Liu Changan chatted and laughed with his colleagues on the surface, but his heart was burning with anxiety. Once his shift ended, he hurried back to his residence.
Di Barbarian envoy Gantuji had been waiting for a long time.
After dismissing the attendants, Liu Changan impatiently asked about the situation.
The disguised Gantuji's eyes held a trace of arrogance, but he had no choice but to rely on Liu Changan, a local snake in the Capital City. "An Baogu vanished after breaking out of the Imperial Prison. He hasn't returned since last night. We searched everywhere and found no trace of him."
Liu Changan's heart immediately sank to the bottom, an intensely ominous premonition winding around his mind.
Under normal circumstances, he would not have thought much of it. As the right commander of the Eight Shadow Divisions in the heart of Li Capital, An Baogu did not need to report his whereabouts to anyone except Lord Aquina, and Liu Changan had no right to ask.
But first, the Punishment Slave investigating the East City Corpse Burning Facility had vanished without rhyme or reason. Then An Baogu failed to return for an entire day and night.
In the spy trade, there was no belief in "coincidence," because every coincidence in this line of work was highly likely to be premeditated.
The information Gantuji provided was practically equivalent to no information at all. Before acting, An Baogu had only said that he intended to force his way into the Imperial Prison and search for the Punishment Slave's whereabouts. He had said nothing else.
Gantuji and the others had only thought of the Punishment Slave's inexplicable disappearance, which was why they had urgently sought Liu Changan's help.
An Baogu, An Baogu, you reckless fool have truly dragged me into a pit, Liu Changan cursed inwardly.
An Baogu could die openly and aboveboard. Liu Changan would even have preferred him dead sooner rather than later. But An Baogu could not disappear.
Because disappearance meant dying without clarity. Liu Cang had died without clarity, the Punishment Slave had vanished without clarity, and now An Baogu had added another case without clarity.
What would Lord Aquina think?
An Baogu's internal force had reached fifty years, and his strength was formidable. There were only two possibilities for his disappearance.
One was that he had encountered a terrifying External Force expert and been defeated in a single move. Otherwise, even if he could not win, he would have caused a huge commotion. The second was that an internal traitor had plotted against him and silently brought An Baogu down.
Whether in the Great Jin Kingdom or the Great Li Dynasty, there were only a handful of External Force experts. Their every movement was watched to the death.
It was unlikely that an External Force expert had acted.
Since it was not that, then there could only be an internal traitor.
Who was the most suspicious?
Other than himself, who else could it be?
He was Han Chinese, so he had been born with a deficit of trust. He was also on bad terms with An Baogu, and he possessed the conditions needed to plot against An Baogu.
Even if he were Aquina, he would suspect himself first.
Thinking of Lord Aquina's methods, Liu Changan felt cold air whoosh up the back of his neck.
After pacing back and forth for quite some time, Liu Changan looked at Gantuji and asked, "After An Baogu left the Imperial Prison, which direction did he go?"
Gantuji recalled for a moment. "East, I think."
"East City?"
Liu Changan's eyelid twitched.
"Oh, sir, this is fine steel indeed. Tsk, tsk." At a blacksmith shop in East City, the blacksmith Tie Sanqi lightly tapped the iron shovel in his hand, his eyes gleaming.
"You can tell what kind of steel this is?" Qin He asked curiously.
"I've never seen it before." Tie Sanqi shook his head. "This probably wasn't produced in Great Li. I've seen every kind of steel Great Li produces."
Qin He nodded. He did not think Tie Sanqi was boasting. The Grand Canal linked north and south, with goods circulating everywhere. So long as something was produced in Great Li, it would be found here.
"Using such good steel to forge a shovel is a waste," Tie Sanqi said strangely.
"Well, I was planning to forge..."
"And the craftsmanship is too terrible. It was forged so ugly. Sir, were you cheated? Good steel can't be forged too many times. The more it's forged, the worse its steel quality becomes."
"Ah... well, a friend of mine forged it. I'll settle accounts with him in a few days."
"So what do you plan to forge from this steel, sir?" Tie Sanqi asked.
"A shovel."
Tie Sanqi: "..."
"Can you make it?"
"I can. When do you need it, sir?"
Tie Sanqi was only stunned for a moment before hurriedly nodding. Tie Sanqi had spent half his life forging iron—what kind of customer had he not seen?
Some had forged dog collars to put around their own necks. Some had forged iron coffins. Some had forged chastity pants for the women at home.
The myriad states of life—Tie Sanqi's blacksmith shop had seen far too many.
Using good steel to make a shovel was nothing at all.
"How fast is the fastest you can do it?" Qin He was getting impatient.
The shovel was now his only weapon for self-defense. Most importantly, it could be used to dig up corpses.
Concealed and practical, it was absolutely a divine weapon for murder and arson, digging pits and exhuming corpses.
Tie Sanqi pondered for a moment. "Come back in three days."
Qin He thought it over and agreed.
Three days it was. He did not plan to use it for the time being anyway.
He had suddenly burned another An Baogu. Who knew what Liu Changan's side would do?
