Lin Guanhuo

Great Yan Dynasty, Kaiyang County, Blackwater County Office.

The sky was still dark.

Clang, clang, clang!

A series of knocks sounded outside the window of a small room in the Miscellaneous Room Courtyard.

"Brother Lin! Brother Lin! Wake up, it's time to work!"

Hearing the voice, Lin Guanhuo slowly opened his eyes.

"Coming."

He answered, quickly got dressed, and pushed open the door.

A skinny young man stood outside, eighteen or nineteen years old.

His name was Zhou Kai. Like Lin Guanhuo, he worked as a constable at the Blackwater County Office. They lived nearby and worked together.

Outsiders called them White Servants. Put simply, White Servants were temporary workers.

They had no fixed wages and weren't even listed in the County Office records.

They waited around the Miscellaneous Room Courtyard, doing dirty, exhausting jobs in exchange for the two meals a day provided by the County Office.

Even so, countless people were desperate to get their foot in the door.

"Damn, it's freezing. What the hell's with this weather?" Zhou Kai muttered, rubbing his hands.

Lin Guanhuo said nothing and followed Zhou Kai to the kitchen in the front hall.

This was where the White Servants of the Miscellaneous Room Courtyard ate their daily meals. In this world overrun by demons, managing to fill your stomach meant you'd made it through another day.

The cook brought out breakfast.

There were two large basins: one filled with steamed buns made from coarse grain, the other with thin rice porridge.

The only side dish was a plate of mustard greens pickled in salt water. This was breakfast for the White Servants of the Blackwater County Office.

Lin Guanhuo picked up a steamed bun and took a few bites. It was hard and dry, and he could barely force it down with the porridge.

He had been in this world for three months.

He had already learned one thing: here, being able to eat your fill was the greatest blessing of all.

This wasn't any historical dynasty he knew. It was a strange world where demons roamed unchecked.

Demons here devoured people, and every household shut off its lights early.

The wedding procession that paraded down empty streets at night wasn't human. If they called your name, you must never answer.

Frozen corpses by the roadside were commonplace. Worse were the things lurking in the shadows.

New graves appeared every night in the Mass Grave outside the city, and strange creatures often claimed lives in deserted villages and wilderness.

The lives of ordinary people were as cheap as grass. They could be snuffed out in an instant.

The original owner of this body had lost his parents as a child and fled to Blackwater County to escape the Demon Calamity in his hometown.

Thanks to his youth and strength, he had barely managed to get into the Miscellaneous Room Courtyard.

Though he did the lowliest work as a White Servant, though he dealt with corpses and filth every day,

at least... he didn't have to worry about starving to death.

"Ugh..."

Across from him, Zhou Kai sighed. "We eat this pig slop every day! I hear the constables over at the neighboring Government Office get meat buns and mutton soup for breakfast! And look at us..."

Lin Guanhuo wasn't as worked up. He simply said, "We're lucky to have anything to eat. Refugees outside would risk their lives to fight someone for this bun."

"I'm just letting off steam." Zhou Kai's face filled with longing. "Brother Lin, wouldn't it be great if we could practice martial arts? Even a Martial Artist who'd just entered the ranks could work as a scout for an escort agency, or get a proper job at the County Office. Then we'd have meat and wine at every meal..."

Martial Artists.

At those words, a flicker passed through Lin Guanhuo's eyes.

This world had extraordinary powers.

Demons could devour a person's vital essence, while Martial Artists could split stone tablets and shatter rocks.

In this chaotic world, only the Martial Dao offered a way to make a living and stay alive.

Unfortunately, literary pursuits required little money, but martial arts training demanded plenty. For lowly White Servants like them, who couldn't even eat their fill, practicing martial arts was nothing but a fool's dream.

"Enough dreaming," Lin Guanhuo cut off his fantasy. "What's the job today?"

At the mention of business, Zhou Kai's face fell. Lowering his voice, he said, "Our luck's rotten. Someone came to report a case yesterday evening. Widow Sun, the tofu seller down south, hasn't been seen for several days."

Lin Guanhuo asked, "Did she disappear?"

"If she'd just disappeared, that'd be one thing."

Zhou Kai continued, "The neighbor who reported it said that a foul, rotting stench has been drifting out of Widow Sun's yard these past few days... And they say that around midnight, the sound of a baby crying keeps coming from inside. One moment it laughs, the next it cries. Real sinister. A few of the neighbors were so scared they moved away..."

Lin Guanhuo asked again, "Have the people from the Demon Suppressing Division gone to take a look?"

"The County Office sent the two of us to check it out. If Widow Sun's simply dead, we're to take her to the funeral home and burn her. If there's anything else going on, we report it to the Demon Suppressing Division." Zhou Kai sounded helpless and resentful. "That's what we are, you know. Just people anyone can order around."

Lin Guanhuo didn't say anything more.

He simply got to his feet. "Let's go."

The two of them left the County Office. It was still dark.

Every home along the side streets of Blackwater County had its doors and windows tightly shut. Faded door-god paintings and yellow paper talismans were pasted on the entrances.

White lanterns hung outside some homes, marking that someone had died and the funeral procession hadn't yet taken place.

The wind sent paper money and dead leaves swirling through the air. It was unsettling.

Sitting in the carriage, Zhou Kai couldn't help letting his imagination run wild. "Brother Lin, do you think... do you think Widow Sun might be..."

Lin Guanhuo held the reins and said calmly, "We'll take a look. If anything seems off, we run. Once it's light, we report it to the Demon Suppressing Division."

The two drove the carriage around several street corners and into the poor district in the south of the city, then took a few winding turns.

At last, they arrived at Widow Sun's home.

"Whoa!"

Lin Guanhuo pulled on the reins. The carriage stopped, and the two climbed down.

"We're here."

Lin Guanhuo jumped down from the carriage and looked ahead.

A little way off, a small, isolated courtyard stood in the darkness.

The few houses around it had long been abandoned, leaving the area especially desolate.

"That's the place."

Beside him, Zhou Kai took a file booklet from his clothes and read as he looked it over. "Sun Sanniang, forty-two years old, originally from Bingzhou... Widowed young, she made a living grinding soybeans into tofu."

At this, Zhou Kai glanced at Lin Guanhuo. "I've heard the old constables gossiping that the woman's still quite a looker, with plenty of allure. Her husband died under suspicious circumstances back then. Some say she and her lover killed him, then buried his body beneath the old locust tree in the backyard."

"Someone saw that whenever it rains, blood seeps out of that old locust tree. Human blood..."

"And then?" Lin Guanhuo thought it did sound a little sinister, and asked.

"Then the County Office came and dug around. All they found were a few [dog bones], nothing else. The whole thing was quietly dropped."

Lin Guanhuo gave a bemused smile. Stories from constables and detectives like these were best taken with a grain of salt.

He stepped forward and knocked on the gate of Widow Sun's home. "Anyone there?"

Knock, knock, knock.

The dull sound of the knocking seemed to echo in the emptiness.

But...

No one answered.

Only the wind rustled through the dead leaves.

The two exchanged a glance. Then Zhou Kai gathered his courage and shouted, "Sun Sanniang! County Office! Someone reported that you haven't been seen for days. Come out and answer us!"

Still, there was nothing but deathly silence.

Just as Lin Guanhuo was about to break down the door,

a sudden rustling came from inside, like something dragging itself along the ground.

Then a voice came through the door. "Are... you here... to buy... tofu...?"