Hot Coins

Qin He's mouth split into a crooked grin.

If you wanted plenty of food and clothing, you had to do it yourself. That slap had been worth it.

Lockpicking Art: Learn this art, and no lock under heaven will be too difficult to open.

Chamber Arts: Learn this art, and you will become the little overlord of the Silver Spear. What harm was there in bedding three thousand beauties in a single night?

He learned them without hesitation. At once, one hundred and sixty-eight lockpicking techniques and two hundred and thirty Chamber Arts techniques became engraved in Qin He's mind. The latter were not merely techniques—they were cultivation methods, the kind that could be practiced.

A single noodle could poke open every lock in the Great Li Dynasty; one Silver Spear could sire nine sons by dragons and refuse no one who came.

Qin He could only call it incredible. This was simply too incredible.

Skills did not weigh a man down. Of all the myriad skills under heaven, there would come a day when each proved useful. Qin He looked forward to that day immensely, especially to the latter skill.

Old Alley Entrance only cost fifty copper coins, after all.

After so many days, Crippled Li should have gone there already, right?

Maybe he could ask him another day?

Have Crippled Li show him the way?

He would not make Qin He treat him, would he?

With his thoughts running wild, Qin He added the final shovel of coal to the Corpse Burning Furnace. Then he lay down on his bedding and gradually fell asleep.

Though his inner strength had grown much stronger, after going several days without sleep, weariness still crept into his mind.

On the corpse-burning platform, the three members of the Xiong family slowly turned to ash beneath the lingering heat of the fire.

What Qin He did not know was that while he slept deeply, two shadows, one black and one white, wearing Pointed Hats flashed into view above the Corpse Burning Furnace. With a hook of iron, they hooked three phantoms out from the ashes, then flashed away and vanished once more.

Of the countless good and evil deeds in the human world, who was right and who was wrong—no one could judge.

That was King Yama's work.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo..."

Dawn had barely broken, and the east glowed white like a fish's belly. It was another clear day.

The crowing of roosters woke the slumbering canal wharf.

A gong rang out from the Corpse Burning Facility.

"Clang!"

"The hour has arrived. Open the room doors!"

The great iron doors of the Corpse Burning Rooms opened one after another. No one came to report a death. It had been another peaceful night.

Qin He rolled over and got up, stretched his limbs, and shoveled the still-warm ashes into a bucket.

As usual, the villain trio stood at the door to "welcome" him. Seeing that Qin He was still alive, their expressions suggested they were beginning to doubt life itself.

When the Corpse Burners saw Qin He, each gave him a thumbs-up and greeted him with, "Good fortune to Brother Qin."

Once Qin He had gone farther away, they sighed again. "What a pity his brain doesn't work right. He probably won't last many more days."

Naturally, Qin He had no such awareness. Wasn't life just laughing at others and being laughed at in turn?

After turning in the ashes, he received another forty-five copper coins. The Corpse Burning Facility never delayed or skimmed payments in this regard. The coins were bright yellow, their quality even better than the coins circulating in the market.

Someone came to claim the ashes of the three Xiong family members. It was the child still in swaddling clothes—the one Grave Robber's Child had given birth to—wrapped in hemp mourning clothes and carried by the steward, who claimed them on the child's behalf.

The steward was tall and thin, with little life in his face but a sharp gleam in his eyes. He was the one who had informed Xiong Wenlang that Xiong Jiu and Liu Siniang were plotting to murder him.

Qin He suddenly recalled that when Xiong Wenlang slipped, it seemed he had stepped on oil or wax.

Why would there be such a thing by the staircase?

A steward, a young child, a fortune beyond counting?

"Tsk."

Qin He tilted his head. He was not quite sure, nor could he make sense of it.

But he had a good habit: if he could not figure something out, he did not dwell on it.

There were two ultimate philosophical questions in this world that could solve ninety percent of one's troubles.

One was: what the hell does it have to do with you?

The other was: what the hell does it have to do with me?

That was right. What the hell did it have to do with him?

Let it be however it wanted to be.

Qin He was only a Corpse Burner, nothing more.

