The morning market was bustling, with crowds of people jostling against each other. Not even the dreary, drizzling rain could stop the vendors from hawking their wares in their unique, sing-song voices.
Suddenly, the crowd fell silent. Their gazes, filled with fear, fixed on a single spot.
Two grim-faced Government Constables emerged from an alley, carrying a corpse wrapped in burlap on a wooden plank. Fresh blood dripped from the plank onto the bluestone bricks.
The crowd began to whisper.
"Someone died again?"
"What awful luck."
"This must be the third time this month..."
"Don't look, don't look."
At this sight, the people scattered. Even the vendors hurriedly packed up their stalls as if fleeing a plague god.
The two Government Constables carried the body to a more open area, acting as if the crowd wasn't there.
The older constable was dressed in black. He was gaunt, with slightly sunken eyes, giving him the appearance of someone suffering from a chronic illness.
"Government-Approved Constable" was embroidered on his cuffs, and a two-foot-long Water and Fire Stick was tied to his waist.
Although they served the Government Office, Government Constables were merely errand-runners and menial laborers. The Water and Fire Stick was only for self-defense.
The other, younger constable was about thirteen or fourteen. His black clothes were a bit ill-fitting, and he lacked the "Government-Approved Constable" embroidery.
This was a White Servant, an apprentice who usually worked under official Government Constables for several years before having a chance at promotion.
They set the body down.
The lead constable couldn't help but start coughing from the exertion of carrying the heavy load. It took him a few breaths to stop.
The White Servant asked with concern, "Brother Qing, are you all right?"
The constable answered in a hoarse, low voice, "It's an old ailment, nothing to worry about. Xiaowu, you watch this. I'm going into the shop."
"Brother Qing..."
Xiaowu looked terrified. His legs were trembling, and his voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz.
"Don't worry, I'll be right back."
The constable, named Ren Qing, patted Xiaowu's shoulder and walked briskly toward the mouth of the alley.
His steps were slightly unsteady and his breathing grew heavy, revealing that he was not nearly as calm as he appeared on the surface.
Ren Qing walked deeper into the alley. The stench of blood hit him, so thick it was nauseating.
A dilapidated bookshop came into view. Two White Servants, both under twenty, were standing at the entrance. They couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when they saw Ren Qing.
"Constable."
Ren Qing nodded at them and said, "If you need to puke, then puke. After that, get inside and start cleaning up. We need to get this done as fast as possible. You don't want to linger here, do you?"
"Yes, Constable..."
Li Mian and Li Heng were biological brothers and looked about eighty or ninety percent alike. They had no connections in the Government Office, which was why they had been assigned to Ren Qing.
Xiaowu, on the other hand, had voluntarily sought to work under him. His father and Ren Qing's father were from the same hometown.
The Li Brothers went to a corner of the alley and leaned against the wall, dry-heaving.
Ren Qing fought back his own nausea. On one hand, he didn't want his subordinate White Servants to look down on him. On the other, he was afraid his weak constitution would cause him to pass out.
He took a deep breath and pushed open the bookshop's partially closed wooden door.
The interior was spattered with chunks of flesh and blood. Bookshelves were toppled over, but strangely, there were no books on them, making the space feel unusually empty.
The body of the Shopkeeper, which they had just carried out, had originally been found kneeling behind the door.
His hands were open, and in his palms rested his own eyeballs, which had been gouged out.
And this was *after* the Government Office had already done an initial cleanup. It was hard to imagine what the scene had looked like before.
Ren Qing was in charge of Tan Street in the West City District of Sanxiang City. Among the Government Constables, he was a Fireworker.
His duty was to cremate corpses and the personal effects of the deceased. Logically, he shouldn't have encountered any danger.
But like the Shopkeeper in the bookshop, anyone could tell he had died an unnatural death.
A few days ago, there had been eight Fireworkers in charge of Tan Street. But after smelling a strange odor while cremating the body of someone who had died violently, something went wrong.
All the Fireworkers collapsed, dead, with eerie smiles on their faces.
Ren Qing appeared to be the sole survivor, but in reality, his body now housed a different soul. In his previous life, he had been just an ordinary office worker.
