About an hour after Jiang Fu led her people away, another group arrived on that street.
“This is the place! The ground collapsed!”
“There are people in the pit!”
They hurriedly dug out those buried inside and discovered that a strange, cold energy lingered around their bodies, immobilizing them and causing intense pain.
The healer among them immediately tried to treat the injured. “…No good. I don’t know what kind of energy this is. My healing ability barely works on it.”
“Could some new type of special zombie have appeared?”
At that moment, one of the rescued men struggled to speak. “N-no… not a zombie.”
Everyone turned toward him. “If it’s not a zombie, then what is it? What exactly happened here?”
“We were about to catch… that zombie… when someone suddenly appeared… A woman covered in black aura… She used that black energy… to attack us… and rescued the zombie…”
The group exchanged looks. Before they could question him further, he fainted again.
“It seems a mysterious figure has appeared in West Town. That person disabled Liang Ji’s trap and rescued the zombie.”
“Maybe she’s a zombie too. Haven’t we heard that the more zombies evolve, the closer they resemble living humans? Perhaps that woman is one of them.”
“Whatever the case, we can be certain she’s extremely dangerous. This place is only an hour from the base. That’s a serious threat.”
“Let’s head back and report this immediately.”
…
In a relatively intact courtyard elsewhere in the small town, Jiang Fu cleared away the weeds, set up a wooden plank bed, and laid Wen Zangyu on top of it to remove the bullets lodged in her body.
She had nearly been riddled like a sieve—her body full of bullet holes. Some rounds had passed straight through, others were embedded in flesh, wedged between bones, even left behind in her chest and abdominal cavities.
The bullets severely restricted Wen Zangyu’s movements, making the entire zombie irritable and violent. Jiang Fu had no choice but to remove them first.
She worked bare-handed, rummaging through Wen Zangyu’s body and extracting every bullet she found. Before long, a whole tray was filled.
Wen Zangyu was already battered and broken; after Jiang Fu’s rough operation, she looked even more riddled with holes. Jiang Fu had to stitch up the wounds, set the broken bones, and secure them with bandages and wooden splints.
Even so, Wen Zangyu kept struggling.
“I’m telling you, stop moving,” Jiang Fu muttered while working. “I just set your bones. Twist again and they’ll shift out of place. You’ll end up walking unevenly, head crooked, back hunched. Not pretty at all. Like before—limping everywhere. They even called you ‘Lame King.’ Sounds nice, does it?”
“Heh—heh!” Wen Zangyu struggled on, bound to the bed by resentful energy. Her neck still twisted back and forth, the back of her head thudding repeatedly against the wooden board.
“If you keep this up, I won’t fix your little brother,” Jiang Fu warned. “I’ll just leave him lying there forever.”
Nearby, the zombie youth lay on the ground like a rag doll. Unlike his sister, he lacked that fierce vitality. Aside from opening and closing his mouth in incoherent babbling and faintly twitching his fingers, he couldn’t move at all. He was dying very quietly.
Wen Zangyu seemed to understand. Her struggling lessened, though her needlepoint eyes remained fixed on Jiang Fu, a low gurgling growl rumbling in her throat.
Jiang Fu thought she resembled an enraged lion—wild, messy hair like an explosive mane—except her body was too shriveled and cold.
A black blur darted in from outside the courtyard and landed on the bed. It glanced at Wen Zangyu, then shook its plump body. One by one, zombie crystal cores clattered out from its thick fur.
After shaking off its spoils, the black cat licked its paw proudly. “See how many crystal cores I brought back? You’re always calling me fat. So what if I’m a little chubby? Doesn’t stop me from working!”
Jiang Fu shot the cat a look, picked up one crystal core, and stuffed it into Wen Zangyu’s mouth. She froze briefly, then began crunching it loudly.
Jiang Fu watched closely. After the core was consumed, its energy naturally spread through Wen Zangyu’s body. Her fractures and internal injuries slowly began to heal.
She nodded. Healing was good.
“Did you run into anyone?” Jiang Fu asked.
“A group came earlier. On that street. They rescued the people who fell into the pit. Probably from that Sunset Glow Base nearby.”
“That’s called Hongri Base,” Jiang Fu corrected. “They arrived quickly. Looks like whoever set the trap is inside Hongri Base.”
Her hands slowed.
Hongri Base. Thread-type abilities.
It reminded her of someone from the “protagonist group” who had ambushed her in the past. That person had once stayed in Hongri Base before later joining the male and female protagonists in the Northwest.
His ability was also thread-based—finer than hair. Someone had even given it a grand name, something like “Golden Silkworm Web.”
What a ridiculous name. It only meant silk-thread level, so she hadn’t initially connected it with the threads found on Wen Zangyu.
But perhaps, after all these years, his ability had evolved.
Recalling how he constantly preached justice and condemned her as cruel and tyrannical, Jiang Fu let out a cold laugh. “I tried to curse whoever set that trap just now, but it was extremely difficult. I had to keep lowering my demands.”
The black cat paused. “Then this person is a bit special.”
Jiang Fu nodded. “Either very powerful… or someone connected to the male and female protagonists—or to me.”
That conclusion came from experience.
When she had cursed Zhang Tong before, it had been difficult. At the time, she thought it was because she was inexperienced at cursing people. But when she cursed a second person, it went smoothly. Only later did she realize—Zhang Tong himself was special.
He was destined to betray her in the future. He played a major role in her death.
To move against him was to prematurely remove a key obstacle in her fate. That would cause major plot changes—hence the difficulty.
The black cat resumed grooming. “Then next time, skip the curse. Just kill them the physical way.”
Jiang Fu nodded. “I’m sure I’ll meet them soon enough.”
