Chaos at the Refugee Camp (Part Two)

The two corpses that had been burned had both died in a fight.

The refugee had been killed by government soldiers, while the soldier had died from a blow to the head from a refugee's club.

However, this soldier was not a regular serviceman, but a temporary hire recruited by the Eastern City Marshal's Office. He had been a street thug from the Capital City called Ma Lai, though his proper name was Liu Shuanzi.

At a young age, Ma Lai had refused to walk the straight and narrow. Fraud, swindling, eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, brawling—he did not miss a single vice.

He had gambled away the family fortune and enraged his parents to death, surviving entirely on support from an uncle.

But these days, even a landlord had no surplus grain. His uncle's life was hardly comfortable either; once or twice was manageable, but more than that, even he could not bear it.

So Ma Lai drifted even deeper into the streets, ruthless and eager to fight, becoming a street hoodlum.

Some time ago, the Eastern City Marshal's Office had recruited temporary workers. He had gone along with a gang of lackeys, not for the wages, but simply so he could eat his fill.

Eat whose food?

Naturally, the refugees' food. The officials stripped away layer after layer; by the time the gruel reached the Refugee Camp, the soldiers had to eat first. Only after they had eaten their fill would water be added and the refugees allowed to eat.

How could there not be a riot? In the end, there had been no road left for them.

Ma Lai did no decent deeds at the Refugee Camp either. Whenever he saw a refugee woman with somewhat better looks, he would go over and ruin her. From time to time, he also robbed people and trafficked them.

He was thoroughly practiced at every crooked, conscience-lacking hustle.

This time, Heaven had claimed him. When the refugees rioted, Ma Lai had reacted quickly and could originally have escaped, but just when death should not have found him, he twisted his ankle.

When that club came down, his brains sprayed out.

One word: deserved.

The two corpses gave him two rewards: Night Concealment Technique and Street Brawl Technique.

Night Concealment Technique: When you hide beneath the shelter of night, you will become a ghostlike, invisible existence.

Street Brawl Technique: When you are caught in a melee, you will become a kinglike existence.

The rewards were excellent, especially that nighttime invisibility technique. It was simply an essential skill for doing bad things at night—hiding in darkness was useful beyond measure.

Street Brawl Technique was not bad either. Although Qin He already possessed inner force and the Flying Needle Technique, greatly increasing his combat power, every strike he made took a life, making it a little too murderous. Street Brawl Technique was most suitable when he did not wish to take a life.

He stopped the furnace and extinguished the fire, then tried out the two skills he had just acquired.

"Ah!!"

Just then, a scream suddenly rang out.

Qin He hurriedly looked toward where it had come from.

Someone had died.

He did not know which room it was.

Soon, the sound of clanging combat came from that direction. Before long, the result was announced: "Room Five is vacant. Replacements will be recruited as soon as possible!"

Qin He searched his memory for an impression of Room Five. It seemed to be a very young man who had not been at the Corpse Burning Facility for long.

"Ah!!"

This side had only just settled down when another scream rang out.

Another one dead.

This time, it was Room Sixteen.

Another burst of clattering combat followed. The Flying Fish Guard were, after all, factory agents—the elite under Prince Wei, Nine Thousand Years Old. They dealt with Mutated Corpses much faster than constables like Xu Changshou.

After that, things were quiet for a while. Not long afterward, the sound of an iron lock being opened suddenly came from outside Qin He's door.

The main door opened, and a factory agent entered alongside Xu Changshou. Behind them, they dragged a corpse.

With a businesslike manner, the factory agent said, "Two Corpse Burners are dead. Distribute the unfinished corpses again. Not a single corpse can be left overnight in the Corpse Burning Facility tonight."

With that, he left, leaving Xu Changshou behind.

Xu Changshou glanced at Qin He's Corpse Burning Furnace. Seeing that the fire had been put out, he said to Qin He, "Fire it up and keep burning. The Flying Fish Guard people have gone mad."

After muttering a curse under his breath, he left as well.

Qin He looked at the corpse on the ground, and his mouth slowly split into a grin.

What had been lost had returned. Wonderful.

Qin He was brimming with energy as he hurried over for a look. Well now—it was the vicious corpse that had attacked someone earlier.

A golden imprint left by a Corpse Suppressing Talisman marked its forehead, and its Corpse Claws were still smeared with blood.

It seemed the Flying Fish Guard really had been driven frantic. In the past, a vicious corpse like this would certainly have been transported back to the Flying Fish Guard's Corpse Burning Hall for disposal. Now, after suppressing it, they were simply dealing with it on the spot rather than letting it remain overnight.