At least, that was what he thought.

What, the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility?

Sorry, the person who said that would not be born for another thousand years.

No. It did not exist. Stop talking nonsense.

Weighing the slightly heavy forty-five copper coins in his hand, Qin He added another five and headed toward Crippled Li's Room Seventeen.

He was still wondering how to bring it up when he discovered Old Liangtou, Liu Sanjin, and quite a few others inside, gathered around Crippled Li.

Yang Baitu, the old constable who guarded the gate, was applying medicine to Crippled Li's eyes.

Besides the four constables on night duty, the Corpse Burning Facility also had one constable who watched the main gate during the day. That was Yang Baitu.

Yang Baitu's hair was streaked with gray, and he was past sixty. He handled gatekeeping, paperwork, and medicine all by himself. Usually, he had little presence. Qin He had been at the Corpse Burning Facility for nearly a month, yet had never spoken with him or even known his name.

"Uncle Liang, what happened to Uncle Li?" Qin He asked Old Liangtou, who stood squeezed at the very edge of the crowd.

"He deserved it. Told him not to save money, told him not to save money. Well, now he's suffered calamity. Keep saving money and sooner or later it'll get him killed," Old Liangtou cursed, furious that he would not listen.

"Suffered calamity?"

Qin He froze slightly. He had seen this Calamity Qi once before, when he burned Horse Butcher.

Calamity Qi was the final breath a person exhaled before death. Once that breath left their mouth, it meant they were completely dead.

Plants that touched it withered; humans and animals who came into contact with it would, at best, suffer a serious illness, and at worst, die on the spot.

"Is it serious?" Qin He asked again.

"It's already good enough that it didn't take his life on the spot. Now he's deaf and blind. Whether he can pull through depends on whether his life is tough enough." After speaking, Old Liangtou pointed at Liu Sanjin and cursed, "You too, you death-seeking fool. If Brother Qin hadn't blocked a disaster for you last night, all of you would've died. Saving money, saving money—what the hell are you saving money for?"

Liu Sanjin hurriedly waved his hands in fright. "I won't save it, I won't save it. Today, I'll spend all my copper coins."

A chill could not help running across the back of Qin He's head.

Before that slap last night, the villain trio had been planning to assign the extra two corpses to Crippled Li and Liu Sanjin.

If not for that slap, Crippled Li and Liu Sanjin would most likely have ended up just as Old Liangtou said—they would have been dead.

Qin He sucked in a cold breath and looked up at the sky.

Could it be that somewhere in the unseen reaches of this world, there truly existed some transcendent will?

Did this will decree that Corpse Burners could not touch money, or their lives would be shortened?

At that moment, Qin He suddenly felt that the copper coins in his hand were a little too hot to hold.

After leaving the Corpse Burning Facility, Qin He went to the marketplace.

What for?

To spend money.

Better safe than sorry.

Who knew what was really going on? During this period of laying low and growing stronger, he could not afford to be reckless.

Money was meant to be spent anyway. Spending it now or later was still spending it. There was no need to fight against Heaven.

He had no grudge against Heaven, and Heaven seemed to treat him rather well.

After pondering it for half the journey, Qin He decided to buy a pot first.

Seeing Crippled Li's condition, Old Alley Entrance would not be an option anytime soon. He might as well improve his meals.

He had long since eaten coarse-flour steamed buns until he wanted to vomit, and there was not much on the market that suited his taste. In the future, he could make his own food whenever he had the chance.

Since he wanted to cook, he first needed a pot.

Qin He went to the general market first and spent six hundred copper coins on a Large Iron Pot.

Honestly, it was truly expensive.

Qin He had not expected an iron pot to cost so much.

After buying the pot, he bought a pound of salt, which cost him another hundred-odd coins.

He spent the last of his copper coins on iron nails.

Thus, the little loose silver in Qin He's pocket, along with the copper coins he had saved over these past days, was completely spent.

Carrying the large pot back, he passed the entrance to the cattle market.

Qin He saw a crowd gathered there. A stall board had been set up, with a cow's head hanging from it.

Someone was slicing beef.