Burn the Fiercest Ones

Reward: cultivation +1 year.

Qin He: "..."

He was dumbfounded. A headless corpse that had died with its eyes open, and never mind that it hadn't given him a skill—the cultivation reward was only one year?

This reward wasn't even as good as the most ordinary corpses at the Mass Grave.

In an instant, the delicate little beauty in Qin He's arms turned into a fat gourd.

What the hell was this?!

"Luck fluctuates. Stay calm, stay calm."

Qin He could only soothe his wounded little heart. The rewards were not for him to decide; whatever he got was profit.

The ground fire burned at the same temperature, so the six Corpse Burners all progressed at roughly the same pace.

It was Wei Wu again. He came over, saw that the bodies had mostly turned to ash, and told Qin He and the others to stop the furnaces and clean up the ashes, preparing for the next round of corpse burning.

No one knew how the others felt, but Qin He was certainly more than willing.

Forget two corpses—he could keep burning for seven days and seven nights without sleep. It would be even better if he could contract the entire Corpse Burning Hall for himself.

After everyone shoveled up the ashes, Wei Wu pointed at the corpses filling the hall and said, "You've burned one corpse, so that counts as practice. From here on, choose your own corpses to burn. The ones over here are locals from the Capital City, covered with white cloth. The ones in the middle came from elsewhere, covered with yellow cloth. Choose the ones covered with white cloth."

Then he left again.

The Corpse Burners looked at one another before each going off to choose a body.

Everyone had experience. They tried to choose white-clothed corpses that did not look quite so vicious.

The question was, what was the difference between local corpses and those from elsewhere?

Of course there was a difference.

The Flying Fish Guard's Corpse Burning Hall was the highest-ranking Corpse Burning Hall in all of Great Li.

It not only took in vicious local corpses, but also accepted bodies transported from distant places.

The great cities elsewhere also had Corpse Burning Halls, but none were as high-ranking as the one in the Capital City. Some corpses they could not handle had to be sent to the Capital City.

This led to one result.

The corpses from elsewhere had gone through two rounds of screening before they were sent here. Every one of them was extremely vicious, and quite a few had attacked people.

Compared to the local corpses, which had only gone through one round of screening, they were vicious by more than a little.

Especially those closer to the middle. Many corpses were bound in iron chains, plastered with corpse talismans, and had Black Donkey Hooves in their mouths. A few had even been delivered inside their coffins, chains and all. Their mere appearance was terrifying.

Wei Wu did not need to explain this. Every Corpse Burner knew how to choose.

No one was a fool. Without the diamond drill, one did not take on porcelain work. Otherwise, getting scolded when no reward came would be the least of it. If the corpse rose and pounced on you, that would be truly unjust.

But the problem was... Qin He did not think that way.

If he was going to burn a corpse, he would burn the fiercest one.

The local corpses were beauties, the out-of-town corpses were courtesans, and those in the very middle, chained together with their coffins, were practically celestial maidens descended to earth.

Qin He was practically drooling. Where else could he find such things outside?

He felt like a man laden with gold strolling into a brothel, with a thousand beauties waiting for him to favor them.

The other Corpse Burners were all choosing in the white-cloth section. Only Qin He dawdled and dawdled until he reached the border between the yellow and white cloths.

When no one was looking, he lifted a corner of a yellow cloth.

One look told him that although the corpse was not bound in iron chains, its hands and feet were shackled, and a Corpse Suppressing Talisman was pasted to its forehead. It had definitely risen before.

Beautiful.

You're the one!

Qin He picked up the corpse and ran, looking exactly like a thief.

Wei Wu had been watching the activity from afar. When he saw Qin He carry off a corpse from beneath a yellow cloth, his head filled with question marks.

Is something wrong with this kid's brain?

I said white cloth, white cloth. Why did he pick a yellow one?

Fine. You're capable.

Once that Corpse Suppressing Talisman starts burning, let's see how I deal with you.

Disobedient brat.

Qin He returned to the Corpse Burning Room. Corpses sent in from elsewhere had already been cleansed before being transported to the Capital City, so they could go straight into the furnace.

After setting the corpse down, Qin He examined it carefully.

Worthy of being a "courtesan." It had the looks.

Its fingers were curled into claws, sharp teeth filled its mouth, and two protrusions rose from its forehead, as though something was about to grow out from within. The corpse had lost its moisture and shriveled up. When Qin He knocked on it, it actually rang like metal. Its hardened hide had reached a considerable degree; blades and swords could scarcely harm it.

Unwashed black clots of blood remained on its Corpse Claws. Clearly, it had attacked people and tasted blood.

Qin He was very satisfied. He immediately rewarded it with ten Corpse Suppressing Nails.

Especially those two protrusions—one nail for each.

After that, Qin He removed the Corpse Suppressing Talisman from its forehead and tucked it away against his body.

