"Fuck! You bunch of living ghosts, you're boiling up feces at home again!"
"Damn, it stinks! Cough, cough—damn it!"
"You with the surname Du, get your ass out here! Do you really think this trick will work every time?"
The incessant stream of abuse had come from the same person.
Ning Caize and the others' expressions changed drastically, while Wei Ming looked completely bewildered.
Seeing this, Ning Caize forced down his troubled expression and quickly explained the situation to him.
Only then did he understand why everyone had tacitly allowed Du En to boil Strange Owl in the courtyard, causing that bizarre stench to permeate both inside and outside.
It was not only because Du En was their leader, but also because they needed to use that foul, fishy stench to block those scumbags as much as possible.
At that moment, the person cursing outside the courtyard gate while being held back by the stink was the main target of that barrier—the Blood Eagle Gang, a gang that banded together in this area to bully the weak, seize spirit stones, and run rampant, all under the beautiful name of "protection fees."
The bottom-level Qi Refining Stage cultivators living in the Shack District outside the city often banded together for warmth, weathered hardships together, and formed gangs of various sizes.
The corpse buriers were one such small group, with Du En now their tacitly acknowledged leader.
And now, the Blood Eagle Gang's scumbags had finally hardened their hearts and decided to collect that "overdue" protection fee from the corpse buriers.
"No need to rush. Let's go take a look."
Du En had slowly finished dinner, and his calm, steady words caused everyone to settle down unconsciously.
He stood up and walked outside. The others followed close behind as if by mutual agreement, and together they arrived outside the courtyard gate.
Under the night sky, Luo Heng had covered his nose and mouth, his eyes bulging wide like copper bells. Seeing them, he immediately rose and approached, like a bloodthirsty beast emerging from the darkness and bearing down on them.
"You with the surname Du, you little stinker! You finally came out for your grandpa!"
"Hurry up! Hand over this month's protection fee, along with last month's!"
Luo Heng came on aggressively. He was burly, with a face full of brutal flesh, and he deliberately roused the magical power he had cultivated for years, letting out a bloodthirsty, menacing aura.
He had truly killed people!
Not a single member of the Blood Eagle Gang was decent. Among the private gangs in the Shack District outside the city, they belonged to the most vicious and ruthless sort, adding quite a bit to Du En and the others' workload.
Thus, at this moment, Luo Heng's murderous aura pressed down upon them, immediately making the corpse buriers' legs go weak, as if they had fallen into an ice cave. They were terrified.
Faced with such intimidation, Du En still appeared calm. He said bluntly, "If you dare make a move, then come on. Kill us all."
Huh?
No, Boss Du, even if we don't have any money, we can't exactly afford to lose our lives too!
Wei Ming and the others were instantly dumbfounded.
Luo Heng, who had been about to raise the pressure further, also froze on the spot.
What was this supposed to mean? Had they buried too many corpses and simply stopped fearing death altogether?
At that moment, Du En calmly spoke again. "There's one thing I need to remind you of, though."
"Wh-what?"
"Although the supervisor treats everyone equally and doesn't care in the slightest whether we live or die, someone still has to do this corpse-burying work. So if you kill all of us, think about it—won't you have to take over our shifts?"
"Hiss!"
Luo Heng could not help sucking in a cold breath. Then, because he inhaled far too deeply, he sucked in the accumulated stench from the piles of boiled Strange Owl and immediately began coughing. It took him quite a while to steady himself, and his imposing aura had completely collapsed.
"You! You!"
"That's right! We have no money, but we've got only one life!"
The other corpse buriers understood this crucial point at that moment. With Du En leading the charge and having already blunted the other side's momentum, they were instantly emboldened and called out one after another.
It was also a genuine outpouring of their feelings.
After all, they worked themselves to death, were treated strangely by everyone else, and faced countless dangers and accidents. And now, those people even wanted to take away this meager pay?
Dream on!
"Fine, fine, fine! You've got guts! You've got guts! Hiss, hiss... I-I'll give you another ten days. If I still don't see any spirit stones by then, then even if I have to take over corpse-burying duty in the end, I'll still butcher you!"
Facing Du En's calm, utterly fearless bearing, Luo Heng, who did not want to be buried alongside them, ultimately chose to retreat. However, he still gritted his teeth and set a final deadline.
Because as an Early Qi Refining cultivator, he was actually only a minor underling. When the people above counted heads, they could not tolerate even a single vacancy.
Originally, the problem with the corpse buriers was not serious. As a fringe group, they were easy to bully. But then Du En had appeared, as hard and foul as a stone in a latrine. He even boiled rotten corpses and decayed Strange Owl every day, and had gradually become their leader.
So after hitting a wall last month and failing to collect the protection fee, Luo Heng had personally made up the shortfall with his own spirit stones.
There was no way he could let that happen again this month. Otherwise, it would definitely become a bottomless pit!
Luo Heng secretly steeled his heart. Without saying anything more, he flung back his wide sleeve and left resentfully.
Watching him leave, Du En's eyelids drooped slightly.
It seemed he first had to deal with this problem and divert the Blood Eagle Gang's attention, letting things quiet down for a while.
That meant the plan had to be changed.
Without making a sound, he swiftly adjusted it.
Then.
Watching Luo Heng's group disappear into the distance, the corpse buriers finally let out the breath they had been holding and immediately began to worry.
"Sigh... Looks like we still can't escape this after all. Cough, cough, cough. Du En, why don't we scrape together the spirit stones and hand them over?"
Ning Caize was the first to voice such discouraging words.
The others hesitated, wanting to speak but unable to, and were clearly unwilling as well.
Wei Ming was especially affected. A newborn calf should have had no fear of tigers.
But first there had been the accident they encountered during the day, followed by Luo Heng's murderous aura just now, as well as the far deeper magical power and imposing presence he had displayed compared with their own.
So at present, he was completely unable to act like an unafraid calf.
In the end, they neither objected nor agreed. They simply turned to look at Du En.
Du En remained calm and composed, his expression not changing in the slightest. "Don't worry too much about that bully who is fierce on the outside but weak inside. He won't want to trade his relatively easy work for our filthy corpse-burying job."
"So don't be fooled by the way he threw out an apparent bottom line. In the end, at most, he'll choose to break us one by one, lie in wait for anyone who is alone, and try to force the spirit stones out of us bit by bit."
"So there's no need to worry too much. After all, he has his own work to do as well. We only need to be careful during our free time in the morning and evening and avoid ending up alone."
Du En's frank and straightforward words did not relax them in the slightest.
Ning Caize gave a bitter smile. "Won't we have to stay constantly on edge? Besides, we still have miscellaneous matters like buying daily necessities. We can't have everyone moving around in a pack all day, can we? If we do that, the others will... sigh."
At the end, thinking of the strange prejudice everyone else held against them, he sighed. He felt that doing so would only make their situation increasingly worse.
"Look on the bright side. If we have strength in numbers, perhaps those people who deliberately raise the prices because of our corpse-burying work might reform a little?"
Du En phrased this as a question.
That was because, aside from the trading points established by the border city itself, the places selling daily necessities were scattered stalls backed by medium-to-large gangs, run by people with enough resources to display all kinds of supplies for sale.
Who would fear a small group of only six corpse buriers?
Ning Caize knew this all too well, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
But then he looked at the others and saw that their panic and unease had already begun to ease.
The reason was simple: Du En was their backbone. As long as he did not panic and remained composed, they would gradually settle down as well.
Thus, Ning Caize said no more and stopped making gloomy remarks.
Before you continue