Chapter 43: Nauseating Corpse Eating

  Is Ze Huan's corpse very fierce?

  "It's not that powerful, but it's absolutely disgusting. Just look at how it eats bone ash and you'll know what I mean. If you're bitten by other zombies, you'll be infected with zombie poison and become a zombie. But if you're bitten by this thing, although you won't turn into a zombie, the place where you were bitten will rot away, leaving only bones."

  "Don't mention it again, just thinking about it makes me sick." I feel like I'm getting goosebumps all over my body, is it rotten to the bone?

  At night, we followed Director Jiang to the cemetery. The night air made this place even more eerie, with the wind rustling through the trees making a sound like human laughter... "Director Jiang, just have your men patrol tonight and if it's really a person, they won't dare come out. If it's a jiangshi, it will still be scratching at some tombstone for ashes tonight, and then we'll take care of it." Ze Hong seemed to have a plan, I saw him touching his dagger with an eager look, Shi Teng was also ready on the side.

  "Uh-huh, okay, I'll send someone to patrol around." Director Jiang went out to instruct a few people, and I secretly asked Zehong why the corpse liked to eat bone ash?

  "Jiangshi doesn't just like to eat bone ash, it has a special fondness for dead things, mice, dogs and the like, as long as they're dead it loves to eat them. As for why it likes bone ash, it's because humans are the spirits of all things, and the yin energy left in their ashes after death is very nourishing for jiangshi, allowing it to become a higher-level jiangshi. As for what it tastes like, I'm not quite sure, otherwise you can go try it out, Zi Chuan?"

  This guy is still making fun of me, and Shengteng also burst out laughing... asking me to taste the flavor of bone ash, why don't you guys go taste it?! "Can eating corpses level up?"

  "Each zombie can become a higher level, depending on the degree of yin energy they absorb. Becoming an undead king is impossible, because since ancient times there have only been four: Jiang Chen, Han Ba, Ying Hou, and Hou Qing. The bones of these four undead kings are sealed in the four directions of east, south, west, and north. The only way to become an undead king is to drink the blood of a current undead king, but that's just a pipe dream."

  Listening to Ze Hong's tales of fantasy and adventure, I feel like it has nothing to do with me. What's the point of talking about the Four Great Corpse Kings?

  "But since you mentioned zombies, I'll tell you too. Zombies and ghosts are different, zombies have no soul but have a spirit, while ghosts have a soul but no spirit. So zombies are like what you see on TV, stiff and unmovable... The way to become a zombie is when a person dies with air stuck in their throat that they can't swallow, it's easy for them to turn into a zombie. Of course, there are many other ways too..."

  "Alright, alright, the more you talk, the more disgusted I feel."

  I stopped Ze Hong from continuing to speak. Director Jiang came in and sat down with us, telling us that everything had been arranged, and he would occasionally take out the walkie-talkie to ask about the situation.

  "Report to Director Chiang, Group A found nothing unusual."

  "Report to Director Chiang, Group B found nothing unusual."

  We quietly listened to the reports on the walkie-talkie... everything was still very normal.

  "Director Chiang! There's a situation over here in Team E!" I heard the voice inside was a bit urgent, something had happened! We all ran out.

  "All teams head to the E district!" Ran very quickly, Ze Hong and Shi Teng carried big knives and ran in the front. When we arrived, we saw a person pinning down a policeman and biting him. I saw that the policeman's neck was almost bitten off!

  "Damn it!" Ze Hong cursed and charged forward with his knife. As the knife chopped down, it beheaded the man in one swift motion. However, to Ze Hong's astonishment, the head somehow reattached itself, spat out a mouthful of air at him, and even sprinkled some bone ash everywhere!

  "It's a corpse eater after all! Everyone retreat, be careful of its corpse aura!" I saw Zehong retreat a few steps and shout at us. Shengteng and I also rushed up, Shengteng jumped into the air and used the back of his knife to pull the corpse eater away for several meters, forcing it to press down on the ground. I took a clear look at the appearance of the corpse eater, which was not much different from that of a normal person, except that its eyes were slightly greenish, and its mouth was full of white ash. Zehong also came up to help, pressing his knife onto the corpse eater's body together with Shengteng. "Quickly burn it with fire!"

