The Grand Canal

Number Six had died too.

Including Number Nine, two Corpse Burners had died at the Corpse Burning Facility in a single night.

Number Nine had screamed when he died, so he had been discovered immediately.

But Number Six had died without a sound. Only when they opened his door did they find his headless body lying on the floor, blood flowing everywhere.

The Mutated Corpse that should have turned to ash had smashed through the roof and fled, its whereabouts unknown. Number Six's head had vanished along with it.

No expression could be seen on the smoke-blackened faces of the sixteen surviving Corpse Burners—whether fear, relief, or anything else.

No one spoke either. Being a Corpse Burner was a wretched trade where one exchanged one's life for steamed buns. Their standing and circumstances were worse even than the Night Soil Men in Lian City. The vast majority came from among the refugees.

What refugees had seen most in their lives was corpses.

They had long since gone numb.

Before long, three factory agents clad in Flying Fish Robes arrived at Number Six's Corpse Burning Room to track down the fleeing Mutated Corpse.

But that no longer had the slightest connection to Qin He and the other Corpse Burners.

Whether the escaped Mutated Corpse was caught or not, it would not return to this Corpse Burning Facility.

Even the Mutated Corpse captured by the on-duty constables in Room Number Nine would be sent elsewhere for handling.

The Corpse Burners lined up to hand over the ashes, each receiving fifteen copper coins—their food money for the day.

If ashes had an owner, the family came to collect them. If they had no owner, they were dumped into the Grand Canal.

No one but Qin He knew the Scholar's identity, so naturally no one came for him. After thinking for a moment, Qin He said to the on-duty constable, "Sir, may this bucket of ashes be left for this humble one to handle?"

Xu Changshou gave Qin He a strange glance, then impatiently waved a hand in agreement.

He had no mind to care what Qin He wanted with a bucket of useless ashes. They were ownerless anyway, and his heart was already vexed.

Two Corpse Burners had died last night, and one Mutated Corpse had escaped.

Corpse Burners could be recruited again, but if that Mutated Corpse caused some great disaster, the Corpse Burning Facility would certainly catch the blame.

Half a year ago, a Mutated Corpse had escaped too. The next night, it attacked a merchant caravan, leaving none of its thirteen members alive. Had they been ordinary merchants, it might have been one thing. But the caravan attacked had belonged to Prince Wei.

Who was Prince Wei? Great Li's current Nine Thousand Years Old, one man beneath ten thousand in both palace and court, the Imperial Lord's most trusted right-hand man.

No one knew how furious Prince Wei had been. In any case, when the paddle came down, half the men in the Eastern City Marshal's Office, top to bottom, were stripped of their posts. The four constables on duty were thrown into the Imperial Prison and were never heard from again.

The only reason Xu Changshou had managed to secure this official post at the Corpse Burning Facility was because that incident had left vacancies.

Who could have imagined that only half a year later, the same thing would happen during his watch?

Please, don't let anything happen. Xu Changshou prayed silently.

Qin He carried the Scholar's ashes all the way out of the city. Reaching a secluded spot, he dug a pit and buried them.

He snapped off a branch for a grave marker and carved upon it: Tomb of Liu Chengji, the Scholar of Longchuan.

Since he had drowned in water, his ashes should not enter the water again.

Rough and hasty as it was, the son of a county magistrate was buried just like that.

Buried with him were his store of learning, his loves and hates, his triumph at the imperial examinations.

One person had vanished from the world, yet it seemed as though nothing had vanished at all.

By the time Qin He returned near the Corpse Burning Facility, the sun had risen.

The silent grain transport docks had come alive.

The Grand Canal wound in from the horizon, linking the heart of the Great Li Dynasty with the fertile southern lands of fish and rice. Laden with grain, military pay, taxes, silk, cotton, porcelain, coal, timber, and countless passengers and goods, it flowed northward, supporting the Great Li Dynasty's crumbling rule over the north.

Porter Guild laborers unloaded and loaded cargo piece by piece like ants moving house.

They shouted work chants, trod the springing planks, bent beneath their loads yet still strode as swiftly as flying, as though walking level ground.

Countless merchants haggled on the shore, voices boiling like a cauldron. It was a bustling sight.

A group of refugees crowded outside the Porter Guild, waiting to be chosen, hoping to sell a bit of strength for something to eat. The junior foreman of the Porter Guild covered his nose in disgust and pointed at a two-hundred-jin stone lock beside him. "Raise that stone lock, and you can stay. If you can't raise it, get lost."

