Rotten wooden boards, a pungent medicinal smell.
Mixed with the faint, sweet stench unique to the dead.
Lu Chen struggled to open his heavy eyelids. A mottled stone ceiling came into view, droplets trickling through the cracks and striking the floor with crisp plips.
He lay on a cold stone bed, with only a thin layer of straw beneath him. It prickled his back, making it ache.
All around him lay several things covered with white cloth. Judging by their outlines, they were clearly not human.
Scattered memories surged in like a tide. A violent headache came with them, and Lu Chen couldn't help groaning.
He had transmigrated!
He had become a corpse handler who had just joined the Demon Suppression Division in Nanling Prefecture, Great Yan Dynasty—a figure even lower in rank and more ill-omened than a lowly county yamen runner.
The Demon Suppression Division, as its name suggested, suppressed and slew demons throughout the land.
Corpse handlers were responsible for dealing with the remains of slain demons: dismembering them, sorting them, and putting them into storage.
It sounded like a support job, but in truth, it was one of the deadliest occupations in the Demon Suppression Division.
Even after many demons died, their corpses still retained deadly Demonic Sha. The slightest misstep could corrupt one's mind, turn one into a mad fiend, or kill one outright.
That was exactly how his predecessor had died.
At the thought, a needle-like pain stabbed Lu Chen's temple.
He reached up to touch it, and his fingertips met something sticky and slick.
Blood.
Bright red blood mixed with some kind of black pus, giving off a sickeningly sweet stench.
The smell was like a switch, instantly activating his predecessor's final memories.
Yesterday, the corpse of a Vengeful Fox had been brought in. Foreman Wang, the Division's supervisor, had ordered his predecessor to deal with it at once.
His predecessor had sensed that the fox corpse's Demonic Sha had yet to dissipate and that it was extremely dangerous. He wanted to wait another day, but Foreman Wang had kicked him in the chest, called him a spineless coward, and forced him to get to work.
Then, while he was dismembering the fox corpse, a stream of black qi had burst from its broken bones and shot straight for his brow...
"Gah!"
Lu Chen shot upright, gasping for breath. Cold sweat had soaked his back.
He looked down at his hands. They were long and pale, with dried blood and bits of flesh still caught under his fingernails.
Just then, a cold, emotionless voice rang out in his mind. A plain, ancient-looking Bronze Tome also appeared before his eyes, hovering silently.
[Host: Lu Chen] [Remaining lifespan: twenty-three years] [Current martial arts] Basic Anatomy Book (Proficient) Demon Suppressing Saber Technique (Not yet initiated) [Lifespan can be infused into martial arts to gain corresponding progress] [When lifespan falls below one year, infusion can no longer continue]
Lu Chen stared at the panel before him, his heart sinking.
The good news.
The system had arrived.
The bad news.
It ran on his life.
How was that any different from trading his health for a paycheck in his previous life?
But wasn't the point of learning martial arts to live longer?
This was a vicious cycle.
Creak—
The Corpse Handling Room's heavy stone door was pushed open from outside. A shaft of light streamed in, making Lu Chen instinctively squint.
A slightly plump, middle-aged man in a supervisor's uniform from the Demon Suppression Division walked in.
He had triangular eyes, a hooked nose, and an expression of impatience and disgust.
It was Foreman Wang.
"Well, kid, you've got a tough life." Foreman Wang glanced at Lu Chen, sitting on the stone bed, surprise and contempt in his voice. "The Killing Intent scrambled your brains, and you still didn't die?"
Lu Chen didn't speak. He simply watched the man, quickly sorting through his predecessor's memories.
Foreman Wang was his predecessor's direct superior. He usually beat and cursed the corpse handlers under him, and pocketed all the resources he skimmed to curry favor with his superiors. He was a complete scumbag.
Yesterday's Vengeful Fox had clearly been seized from another team because he wanted to curry favor with the Captain.
The corpse had been brought in too hastily, and its Demonic Sha hadn't cleared. Foreman Wang didn't dare handle it himself, so he had shoved his new recruit—who had only recently joined the Division—out to die in his place.
"Since you're not dead, stop lying there like a corpse."
Foreman Wang walked over to the fox corpse covered by the white cloth and kicked it impatiently. "Get that thing cleaned up, now. If the Demon Core and materials aren't in storage before noon, you can lie back down on this stone bed yourself."
With that, he waved his sleeve in disgust, as if staying another second would taint him with the place's bad luck, then turned and left.
The stone door slammed shut again, and the room sank back into gloom and silence.
Lu Chen slowly exhaled, but his gaze grew colder.
Before noon?
Even through the white cloth, he could feel the bone-deep chill of the Demonic Sha clinging to the Vengeful Fox's corpse.
Forget cleaning it up—even taking one more step closer could make him suffer his predecessor's fate.
Foreman Wang had never intended to let him live.
"Heh... heh..."
A strange, low chuckle suddenly rang out in the silent Corpse Handling Room.
Lu Chen stiffened and whipped around.
The white cloth covering the Vengeful Fox's corpse was rising and falling ever so slowly.
Wisps of black qi seeped through the gaps in the cloth, swirling in the air and gathering until they formed a blurry, twisted fox face.
Two points of crimson light slowly kindled in its sunken eye sockets, fixing on Lu Chen.
Demonic Sha had become a wraith!
The term flashed through Lu Chen's mind. It was the death most feared by corpse handlers—and one they encountered all too often.
When a demon's resentment lingered after death and mingled with its Killing Intent, it could turn into a bodiless evil spirit. It would seize the nearest living person's body and make them into a new puppet, then slip silently into the crowd.
Until a Demon Suppression Captain discovered it—or... it got bored.
"Kehehehe..."
The fox's laughter grew clearer. Black qi churned and pounced at Lu Chen like a living thing.
A shudder born deep in his soul swept through him.
Lu Chen felt his hands and feet turn icy, his breathing grow impossibly labored, and his mind go blank. In both his past and present lives, he'd never been so close to death.
Either way, he was going to die!
At this life-or-death moment, an astonishing madness flared deep in Lu Chen's eyes.
He wasn't the cowardly predecessor who let others butcher him!
He didn't want to die! And he especially didn't want to die such a pathetic death!
In the blink of an eye, the system unfolded before him again.
[Remaining lifespan: twenty-three years]
Lu Chen stared fixedly at that line.
"Twenty-two years... for a chance to live. Worth it!"
He forced the words through gritted teeth, then roared in his mind as the onrushing black qi bore down on him!
"Infuse! Demon Suppressing Saber Technique!"
"Max it out!"
"Much obliged!"