The Habitual Thief Hou Zhuang

Seven corpses lay in a row, their upper bodies drenched in blood. All of them had died with their eyes open, unable to rest in peace.

The six Corpse Burners had all been selected from the Corpse Burning Facility. They might not have been exceptionally skilled, but they were at least among the best, men who had seen their share of gruesome scenes.

All the corpses were headless, so there was no room to be picky. Each of them chose one and began cleansing it.

The tools were all readily available, and far better than those at the Corpse Burning Facility.

First, they washed away the bloodstains. Then they took wooden skewers and nailed the severed heads back onto the necks. After that, they used needle and thread to stitch the wounds shut layer by layer. They had to sew three full layers before the job was done.

Once the necks were sewn up, they stitched the eyelids shut, tidied up the corpses' appearances, and carried them into the furnaces.

To be safe, Qin He discreetly gave each corpse a Corpse Suppressing Nail while no one was looking.

The corpses had died with their eyes wide open. Their Resentful Energy was anything but ordinary. Better get a feel for this place first.

The earthfire was connected to every Corpse Burning Room through tunnels beneath the graveyard. To ignite it, all they had to do was use a hook to pull open the fire cover, and the earthfire would surge into the Corpse Burning Furnace. It was quite convenient.

Within the raging flames, the headless corpses lay quietly, showing no sign of rising.

With the Soul-Capturing Lamp and Corpse Suppressing Talismans pasted in all eight directions inside the Corpse Burning Room suppressing them together, any corpse that was not especially vicious truly could not move.

But being unable to move did not mean a corpse would not resist.

Sure enough, the moment a Corpse Burner at the Western City Corpse Burning Facility opened the fire cover, the two Corpse Suppressing Talismans outside the Corpse Burning Room burned to ash.

The Corpse Burner's face turned pale with fright. Those two Corpse Suppressing Talismans were worth dozens of taels of silver.

Though the corpse had not risen, the loss was enormous.

Dozens of taels of silver could buy two strong oxen.

When Corpse Burning Official Wei Wu saw the talismans catch fire, he ran over and gave the man a vicious scolding. The one-eyed Corpse Burning Official did not come over himself, but his voice did: "If he burns any more talismans, throw him out. And ask the Marshal's Office what the hell they're doing—what kind of thing did they send us?"

Qin He shook his head speechlessly. That corpse could not really be blamed on the Corpse Burner from the west side. It had burned two Corpse Suppressing Talismans even here.

If it had been taken to the Corpse Burning Facility, the Corpse Burner would certainly have died. The constables on duty there probably would not have been able to handle it either. In the end, it would inevitably have become an "escaped corpse." No one knew how many lives it would have devoured.

Compared to that, two Corpse Suppressing Talismans were already the lightest price to pay.

And that was precisely the meaning of the Corpse Burning Hall's existence.

The people of the Corpse Burning Hall did not see it that way, however. All they saw was the loss of two Corpse Suppressing Talismans. They would not consider what consequences this corpse might have caused outside, only conclude that the Corpse Burner was incompetent.

After all, Corpse Suppressing Talismans and the Soul-Capturing Lamp were external aids. To a great extent, the Corpse Burner himself played no small role as well. Otherwise, this profession would not be one that lived off one's "fate."

Wei Wu fetched replacement Corpse Suppressing Talismans, pasted them up, and continued the burning.

The wait was rather boring. Here, opening the fire cover meant the flames were already at their fiercest; unlike at the Corpse Burning Facility, there was no need to work the bellows or add coal.

There was simply nothing to do.

Qin He discovered that while this earthfire was stronger than coal fire, it was still inferior to Abyssal Fire, perhaps thirty percent slower.

But Qin He could not take out the Abyssal Fire to use, so he could only wait patiently.

He was anxious.

The Corpse Burning Hall was packed full of corpses. To him, these were not corpses at all—they were one tender little beauty after another, waiting for him to dote on them.

It gave him the urge to set a great blaze and scoop every last corpse into his arms.

Only after a full shichen had passed did the corpses finally carbonize completely and cease to be dangerous.

Wei Wu came over for a look, then told Qin He and the others that they no longer needed to stand guard and should go out to help clean the corpses.

Washing and scrubbing, stitching and mending—half a shichen passed.