Though this thing was not as good as the Corpse Suppressing Nails, it would still be a pity to burn it for nothing.

He opened the fire cover and ignited the corpse.

The corpse lay quietly. With ten Corpse Suppressing Nails driven into it, Qin He had never seen a corpse that could still rise. Besides, there was also the Soul-Capturing Lamp. If it wanted to move, it had absolutely no chance.

The corpse's hardened hide made it burn far more slowly than an ordinary body.

A full two hours passed before the corpse was completely cremated.

The black-and-white curtains fell. The Shadow Play Performance began, and Qin He saw this corpse's life.

The deceased was named Chen Yutang, a merchant from Xuzhou. He had started out trading grain and cloth, weathering half a lifetime of ups and downs to accumulate a respectable fortune. He had raised three sons: one studied literature, one practiced martial arts, and one went into business. Each was an outstanding young man.

The whole family was loving and harmonious, the father kind and the sons filial.

But heaven had unforeseen storms, and man had misfortune that could strike morning or night.

Last year, the war at the Nine Borders had grown urgent. The Emperor issued several successive decrees, making the supply of military provisions the highest priority.

Every prefecture and province had a set quota. Lu Xiang, the Governor of Xuzhou, posted notices to purchase grain.

But as soon as the imperial decree came down, grain prices soared everywhere. The grain merchants all hoarded their grain, waiting for prices to rise, unwilling to sell.

In half a month, Lu Xiang had purchased only a thousand shi of military grain—less than a tenth of the quota.

Lu Xiang took one look and thought, Well, well. You pack of treacherous merchant bastards have grain but refuse to sell it? Just wait. Within ten days, I'll have you kneeling and begging me to buy your grain.

Here, it had to be said that Lu Xiang was a member of the Eunuch Faction, irreconcilably opposed to the Donglin Party, which represented wealthy merchants and great landowners.

Lu Xiang's failure to buy military grain was partly because the grain merchants were reluctant to sell, but it was also because the Donglin Party was deliberately making things difficult for him. So long as he failed to procure enough military grain, they could submit memorials impeaching him and strip him of his official hat.

The grain purchase had, in truth, already become tangled in an irreconcilable factional struggle.

Lu Xiang was also a man of great means. He continued sending people with silver to the grain merchants to purchase grain.

What kind of grain?

Bad grain. Moldy grain.

When the wealthy merchants saw this, they thought, Oh my, such a good thing exists?

Lu Xiang had surely gone mad with desperation. Unable to buy good grain, he was buying bad grain to pass off inferior goods as good ones.

Wasn't that courting death?

Sell!

Sell it to him. Sell damp grain as good grain—where else could they find such a fine opportunity?

Once he bought the grain and sent it to the Capital City, they could impeach him for mishandling the transport of grain and causing the military provisions to become damp.

Even if powerful eunuchs protected him, they would still make him shed a layer of skin.

But no matter how they calculated, they never anticipated that as soon as Lu Xiang had finished collecting the grain, he immediately deployed the city guards to arrest people from house to house.

He placed the bad grain and purchase receipts before the court and convicted them of passing off inferior goods as good ones and undermining military supplies.

It was enough to exterminate their entire clans!

The wealthy merchants who were arrested were dumbstruck.

Things were terribly wrong. Lu Xiang had turned the tables on them—they had fallen for it.

They had issued the purchase receipts themselves, pressed their own fingerprints on them, and the grain had been moldy for months, even half a year. This was "ironclad evidence," leaving them with a hundred mouths and no way to argue.

Who could they reason with?

Even if the lawsuit reached the Emperor himself, they would gain nothing.

Besides, this had been Lu Xiang's trap from the beginning.

But wealthy merchants were not made of soft dough. How could they simply allow themselves to be captured? At the same time, they were betting that Lu Xiang did not have the nerve to go that far.

Yet Lu Xiang had long expected that they would not submit so easily, and he had another move in reserve.

The method was simple and brutal. He directly dragged one household to the execution ground, and with a flash of the blade, exterminated their entire family.

No distinction was made between women, children, young, or old. More than twenty heads fell to the ground.

The wealthy merchants forced to witness the execution were so frightened that their legs shook like sieves, shit and piss streaming from them.

Lu Xiang was serious!

The result needed no telling. Lu Xiang strolled calmly before the wealthy merchants and said only one light, casual sentence: "One hundred shi of good grain can be exchanged for one shi of bad grain."

The wealthy merchants' heads buzzed. They thought only of saving their lives and could not spare a thought for anything else. They hurriedly called for their families to exchange grain.

Just like that, Lu Xiang gathered the full quota of military grain in a single day. The surplus went into his own pocket, earning him a fortune, while the property of that executed family naturally became his as well.

Ah, you might be wondering.

Chen Yutang did not seem to have anything to do with this.

Don't worry. The family that was executed was Chen Yutang's.