Wen Taiquan looked at Li Qing, his expression grave. "The Refugee Camp outside the South Gate just erupted into a riot."
"At least two hundred people died. They were all refugees fleeing disaster."
Li Qing's eyes showed a trace of surprise. "How could this happen?"
"Because they had nothing to eat." Wen Taiquan sighed softly.
"Nothing to eat? How could that be? I heard the Government Office was handing out porridge."
Wen Taiquan shook his head slightly, his face taking on an inscrutable expression.
"One meal a day, thin as dishwater. How could that save anyone?"
"The Refugee Camp was set up for one purpose: to let them die."
Li Qing froze at his words. "What?"
Wen Taiquan shook his head. "There's a lot more going on here than meets the eye."
"More and more refugees are gathering outside. There are even tens of thousands now."
"We can't save them all."
At that, Li Qing felt cold from head to toe. His eyes held a trace of complicated emotion.
"Can they really treat human lives so carelessly?"
Wen Taiquan patted Li Qing on the shoulder. "Try to take it in stride. This isn't something we can do anything about."
"The Great Tang Dynasty has never been short of people."
"Refugees like these only disrupt the stability of other cities. Besides, the places they come from have been barren for hundreds of miles."
"They won't recover for at least three or four years."
"I've heard some kind of Anomaly might be responsible."
"We also have to guard against that Anomaly sneaking into the city among them."
Li Qing shook his head slightly.
"Rise, and the common people suffer; fall, and the common people suffer."
It seemed to be the same everywhere. He couldn't help thinking of his former life as an overworked wage slave, and of his ten years as a servant. It was all the same.
Hearing Li Qing's words, Wen Taiquan's eyes lit up. "I didn't know you had such a way with words."
Li Qing shrugged. "It's nothing special."
He felt a little uneasy. After all, he came from a modern civilization.
Seeing such inhumane things in this ancient world made him feel as if he shared the same fate as those people.
Suddenly, someone entered the Mission Hall, wearing a suit of unusual armor.
In a booming voice, he announced, "We need three people to go to the Mass Grave and supervise the corpse buriers."
"The task will last a full day, and the situation is unusual. Two or three mutated corpses may appear, so this is a Grade-A mission. Each person will receive ten merit points."
Wen Taiquan jumped to his feet. "I'm in! We've got two people here."
As he spoke, he grabbed Li Qing and rushed up to the armored man ahead of everyone else.
The man looked to be in his forties or fifties. He had a thick beard, and his energy was tightly contained within him.
He looked at Wen Taiquan and chuckled. "Wen Taiquan, you're always so quick. The moment you smell a little profit, you come running."
Only then did the others react.
They glared resentfully at Wen Taiquan and Li Qing. The two had moved far too fast.
Amid the uproar, another person managed to claim the mission.
The three followed the armored man and received the mission documents. Led by Wen Taiquan, they headed for the Mass Grave.
On the way, Li Qing asked quietly, "This mission isn't dangerous, is it? You were awfully eager, even though it's Grade A."
Wen Taiquan lowered his voice. "This kind of mission is preventive. The location is unusual, too."
"The Mass Grave is where people who died unjust deaths are buried. Their resentment is intense."
"Anomalies show up there often, but they're usually Ghosts."
"They basically never appear during the day, but sometimes they come out at night."
"The corpse buriers will be working until dusk, at the very least."
"During that time, it's easy to disturb some Ghosts, and then they'll come out and wreak havoc."
"Also, some corpses are steeped in resentment. One wrong move, and they might rise as the undead."
"Those things aren't especially dangerous, but they're a real nuisance. There are a lot of corpse buriers, and if something goes wrong, many people could die. So we have to stay vigilant and protect their lives."
"That's why the mission is worth Grade-A merit."
"But the chances of anything happening are low. For us, it's actually an easy job."
"At least, it's unlikely we'll find ourselves in mortal danger."
"So I took it for you. We can make a tidy profit."
Li Qing smiled at that. "Thanks for the trouble. I really have been short on merit points lately."
The third person on their team was a middle-aged man with a gloomy expression.
His name was Ying Taihua. He looked like a Daoist priest and wore a black robe.
The three soon reached the West Gate. The Mass Grave lay about a mile outside the city.
Some corpse buriers pulling handcarts were already on the road.
The corpse buriers had the lowliest job in the city. Only people with exceptionally strong Eight Characters would take on such work.
There were quite a few of them, at least seven or eight.
But they were legitimate clerks, belonging to the Corpse Burial Bureau under the Government Office.
Their job was to dispose of all kinds of corpses.
They soon reached the Mass Grave, a desolate stretch of wilderness.
The nearest rolling hills were three miles away.
The ground was uneven and pitted, dotted with mounds of earth beneath which corpses had been buried.
The seven or eight corpse buriers had already picked a spot and were digging there.
Li Qing looked at the corpses they had brought, piled onto their handcarts.
The weather was hot, and the corpses had begun to give off a rank, bloody stench.
As Li Qing watched the corpse buriers dig pits and bury the dead, his brow furrowed slightly.
The corpses were ragged and emaciated, their faces deathly pale.
Their fishlike eyes stared blankly at the sky. Not a trace of life remained in their bodies.
Looking at the dead men's eyes, Li Qing felt a sudden, inexplicable fear.
He seemed to see his own future in them.
"If I don't grow strong enough, maybe one day I'll end up just like them."
"Lying here like a dead dog."
He let out a heavy breath, his gaze filled with solemnity.
But as he pondered, his brow suddenly furrowed.
His eyes fell on the wounds on the corpses.
He had noticed something strange. Very strange.
He walked over and stopped beside the corpses, studying their wounds.
Clotted blood filled them, but it had turned somewhat black.
At most half an hour had passed since he had seen their blood essence burst forth.
There was no way the blood could have turned black. "Could something be wrong?"
A grave look appeared in Li Qing's eyes.
Wen Taiquan had been watching Li Qing the whole time. When he saw him standing beside the handcart loaded with corpses, he looked surprised and quietly walked over.
"Is something wrong?"
Li Qing glanced at Ying Taihua in the distance. The man was keeping watch over the surroundings and hadn't noticed him.
Li Qing looked at Wen Taiquan, and the two stepped aside.
Then Li Qing asked in a low voice, "How long does it take for the blood in a corpse to turn black?"
Wen Taiquan frowned at the question. "At least a day."