Imperial We's Great Jing is about to fall

Fortune-Longevity Paste, the Western Affairs Party, the constable who died at Shallow Water Pier.

Each of these has a story worth telling.

Let's start with the Western Affairs Party.

At the founding of the Great Jing Dynasty, the Grand Ancestor established a strong military and a prosperous nation, bearing the posture of a celestial dynasty that drew myriad nations to court, with all petty states bowing their heads.

In the golden age, the gates were opened, and trade ports were established.

They once exported goods like tea, silk, porcelain, leather, white sugar, paper, and books, always holding an advantageous position in overseas trade, reaping silver and wealth from foreign lands.

Yet, golden ages are not eternal.

Over two hundred years of Great Jing, internally it endured princely rebellions, the Miao frontier uprisings, revolts by remnants of the former dynasty like the White Lotus Sect and the Heaven and Earth Society in the south, while externally the Rakshasa in the north eyed it hungrily, the Eastern Ocean pirates proved hard to quell, and the Red-Haired Barbarians and the Flower Flag coveted its riches. To cope with these external troubles, restricting overseas trade was the easiest measure.

Now, under the rule of Ganhuang of Great Jing, a policy of national seclusion has been implemented, leaving only the Min-Guang region as a single port for trade.

Foreign merchants wishing to enter Great Jing to sell their goods must cooperate with local Cohong grand merchants, known as "compradors."

The comprador business of foreign trade is rife with speculative profits, naturally linking officials and merchants. Many stakeholders in the comprador system form alliances—in the south, the Viceroy of Liangguang; in the north, central capital officials scheming for gain—and this is the Western Affairs Party.

Simply put, the Western Affairs Party of Great Jing is a small clique secretly formed by high-ranking officials and lords in the court who share interests in trade with foreigners.

Among the foreign merchants' goods, one item has had a profound impact on Great Jing: Fortune-Longevity Paste.

Fortune-Longevity Paste is opium, the great smoke.

In the Capital City of Great Jing, opium dens are everywhere, large and small, numbering in the hundreds—more plentiful than latrines.

From common folk to court officials, even His Majesty the Emperor once smoked during the morning court session, naturally setting a trend that all followed.

Whether idle nobles or playful wealthy scions, once addicted to this smoke, they'd light their pipes, lie down on a kang, and waste away all day like gaunt ghosts, their expressions decadent, as if drowning in the addiction.

Lin Shou had also seen those in nearby dens who smoked all day, picking up their pipes and never rising again—smoking until their wives and children scattered, their families ruined, their bodies left to rot on the streets.

When Lin Shou first arrived, he witnessed with his own eyes the corpse whose hat was lifted by the corpse-mender who triggered the Scalp-Cutter affair—a sickly smoke addict who had died from excessive opium use.

This, then, is "Fortune-Longevity Paste."

It empties your coffers and ruins your body—what a fine "fortune and longevity."

Such a harmful substance, so rampant—was it ever controlled?

Of course it was. Fortune-Longevity Paste didn't first appear under Ganhuang's rule; it existed as early as the Grand Ancestor and the Late Emperor's times, initially used as a painkiller before its addictive nature was discovered.

By the Late Emperor's era, smoke addicts had become rampant. Fearing that if this continued, the people would cease to be people and the nation would cease to be a nation, the Late Emperor issued a smoke-restriction decree, limiting the annual import of Fortune-Longevity Paste, restricting the number of civilian opium dens, and banning court officials from smoking, to set an example for the people.

The smoke-restriction decree was quite effective during the Late Emperor's reign, clearing up the entire court. It remained so in Ganhuang's early years, but now, in his later years...

His Majesty Ganhuang was once a capable ruler, repeatedly pacifying border wars with illustrious military achievements, authoring a book calling them the "Ten Perfect Military Achievements," flaunting his martial prowess. Yet in his old age, he has grown fond of grandiosity, indulging in luxury and debauchery, squandering recklessly.

When an ordinary commoner ruins his family, no matter how much he spends, there's a limit. If he gambles, once the money's gone, it's over. Even if he borrows, it's only so much—at worst, the money-lender loses out, and he gets beaten to death. The impact is limited.

But when an emperor ruins his family...

The nation's treasury, the dynasty's rivers and mountains.

If he squanders, he can bankrupt the entire Great Jing Dynasty.

