A Boisterous Banquet

"Eunuch, what we must guard against most right now is the Di Barbarian spies making trouble again." Cui Chengxiu's expression was grave. "If the Di Barbarian spies stir up chaos again at a time like this, it will truly be difficult to answer to His Majesty."

Wei Zhongliang's eyelids began to twitch wildly.

He had genuinely overlooked that point. On closer consideration, it really was so.

Over the past year, Di Barbarian spies had caused trouble everywhere, growing ever more ferocious. Tian Ergeng and Xu Xianchun had been no match for them at all. The Flying Fish Guard had been on the verge of becoming an utter mess, which was how the Donglin Party had seized its opportunity.

If it happened again, things would truly be bad.

"Summoning Shen Lian back to the capital would, first, shut the Donglin Party's mouths; second, prevent their people from rising to power; and third, suppress the Di Barbarian spies. As for Shen Lian, once we have stabilized the situation, if we can demote him once, we can demote him a second time." Cui Chengxiu continued.

Wei Zhongliang slowly nodded after hearing this. It was indeed a workable method.

After pondering for a moment, he looked at Xu Xianchun, who was kneeling on the ground. "What do you say?"

"Everything shall be decided by you, Eunuch." Xu Xianchun hurriedly bowed and knocked his head against the floor, not daring to show the slightest dissatisfaction.

Several days later, the turbulent conflict in court was halted by two imperial edicts.

The first edict stated that the Flying Fish Guard had rendered merit in annihilating a Di Barbarian stronghold and capturing Di Barbarian spies. However, Xu Xianchun, Commandant of the Northern Commandery, had mishandled his deployment and failed to achieve complete success, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and damaging the nation's prestige. He was therefore stripped of his position as Commandant and retained pending further appointment. Generous compensation was to be granted to the families of the Flying Fish Guard soldiers who had died in the line of duty.

The second edict summoned Shen Lian back to the capital to wipe out the remaining Di Barbarians.

The two edicts struck with exquisite precision at the vital point of this court struggle. They answered the impeachment memorials that had fallen like snowflakes, protected Wei Zhongliang, and made a reasonable arrangement for the current situation.

For a time, the battle of words in court lowered its banners and beat its drums no more. The streets and alleys were filled with talk of the conflict.

Qin He looked at the government notice on the wall and muttered, "That one in the Imperial Palace isn't stupid."

"Brother Qin, everything's loaded. We can head back now."

Not far away, Liu Sanjin shouted loudly. He and Crippled Li were pushing a flatbed cart laden with all sorts of things.

"Coming."

Qin He answered and hurried over.

The cart was piled high with food ordered from Tang's Restaurant, along with more than a dozen jars of wine.

What was this for?

Treating everyone!

Before going to the Corpse Burning Hall, Xu Changshou had laughed and said he was waiting to drink Qin He's celebratory wine.

His words had proved prophetic. The Corpse Burning Hall had not only given him silver, but also a bronze identity token.

With such grand fanfare, one meat bun per person would never be enough.

If it had only been the five taels of silver awarded by the Corpse Burning Facility, that would have been one thing. But that very night, Qin He had found over thirty taels of gold and silver altogether on the two Di Barbarian spies.

He!

Had!

Money!

Again!

And had no idea how to spend it!

Then he might as well treat them—not only treat them, but do it with style.

There was wine and meat, meat dishes and vegetarian dishes, rice and noodles, and even entertainment: a Shadow Play, "Yue Wu Attacks the Yellow Dragon."

The Corpse Burners were overjoyed. After staying up all night without sleeping, they had pushed carts over at daybreak to load everything up.

Old Liangtou and several Corpse Burners each held a stick as they guarded the cart, terrified that someone might steal the wine aboard it.

More than twenty people filled three tables, eating and drinking as they watched the performance.

They were enjoying themselves as though some rich landlord were celebrating his birthday.

Their table manners were rather ugly, though. When had a bunch of Corpse Burners ever seen such a spread? Naturally, they fought one another for food, especially meat. Fatty cuts, lean cuts, meat on the bone, boneless meat—they ate from their bowls while staring greedily at the dishes.

