Outside the city, after the imperial edict was posted, every household replaced their door banners with mourning symbols. Inside and out, the crying was deafening. The citizens changed into mourning clothes and knelt on the streets to cry in mourning. They cried for about half an hour, and by the time it got dark, a group of unknown vagabonds suddenly emerged from somewhere, driving the people away from the streets. Perhaps due to the lessons learned from the last incident, the citizens fled back to their homes, closed their doors, and secretly left a crack to peek outside.
At the end of the evening, with still an hour and a half before the curfew, the sound of drums echoed through the city, announcing a citywide lockdown...
