Lie Low, Don't Get Carried Away

The brawl lasted nearly half a shichen before it finally ended.

Both sides called in two waves of reinforcements, practically emptying their nests.

Qin He kept his eyes and ears peeled, taking in every detail of the scene.

Seventeen people had died in total. Eight had suffered unquestionably fatal wounds; as for the seriously and lightly injured, along with those merely bloodied, they were too numerous to count.

The constables from the Eastern City Marshal's Office had arrived during the first wave of reinforcements. There were twenty of them in all: eleven bought sunflower seeds, seven bought salted beans, and six bought Candied Hawthorn Skewers.

Of the seeds he had cracked himself, eighteen were bitter.

Pah, what a crooked merchant!

After the crowd dispersed, the battleground was a complete mess. The injured were taken away by their respective gangs, while the corpses were left behind.

The constables handled the aftermath, bringing over three carts to haul the bodies away. That was the end of it.

The common folk had feasted their eyes, the vendors had sold out their wares, and the Great Li Dynasty's GDP had risen by another tiny bit.

Most of the dead were migrant refugees and laborers from elsewhere, all bachelors. Even if they died, there would be no one to mourn them.

They had clearly come to this bustling canal dock, yet after one brawl, it was as though they had never come at all.

Qin He grimaced as he headed back. Something felt wrong in his mouth—a sunflower seed shell was wedged between his back teeth.

His tongue knew exactly where it was, but his fingers could not reach it no matter how he tried.

Spotting a clump of thorny branches by the roadside, he hurried over and snapped off a thorn to use as a toothpick.

The sight was not particularly eye-catching, yet it made a blue-clad servant passing Qin He from the opposite direction furrow his brow slightly.

At a tea stall not far away, a saber-wielding man tipped back his head and drained his tea, then paid and left.

Farther away, a spyglass quietly withdrew from a window.

"How does that grimacing face of his look anything like a master? He looks like a dog." Inside the room, a woman in blue lowered the spyglass with a shake of her head, her brows pinched into a deep furrow.

"Senior Sister, Corpse Burners are poor common folk too. Our Holy Cult does not insult people like that." The woman in white took the spyglass, mild reproach flickering in her almond eyes.

"The Flying Fish Guard mobilized. They must have discovered that the Punishment Slave went to the Corpse Burning Facility."

"But the Corpse Burning Facility was calm and quiet last night. Where did the Punishment Slave go? That executioner kills wherever he goes." Ignoring the woman in white, the woman in blue continued with her own analysis.

"Senior Sister, no matter how strong the Punishment Slave is, he is only one man. Two fists cannot beat four hands. Perhaps he never went to the Corpse Burning Facility at all, but merely feinted before hiding himself away?" the woman in white said, picking up the thread.

"Perhaps." The woman in blue nodded.

Scenes like these continued unfolding around the East City Corpse Burning Facility.

The Flying Fish Guard's sudden encirclement of the East City Corpse Burning Facility had drawn countless overt and covert gazes toward it.

Though Qin He could not see those people, he could sense that attention gathering.

Clearly, his caution in not going to the Mass Grave today had been the right choice.

After losing a century-old Snake Immortal and their foremost executioner in succession, how could the Di Barbarians possibly let the matter rest?

Endure for a moment, and the wind would be still, the waves calm. It was not fear—he simply liked peace and comfort.

Qin He spent the day killing time back at the Corpse Burning Facility and went to see Crippled Li once during that time.

As dusk drew near, the corpses arrived.

There were twenty bodies in total.

As always, the villainous trio showed pitifully little awareness and only assigned Qin He one corpse.

Qin He endured it again.

Clang!

A gong rang out.

The doors of the Corpse Burning Rooms closed and locked one after another. Another day's work had begun.

Qin He lifted the corpse cloth and took a look.

Well, what a coincidence.

It was one of the men beaten to death in the daytime brawl between the Three Rivers Gang and the Caohe Gang.

The deceased was around twenty years old, in the prime of his youth. His body was sturdy, his hands thick with calluses. One look told Qin He he was a capable man who made his living on the water.

His eyeballs bulged furiously from their sockets. Qin He had no idea how he had died.

Dressed in mourning hemp, Qin He cleansed the corpse with clear water.

