Right Horse's Death

Qin He looked at the milk spilled until only half a bowl remained in his hand, then at the iron shovel that had cracked apart from his strike, his head full of question marks.

He had just been dealing with the milk when, good lord, a blade came hacking down at his face. It had nearly shaved off his nose.

That was utterly devoid of martial virtue.

Looking closely, he saw a bald head. Looking again—damn it—there were several rat-tail braids behind the man's forehead.

So he was a Di barbarian spy.

Qin He was stunned. What was this?

Had he been discovered, and they had chased him all the way here?

But after looking around, he saw that only one man had come. Were Di barbarian spies all this fierce?

Then he looked at the heavy blade. It was a foot wide and six feet long, its spine three fingers thick, an overwhelming sight to behold.

Qin He pulled it free and swung it twice. It felt quite handy, at least ten thousand times better than that flimsy piece-of-junk shovel.

He looked at the milk in his hand, then at the corpse on the ground. Qin He decisively drank the milk down.

He licked his lips. The taste did not seem as strong as last time.

With no time to savor it, Qin He put away the bowl, hoisted the corpse onto his back, and picked up the heavy blade. With a slight twist of his body, he melted into the night, leaving behind only an extremely faint phantom.

If an ordinary person saw it, they would easily mistake it for their eyes playing tricks on them.

This was the Night Concealment Technique he had obtained some time ago.

Night Concealment Technique: When you hide beneath the shelter of night, you become an intangible existence, like a ghost.

Qin He kept his eyes on all directions and his ears tuned to every sound, proceeding with exceptional caution.

He thought that unless something happened, he should not casually come out again. These Di barbarian spies were far too terrifying.

Was every one of them this powerful?

If a whole group came, he probably would not be able to withstand them.

He still had to keep lying low.

There was always someone stronger beyond the strong; a cautious sailor sailed for ten thousand years.

He returned all the way to the Corpse Burning Facility, yet no other Di barbarian spies appeared. The Corpse Burning Facility was peaceful as well.

Qin He leaped onto the roof, opened the smoke vent, and returned to the Corpse Burning Room.

Naturally, it was time to fire up the furnace and burn the corpse.

It would both destroy the evidence and earn him a reward. Why not?

It was his first time burning a Di barbarian spy. Perhaps he would get a pretty good reward.

He washed the corpse clean and carried it into the furnace.

Qin He took out the mourning cloth, then stuffed it back. Those rat-tail braids were far too disgusting.

He would make an exception today and not wear mourning cloth.

Qin He was just that sort of person without principles. In truth, he and Xu Changshou were the same kind of person: they only did what they liked. Xu Changshou liked making friends, while Qin He liked comfort.

He fed coal into the fire, fired up the furnace to burn the corpse, then took out flint and blew a fierce gale.

The corpse-burning progress bar was stacked full of buffs. In half a shichen, An Baogu's iron-tower-like body had been burned into charcoal.

After estimating the time, Qin He determined that it would be fully reduced to ash before dawn. He tossed that heavy blade into the cremation furnace as well.

Once it had been heated red-hot, he took out the Bone Shattering Hammer and hammered away, slowly forging an incomparably ugly iron shovel.

Qin He looked at it and felt that it was painful on the eyes.

There were a thousand trades, and every art had its specialist. This was something that needed a professional.

He tossed the shovel blank aside, intending to visit a blacksmith's shop after daybreak.

Clang!

A watchman's drum sounded. It was the fifth watch, and the east had already begun to pale like a fish belly.

An Baogu's corpse had also been completely incinerated.

The gray-white curtain descended. The Shadow Play Performance began, and Qin He saw An Baogu's life.

At once, he felt much of his confidence return.

So he had not been an ordinary spy, but one of the Di barbarians' renowned Baturu.

No wonder he had been so fierce.

If all Di barbarian spies were this powerful, they would have unified the world long ago.

An Baogu had been born into a tribal family. Fierce and fond of fighting, he had made a name for himself at thirteen. Later, he was recruited by the Di chieftain and joined the Eight Banner Army. After repeatedly earning military merits, he was promoted to Bayala Leader.