After casually buying several hundred iron nails, Qin He left the blacksmith shop and headed toward Tang's Restaurant.
He had burned two corpses in total last night. Abyssal Fire had cut the corpse-burning time in half. He had only gone out in the latter half of the night to get milk because he had been too bored.
In the end, he had brought back a fierce Di Barbarian general along with the milk.
The first had been an ordinary Mutated Corpse, which had given him six years of internal force.
Added together, Qin He's internal force was already nearing sixty years.
Besides the Corpse Burning Rewards, An Baogu had also contributed over fifty taels of silver to Qin He.
Qin He was now.
Very!
Rich!
More than fifty taels of silver was a small fortune in this era.
With money, naturally, the first thing to do was fill the temple of the five viscera.
Off to Tang's Restaurant.
He swept through the food like a gale scattering clouds—noodles with shredded meat, roast goose, roast duck, eating to his heart's content.
Then three large jars of wine.
He spent more than twenty taels of silver.
After one savage meal, Qin He's internal force directly broke through sixty years.
Full and satisfied, Qin He went to the bathhouse.
He paid for someone to scrub his back and had every inch of himself scrubbed thoroughly clean.
After bathing, Qin He bought a bolt of cloth and went to a tailor shop, where he ordered two sets of clothes.
Fortunately, he still had a taut string in his heart, so he bought only coarse linen and hemp cloth. Otherwise, if Qin He let himself go, he could have returned wearing an entire suit of mink fur.
It could not be helped.
Those fifty taels had to be spent as quickly as possible.
Since ancient times, Corpse Burners could not bear the aura of wealth. Before Qin He understood what "the will of heaven" truly was, he had no plans to break this rule.
Only caution could keep a boat sailing for ten thousand years.
After leaving the tailor shop, Qin He looked at the thirty-odd taels of silver remaining in his pocket.
Qin He suddenly understood the trouble of having too much money and not knowing how to spend it.
He rubbed his stomach and continued eating.
He ate snacks. At the Grand Canal docks, merchants came and went like a tide, and there were all kinds of snacks. Other than being a little expensive, there was nothing wrong with them.
But Qin He was not short of money today.
First, Candied Hawthorn Skewers—thirty of them.
Then tofu pudding, with plenty of honey added—twenty bowls.
Fragrant fried pancakes—fifty of them.
Dried cheese from the grasslands, pastries from Yangzhou, candied fruits from Suzhou... Qin He ate wherever he went.
As he walked and ate, Qin He arrived at the city gate.
Capital City guards blocked the gate tunnel. People were lining up to enter the city, and from time to time, someone was berated and driven away.
After the Refugee Camp riot, the authorities had posted an announcement at the city gate. It rambled on and on, but in the end, it boiled down to one sentence.
Poor wretches without Capital City household registration were forbidden from entering the city.
It targeted refugees and beggars from other places.
The city guards looked first at clothing and appearance, then listened to accents. There were generally no mistakes.
Although Qin He's clothes were somewhat tattered, they were washed spotlessly clean. His waist and back were straight, and he was full of spirit.
The city gate guards merely glanced at him before waving him in, telling him to hurry up and not block the entrance.
This was Qin He's first true entry into the Capital City since arriving in this world.
Shops and small towers stood row upon row, while human voices boiled over and traffic flowed like a river.
The clothing of the crowds was clearly very different from outside the city as well. There were far more colorful garments.
Grand residences and great courtyards, red walls and green tiles, roads paved with blue bricks—the streets were spotless too.
The refugees and beggars had been driven away, the great fire extinguished, and the corpses gathered up. This Capital City seemed unchanged, still as prosperous as ever.
Only when standing before the ruins left by last night's blaze could one sense a trace of the crisis lurking behind that prosperity.
At the very center of the Capital City stood red walls enclosing palaces and countless golden gates, resplendent with gold and jade, the Forbidden Divine Heavens towering in solemn majesty.
That was the heart of the heart of Great Li—the Imperial City.
A faint glow flashed in Qin He's eyes. The Divine Light of the Imperial City stretched ten thousand zhang, able to vie with the rising sun for brilliance. Yet after only a hurried glance, Qin He's eyes ached sharply, and the powerful pressure even hindered the circulation of his internal force.
At the center of the Divine Light, a mass of purple qi was surrounded by gray qi. The purple qi could not expand, while the gray qi roiled.
This was the classic sign of treacherous ministers beside the ruler.
Just then, an incomparably sharp aura of slaughter suddenly poured from the Imperial City, like a sword cleaving straight toward Qin He's crown.
Qin He was greatly alarmed and had no time to think.
His internal force rumbled as his magical power poured forth, transforming into ripples of water above his crown.
The slaughterous aura was blocked. Seizing the chance, Qin He flashed beneath his feet and vanished from where he stood.
Boom!
The next instant, the bluestone ground where Qin He had been standing exploded into powder.
Qin He hurriedly withdrew the Qi Gazing Technique. In the blur, he saw a golden dragon open its eyes amid the ten-thousand-zhang Divine Light.