knife

Chapter 797 Collecting the Corpse
Tao Silang was completely wrapped in burlap, with only his eyes showing.

This piqued the curiosity of his big yellow dog, which jumped up and down watching him, occasionally sticking its head out to sniff him. However, at this moment, the dozen or so people in the room were all dressed the same, and the smell of medicine was strong, so even the big yellow dog with its keen sense of smell could not smell its own master's scent.

Looking around the room and the group of people with suspicion, it finally started barking wildly.

Tao Silang tied the big yellow dog to the window; he absolutely could not take the dog with him on this trip to the city.

Judging from the situation, Tao Silang felt that it must be something big, otherwise the higher-ups would not have offered a daily wage of one string of cash.

A generous reward will surely attract brave men.

When Tao Silang decided to stay, he was somewhat prepared.

Hearing the clanging of the gong outside, Tao Silang patted Da Huang's head and said, "Stay inside and behave yourself. When I make some money, I'll get you a little female dog too!"

The group of people inside burst into laughter.

Although it seems strange now, to be honest, no one really thinks it's a big deal. After all, we've all been on the battlefield. Even if we haven't killed pigs, we've seen pigs and dogs, haven't we?
Moreover, as the higher-ups have already said, the purpose of going into the city today is to collect the corpses.

This is to prevent people from contracting diseases from contact with the corpse, since at this time of year, a dead person will start to smell after two or three days.

Such attire makes it seem as if the officials in power truly care about everyone's safety. However, many people are quite dismissive; after all, who hasn't seen a corpse? If it weren't for the strict orders from the person in white in each group, many people would have refused to wear it and would have preferred to save these fine linen clothes for later use during festivals!

The wall that we worked day and night to build a few days ago has been torn down and used to fill the trenches. It was hard to build, but it was easy to destroy.

Ropes are tied to pillars and looped around the oxen. Dozens of oxen work together to lift up this kind of wall, which is dozens of meters high, in an instant.

Walking on the road into town, Tao Silang felt a pang of sadness as he stepped on the hard, purplish-black soil. He thought of his comrades in the village who had been buried in this very spot after their deaths. But after nearly a month of fighting, the ground had been trampled flat, and Tao Silang had no idea where they were buried.

With a sigh, he stopped thinking about it. At least he was able to get back alive so that the remaining villagers would know where to offer incense and burn paper money for the dead. It was a stroke of luck amidst misfortune.

After taking a few more steps, Tao Silang suddenly stopped, staring blankly at the two corpses lying under a mound of earth beside him. Many people around him screamed in surprise.

They were there to dispose of the bodies, and were prepared, but the two corpses they found were simply too gruesome.

They initially thought the body was missing limbs or had been slashed and mangled, but to their utter surprise, the corpse before them was actually quite intact. However, the exposed black and purple pustules terrified everyone.

Black liquid was still oozing from those pustules, and even with the mouth and nose covered, an extremely foul odor still wafted out.

The leader, dressed in white, stepped forward and actually squatted down to examine the two corpses closely, muttering something under his breath.

Tao Silang was nearby and vaguely heard the man say that these two guys should have been among the first to break out.

As the man in white pulled a small ceramic bottle and some cotton swabs from his robes, collecting some of the oozing black liquid into the bottle, some people finally couldn't help but vomit. These people didn't even have time to tear off the burlap covering their faces.

The man in white stood up and said sternly, "You are not allowed to take off your face coverings. You will all go back immediately and be fully disinfected outside the camp before you are allowed to enter the barracks!"

Several people who vomited scrambled back home.

The man in white waved his hand and said, "Load it onto the truck!"

Tao Silang and the others then stepped forward and threw the two corpses onto the flatbed cart.

Instead of using animals to pull the cart, the flatbed cart was pulled by people today.

The number of corpses on the ground was increasing, and the way they were dressed was all sorts of bizarre and varied. Even Tao Silang, who considered himself a man who had died once and was much braver than others, still felt a little weak in the knees when he reached the city gate.

The people there all seemed to have died suddenly. Some were sitting against the wall, some were cross-legged with their heads down, some were back to back, some were still holding steamed buns in their hands, and some had their rice bowls lying beside them. Every dead person had similar symptoms to the corpses outside, with black spots on their faces, the center of which was rotten and black fluid was flowing out.

There were no external injuries.

"This is a plague!" Finally, one of the older men remembered something and shouted.

The man in white glanced back at them and said coldly, “That’s right, it’s a plague. But you don’t need to be afraid. The medicinal soup you drink every day and the clothes you wear have been soaked in medicine, so you’re unlikely to get infected with this plague. Keep quiet, there’s a plague in the air too. Just do your work! Also, be careful not to tear the linen in your hands.”

The crowd couldn't understand what "air" meant, but they could understand that talking too much could lead to infection. So they immediately shut their heads and stopped talking, only lifting the corpses one by one onto the vehicle. These people had died in all sorts of strange ways, and their bodies were stiff and couldn't be straightened at all, so they could only make do by throwing them onto the vehicle.

Before they even entered the city, all of their dozen or so vehicles were already fully loaded.

The man in white seemed to have no aversion to these things. Tao Silang watched as he picked out different corpses, took some things off their bodies and put them into small ceramic bottles, and then wrote and drew something in a notebook.

Before the white-clad man covered his face, Tao Silang had seen what he looked like. He was a thin, scholarly-looking man who spoke to them with a smile and had no airs of an official. However, at this moment, Tao Silang's gaze towards this man had completely changed. He regarded the man as a demon who had crawled up from the Yama's palace. How could he be so calm and composed?

The bodies from more than a dozen trucks were dumped into an empty room nearby. Then a group of people carried in bags of quicklime. One layer of bodies, one layer of quicklime, and after that, everyone collected firewood and wood from nearby, filling the room almost completely. Finally, a vat of grease was brought in and poured into the room.

As a torch was thrown up, flames and thick smoke shot into the sky.

The smell was nauseating.

Tao Silang stood silently outside the house, watching the burning building, which had just been crammed with nearly a hundred corpses.

Turning to look into the distance, dozens of plumes of smoke were rising from various parts of the city.

(End of this chapter)