After his promotion, An Baogu's savagery grew even worse. He killed beyond count, slaughtering entire families at the slightest provocation. During the Liaodong campaign, he had even massacred every inhabitant of a small city that had already surrendered.

That act of slaughtering a city brought him criticism as well. With a single royal order, the Di chieftain transferred him to the Capital City, the heart of the Great Li Dynasty, where he commanded the spies in the Capital City to create chaos and gather intelligence. His codename was "Right Horse."

After arriving in the Capital City, he committed dozens more massacres.

Crime after crime—although Qin He was the sort of salted fish who took life easy, even he felt his anger rise.

Damn thing deserved to be struck by lightning. Good riddance.

The scales of judgment weighed his sins. The Black Robed Man Zhang Jin Kou said, "Goodness not accumulated cannot make a name; evil not accumulated cannot destroy a body. When good and evil reach their end, there will surely be retribution."

Reward: Qi Gazing Technique.

Qi Gazing Technique: Observe a person's good and evil, discern their fortune and misfortune. From a dynasty's fate down to feng shui and geomancy, all can be taken in with a single glance.

Qin He was overjoyed and immensely satisfied.

Observe good and evil in people, and he would know their hearts. Discern fortune and misfortune, and he would know the future.

A truly excellent skill.

He learned it without hesitation. In an instant, a dim light flashed through Qin He's eyes. As his internal energy flickered, streams of qi he had never seen before appeared all around him.

At the same time, his mind gained a great deal of knowledge about qi gazing.

He focused his eyes and looked. Whoa.

The entire Corpse Burning Facility was shrouded in gray-white death qi and foul qi. With death qi and foul qi lingering year after year, they had nurtured certain things that seemed to possess intelligence. They were drawing in the Yang Energy of every Corpse Burner.

As the Corpse Burners' Yang Energy gradually dissipated, forget Mutated Corpses—even ordinary corpses would rise and pounce on people.

No matter how strong and robust a Corpse Burner was, he could not last half a year.

No wonder half a year was the limit at the Corpse Burning Facility. Most could not even endure two months.

"Hissss..."

Just then, the mass of death qi and foul qi in midair abruptly transformed into a black snake. It opened its jaws and lunged at Qin He like lightning.

Its intelligence had sensed that its true nature had been seen through, and in rage, it attacked.

"Vile creature!"

Qin He shouted. He reached out and grabbed, unleashing fifty years of internal energy along with his cultivation power, seizing the black snake in one grip.

Red light immediately flared in the black snake's cold eyes as it struggled with all its might.

Qin He was somewhat surprised. The black snake was merely a spirit body, yet it possessed astonishing strength.

He took several steps to the stove, shook his cultivation power, and raised his hand before bringing the blade down.

With a snap, the black snake's red glow dimmed. It transformed into death qi and foul qi, then dispersed.

In an instant, the faint sensation of Yang Energy being drawn away vanished. The feeling of being watched vanished with it.

Qin He had only just managed to build up a little confidence, only for it to be shattered again.

No matter how he calculated, he had never expected the Corpse Burning Facility to contain such a thing.

Every one of his movements had been under its watch. It was everywhere.

Sure enough, he still could not get carried away.

There were countless bizarre things in this world. Lying low was the best strategy.

Other than some silver, Qin He threw everything An Baogu had carried into the cremation furnace to burn. The Blood Dropper that would not burn was hammered into scrap iron.

The evidence was thoroughly erased.

He set the ash shovel down in the corner by the wall.

Everything was finally done.

Clang!

"The time is up! Open the doors!"

At the sound of a gong, the doors of the Corpse Burning Rooms opened one after another, declaring the day's work over.

He handed over the ashes and collected fifteen copper coins. The Corpse Burning Facility remained calm and peaceful.

No one knew that Right Horse, the commander of the Di barbarian spies lying in wait in the Capital City, had not only died in a cattle shed, but had also been burned and erased without a trace, completely becoming a thing of the past.

At dawn, the Capital City, having endured a night of terror, opened its eyes tremblingly beneath the morning light.

From high above, corpses littered the ground, and devastation filled the eye.

The smell of blood and char mingled with the slightly chilly autumn wind, burrowing wantonly into people's nostrils.

The ripples caused by this night had only just begun to spread.