The refugees looked at the stone lock and shook their heads. Skin and bones as they were, where could they find the strength to lift a two-hundred-jin stone lock?

Those who refused to give up immediately invited a savage beating. Four or five Porter Guild thugs stood behind the junior foreman.

Seeing this, the refugees could only leave one after another.

"A bunch of firewood. Not one of you is worth a damn. Pah." The junior foreman spat, turned to leave, and then a voice rang out. "I'll try."

He turned around and saw a young man of about twenty in rough hemp clothes standing beside the stone lock. The youth bent down, let out a "Hah!" and lifted the stone lock over his head.

The junior foreman's eyes lit up. At last, someone useful had come.

Yesterday, a gangplank had snapped while unloading cargo, killing two laborers. They were badly short-handed.

"Not bad. You can stay."

"How much are the wages?" the youth asked.

"Five coins a day. Thin porridge in the morning, solid food at noon."

"Too little. Not doing it."

"You think that's too little? Why don't you ask around? Who besides my Three Routes Porter Guild gives two meals a day and five coins in wages? How much do you want?"

"Fifteen coins."

The youth grinned. Before the dumbfounded junior foreman could react, he tossed down the stone lock and darted off in a flash.

The junior foreman was so furious that he stamped his feet and cursed after him.

Qin He was very satisfied with his changes.

If he had possessed this strength before, he would not have ended up as a Corpse Burner.

But now, even if someone offered him a position serving some official lord, he would not budge from here.

He spent all fifteen coins, bringing back eight coarse-flour steamed buns and two baked flatbreads from the morning market stalls.

As for the taste, it was best not to mention it. The coarse-flour buns were black and hard, stuffed with wheat bran, husks, bark, grass roots, and the like. They tasted bitter. The flatbreads were about the same, except they had a little salt.

But at least they filled his belly.

After returning to his Corpse Burning Room and sleeping all day, he ate the remaining buns at night. Then, with a clang of the gong, the on-duty constables finished assigning the corpses and locked the doors. The Corpse Burners' day of work began.

The corpse assigned to Qin He had died violently. Its chest had been stabbed clean through, one arm had been hacked off, and its entire body was covered in mud.

Three branded characters marked its chest: Three Rivers Gang.

By the look of it, the corpse had been a Grain Transport Gang enforcer. After death, perhaps resentment or Obsession had arisen, and it had clawed its way out of the earth.

The Grand Canal was the golden waterway for the realm's money, grain, and goods. The entire Great Li Dynasty had its eyes on the wealth brought by grain transport. Factions formed, officials and guilds ran rampant, each with its own claws and influence.

The Porter Guilds, Grain Transport Gangs, Carriage and Horse Gangs, and Brokerage Guilds each claimed their own territory as kings. Fights and brawls were as commonplace as daily meals.

At first, it was usually, "What are you looking at?" "Looking at you, so what?" Then came some gesturing, which gradually escalated until it became a collective brawl between two gangs. The government runners either did not come at all, or, if they did, they mingled in the crowd to watch the show. For all anyone knew, they might even pull out a handful of sunflower seeds from their pockets.

"Oi, that slash was damn impressive!"

"Hey, hey, hey, kicking below the belt isn't manly!"

"You there, put some strength into it!"

And so on. Once they had feasted their eyes enough, they went to collect the bodies, and the matter was considered finished. A couple days later, it would all begin again.

After checking and finding no other problems, Qin He draped himself in hemp mourning clothes, tied mourning cloth around his head, fetched clean water, and began washing the corpse.

Corpse Burners had their own rules. Before burning a corpse, they had to wear hemp and mourning cloth, clean the body thoroughly, and if it was incomplete, find something to make up the missing parts. Then they had to say: "Sir, walk the road ahead without worry; in Rebirth in Paradise, wealth shall be yours. Do not blame the three fires that cleanse your body, lest worms do you harm. This little craftsman wears hemp and cloth, changing your clothes so you may set out well. Lie easy upon the Three Purities Platform; do not let the hour pass beyond the hare."

What it meant was: I have worn mourning clothes and cleansed your body, so have mercy and do not harm me. If you harm me, you will miss the hour of reincarnation, and Rebirth in Paradise will be gone.

Whether it worked or not, no one knew. In any case, that was the rule.

Qin He first washed the corpse clean, then used needle and thread to sew up the holes through its chest and its severed arm. Once it was properly dressed, he moved it into the Corpse Burning Furnace.

Lamp oil ignited the coal pile, air was pumped in, and before long, it blazed fiercely.

The pungent smell of sulfur mixed with the stench of the corpse, making it hard to bear.