Old Liangtou had the highest seniority and the longest experience, so he was pushed out to divide the meat. But he could not make heads or tails of the task. After circling around several times, he clamped his legs together and declared that he was done dividing it, saying he needed to use the latrine.

Qin He took a closer look and saw that the old striker had a wine jar clamped between his legs.

He was clearly hiding wine.

By comparison, Liu Sanjin had far worse luck. The moment he stuffed a roast chicken down his pants, Crippled Li spotted him.

Crippled Li let out a mournful howl.

Good heavens, Liu Sanjin's pants were stripped right off him.

The key was that the chicken—despite the smell, none of them minded it. They did not even leave behind a single chicken bone, leaving Qin He dumbfounded.

"Next time, white flour noodles will be enough for them. Wine and meat are wasted on them." Xu Changshou raised his wine bowl, took a pleased sip, and said to Qin He.

Qin He was not seated with the Corpse Burners. Instead, he had a table of his own with Xu Changshou, along with Yang Baitu and the three-man villain group.

In any case, everyone from the East City Corpse Burning Facility was here. With wine and meat on hand, who was going home after work?

Though the feast was chaotic, several dozen taels of gold and silver had been thrown into it, and both host and guests were thoroughly satisfied.

By noon, every Corpse Burner had eaten until his belly was round. Whatever they could not finish, they wrapped up and took away.

Xu Changshou and the three-man villain group were all drunk. Yang Baitu was old and had not drunk much, but he was still pleasantly tipsy.

Qin He was the one least affected.

The Corpse Eating Immortal Skill had given him iron teeth, copper fangs, and a Fine Steel stomach. Such a tiny affair merely filled the gaps between his teeth.

After tossing the drunken Xu Changshou and the other three into the duty room, then seeing off the old shadow-play performer, Qin He had nothing to do. He hoisted his large iron shovel onto his shoulder and planned to take a stroll through the Mass Grave.

He had not gone in days. He rather missed it.

He had yet to clear the "King of the Mass Grave" title dungeon, so he had to work harder. As for the Di Barbarian spies, even if they had not been exposed by now, they probably soon would be.

Since that was the case, why give a damn? On some day when he was in a bad mood, he could just set their nest ablaze.

But just as Qin He was about to step out through the gates of the Corpse Burning Facility, Yang Baitu stopped him.

Qin He was somewhat surprised. Though he and Yang Baitu saw each other every day, they had never truly dealt much with one another.

If he had to count it up, he had only borrowed a flatbed cart from him once. Even today's drinking had merely been incidental.

How should he put it? They simply had no connection.

Yang Baitu was merely a daytime gatekeeper, with little presence to speak of.

"Does Old Yang need something?"

Seeing Yang Baitu acting so mysteriously, Qin He became even more puzzled.

"Qin He, there's something I'd like to ask your help with." Yang Baitu cautiously looked around before saying, "Something strange happened at a relative's home. Someone died, and they want you to help burn the corpse, leaving behind some Bones as a memento."

Qin He immediately raised his brows. "Off-the-books work?"

Yang Baitu nodded and crossed two fingers in a gesture. "You'll get this much when it's done. Are you in?"

"Is it far?"

Qin He was tempted—not because of the money, but because if such a job had found its way to him, it meant the corpse was extremely vicious, so vicious that it had reached the point where it absolutely had to be sent to the Flying Fish Guard's Corpse Burning Hall.

Everyone in this world cared about being buried whole. If a whole corpse was truly impossible, at least leaving behind ashes was better than nothing.

That was why there was room for this sort of "off-the-books work."

But such work was not easy. A corpse of great viciousness was exceedingly dangerous. Once it rose, the matter would become enormous.

Even the Corpse Burning Hall relied on the corpse-suppressing divine artifact, the Soul-Capturing Lamp, to suppress most vicious corpses.

When burning corpses in private, there was no such thing. It was entirely a matter of staking one's life on one's skill. Moreover, Great Li law strictly forbade civilians from privately burning corpses, and violators faced severe punishment.

"It's not far. We can finish before nightfall," Yang Baitu said.

"Fine. I'll take it."

Qin He agreed with almost no hesitation.

Others might be afraid, but he was not.

The more vicious, the better.