In the pitch-black quiet of the dead-end gallery, the work of a clerk transitioned into the work of a careful mortician.
Pei Jing didn’t light a torch. An open flame in this chamber was not only an unnecessary sight signed name. The heat would speed up the volatilization of animal fats and chemical residues, generating an odor plume that could drift down the air-flow shafts toward the residential caves.
He pulled a pair of heavy, oiled pigskin gloves from his wicker pack. He pulled the cuffs over his linen sleeves.
In the underworld of rogue fighters, stripping a fallen enemy with bare hands was an amateur’s shortcut to an early grave. Hungry cutthroats routinely lined their inner pockets with contact neurotoxins, sewn-in scorpion barbs, or spring-loaded needle traps designed to claim one final victim from beyond the grave.
Pei Jing worked systematically, beginning with Thin Ghost Cao.
He used his three-foot iron extraction tongs. He turned the scout’s limp body onto its back.
With his hardened scratch-awl, he slit the outer seams of Cao’s wool coat. He peeled away the fabric, inspecting each pocket by touch before reaching inside.
From Cao’s corpse, Pei Jing recovered. A small, stitched grey beast-bladder storage pouch, tied to the inner waistband with silver thread. Nine uncut low-grade spirit stones, checked by scratch-awl against quartz standards. Twenty-four loose spirit shards wrapped in greasepaper. Three intact Light-Body Magic charms and two Gale Magic charms, their yellow paper uncreased and the red stone ink still active. The…
