Biohazard in the Capital City

"What kind of fresh way is this to pick up customers?"

Lin Shou scratched his head. First time visiting a brothel, and this guy had taken a liking to him.

Watching the sky darken, Lin Shou got down to business first.

Following the route from the Heavenly Punishment corpse's Lantern of Life, he threaded through the maze-like Eight Great Alleys and found a large courtyard bearing the sign "Red Person Hall."

Lin Shou pushed the door open. Inside, the modest space held a small stage where several huadan in colorful opera robes and ornate headpieces performed, their style quite refined.

A few gentlemen sat below, all patrons supporting the troupe.

No gentlemen, no livelihood for performers.

Though these masters' interests lay more in flesh than art—hardly gentlemen—in these times, craftsmen mostly relied on such patrons just to put food on the table.

Lin Shou found a seat and sat down. Before long, the pimp came over, a plaster for alertness stuck beside his temple. He sidled up to Lin Shou with a lecherous look, utterly sleazy.

"Master, take a look at the ladies in our Red Person Hall troupe. Which one catches your eye? I'll call her over, and we can have some tea and chat."

Lin Shou glanced at him, then swept his eyes over the few delicate-looking girls on stage. None were ugly, but none matched Yao Hesheng from earlier.

"I heard your Red Person Hall has one called Xu Linfang. Pretty face?"

Lin Shou asked. This Xu Linfang was the one the Heavenly Punishment corpse had kept in life.

"Xu Lin... oh, what a shame, Master. Xu Linfang quit and went back to her hometown. Why not take a look at the others? Let me tell you, Master, our girls are top-notch in the Eight Great Alleys..."

The pimp visibly stumbled at Xu Linfang's name, his expression shifting wrong. He covered it up, but Lin Shou knew he'd come to the right place.

Heavenly Punishment was contagious. If the victim's Heavenly Punishment had been passed on by this Xu Linfang, then she should already be showing symptoms.

Lin Shou used Subtle Perception to carefully observe the ones on stage, then pointed at one.

The pimp called her down, grinning as he opened his mouth to pitch again. Lin Shou shut him up by pressing a silver ingot against his face and sent him off, not letting him interrupt their private talk.

This pimp was too sharp; Lin Shou wouldn't get anything out of him. Better to chat with the young lady.

The young lady came over and sat beside Lin Shou. She looked like the youngest in the troupe—Lin Shou had deliberately picked her. Kids were easier to pry information from.

"Master, you honor me. This humble one's hand..."

She started reciting the greeting script she'd learned, but Lin Shou cut her off with a raised hand and asked:

"Where are you from?"

The young lady froze, not expecting that question. Usually, when a master came for a first meeting, they'd ask her name or what she could do—who asked "where are you from"?

"Answering Master, my home is in Min."

"Your home's in Min, so how'd you end up in the Capital City performing opera?"

"My parents died early, so I took to begging on the streets. A gentleman saw me and said if I followed him to the Capital, he'd find me work and I'd have food to eat. So I came."

Lin Shou nodded at that. Poor kids with nothing to eat, scraping by—his own work as a corpse mender wasn't much different from these children's lot. Both came because they couldn't feed themselves. One sold their body, the other sold their life.

"So, do you want to do this?"

The young lady was young, couldn't hide her feelings. She twisted the huadan opera robe on herself and smiled bitterly:

"Whether I want to or not, it's already like this. No changing it now. For now, thanks to Master's favor, I still get a meal."

When she grew up, she'd be riddled with illness and die young. A mere child, ruined like this, just so they could use her to make money.

"Give me your hand."

The young lady obediently extended her hand, expecting the master to touch it. This master was decent enough—some would grab her outright, which was always uncomfortable.

But Lin Shou only placed his fingers on her wrist, as if taking her pulse.

"You're a doctor?"

Lin Shou shook his head without speaking. After finishing the pulse, he looked at her complexion—a rosy peach-blossom pink, soft and alluring, unnaturally beautiful.

Lin Shou confirmed the symptoms. No mistake. It was Heavenly Punishment.

His eyes swept over the performers on stage. Everyone in this Red Person Hall carried Heavenly Punishment. This was a full-blown infection source.

If Lin Shou didn't have the Body Immune to Six Diseases keeping him safe from infection, he'd never dare come here.

"I'm stepping out to the latrine."

Lin Shou placed a few copper coins in the young lady's hand, though he wasn't sure she'd still have use for them.

With that, he stood and left.

Once outside Red Person Hall, he vaulted onto the wall and, under cover of night, infiltrated the rear courtyard from the rooftops—the living quarters. While everyone was up front entertaining guests, Lin Shou searched room by room. Finally, in one chamber, he found something.

A young woman with all her fingers gone, half her body crippled, her face covered in bumps and sores—hideous and terrifying—was sleeping inside. It had to be Xu Linfang.

Sure enough, she'd caught Heavenly Punishment too. The deformities had made her look like this, so she couldn't show herself.

Lin Shou confirmed it, flipped back out of Red Person Hall, found a little beggar nearby, gave him some silver, and told him to deliver a message to the Imperial Medical Academy: that the Red Person Hall in the Eight Great Alleys had...

The little beggar went to deliver the message. Lin Shou waited in a dark corner nearby. About the time it takes an incense stick to burn.

A massive crowd of government officials arrived at the entrance of the Eight Great Alleys, startling everyone—they thought it was a vice raid.

Among them, one group stood out most. They wore full-body suits like big sacks, wrapped tight, carrying a medicine box in one hand and something like a ladle in the other, connected by a tube. When they pressed the box, the ladle sprayed water.

These were people from the Imperial Medical Academy.

Lin Shou took one look and thought, damn, not only did they have protective suits, but also disinfectant spray equipment—the Imperial Medical Academy had some real skill after all.

A crowd of them swaggered into the Eight Great Alleys, found the Red Person Hall, and one of the petty officials stepped up and kicked the door open. The Imperial Medical Academy men charged inside, spraying disinfectant as they went.

The people in the Red Person Hall were terrified. What the hell was this? They'd been enjoying the show just fine, and now a bunch of oddly dressed lunatics burst in, spraying water everywhere—were they celebrating the Water-Splashing Festival? What kind of stunt was this?

The masters who could afford to keep a private troupe weren't common folk; they were wealthy officials and merchants. You couldn't just barge in and splash water in their faces and expect no trouble. Chaos erupted instantly. Someone slammed the table and shouted for the pimp to explain what was going on.

The pimp had no choice but to step forward and ask, "Who the hell are you people? Are you trying to ruin our business here?"

But the moment he approached to ask, the petty officials all flinched and scrambled backward, putting as much distance as possible. One Imperial Medical Academy man in a burlap sack protective suit came over, took a look at him, and announced loudly:

"Leprosy! It's definitely leprosy! Everyone in this Red Person Hall—send them all to the Six Afflictions Pavilion!"

The Six Afflictions Pavilion was the isolation ward where they locked up plague victims.

Leprosy, what the common folk called Heavenly Punishment, had another name in Lin Shou's past life: Hansen's disease.