Now, Ganhuang has grown lazy in court affairs, indulging daily in eating, drinking, and pleasure-seeking. Lecherous and fond of beauty, knowing the south has many lovely women, he has extravagantly toured the south six times to select consorts.

He loves smoking, keeping his pipe at hand during morning court. His subordinates follow suit, and the officials smoke too, turning the Late Emperor's smoke-restriction decree into a dead letter.

He craves grand achievements, fabricating merits, enforcing literary inquisitions, burning books from the former dynasty, and punishing many for their words.

He appoints corrupt officials, leading to rampant extravagance in the court and countryside, with corrupt officials running wild, the court decaying and rotten beyond repair.

Over the years, though Ganhuang is now aged and nearing his end, the national treasury has been drained by his squandering, the court has festered, and the dynasty's foundations are tottering.

The sickly smoke addicts in the countless opium dens of the Capital City are no different from His Majesty the Emperor, huddled in his dragon throne on the Hall of Supreme Harmony, smoking his pipe. What kind of ruler, what kind of people?

Of course, even with Ganhuang in this state of ruin and the court rotten with corrupt officials, the Grand Council still harbors a few ministers who worry for the nation and the people, exhausting themselves to prop up this collapsing edifice.

Take the matter of Fortune-Longevity Paste: the smoke-restriction decree remains in effect, and the annual import quota for foreign merchants is limited to under two hundred piculs.

But now, opium dens fill the Great Jing court, and the amount of Fortune-Longevity Paste far exceeds two hundred piculs—over twenty thousand piculs!

Where does all this Fortune-Longevity Paste come from?

Aside from the compradors of the Western Affairs Party, who constantly deal with foreign merchants, there's no other possibility.

Loyal ministers from the Three Departments and Six Ministries have repeatedly submitted memorials, impeaching the current Viceroy of Liangguang and several members of the Western Affairs Party in the court, but they are always dismissed for lack of evidence.

To impeach the Western Affairs Party, one must find proof of their smuggling of Fortune-Longevity Paste.

In the end, His Majesty assigned the matter to Left Censor-in-Chief Chen Chunyuan of the Censorate, authorizing officials from the Three Judicial Offices and the Six Fan School to assist in investigating the smuggling of Fortune-Longevity Paste.

The Western Affairs Party naturally doesn't want evidence found.

Recently, rumors have been rife in the martial world, with Six Fan School agents moving everywhere—this is the tug-of-war between the two sides.

Now, a Scalp-Cutter has suddenly appeared in the Capital City, killing twelve people in a row, all lower-level dealers of smuggled Fortune-Longevity Paste. This list of dealers shouldn't have been known to outsiders.

This should have been enough to alert the Western Affairs Party. They suspect the Scalp-Cutter might know something, perhaps holding evidence against them.

To prevent the Scalp-Cutter from being captured and revealing damaging information that could reach the Censorate and fall into Left Censor-in-Chief Chen Chunyuan's hands, they found a scapegoat.

Now the line of reasoning is essentially clear.

This fake Scalp-Cutter was just a trick the Western Affairs Party drug ring pulled to protect their own interests.

But the real Scalp-Cutter is still out there.

Lin Shou could imagine that if he were a member of the Western Affairs Party, he would definitely secretly find out who this real Scalp-Cutter was, kill him, and eliminate the unstable factor.

Thinking this over, Lin Shou looked at the Tofu Shop across the way with its candlelight still burning. Ning Luowei was safe in hiding for now, but if she were exposed, she would likely face deadly disaster.

Though he didn't know where she had gotten the list of downstream dealers selling smuggled Fortune-Longevity Paste, the Western Affairs Party definitely wouldn't let her off.

The constable who died at Shallow Water Pier was a clear warning. From the Lantern of Life, Lin Shou had seen that the man was silenced precisely because he was investigating leads on smuggled Fortune-Longevity Paste.

Tsk tsk, the mighty Great Jing Dynasty—a nation on the brink of ruin.

Lin Shou looked at this mess and sighed from the heart.

Still, none of this had anything to do with him.

He was just an onlooker, an ordinary commoner, a humble corpse-stitcher in a tiny Corpse-Stitching Shop.

To put it bluntly.

If the Great Jing fell, what was that to him?

He only needed to recite the Classic of Burial daily and tend to his flowers and birds.

Sit and watch the winds and clouds surge—there will always be new faces to replace the old.