Lu Chen furrowed his brows, and with a slight shift of thought, the Profound Black Internal Energy within him, as vast and heavy as an abyss, instantly fell silent. The energy around his body once again weakened to the extreme, and his complexion returned to that perfectly measured pallor.
He slowly drew back the door bolt, only to find Foreman Wang standing outside with a ruddy face. A sickly light flickered in those triangular eyes, mixed with excitement and malice.
"Boy, smoke's practically rising from your ancestors' graves!" Foreman Wang grabbed Lu Chen by the arm and almost dragged him outside. "Captain Li has recognized your great achievement and assigned you another heaven-sent opportunity! Do this well, and you'll truly soar to the heavens in a single bound!"
Alarm bells blared in Lu Chen's heart, but his face wore a terrified expression of being flattered beyond belief.
"Foreman Wang... what... what kind of assignment is it?"
Foreman Wang did not answer directly. Instead, he dragged him all the way to the Demon Suppression Division's notice board.
A fresh emergency mission order, stamped with a bright-red seal, had just been posted on the board.
"...Thirty li west of the city lies Willow Creek Town. Three days ago, a strange Water Plague erupted there. More than three hundred people throughout the town died violent deaths, not a single one surviving. Preliminary investigation indicates that the corpses have not decayed and show signs of Corpse Transformation. The cause is suspected to be the rare Water Ghost Sha. To prevent the plague from spreading and Corpse Transformation from becoming a calamity, the Captain's Office urgently orders Willow Creek Town sealed off at once. A designated party shall be dispatched to cremate all remains within the town on-site. No errors will be tolerated!"
Beneath the mission order, a line of small characters had been added in vermilion ink.
"This mission carries an extremely high risk. The foulness of the Killing Intent is beyond what ordinary people can withstand. Fortunate General Lu Chen is hereby specially appointed to take charge of this matter, with ten strongmen assigned to assist with the transportation. So decreed."
The words "Fortunate General" had been written large and red, brimming with glaring sarcasm.
Naturally, this was Foreman Wang's design. Ever since Captain Li had personally rewarded Lu Chen,
he had already sensed the crisis.
He wished nothing more than for Lu Chen to die on some mission.
The surrounding area had long since filled with Demon Suppression Division clerks there to watch the spectacle.
They looked at the mission order, then at Lu Chen, whom Foreman Wang had seized, and without exception, their faces showed complicated expressions of pity, sympathy, and schadenfreude.
Willow Creek Town!
That place was now a gigantic pit of corpses!
More than three hundred bodies soaked in plague-tainted water lay there, and any one of them might transform in the next second into a savage creature that preyed on the living.
Forget handling them—even approaching the place could cause the surging Corpse Sha Qi to crush one's sanity and kill them on the spot.
How was this any kind of cushy assignment? It was plainly a death warrant with no hope of survival!
"Did you hear that, boy?" Foreman Wang pointed at the mission order and bellowed, spraying spittle everywhere. His voice was filled with barely contained elation. "Captain Li personally picked you for this! What an honor! Hurry up, accept the order and give thanks!"
Lu Chen's body began to "tremble violently" at that moment.
His face was as white as paper, his lips quivering as though this "heaven-sent opportunity" had scared him witless. He could not even utter a complete sentence.
"Th... this subordinate... obeys..."
His legs went limp, and he nearly collapsed to the ground. In the end, he only barely managed to remain standing with Foreman Wang's "support."
Seeing his pitiful, spineless appearance, Foreman Wang's delight reached its peak.
He waved his hand grandly and shouted, "Good! What spirit! Captain Li has given the order, so supplies will be fully provided! You lot"—he casually pointed at ten strongmen nearby who had been watching the spectacle—"follow our 'Fortunate General' to the Logistics Office and draw Fire Oil and Sulfur. Follow Lu Chen's orders in all things! If you botch it, or flee in the face of danger, hmph, you'll be dealt with under military law!"
The ten strongmen's faces instantly fell, as though they had swallowed dead flies.
Going to Willow Creek Town was already a brush with death. Now they even had to take orders from this corpse-handler, a jinx?
But they did not dare defy Foreman Wang's accumulated authority. They could only brace themselves and answer unwillingly, glaring venomously at Lu Chen.
On the way to the Logistics Office in the rear courtyard, the atmosphere was terrifyingly oppressive. The ten strongmen deliberately lagged several steps behind, leaving Lu Chen alone in front as they cursed under their breath.
"Damn it, what kind of awful luck have we had for eight lifetimes, getting sent on a mission with this unlucky bastard!"
"Foreman Wang clearly wants us to go die, and he's even putting this good-for-nothing in charge?"
"Ptui! What Fortunate General? He's plainly a death-bringer!"
The courtyard gate of the Logistics Office stood open. The person in charge was a fat clerk surnamed Liu, who was dozing in a reclining chair.
Hearing the commotion, he squinted over. When he saw Lu Chen and a group of dispirited strongmen, an expression of disgust immediately appeared on his face.
"Well, well, isn't this our division's great Fortunate General?" Fatty Liu drawled sarcastically without even lifting his rump. "What's the matter? What fine assignment has Foreman Wang given you this time?"
One of the strongmen slapped the mission slip onto the table irritably. "Leader Liu, it's the Willow Creek Town assignment. We need supplies—Fire Oil, Sulfur, strong liquor. The more, the better!"
