Chapter 2465: Chapter 1112: Burning Books and Burying Scholars

Heave-ho! Heave-ho!

Not long after the Chief Eunuch shouted, eighty strongmen marched into the great hall in neat rhythm, chanting as they carried a gigantic bronze furnace.

This bronze furnace was twelve meters tall. At a glance it looked like a pagoda, with a square opening on each of its four sides—east, west, south, and north—for adding charcoal and firewood.

The body of the "pagoda" was carved with birds in flight and gods in motion, so vivid and lifelike it felt like they might leap down from the tower at any moment.

Each of these strongmen was over 1.8 meters tall, wearing only a hemp loincloth, barefoot, their bare torsos knotted with muscles. Sweat streamed down like little rivers.

The bronze furnace was too heavy. Even with eighty strongmen lifting it like a bridal sedan chair, they were still being crushed to the point they could barely breathe.

Their faces were twisted in pain, veins bulging like earthworms all over their skin, as if they might burst at any moment from the unbearable weight.

Bang!

With a loud boom, the bronze furnace was set down on the floor.

The head strongman pulled a small triangular flag from his belt and waved it.

The strongmen instantly split into teams of ten and got busy.

Some carried over baskets of fine charcoal and dumped them into the furnace, others brought pine resin and oil and splashed them onto the charcoal to help it burn.

Other strongmen carried over primitive bellows and jammed the nozzles into the air inlets at the base of the furnace.

These things were air bladders sewn from whole cowhides. Stepping on them would force air out through the nozzles, functioning as bellows.

"What are they trying to do?"

Hua Yue Yu swallowed hard, nervous: "Barbecue?"

"Why do I feel more like it’s us on the grill?"

Kim Myungjin’s face looked bad. She might be a Korean, but Investiture of the Gods was way too famous and had too many adaptations, so even Goryeo girls knew about a torture called "paolao," supposedly invented in this era.

"I get it now—the further this banquet goes, the worse the rule pollution gets, and the more brutal the ways to die!"

Even as Xia Hongyao said that, her eyes were gleaming with an excited "hurry up already, your captain can’t wait" kind of light.

"So the torture segment’s finally starting?"

Mikami Eri was curious.

The Qin State’s penal law was notoriously harsh. Since these Divine Ruins were related to it, there were bound to be similar rule-pollution effects.

Once all the strongmen finished their preparations, the head strongman lit a torch and tossed it into the furnace.

Boom!

The charcoal inside the furnace ignited instantly.

"Move it!"

"Bellows!"

"More charcoal!"

The head strongman kept yelling.

Through the feeding ports, everyone could see the orange-red flames roaring inside, their sinuous shapes like peerless dancing girls shaking it to a hot beat.

Soon, the tall tower-like bronze furnace began to glow red, and waves of heat rolled out one after another.

The temperature in the hall started climbing rapidly.

"At this temperature, any meat on the grill would go straight to charcoal!"

Xia Hongyao wiped the sweat off her forehead. "Feels more like a pill furnace to me."

"No way. Any pill would carbonize too. What herb could survive that kind of heat?"

Kim Myungjin analyzed, "I think it’s for forging weapons!"

"I heard that in pre-Qin times, forging weapons required human sacrifices, otherwise you couldn’t get peerless divine blades."

Long Miaomiao shuddered. "Looks like we’re the offerings."

"You’re too chubby, totally unqualified as a human sacrifice!"

Mikami Eri teased, "If they’re going to burn someone, it’s got to be beauties!"

"Oh, right!"

Long Miaomiao’s eyes lit up. "Burning pretty girls and handsome guys? Then you’re all screwed!"

"Especially Brother Lin—if they’re picking men, he’s definitely first choice!"

Little Fatty Sister glanced at Lin Baici, suddenly curious what kind of legendary sword you’d get from smelting Lin Baici!

"Miaomiao, is that supposed to be a compliment or a curse?"

Lin Baici chuckled. He didn’t get mad; he knew Long Miaomiao was pretty simple, and she was just messing around.

"Hehe!"

Long Miaomiao stuck out the tip of her tongue.

Aside from big shots like Dudek and Wang Helin, everyone else staring at that bronze furnace was nowhere near as calm as Lin Baici and the others; they were panicking like crazy.

When the furnace temperature reached its peak, the strongmen retreated to the main doors of the hall and knelt. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Lin Baici’s group tensed up, still trying to guess what would happen next, when a bunch of little eunuchs suddenly rushed out from behind the curtains.

Each of them had their arms full of bamboo slips as thick as a person’s calf.

Once these little eunuchs reached the bronze furnace, they started throwing the bamboo slips into the firebox.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The bamboo slips hit the base of the furnace with dull bangs, then turned visibly black and began to burn.

More and more bamboo slips were thrown into the furnace, quickly piling up into a small hill.

There were so many of them they started cutting off the air. The flames were forced down and weakened quite a bit.

"What are they doing?"

Xia Hongyao thought quickly. "Book burning and burying scholars?"

As a People from Jiuzhou, who didn’t know that when Great Qin unified the land—maybe you’d forget "unified script and standardized axles," but the idiom "burning books and burying scholars" was something most people had at least heard of.

"The question now is, the books are burning, so where are the scholars?"

Mikami Eri was a Jiuzhou-history nerd and knew the country’s history better than most People from Jiuzhou.

"Isn’t it obvious?"

Wang Helin gave a self-mocking smile. "We’re probably the ’scholars.’"

"You mean we’re going to get buried in a bit?"

Chestnut medal looked tense.

Jiuzhou characters have this advantage: you can guess the meaning from the form and sound; squint at the radicals and you roughly get it.

Even though Chestnut medal was from Dongying, this time he understood that the character for "pit" probably meant being buried alive.