Lu Chen’s iron-studded heel struck the vermilion gate directly beneath the brass central boss.
Boom.
The sound was not that of wood cracking. It was the thunderous blast of a bronze siege bell struck by an iron ram.
The six-inch-thick cured oak bowed inward, fibers groaning under five thousand pounds of instant high-pressure force. The five-foot iron crossbar behind the leaves snapped in two like brittle charcoal.
With an ear-splitting screech of shearing bronze hinges, both twelve-foot doors tore loose from the granite pillars and collapsed into the inner courtyard, crashing across the fancy gravel in a cloud of brick dust and splintered lacquer.
In the grand pavilion across the courtyard, the music stopped.
The delicate pluck of silk zither strings died in a clashing screech as three hired court musicians dropped their plectrums.
Through the dust cloud, Lu Chen stepped over the fallen doors.
His heavy oilcloth dead-house apron was stiff with dried animal fat and black ghoul bile. His twelve-pound notched cleaver rested casually against his right thigh, its iron spine cold against the heat streaming from his hand. White steam hissed continuously from the open collar of his tunic, swirling in the freezing midnight drizzle.
He walked past the koi ponds and carved marble stone railings toward the raised reception hall.
The double doors of the hall had been thrown wide to catch the evening breeze, framed by heavy vermilion curtains. Inside, four copper fire bowls filled with silver-banded charcoal glowed cherry-red, heating the air to a summer swelter. Scented sandalwood and sweet bitter pine-resin burned in bronze cressets, masking the heavy, sour reek that hung beneath the perfume.
Around a massive oval table of polished red sandalwood sat seven men.
They were the masters of Black Water County.
There was Elder Sun, who owned the four northern grain silos. Merchant Wu, who controlled the canal salt licenses. And two regional tax clerks draped in imported marten furs, their fingers ringed in jade and green tourmaline.
At the head of the table sat Bailiff Qian.
The Assistant Judge had unbuttoned the collar of his greasy green official silk robes. It exposed a doughy, sweat-slicked chest. A silver fork was poised inches from his open mouth, his small, pig-like eyes bulging with stunned disbelief as he stared at the giant standing in the courtyard threshold.
The table between them was laden with gold-rimmed fine china dishes and pewter warming pots.
Lu Chen paused at the top of the marble steps. His dark eyes scanned the banquet table, taking in every dish with clean, steady care.
There was no roast venison or braised canal carp on the table.
In the center of the table rested a wide fine china bowl filled with semi-clear slices of pale, purplish flesh sunk in aged snow-pear wine and honey. They were human livers, harvested from young, healthy vagrants and cured to preserve their life-force.
Beside it, a bronze chafing dish bubbled over a blue spirit flame, stewing human hearts in a thick, vermilion red stone broth. A shallow platter held pickled throat cords and kidneys, dusted with powdered mother-of-pearl to ward off putrefaction.
The corrupt gentry of Black Water County were not merely stealing tax grain.
Scared of dying from the creeping ghost frost and the decay of the Yong Dynasty, they had purchased longevity formulas from the Uncanny clans. Consuming the distilled Yang life-force of their own peasants.
Elder Sun dropped his ivory chopsticks. They clattered against his jade cup, splashing red broth across his silk sleeve.
“Who... Who let this filth through the gate?” Sun shrieked, his flabby jowls quivering as he scrambled back in his chair. “Guards! Where are the night constables? Where is the outer patrol?”
“They ran away,” Lu Chen said.
His voice was quiet, devoid of fury or dramatic rhythm. It was the flat, neutral tone of a butcher announcing the morning block.
Court guard Qian slowly lowered his silver fork. The greasy silk napkin clutched in his left hand was trembling so wildly it fluttered against his stomach.
“You,” Qian whispered, a bead of yellow sweat dripping from the tip of his nose into his wine bowl. “The third-class boy from the dead-house. You... You were supposed to be flayed by the dungeon grafts. Twenty unsafe ghouls! Tie Shan swore they could tear down a royal guard post!”
“The ghouls are dead,” Lu Chen said, stepping over the threshold into the heated pavilion. “Old Meng is alive.”
“Impossibility!” Merchant Wu screamed, overturning his fine china plate as he tried to crawl under the heavy table. “Tie Shan was an Iron Fist master! He had fifty students!”
“I broke him two days ago,” Lu Chen replied simply. “You were late to hear the news.”
Qian’s face flushed an ugly, mottled purple. The office veneer of the county official cracked, replaced by the naked, frantic panic of a cornered beast.
