Corpse Burner

Late at night, a corpse burned quietly before Qin He, occasionally letting out a crack or two.

After staring blankly for a moment, a chaotic flood of memories surged into his mind, and Qin He's heart was instantly filled with ten thousand alpacas.

He had actually... transmigrated.

This was the Corpse Burning Facility of the Eastern City Marshal's Office in the Capital City of the Great Li Dynasty, and he was a Corpse Burner.

The court was corrupt, plague ran rampant, refugees rebelled in the south, leaving a thousand miles of scorched earth, while Di Barbarians invaded from the north, slaughtering cities and seizing land. The Great Li Dynasty teetered in the wind and rain.

Unlike the time and space where he had once lived, the chaos and unrest here were tenfold, a hundredfold worse. Martial artists and gifted individuals violated the law through force, while unspeakable Demonic Creatures and Ghosts devoured flesh and gnawed bones.

The righteous path gave no light, and human lives were worth less than grass.

If the time and space of his previous life had been the human world, then this place was hell.

The Corpse Burning Facility was a place specifically used by the Great Li Dynasty to dispose of Mutated Corpses. Since ancient times, people had valued being buried whole. Cremation was a grave disrespect to the dead. Only corpses that had undergone mutation were dealt with in such an extreme manner.

"Ah!"

A scream suddenly rang out not far away.

Qin He's heart tightened. Another one had died.

The crunching sounds of gnawing that followed made his scalp tingle.

Mutated Corpses were no ordinary matter. If one was not careful, they could rise and pounce on people. They were exceedingly dangerous.

This was already the third one this month.

And that was only because every Corpse Burner had a fate and birth characters hard enough to be one in ten thousand. If they had been ordinary people, they likely would not have lasted even a day.

The Corpse Burning Facility stood backed against the Capital City and faced the Grand Canal. Merchants and travelers streamed in from north and south like a tide, making it a gathering place for All Walks of Life.

There were countless who drowned, died unjustly, starved to death, or were beaten to death. If a corpse developed Resentful Energy, it could undergo Corpse Mutation.

Naturally, Qin He could not burn such numbers alone. The East City Corpse Burning Facility had eighteen Corpse Burners in total.

The Corpse Burning Rooms stood in a row, one room to one burner. Before burning a corpse, the door was shut and locked. If the corpse mutated, the craftsman would surely die.

Ill fortune and danger described the plight of a Corpse Burner.

Yet however bad this profession was, it had one benefit: there was a place to live and food to eat.

Qin He had originally been a refugee from Jinxi. After narrowly escaping death countless times and drifting to the Capital City, he had been chosen through Bone Reading by an officer of the Corpse Burning Facility. Being able to come here was something countless refugees could only envy.

If he refused the work, he would be thrown back among the refugees tomorrow and starve to death alive.

The corpse before him had already burned down to little more than a human-shaped mass. Pouncing on anyone was no longer possible.

In this chaotic age, he had lived another day.

"Wretch, submit to the law at once!"

A commanding shout rang out. The on-duty officer had arrived after hearing the commotion and was dealing with the risen corpse.

After a long bout of clanging and banging, everything finally fell silent.

Before long, someone shouted, "Corpse Burner Number Nine is vacant! Find a replacement immediately!"

Number Nine.

Two rooms over. Qin He was Number Seven.

Qin He knew Number Nine—a man in his thirties who had arrived only a few days before him. He had not expected the man to lose his life so quickly.

Qin He had asked around before. The most senior Corpse Burner here had only been working for half a year.

In other words, in roughly half a year, nearly everyone here would die once over, only to be replaced by newly arrived Corpse Burners. The cycle repeated endlessly, as if there were never any end to it.

Qin He did not know how long he could live. He could only pray that his luck would be good enough every single day.

He pulled the bellows, and the coal furnace burned red-hot. The charred corpse soon burned into sections, and as the flames met fresh "fuel," they leaped up green.

At that moment, Qin He's vision gradually blurred. An enormous ash-gray curtain slowly descended, while the sound of wooden clappers pierced through the dim yellow light, swaying and dancing.

A Shadow Play Performance, illusion yet reality—the dead man's life.

The deceased had been a scholar. His father had been the County Magistrate of Longchuan, and his family circumstances had been fairly good. Clever beyond others from childhood, he had studied bitterly for ten years and become adept at writing essays.

On the day he set out for the Capital City examinations, the elders of his hometown had seen him off for ten li. The scholar had been high-spirited as well, waiting only to return home in glory and bring honor to his family.

