The court lackeys of the eight-hour workday

Chapter 429: Tianjie tramples all the bones of the prince

On the 16th day of the 10th month of the 24th year of the Jiajing reign.

The debris from last night's explosion has not yet been cleared. The fly ash was first swept high into the air by the wind, and then fell like snow, turning half of Beijing into a white ash like a negative.

Inside the house, the woman timidly peeked out, looking around.

Her face turned pale after just one glance.

Right outside her door, less than three feet from the ground, a strange bulge of white ash outlined a human figure. Around the outline was a patch of dried, dark red bloodstains.

The woman closed her eyes.

Although she was terrified, she knew she couldn't let the body lie on her doorstep. So she first turned back and scolded the children to hide under the bed, then timidly walked out the door, and, suppressing her fear, grabbed the body by the hem of its clothes and dragged it toward a nearby alley.

There are irrigation ditches and manholes in the alley; you can just throw the body in there.

Malnutrition, fear, and exhaustion nearly drained the woman's strength; she was drenched in sweat after just a few dozen steps.

The woman dragged the body to the ditch and was about to push it in when she hesitated. Looking at the delicate and comfortable clothes on the body, she thought of the rough cloth on her own child.

"It should be... anyway, it's a corpse..."

"Just wash it in the ditch..."

The woman gritted her teeth and painstakingly peeled off the corpse's clothes, even finding some loose silver coins hidden in the lining of the clothing.

Next, all you need to do is wash the clothes.

The woman soaked her clothes in the ditch.

The dark red scabs spread out in the water, leaving a long trail as they flowed downstream.

The woman scrubbed vigorously.

After rubbing for the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, the water gradually became clear.

The woman breathed a sigh of relief and was about to continue scrubbing the clothes a few more times to clean them before going home. But as she scrubbed, she found that the blood coming out was becoming increasingly concentrated.

"Could it be that the blood inside has just dissolved?"

The woman found it strange and continued rubbing her hands a few more times, but it felt as if something very thin and tough was binding her hands, causing a sharp pain in her fingers. She raised her hand to look at it, and her face instantly turned pale. She collapsed to the ground with a thud.

It was a clump of long hair.

Long, glossy, and perfectly styled hair.

It was wrapped around her fingers.

Dede dede—

Her teeth chattered, and the woman stiffly turned her head to look upstream in the canal.

She now understood why she couldn't get the clothes clean.

Upstream from the nearby canal, there was a round, chubby creature with two round, bright eyes silently watching her. Blood flowed from its cavity, staining the canal crimson.

There isn't much blood in a skull, so to achieve the current effect—this head was cut off in no more than the time it takes to brew a cup of tea.

The woman stood frozen in place.

She looked back at another ditch below the other wall.

It was also a deep crimson.

The blood was so abundant and thick that even the sound of the water crashing against the canal walls had a viscous quality to it. It was as if a sea of blood was flowing upstream, pouring down along the canals that crisscrossed the entire capital city.

The perspective follows the canal, tracing its source.

After passing through several streets, past headless corpses lying beside the canals, pouring their blood into them, and through countless pitiful wails and cries, I finally arrived at a huge and magnificent vermilion gate.

A middle-aged official dressed in a scarlet robe knelt outside the door, his hands and feet bound. His once well-groomed beard was now disheveled and stained with tears and saliva.

He shouted, his eyes wide with rage.

"Lord Tang! What do you mean by this!"

"You are also a civil official and a veteran of two dynasties, why do you collude with those henchmen of the Embroidered Uniform Guard to persecute loyal officials like us!"

Tang Lanzhou stood in front of him, flipping through the account books. Hearing this, she glanced at him and said calmly.

"Collusion?"

"Lord Liu, what are you talking about? I am the head of the Ministry of Justice and I lead the Ministry's personnel. I came to your residence to search for the thieves who caused trouble last night and happened to find evidence of your crimes. How could I have colluded with the Embroidered Uniform Guard?"

The middle-aged official choked.

"You...you're digging your own grave! You're cutting yourself off from the world!"

"After doing something like this, do you think you can still live?! Your family—"

Tang Lanzhou suddenly flung his hand away!
Snapped!
A slap landed on his face, knocking him to the ground, where he was then helped up by a soldier standing behind him.

"Family... ah."

Tang Lanzhou gave a cold laugh with a completely flat tone.

"Since Lord Liu has brought up family, I have just remembered something."

He beckoned.

Soldiers then led several struggling and crying people out of the gate and forced them down in front of the middle-aged official. The middle-aged official, who had just been slapped and was about to curse, suddenly widened his eyes upon seeing these people and swallowed his words.

"you--"

"Your son, Liu Shi'ao... well, he's a horseman who injures people and abducts women. He doesn't have many lives on his hands, but there's no benefit in keeping him alive." Tang Lanzhou said, rubbing his right hand without looking up.

"killed."

puff-

The blade pierced the neck, and blood spurted out, splashing onto the middle-aged official's face.

"Ah ah ah ah ah--"

He screamed and struggled to move forward, but was pinned to the spot and unable to move.

Tang Lanzhou continued calmly.

“Your nephew, Liu Zhixin, isn’t particularly wicked, but I remember he got his official position through Yan Song’s connections, right?”

"Your wife... never mind, I'm tired, I'm too lazy to talk about it."

Tang Lanzhou rubbed his temples and waved.

Pfft, pfft, pfft.

A long knife plunged into a neck, and the corpses fell one by one.

The middle-aged official was already in tears, struggling and crying on the ground, desperately trying to break free, but he couldn't escape the soldiers' grasp at all, and could only squeeze out incoherent wails from his throat.

"Uh ah ah -"

Tang Lanzhou frowned.

"Alright, Lord Liu, stop shouting."

"I'm too old to stand noise."

Bang!
The soldier who had captured the middle-aged official understood and jabbed the hilt of his sword into his waist, forcibly silencing his cries.

Tang Lanzhou then continued.

"Now, Lord Liu should understand my determination."

He strode up to the middle-aged official, looked down at him, and spoke calmly.

There are three people in your family.

"Your youngest son, youngest daughter, and one concubine—I can kill them or I can spare them…it all depends on Lord Liu's next answer."

"Last October, when you were drinking with Minister Shi of the Court of Judicial Review and Minister Qi of the Five Armies Protectorate, did you say anything at the banquet that 'the current emperor is negligent in his duties and does not look like a ruler'?"

The middle-aged official was taken aback.

"Last October? I didn't—"

puff.

A spray of blood splattered behind him.

He flinched and glanced back.

His concubine had collapsed to the ground, her blood seeping into the drain in the corner of the wall through the cracks in the floor.

He got it.

Whether he drank that drink or not, he had to.

Whether he said it or not, he had to say it.

"I...I...said..."

He lowered his head with difficulty and said in a low voice.

"Did Lord Shi and Lord Qi say that?"