She glanced at the cat. It was so fat it couldn’t even twist its neck properly.
“You really can’t control your weight?”
Because of how heavy it had become, she no longer liked carrying it around.
“I am controlling it!”
“Then switch bodies.”
“…I’ve grown attached to this cat body.”
Jiang Fu rolled her eyes, finished stitching Wen Zangyu, told the cat to continue feeding her crystal cores, and walked over to the zombie youth.
His injuries were severe—especially the two gaping holes blasted through his chest. Most of his lungs were gone, his heart reduced to fragments, and all his ribs shattered.
A living person would have died instantly from such wounds. But zombies survived through the crystal core in their brains. As long as the head remained intact and the core unbroken, they could live.
Unfortunately, this zombie lacked Wen Zangyu’s strong ability energy. He was merely a low-level zombie with minor powers. His internal energy was slowly dissipating.
Jiang Fu’s fingers traced along his skull. It was full and well-shaped. When she reached the back of his head, she found a depression. That must have been where the heavy blow landed, shattering the crystal core.
“It’s no use. His crystal core is shattered. He’s going to die.”
Thud!
Wen Zangyu rolled off the bed and crashed to the ground. Ignoring the bandages and splints covering her body, she crawled toward the boy, lowering her face to his head and sniffing him, whimpering like a beast calling for a fallen companion to rise.
The black cat padded over. “Ah, how pitiful.”
It didn’t sound sincere. After speaking, it resumed grooming lazily. Jiang Fu leaned against a wall, her expression calm.
But at that moment, she suddenly thought of her mother—of her mother’s final moments—and the helpless agony she herself had felt. The immense terror, as if the entire world were being stripped away.
Wen Zangyu suddenly turned her head. Her eyes widened slightly. Her bandage-wrapped hand stretched toward Jiang Fu and seized the hem of her trench coat.
Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled to form words.
“Save… save…”
Jiang Fu was taken aback.
The black cat also looked her up and down in surprise.
“She can talk this early?”
Jiang Fu watched her for a moment and said, “I’m not certain. I can only try.”
Then she saw Wen Zangyu nod awkwardly yet eagerly.
The black cat exclaimed, “Wow, you can actually communicate smoothly! As expected of someone destined to become the Zombie King. Jiang Fu, taking in this lackey is definitely worth it!”
Jiang Fu crouched down again and tried using her resentment energy to condense the crystal core inside the zombie youth’s brain, but she failed. She then attempted to stabilize the collapsing ability within his body—also a failure.
On the contrary, under the influence of her resentment energy, his body’s decay intensified. A heavy aura of death spread from him.
After a moment’s thought, she said, “I curse that the person lying here shall maintain his vitality and not decay.”
The resentment within her surged violently. The curse did not take hold.
The black cat said, “Curses are meant to bring about bad outcomes. What you’re doing is making a wish. And where would a zombie get vitality from anyway?”
Jiang Fu could only try again. “I curse that the person lying here shall forever remain in the state of a walking corpse, never to find release.”
That sounded vicious enough—but wasn’t a zombie already a walking corpse? Even if Wen Zangyu became the Zombie King, at her core she would still be a walking corpse.
Yet the curse failed again.
The black cat thought for a moment. “Maybe ‘forever’ is too absolute.”
Jiang Fu scratched her head. “I curse that the person lying here shall live as a walking corpse for the next eight years…”
She glanced at the boy on the ground—he looked only fifteen or sixteen. In this state, living like that would be far too miserable.
She looked at Wen Zangyu. Since she was already helping, she might as well go all the way. She continued, “His crystal core shall be able to reorganize…” She felt resistance. “But he himself shall never grow stronger.” The resistance vanished.
Hm, so that works?
“His wounds and internal organs shall heal as before…” Resistance appeared again. “But from this day forward, he will be frail and easily injured.” The resistance receded once more.
Jiang Fu was satisfied. Surely Wen Zangyu could protect his younger brother.
“He shall be able to speak and think like a normal person, with all senses restored…” A great surge of resistance arose. “But for one-third of each day, he will fall into deep sleep.” The resistance ebbed away like a retreating tide.
It conceded just like that? She had even planned to bargain further.
Jiang Fu was still unsatisfied and wanted to add more, but she sensed a flicker of impatience.
Worried that pushing further would cause the curse to fail entirely, she stopped.
“Done.”
With that final word, a vast surge of resentment energy burst from her body, shrouding the entire courtyard in darkness and cold. Threads of resentment, like ink-soaked brushstrokes, formed intricate patterns in the air before rapidly shrinking and imprinting themselves into the zombie youth’s body.
Jiang Fu staggered, nearly falling to her knees. From her palm, she swiftly released a strand of resentment that formed into a cane, supporting her weight.
As for the boy on the ground, as the resentment poured into him, his shattered body began visibly repairing itself.
His bones realigned. His organs reformed. Flesh began to grow. The collapsed cavity of his chest and abdomen gradually filled out. His shriveled, ashen face slowly regained fullness, even the corpse-like blotches fading as healthy color replaced the gray pallor.
Even his dry, brittle hair gradually became smooth and glossy.
It was like a withered tree coming back to life in spring.
Wen Zangyu knelt nearby, staring blankly at this miraculous transformation.
Jiang Fu also watched silently. The black cat craned its chubby neck. “Whoa! That wish-like curse of yours actually worked!”
The next moment, the boy on the ground slowly opened his eyes. His sesame-sized black pupils trembled as the darkness expanded and the murkiness faded away, until they became clear, normal eyes—black and white distinctly defined.
Those eyes reflected blue sky and white clouds, strikingly beautiful.
His gaze shifted slightly and settled on Jiang Fu.