Yet Heaven did not favor him. The scholar failed his first examination and returned home in dejection. Then his father became implicated in a joint-signature case, was stripped of office, and soon died in despondency.

The "elders" who had once seen him off for ten li changed their faces in the blink of an eye. They mocked, ridiculed, and taunted him. The warmer they had been before, the more venomous their tongues became afterward.

The scholar suffered a severe blow and lost his spirit. Even the essays that had once flowed from his brush like divine inspiration could no longer be written.

Fortunately, a woman who had grown up with him often comforted him, allowing him to gather his fighting spirit once more.

Three years later, the scholar spent all his family fortune and once again headed to the Capital City for the examinations.

His childhood sweetheart wept as they parted, saying she had persuaded her parents. No matter the result of this examination, the day he returned home would be the night of their bridal chamber and candlelight.

They loved one another and could not bear to part, looking back once every ten steps.

Unfortunately, the bridal chamber and candlelight were one blessing, and having one's name inscribed on the golden list was another. Blessings did not come in pairs, and the scholar could not bear them.

Before he even reached the Capital City, he died.

The scholar first took a carriage to the Grand Canal, then boarded a boat for the Capital City. When the vessel reached Tonghui, a fierce wind suddenly raised a water dragon. The boat sank, and since the scholar could not swim, he drowned.

The wooden rod moved, and the shadow play performed the scholar's struggle and unwillingness as he drowned. Around the sunken boat, demonic creatures seemed to drift and circle.

The corpse was not recovered by river patrolmen until three days later. Because they could not find proof of his identity, they dragged him to a Mass Grave and buried him carelessly.

Yet the scholar's Obsession with his unwed beloved kept him from accepting burial. That very night, he crawled out of the earth and underwent Corpse Mutation.

After several twists and turns, he was finally sent here to Qin He. However countless his unwillingness, he could only turn to ashes.

The curtain rose, and the scholar's shadow puppet transformed into an Illusory Shadow that entered the Shadow Play Lantern. The lantern slowly rose, illuminating an enormous bronze scale. A Black Robed Man stood atop the scale beam, looking down like a deity.

The Shadow Play Lantern fell onto the scale pan, and the Black Robed Man raised his head slightly.

"At the judgment of souls, I shall weigh them with the Scales of Judgment." The Black Robed Man opened Zhang Jin Kou, and the scene before Qin He slowly dispersed like ripples on water.

Qin He raised his hand and saw that a red fruit had appeared in his palm.

Information about the fruit appeared in his mind: This was an Abyssal Fruit. It would fill you with strength.

Qin He grinned, excitement flooding through his entire body.

Burning corpses, weighing souls, rewards... wasn't this the standard transmigration cheat?

He just did not know whether it was a system or a miracle.

That Black Robed Man looked like the legendary God of Death, his entire body hidden beneath the black robe, his face a mass of darkness as well.

Qin He sniffed the red fruit. A rich fragrance of fruit rushed into his lungs, making his mouth water.

Without hesitation, he swallowed it in one bite.

The fruit turned sweet in his mouth and flowed down his throat into every limb and bone. The muscles throughout his body immediately crackled as they swelled.

Within a few breaths, Qin He's once-scrawny body had grown a whole size larger. Even his face became more defined.

"That felt good!"

Qin He could not help shouting.

He threw a few punches. His strength had increased by more than double, and he almost wished he could burn another corpse right away.

This reward was simply too thrilling. If he had relied on training, it would have taken several months at minimum to achieve this, and only if he had enough food and drink.

Unfortunately, that was impossible for now. Whatever corpses were delivered before the Corpse Burning Room closed would be burned. Once they were done, there would be no more until tomorrow.

The night watchman's drum sounded in the distance. It was the fifth watch.

The prefectural office had arranged for corpses to be burned at night, saying that only in the dead of night, after the deceased's soul had lost its body, could it travel to the underworld. Otherwise, if the soul lingered behind, Supernatural Incidents even more terrifying than Corpse Mutation would occur.

Qin He did not understand such things very well. In any case, that was what the prefectural office said, and corpses were always delivered at night, never during the day.

By the time he extinguished the furnace and shoveled the ashes into an iron bucket, dawn had already broken.

"Clang!"

"The time has come! Open the room doors!"

At the sound of a gong, the great iron doors of the Corpse Burning Rooms opened one after another.

Qin He picked up the bucket of ashes and was just about to step out of the room.

"Corpse Burning Room Number Six is vacant!" The on-duty officer's voice rang out again.