The black-and-white curtain slowly fell. The clack of wooden clappers pierced through the dim yellow lamplight. Shadow Play Performance.

The corpse had been completely incinerated.

The deceased was named Hou Zhuang. His parents had died when he was young, so he had never received much discipline. He stole whatever he could; when he could not steal, he begged. In any case, he survived on the food of a hundred households. Back then, the harvests were decent enough that he did not starve to death.

As Hou Zhuang grew older, his thieving skills soared. He no longer begged, instead specializing in theft and becoming a habitual thief.

Then, little by little, he reached middle age. His body was no longer what it had been. Afraid that when he grew old and could no longer steal, he would one day starve to death, and unwilling to let the skills he had honed over half a lifetime through countless beatings vanish without a trace, he took in a little beggar as his godson and named him Hou Xiaoliu.

Ah, remember that name—Hou Xiaoliu. He was the little thief Qin He had forcibly made "split it half and half" with a few days ago.

The world was truly small. They had run into each other after all.

As for how Hou Zhuang ended up on the execution block, one had to borrow an old saying.

"A man sits at home, and disaster falls from the sky."

A few days ago, a manor belonging to Prince Zhongshan's Mansion outside the city had somehow been hit by thieves. Nearly a thousand shi of grain and several hundred taels' worth of gold and silver had been stolen.

This became a huge affair. Prince Zhongshan's title was hereditary and permanent. His ancestor had been the founding general Xu Dahai, and his family had many marriage ties with the imperial clan. They had been illustrious for generations.

Prince Zhongshan flew into a rage and brought the stick down on the Five City Marshal's Office.

The Five City Marshal's Office was truly a scapegoat. Any rotten matter in the Capital City could be laid at its door, yet beneath the Imperial City there were imperial relatives, princes, marquises, and nobles everywhere. It could afford to offend none of them.

The Five City Marshal's Office investigated for all it was worth, but what the hell could it investigate?

To steal a thousand shi of grain in one night—could the thieves possibly have been ordinary people?

But they had to give Prince Zhongshan an explanation. Whether they could recover the gold, silver, and grain was another matter. They first had to show an attitude, at least put on a display of "trying," didn't they?

Tang Jing'an, commander of the Five City Marshal's Office, slapped his forehead.

Arrest people!

Arrest whom?

Anyone who was a thief, arrest them.

Men feared fame as pigs feared growing fat. They could leave out anyone, but they absolutely could not leave out habitual thief Hou Zhuang.

So while Hou Zhuang was sleeping at home, he was dragged in dazedly and thrown into the Eastern City Marshal's Office prison.

By rights, no matter how they tried to pin it on him, this could not possibly have been Hou Zhuang's doing.

A thousand shi of grain required a gang. They were not thieves at all—they were bandits.

Prince Zhongshan's Mansion was not stupid. It was not so easily fooled.

Hou Zhuang knew he would not be locked up for long before being released. The Eastern City Marshal's Office was merely putting on a show and taking the chance to extort some money, so he was not worried. With one leg crossed over the other, he slept soundly in his cell.

But as the old saying went, blessings never came in pairs, while misfortunes never came alone; when the roof leaked, it rained all night, and when the boat was late, it met a headwind.

Hou Zhuang never dreamed that this wrongful imprisonment would cost him his life.

In the latter half of last night, a group of people arrived at the Eastern City Marshal's Office prison with a loud clatter.

Who were they?

The Flying Fish Guard's agents!

A pack of butchers!

With a casual point of the finger, Hou Zhuang was transferred from the Eastern City Marshal's Office prison to the Flying Fish Guard's prison.

Where?

The Imperial Prison!

The moment Hou Zhuang saw the scene, he thought his life was surely over. Nine times out of ten, he had become a "death substitute."

And just as expected, once he reached the Imperial Prison, they cut out his tongue, forced down his head, shaved his hair into a coin-shaped rat tail, then shackled and locked him up.

The next day, he was escorted to the execution ground. With one chop, his head fell to the ground.

So he had been made a substitute for a Di barbarian spy.

Wronged!

Wronged beyond all ages!

Judgment and weighing. The Black Robed Man Zhang Jin Kou said, "Ordinary in life, bizarre in death."