“Throw the old censor’s brats into the snow ditch and smash their charcoal brazier!” Landlord Qian barked.
In the cramped, sunless lane of North Willow Alley in the Outer Capital, a fat man in a greasy mink coat stood on the stone steps of a modest three-room courtyard. Above his balding skull floated a murky gray-red halo reading [Goodness: -12/100].
Twenty hired street thugs wielding iron-tipped clubs swarmed through the splintered front gate, kicking humble wooden stools, inkstones, and threadbare quilts out into the ankle-deep slush.
One scarred thug swung his boot into the Wen family’s clay charcoal brazier.
CRASH!
Red-hot coals scattered across the snow and hissed out into black cinders, taking the last trace of warmth from the courtyard.
“Please! Have mercy!”
Lady Wen—Lord Wen Zhengming’s frail sixty-year-old wife, whose golden halo shone at [Goodness: 96/100]—was shoved roughly down the icy steps. She hit the frozen mud on her bruised knees, immediately throwing her thin arms around her two little granddaughters, seven-year-old Wen Xiaoqin and five-year-old Wen Xiaomei ([Goodness: 99/100]).