At the words "Willow Creek Town," Fatty Liu abruptly sat straight as though stung by a needle, the fat on his face trembling.
He glanced at the slip, then at Lu Chen's bloodless face, and suddenly let out a burst of mocking laughter.
"Willow Creek Town? Hahahaha! Good, good, good! Just as expected of the Fortunate General—you only take the finest assignments!"
He rose unhurriedly and kicked several rusty old wooden barrels in the corner. Some of them were even leaking oil. "There. These are all the 'high-grade goods' prepared for you. Hurry up and move them out. Don't stand around here obstructing my view."
The strongmen nearly exploded with rage at the sight. Anyone could tell those oil barrels had sat unused for years and been discarded as substandard. Never mind that they were underweight—once put to use, they would probably leak empty before the oil could even be thrown.
"Leader Liu! What do you mean by this? Can these even be used? The mission slip clearly says supplies will be fully provided!" one hot-tempered strongman could not help shouting.
"Fully provided? You call this fully provided?" Fatty Liu glared and pointed at the junk. "Take them or leave them! Who knows whether you'll even make it back after going there? Giving you good stuff would only be a waste! What, hasn't the Fortunate General brought you any luck?"
He deliberately emphasized the words "Fortunate General," his voice steeped in mockery.
It was obvious that Foreman Wang had already spoken with him!
The strongmen trembled with anger but dared not speak out. They could only redirect their fury toward Lu Chen, feeling that he had dragged them into this.
Lu Chen kept his head lowered from beginning to end, but his nose detected the scent of Fire Oil from another direction.
Just as Fatty Liu was basking in triumph and the strongmen had run out of options, Lu Chen suddenly spoke. His voice was faint but clear. "Manager Liu, it seems there are still quite a few new barrels in that storeroom..."
He pointed toward a large, locked storeroom in the corner of the courtyard.
Fatty Liu's expression changed. Those were the good barrels he had stockpiled to resell and pocket for himself. How did this boy know?!
"Those are newly sealed oil barrels. They're not secured yet, so you can't load them onto a cart like this! If they spill, wouldn't that create a hidden danger for the Demon Suppression Division?"
"Of course, if you carry them away by hand, I suppose I could consider letting you take them."
The strongmen were filled with righteous indignation.
Each barrel of Fire Oil weighed over a hundred jin!
Making people carry them was clearly making things difficult.
The standoff reached an impasse.
The strongmen looked at the arrogant Fatty Liu, then at the silent Lu Chen, and felt nothing but despair.
At that moment, Lu Chen stopped arguing.
He silently walked over to the pile of oil barrels.
Under everyone's astonished gazes, he took a deep breath, and then—
He gripped the edge of a huge, dilapidated oil barrel nearly as tall as a person and requiring two people to wrap their arms around. The seemingly thin muscles in his arm tensed slightly.
"Up!"
With a low shout, he actually lifted the incomparably heavy oil barrel off the ground with one arm, raising it three feet into the air!
The barrel's rust-eaten iron shell emitted a teeth-grating creak, yet his arm remained steady as a rock, without the slightest tremor.
Then, under Fatty Liu's stunned gaze and the strongmen's bulging eyes, Lu Chen swung his arm again and again as if he were moving not heavy objects, but stalks of straw.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
One, two, three! Three enormous oil barrels were stacked together with effortless ease. He steadied them with one hand, as immovable as Mount Tai!
His face was neither red nor breathless. Only that carefully maintained pallor remained as he turned to Fatty Liu and spoke with a hint of perfectly measured bewilderment. "Manager Liu, what do you think... I'll just take these three barrels. They're full enough, so they should... be sufficient, right? We won't disturb you any longer."
Silence!
Silence as dead as death!
Everyone was dumbfounded, including the ten strongmen. They stared at the oil barrels stacked higher than a person, then at Lu Chen's seemingly frail frame, their minds blank.
Those were heavy barrels that required two people to lift! He had carried three with one hand?! Was this still the corpse-handler who looked as though a gust of wind could blow him over?!
Fatty Liu's fat face shifted from red to white, then from white to green. Even the finger he pointed at Lu Chen was trembling, and he could not say a word.
He had been completely cowed by this inhuman strength. How could he dare make things difficult for Lu Chen any longer?
Lu Chen ignored him and turned toward the ten petrified strongmen. "Brothers, could you help move the remaining Sulfur and liquor? I... I'll take these to the cart first."
With that, he steadied the precariously stacked oil barrels with one hand and walked toward the cart with firm, steady steps.
The strongmen came back to their senses as if awakening from a dream. As they watched Lu Chen's back, their gazes changed completely.
The venom and contempt from before had vanished, replaced by a mixture of shock, fear, and an awed respect they could scarcely believe themselves.
They no longer dared slack off in the slightest. They rushed into the storeroom, brought out the finest Sulfur powder and strong liquor, and quickly loaded them onto the cart.
The supplies were soon loaded.
The cart became unbearably heavy. But cowed by Lu Chen's inconceivable strength, no one dared complain another word.
The ten strongmen did not even dare let Lu Chen push the cart. They took on the most grueling work themselves, their gazes toward Lu Chen filled with complicated emotions.
Amid an eerie silence, the convoy slowly left through the rear gate of the Demon Suppression Division and set out along the road to Willow Creek Town.