Chapter 263: Chapter 111 First Encounter at the Execution Grounds_1
On a bitterly cold day, the heavens and earth were blanketed in white, with goose feather-like snowflakes swirling down.
In the thirty-fifth year of Yongchang, Su Nan witnessed a heavy snowfall that ca once every ten years.
The heavy snow swiftly covered the streets of Su Nan City, large and small, and the gnarled branches cast eerie, distorted shadows under the cold night moonlight. Every household had its doors tightly shut, and the fragrance of Lunar New Year’s porridge occasionally wafted out through the window gaps that revealed flickering lights from two streets over.
Behind the execution grounds at Chaos Burial Mound, the ice and snow had cleansed the thick, bloody stench from the soil, and corpses lay atop each other, their original appearances obscured by the ice. They shone with a bluish-white sheen under the moonlight.
In this silent snowscape, a dark figure moved about, resembling a small mouse scurrying in the night, quick and cautious in its movents.
Twelve-year-old Lu Tong walked among the graves behind the execution area.
A few days ago, Lady Yun had been working on a new poison and had sent her down the mountain to seek fresh human livers.
Descending from Luoi Peak, she had stayed in Su Nan City for three days, waiting until the execution of the criminals was over, the crowd of onlookers had dispersed, the Executioner had gone ho, and the governnt officers had thrown the bodies of the executed into Chaos Burial Mound. Only then did she erge from the dilapidated temple where she was staying.
The heavy snow was quiet and dense, dusting the tightly wrapped coverings of the young girl with moisture that, once blown by the bitter night breeze, felt icy and piercing to the bone.
Lu Tong, seemingly unaware, kept her head down, carefully choosing among the pile of corpses by the moonlight.
In Su Nan City, after the execution of criminals, those with families would spend Silver to retrieve their bodies. Those without families would have their corpses carelessly tossed behind the execution ground into the graves at Chaos Burial Mound.
Chaos Burial Mound was never short of bodies, so fresh, others long decayed. The ferocious wounds, solidified by the wind and snow, remained in a grueso tableau. Lu Tong carefully navigated through the pile of corpses, but unexpectedly tripped over sothing round underfoot and almost fell. She steadied herself and took a closer look.
It was a head, neatly severed from the neck down, with disheveled long hair like black weeds, a ghastly pale complexion like wax, and eyes wide open, revealing undeniable ferocity.
It must have been the head of a criminal executed today.
Lu Tong’s body shivered.
She hurriedly bowed her head, pressed her hands together in prayer before the head, then continued on her way after circling around it.
Even though she had seen corpses of all kinds, Lu Tong still could not remain entirely calm each ti she encountered one.
Lady Yun was always creating new poisons, which required a variety of materials.
So were herbs, dew, and parts of animals.
Others were human hearts, livers, and bodies.
Of course, the bodies of living people were best, but Lady Yun couldn’t kill people directly for her poisons, so she had to settle for the freshest corpses she could find.
Sotis, Lady Yun would find a poor family that had just lost a mber, negotiate a price with the relatives, and buy the body.
Other tis, Lady Yun would learn of a sick person close to death, agree on a Silver price, and wait on the side for the person to expire so she could imdiately take the freshest material for her concoction.
Lu Tong had once seen a ti when a poor family’s young daughter was dying, and Lady Yun had arranged a price with the father. She waited beside the dying girl as if a vulture watched over the living, ready for their last breath, a sight that chilled to the bone.
But such families were not common, so more often than not, Lady Yun sent Lu Tong to Chaos Burial Mound to find fresh corpses. The Chaos Burial Mound on Luoi Peak wasn’t fresh enough; to find bodies that had just died, she had to co to the Chaos Burial Mound behind the execution ground in Su Nan City.
The unclaid bodies of these executed criminals, who had lived lives of grievous sin, attracted no concern for their skeletons after death, making them the safest option. The governnt officers didn’t bother to interfere. Even if discovered, a little Silver was enough to brush it aside.
This was not Lu Tong’s first ti searching for corpses at the execution ground, and although she had been very frightened at first, with ti she had beco more composed. Sotis, she even felt more at ease dealing with the dead in such places than waiting beside a sickbed for soone to draw their last breath.
After all, sotis the living can be much more terrifying than the dead.
The heavy snow fell generously from the sky, marking the coldest ti of the year. Su Nan City had not seen snow in ten years, and the rivers in the city were frozen solid.
Lu Tong tightened her thin winter clothes.
In Changwu County, during these years, as the Cold of Winter welcod the New Year, preparations for the celebration would be underway.
Eating glutinous dishes, heavy drinking, making sweets, sweeping dust, pasting window paper, enjoying cured ats, rushing marriages, taking advantage of the holiday stillness, bathing, and putting up New Year couplets. Her mother’s stead glutinous rice tasted both salty and fragrant, and she and Lu Qian would always fight over the sweets and pastries offered to the Kitchen God during the festival.
But this year, during the bitter Cold of Winter, there were no glutinous rice dishes or sweets for the Kitchen God, no parents or siblings to be with, only the overcast skies and the heavy snow, with clouds hanging low to the ground.
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