Ren Qing felt blood rushing to his head.
He released his grip, letting the corpse thud to the ground. Planting his foot against its armpit, he wrenched its arm with all his strength.
Crack.
The sound of dislocating bone echoed as he forcibly separated the corpse's joints.
"Move."
Xiao Wu's scalp prickled, though the act had dulled his fear somewhat.
Yet he couldn't shake the sensation that the corpse's hollow eyes held a chilling resentment...
They quickened their pace. No further anomalies occurred.
By the time they returned to the Corpse Burners' Hall, dawn light crept across the sky.
Ren Qing collapsed, gasping; his frail body sustained only by the heat from the pig eyes.
After a brief rest, he hauled himself up and dragged the corpse to the furnace.
"What's wrong, Runner?"
The Li brothers hurried after him. They watched as Ren Qing yanked open the furnace door, unleashing a cloud of long-accumulated bone ash.
"Stoke the flames. This corpse can't remain."
"Understood."
Ren Qing crammed the shopkeeper's corpse inside, packed it with firewood, and sealed the door.
Xiao Wu's trembling hands struggled to light the tinderbox, delaying the ignition.
As flames took hold, heat radiated from the furnace.
They wiped their brows in collective relief.
Soon, crackling erupted from within; the sound of melting corpse fat.
"For the next few days, we'll take shifts to burn all corpses in the storage hut."
Remembering the blood trail, Ren Qing decided to obscure it despite the remote path.
"Guard the furnace. Stay alert."
Drawing on the pig eyes' fading warmth, he forced himself toward the exit.
Then; a thud!
A knocking sound came from the furnace, accompanied by faint, ghastly wails.
Ren Qing froze. When the noises ceased after several breaths, he turned to leave.
Wait...
A ridiculous thought struck him; what if the bookstore owner hadn't truly died, his life artificially sustained by the Blindless Method?
No. The information stream showed no reaction. The man was unquestionably dead.
Ren Qing dismissed the concern. The corpse had already turned to ash in the flames.
He carefully followed the blood trail, covering it with dirt.
The yamen's outer wall was seldom traversed. As long as nothing seemed amiss at a glance, meticulous cleanup wasn't necessary.
Ren Qing checked his own information stream:
[Ren Qing]
[Age: Seventeen]
[Remaining Lifespan: Five years, eighty-five days]
[Art: Blindless Method]
A gain of two to three days was modest, but satisfying.
The lifespan-extending effects of raw pig eyes were likely gradual; otherwise, the Hundred-Eyed Old Monk would've noticed.
By tracking consumption against his lifespan, he could optimize intake.
With lifespan temporarily stabilized, acquiring a second art became the priority.
The Blindless Method suited him, but facing the supernatural required more.
Should he pursue the Divine Leg Sutra?
But the beggars were likely controlled by a faction. At his current strength, the risk was too great.
After half an hour, Ren Qing reached the outer wall.
However, as he turned back-
A terrifying presence prickled his senses; like being stalked by a predator.
He dropped flat, scanning his surroundings.
A tall figure strode toward the yamen's eastern sector.
The man wore light armor, a bamboo hat, and a three-foot sword at his waist. In his hand dripped a bloody, leather-like object.
Ren Qing's gaze locked onto the token hanging from the sword's scabbard; engraved with a flamboyant character: "Restraint."
A Restraint Officer.
This was his first encounter. Despite handling corpses and working in the yamen, he'd never seen one before.
He suspected the yamen's quadrants and central Restraint Hall existed solely for them.
The "leather" in the officer's grip writhed like a living thing, dripping blood as it struggled against his grasp.
Ren Qing's eyes ached from staring.
Was that… human skin?
Living human skin?!
This world's horrors knew no bounds, did they..
Only after the officer vanished did Ren Qing rise, exhaustion weighing him down as he returned.
For two days, the furnace burned nonstop.
When the last three corpses finally became ash, the chamber held a thick layer of bone Fragments, collected by cleaners for some purposes.
The western district remained quiet, especially Tan Street.
But elsewhere, corpse-bearers hauled bodies daily.
Rumors spoke of decapitated victims in the eastern sector, arranged in kneeling postures.
Ren Qing immediately suspected the Hundred-Eyed Practitioner.
If he were the killer, he'd avoid the west and remove heads to hide missing eyes; probably assuming the Blindless Method was currently in yamen hands.
Little did they know Ren Qing had it.
Between furnace duty and cultivation, his butcher visits dwindled.
Beyond tracking the Blindless Method's trail, he noted unrest in the yamen but lacked time to investigate.
His secluded training however bore fruit:
He could now enter the Blindless Method's meditative state at will, though he limited his sessions to one hour.
Beyond that, the darkness grew unbearable, stirring urges to gouge out his own eyes.
He'd also optimized pig-eye consumption: one every three hours, netting four to five days of lifespan daily.
Progress was slow, but his impending death no longer loomed over him like just a while ago.
His once-sickly frame now brimmed with vitality.
Though despite all this, Xiao Wu and the Li brothers eyed him strangely.
Who ate raw pig eyes multiple times a day?
After Ren Qing finished studying the Blindless Method, he was thinking about heading to the martial arts field in the government office to take a look at things.
Even if he couldn't find any clues about the method itself; it would be good to learn some external skills for self-defense at least.
However, trouble suddenly came knocking.