After checking him over, Qin He unexpectedly found no obvious wound on the body.

A corpse whose eyes would not close was a great ill omen. That was likely why he had been sent to the Corpse Burning Facility.

Thoughtfully, Qin He untied the dead man's clothes.

One look, and holy hell!

His balls had shattered!

Both yolks had slipped out of the bird's nest and fallen into his trouser legs.

A Groin Kick!

It had been vicious indeed. Not only had it smashed his balls, but the root of his leg was visibly fractured as well.

Nine times out of ten, the kick had come from an expert with inner strength.

No wonder both his eyes bulged out like that. He had been painfully tortured to death alive.

"No sense of propriety. No sense of propriety at all." Qin He shook his head speechlessly.

Once he had found the wound, things were easy. Qin He kneaded two replacement balls out of dough and hung them back in place, then stitched up the bird's nest and the eyelids. The corpse was more or less handled.

He carried the body to the furnace, recited the corpse words, lit the fire and added coal, then worked the bellows to burn the corpse.

The body was very quiet, with little Resentful Energy. Only those wide-staring eyes looked frightening.

In the dead of night, the corpse turned to ash inch by inch.

Through the Shadow Play Performance, Qin He learned the deceased's identity.

The man was called Zheng Laosan—another person without even a proper name.

His origins went without saying: he came from a poor family. But he was not a migrant refugee. He was instead a down-and-out local youth who had done plenty of chicken-stealing and dog-snatching in his younger days. Later, he joined the Caohe Gang and became a boatman.

Following boat owners north and south, he slowly endured his way upward until he became a minor foreman, managing four or five men under him.

To Qin He, this sort of life played out in shadow was actually quite boring.

It was the typical life of a bankrupt commoner of Great Li: limited ability, nothing particularly remarkable.

Zheng Laosan's life consisted of running boats, collecting silver, gambling on dice, drinking with courtesans, and every few days picking fights or causing friction with other gangs.

He was no good man, but he was not especially bad either—until today, when a single Groin Kick killed him.

Although there was nothing special about Zheng Laosan's life, a scene in the shadow play that had nothing to do with him caught Qin He's interest.

In Zheng Laosan's Shadow Play, he had unexpectedly seen Lord Liu, Liu Changan, the Left Vice Minister of War, several times—disguised and acting furtively.

Each time, the location was Ling'an Alley, the road Zheng Laosan had to take home.

Ling'an Alley was an extremely rundown place. Several years ago, Di Barbarian spies had slaughtered more than half the people in the entire alley. In recent years, rumors of hauntings had spread again and again, and people had even seen Mutated Corpses coming and going there.

Every time Zheng Laosan passed through, he was terrified and never dared linger for even a moment.

A dignified Left Vice Minister of War, a third-rank high official of the court, going there in disguise for no reason—if there was truly nothing fishy about it, Qin He would dare do as Zheng Laosan had and livestream his own balls exploding.

But Qin He's curiosity had merely been stirred. He had no other thoughts.

When the nation prospered, the people suffered. When the nation perished, the people suffered.

Even in the future age of explosive technological advancement, ordinary people still lived hard lives.

That had remained unchanged since time immemorial.

Whether the world rose or fell was for those who ate meat to plot over.

He was only a Corpse Burner. Why should he worry over matters that had nothing to do with him?

Judgment and weighing. Zhang Jin Kou, the Black Robed Man, said, "Petty scheming and dogged scrambling, endless turmoil and ceaseless unrest. How many dynasties had weathered wind and rain? A thousand years in an instant, smoke and clouds passing before the eyes."

Watching the Black Robed Man slowly vanish, Qin He increasingly felt that this was no mere system, but a real existence.

Sometimes, when he was interested, the Black Robed Man would comment on the deceased a few times. Other times, when he had no interest, he would mutter a few scattered words that formed no coherent passage and had nothing to do with the dead.

As for information about the Black Robed Man, there was still almost none. Qin He only knew that it seemed to come from a place called the "Abyss."

A few days ago, Zhang Jin Kou had said to Qin He, "When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

He did not know whether that had been guidance or a warning.

Back to the point: such thoughts were destined to yield no answers. Whatever came later could be dealt with later.

For Qin He, the most important thing right now was still the reward.

Reward: Fire Stone.