The stench of boiled bitter pine-resin and bitter embalming resin thickened with every step Lu Chen took down the drainage under-road drain.
Water dripped from the ceiling of the vaulted stone water gate. He carried the greasy film of animal fat candles and burnt sulfur.
Fifty paces behind him, in the sewer alley, the corpses of Eldest Disciple Song and his two guards were already growing cold in the silt.
Their blood had hissed when it touched Lu Chen’s palms.
Inside Lu Chen’s chest, the internal fire burned at a steady sixty degrees.
The heat radiated outward through his blood-vessel tree. That turned the freezing slow leak that soaked through his boots into wisps of white vapor at his trouser cuffs.
His bronze skeleton felt dense, heavy, and ringing.
With the purification of the cursed bone flute, the Twelve-Layer Iron Bell Body had locked its second tier firmly into his marrow.