“Kill him!” Qian screamed, his voice breaking into a wet, phlegmy screech. “One hundred coins of horse-hoof silver to anyone who brings me his skull! Guards! Slaughter him!”
From behind the painted folding screens at the rear of the pavilion, four men surged forward.
They weren’t ordinary county constables. These were Qian’s personal retainers. Disgraced military deserters who had fled the northern front, equipped with blackened iron scale mail and wielding six-foot chain-flails and heavy barbed poleaxes.
The lead retainer lunged without a word. It swung a spiked iron flail in a vicious level flight path aimed at Lu Chen’s temple.
The spiked iron ball whistled through the air, carrying enough force to crush a bronze helmet into scrap metal.
Lu Chen didn’t duck.
He stepped inside the arc of the chain, raising his left forearm.
Clang!
The heavy iron ball slammed against his forearm.
Sparks erupted into the scented air. The black glass melted rock waste-veins along Lu Chen’s skin absorbed the shock. The slate-hardened tissue was ringing like an anvil. The iron ball bounced off with a hollow ping. That left nothing more than a faint gray smudge on his skin.
Before the soldier could recover his balance, Lu Chen stepped forward. He closed the distance to three inches.
His left elbow drove into the man’s throat.
Snap.
The iron gorget warped inward, crushing the soldier’s larynx and neck bones. The man dropped instantly, choking on his own crushed joint padding.
The second retainer swung a six-foot poleax at Lu Chen’s knees.
Lu Chen’s right hand moved. The notched twelve-pound cleaver sliced through the ash wooden handle and bit deep into the soldier’s shoulder. Collar bone and iron scales parted cleanly.
Lu Chen wrenched the blade free, pivoted, and planted his boot into the third guard’s breastplate.
The blow launched the armored retainer fifteen feet across the room. He crashed through the banquet table, shattering the fine china platters and sending pickled organs and boiling red stone broth splashing over the screaming gentry.
Elder Sun wailed as scalding soup splashed his face. Merchant Wu crawled weeping beneath a shattered bench.
The fourth guard dropped his weapon, falling to his knees and babbling for mercy.
Lu Chen walked past them without a glance.
He walked past the groaning soldiers, his heavy boots crunching through broken fine china and spilled human viscera.
His eyes never left Bailiff Qian.
Qian backed away toward the grand lacquered dais, his chubby hands clawing at the curtains. He knocked over a bronze crane incense burner. The sweet sandalwood smoke choked the air, mingling with the stench of fear and burnt pork.
“Wait... Lu Chen, wait!” Qian stammered, holding up his hands. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and darting toward the side door. “You want money? Five hundred coins! One thousand! I can grant you the title of Chief Constable! You can have the entire Seventh Ward as your private fief! You don’t have to scrape cold corpses in the morgue!”
“The corpses don’t lie,” Lu Chen said, stopping four paces away. “You do.”
“I have royal connections!” Qian shrieked, backing until his spine slammed into the painted wall screen. “The Governor’s third son is my patron! If you lay a hand on a royal official, the Dragon Vein will hunt your soul to the Nether River!”
“The Dragon Vein is cut,” Lu Chen said. “You know that better than anyone.”
Lu Chen raised the twelve-pound cleaver.
The heat rolling off the blade was intense now. Thin wisps of steam curled from the blood-slick notches on the iron spine.
Qian stared into Lu Chen’s flat, unblinking eyes. He saw no greed, no fear, and no mercy. He saw only the cold, appraising gaze of a coroner preparing to dissect a slab of spoiled pork.
The terror in Qian’s face suddenly vanished.
His flabby, sweating features twisted into an ugly, jagged sneer. His breathing became rapid, shallow, and wet, with a sound like stale swamp mud bubbling in summer heat.
“You think you’re the only one who found power in the dark, you gutter brat?” Qian hissed.
His voice was no longer that of a corrupt bureaucrat. It was layered with a second, deep-throated hiss that shook the floorboards.
Rip!
Qian’s hands seized his official green silk robes and tore them wildly down the center.
Beneath his flabby mortal chest, his belly had been split wide open and surgically stitched around a second body.
Protruding from his belly was the torso of an ancient Swamp Ghoul. A shriveled, gray-skinned nightmare with four jointed rib-legs, weeping yellow rotting pustules. An elongated skull with needle teeth embedded directly above Qian’s navel.
The ghoul’s eyes opened. They were milky yellow, glowing with evil hunger.
A stream of acid-burning, bubbling green acid dripped from the ghoul’s maw, hissing as it ate through the polished hardwood floor.
“You want my head, dead-house boy?” the ghoul’s mouth shrieked while Qian laughed hysterically. “Come and take it!”