He'd spent the first few days after transmigrating in a daze. Fortunately, the original Ren Qing hadn't interacted with many people, so no one noticed anything was amiss.
Moreover, this world was strange in every way. Residents rarely left the city, and people would drop dead for no reason every few days, yet everyone had grown accustomed to it.
In the mountain villages outside the city, everyone lived in constant fear for their own safety.
Unfortunately, time did not grant him the luxury of a longer adjustment period.
A mass of lines swirled before Ren Qing's eyes, sketching out a chaotic pattern before finally coalescing into a few lines of text.
[Ren Qing]
[Age: 17]
[Lifespan: 5 Years, 113 Days]
This was a Divine Power that Ren Qing had been born with. As long as he touched someone, he could see their Lifespan, but that was all it did.
The reason his own Lifespan was only five years was due to the severe organ failure he suffered after dying and coming back to life.
Strangely enough, the people of this world were already old and nearing death by the age of forty, and they rarely lived past fifty.
It was unlike any dynasty from his previous life.
Although Ren Qing had yet to find a way to extend his life, he had picked up a clue from the different types of Government Constables after asking around for information.
Generally, when a violent death occurred, the Forbidden Guards would arrive first to investigate. Only after they confirmed it was safe would Fireworkers like Ren Qing come, followed finally by the Black Slaves who cleaned up the blood and filth.
Ren Qing had never interacted with the Forbidden Guards, but he suspected they were Cultivators who had mastered Magic. Otherwise, how could Sanxiang City maintain even a semblance of peace?
That was why he had steeled himself to handle this bizarre and inexplicable mess with three inexperienced White Servants.
Ren Qing began to cautiously clean up the room.
A moment later, Li Mian and Li Heng summoned their courage and came inside.
They used the burlap sacks they carried to wrap up the chunks of flesh. They even broke the wooden furniture into pieces to take with them, making sure not to leave anything behind.
"Constable, there's a book wedged in the bookshelf."
Li Mian held out the book to Ren Qing.
He didn't dare even glance inside it. Any action a White Servant took required permission from a Government Constable to ensure no accidents occurred.
Ren Qing took the book, and a sharp pain suddenly pierced his mind.
He collapsed to the ground, tears streaming uncontrollably from his eyes.
"Constable!!!"
Li Heng and Li Mian tried to approach, but Ren Qing held up a hand to stop them.
"It's fine, I'm fine."
Ren Qing told the two to continue cleaning while he sat at the bookshop's entrance to rest for a moment, clutching the book tightly.
The instant he touched the book, Ren Qing's Divine Power had activated on its own for the first time. An Information Flow converged before his eyes.
[No-Eyes Technique]
[Comprehended by the Hundred-eyed Elder Monk from the Sutra of the First Awakening. To cultivate this technique, one must gouge out both eyes, consume the eyeballs with a medicinal catalyst, and after forty-nine days, they will regrow.]
Ren Qing held the book tight against his chest. After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, a little more information appeared.
[After gouging out the eyes, one will be plunged into boundless darkness and see things invisible to ordinary people. A successful cultivator can swallow eyeballs to recover from injuries and for Life Extension. Human eyes are best.]
Another moment passed, and new information about the No-Eyes Technique appeared again.
[Single-eyed: See through Illusions]
[Hundred-eyed Man: Create Illusions]
[Repeater: Anticipate the Enemy]
Ren Qing couldn't help but swallow. His heart began to pound wildly, and a morbid flush crept onto his face.
[Spend 30 days of Lifespan to master without cost.]
'Does the "cost" refer to the forty-nine days of blindness after gouging out my eyes, or some deeper, hidden secret?'
Ren Qing didn't want to risk any unforeseen changes by hesitating.
The Dharma Gate to cultivation was right in front of him—one that could even extend his Lifespan. Even if it was bizarre, it was better than just waiting to die in a daze.
With a single thought, thirty days of his Lifespan vanished in an instant.
Besides, all the residents of this alley had already been evacuated. It was far less likely to attract attention than the crowded, watchful Government Office.