Naturally, Qin He was delighted, because he had recently discovered that the fiercer the corpse, the better the reward.

He lifted the corpse into the furnace and started the fire again.

After being suppressed by the Flying Fish Guard, the corpse was mostly obedient. Even its desperate struggles became futile beneath Qin He's ten Corpse Suppressing Nails.

It was just rather resistant to burning. Only when the coal reserve was nearly exhausted did it finally burn away.

Shadow Play Performance. It was actually a Bazong.

A Bazong was already a middling-ranking officer in the military camp, capable of commanding more than two hundred men.

Equivalent to the rank of a modern company commander.

No wonder it had been so vicious. Fortunately, the Flying Fish Guard had been stationed here. Otherwise, who knew what kind of chaos the Corpse Burning Facility would have become tonight.

Judgment and weighing: Black Robed Man Zhang Jin Kou: When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Reward: Disguise Technique.

Disguise Technique: Your face can change in a thousand ways, becoming anyone you wish to become.

This skill could not have been more practical. It was worthy of being obtained by burning the corpse of a mutated Bazong.

Qin He immediately walked to the water bucket and imagined Xu Changshou's appearance. Then the muscles and bones in his face wriggled with a series of crackling pops. When they stopped, his face was identical to Xu Changshou's. It was truly miraculous.

If he ever met the Emperor someday, would that not mean he could share those three thousand beauties of the imperial harem?

Just thinking about it made him damn excited.

Only after playing with it for a long while did Qin He gradually calm down.

The Bazong's corpse had already turned to ashes. From the Bazong's Shadow Play, Qin He saw more truths about the great Refugee Camp.

The Refugee Camp's evolution into a refugee concentration camp had been a scheme neither fish nor fowl.

At the beginning, it had stemmed from the Emperor's edict to provide relief to refugees.

Providing relief required allocating silver and grain. Naturally, the bureaucratic class had rejoiced; as long as money and grain left the state treasury, they had ways to embezzle it layer by layer and divide the spoils among themselves.

There was nothing wrong with the Emperor issuing such an edict, but it brought about an unexpected result. News of the Refugee Camp's establishment spread swiftly in all directions along the Grand Canal, that "highway," and refugees gathered in ever-increasing numbers.

Setting aside the officials' embezzlement, even if they had not stolen a thing, the money and grain would never have been enough to support the ever-expanding, long-term consumption.

The crumbling Great Li Dynasty had long been stretched thin, its resources barely covering its needs. The Emperor's edict was, in truth, more of a gesture than anything substantial.

So, logically speaking, the Refugee Camp had always been, at its root, a fantasy for the refugees.

As the refugees grew more numerous, how to handle them became a thorny problem.

Or rather, how to "reduce" the refugees became a thorny problem.

From inside to outside the Capital City, everyone rejected this group of refugees.

Penniless, mostly skeletal, and riddled with disease, the refugees had neither purchasing power nor strength to sell. Other than spreading plagues and causing every sort of public security problem, they were almost entirely useless.

Public resentment in the Capital City boiled over, the officials were greed without limit, and the central government was powerless.

Thus, the Refugee Camp's fate was sealed.

The authorities had long foreseen that unrest would erupt at the Refugee Camp. They deployed troops to surround it, intending to wait until after the riot to suppress it and resolve the refugee problem once and for all.

But they had misjudged the Capital Garrison's fighting strength.

A night passed. Roosters announced the dawn, and the eastern sky turned the pale white of a fish belly.

The sound of gongs rang out, and the doors of the Corpse Burning Facility opened one after another.

"Room Eighteen is vacant. Replacements will be recruited as soon as possible!"

"Room Four is vacant. Replacements will be recruited as soon as possible!"

"Room Three is vacant. Replacements will be recruited as soon as possible!"

Three announcements in succession brought the number of dead Corpse Burners up by three more, and also declared that three Mutated Corpses had escaped without a trace.

The discovery only came in the morning, which meant the Corpse Burners had not even had time to scream when the Mutated Corpses attacked. The corpses had most likely escaped as well.

The Flying Fish Guard's declaration that not a single corpse would be left overnight had ultimately not been achieved.

They still hauled several unburned corpses away from the Corpse Burning Facility.

The thirteen Corpse Burners who had survived the catastrophe looked at one another. Their faces were numb, but their eyes held at least a trace of fear.

Nearly one-third had died in a single night. It was a tragedy unlike any before.