meat, bathing, and changing into fresh clothes, as well as burning lavender incense.
In other words – everyone had cleaned up nicely, and was striving for perfection in order to convince the heavens of their sincerity to succeed in obtaining blessings.
Everything was proceeding smoothly at first.
But just as the king and his nobles had kowtowed on the temple steps in prayer, Jiang Chen let out an earsplitting fart.
One had to know that kowtowing in prayer was the most important part of the entire rite. Absolute silence needed to be maintained during this part. This was how one could communicate with the gods and demonstrate their devotion.
However, Jiang Chen’s fart rudely broke this silence and shattered this dignified gathering.
Everyone knew that farts were comprised of unhealthy gas and were extremely unsound. If this had happened during a regular occasion, it would have been simply passed over as everyone else held their breath.
However, Jiang Chen’s regrettable fart was smelly and long. It was an affront to the gods! The high priest in charge of the rite’s proceedings was appalled and started cursing loudly, as if the fart had destroyed the pillar of the world and was causing the sky to cave in.
This aroused the great wrath of King Eastern Lu, as he doted on his beloved daughter so, and he called for the guards to drag Jiang Chen away and beat him to death!
Even then, his anger was not abated and he gave the order to hang Jiang Chen’s corpse on the city wall for vultures and scavengers to pick out.
Jiang Chen wouldn’t even have had a body left if the kingdom’s nobles didn’t persuade the king otherwise, pointing out that openly displaying a corpse was vulgar and uncivilized, and would adversely impact the kingdom’s luck.