  Using fire? As soon as Ze Heng said that, "In the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth, three births and five lines, leave fire to live! Leave fire to burn!" The fire slowly emerged, I felt that this time the spell's fire had become even more intense! All of it shot towards the Corpse Eater, balls of fire surrounding it, Ze Heng and Shi Teng jumped back, my forehead didn't start burning anymore, which made me feel a bit unaccustomed to it, however the character 'Chuan' still appeared.

  I see the corpse being constantly burned by the fire, is this okay?

  "No! The Li Huo can only burn its soul! The corpse eater has no soul! Director Jiang, quickly find someone to set it on fire and burn it!" I saw Ze Heng raise his knife and stab it down, pinning the corpse eater to the ground. The zombie had a spirit but no soul! And the Li Huo was aimed at the soul, so it didn't have any effect on it!

  "Director Jiang, do you have a lighter? Quickly find something to set it on fire and burn it!" Apparently, Director Jiang was seeing us in action for the first time, and he was stunned again when dealing with this kind of thing they had never seen before. Last time when dealing with the Yin Soul Sect, Director Jiang wasn't by our side, but he woke up after hearing our shouts. He saw someone take out a lighter and set fire to it, throwing it onto the corpse-eater's body. The flames on the corpse-eater's body grew bigger and bigger, I could hear the crackling sounds.

  The corpse that was stabbed by Ze Huan's knife struggled on the ground for about a few minutes before it stopped moving. When we extinguished the fire, what we saw was a charred thing with an unrecognizable face, as if it had melted together, and it emitted a strong foul odor.

  What a pity for this dead policeman...

  Director Jiang had someone carry the corpse back, and on the way, he still looked a bit dazed. "So that's what a zombie looks like?"

  "Uh, yeah, it's fine, just the lowest level, but why there are cannibals, I don't get it." Not only did Ze Huan not understand, I didn't either. When we returned to the police station, it was already dawn, and after reporting some things to Director Jiang, we went back to the hotel to rest for a while.

  The next day, we received a call from Director Jiang and rushed over again. "Someone was sent to restore it last night, take a look." I saw Director Jiang hand me a stack of photos, which were the restored appearance after eating the corpse.

  "Any discovery?" We looked at these few photos and had no clue, so we asked Director Jiang what he knew.

  "We've investigated, and this person isn't from our city, but from another province. What's even stranger is that he died of illness a few days ago, it's just unknown why he became a zombie after death and appeared here." Director Jiang said this, which made us feel overwhelmed, don't tell me that this person turned into a zombie after dying and walked to our city?

  That's just a fantasy, "Zehong, what do you think?" I would pin my hopes on Zehong.

  "No, maybe this zombie is on a tour." He's even more capable than me!

  It's settled then, but earlier Ze Heng and I mentioned corpse husbandry, I asked him what corpse husbandry is?

  "Corpse herder, similar to the yin soul sect, one cultivates ghosts and the other cultivates corpses. However, corpse herders are a bit more interesting as they originated from the Hurrying Corpses lineage. Have you heard of Xiangxi Hurrying Corpses?"

  "Uh-huh, I know, isn't it said that this industry has existed since the Qing dynasty? TV has reported on it before. In Xiangxi, corpse escorts were born out of necessity due to the constant warfare at that time, and many people died in foreign lands. According to traditional Chinese thinking, fallen leaves should return to their roots. Therefore, a group of people emerged who specialized in handling the dead, escorting corpses back to their hometowns."

  As for why it's called Xiangxi Corpse Chasing, it's because the areas that Xiangxi Corpse Chasing comes into contact with are in Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan. At that time, these places were still mountainous and transportation was not convenient, so they could only be carried back by human force. Moreover, according to legend, ancient charitable halls, which were places where dead people were received, still exist in those areas today.

  "No, the Xiangxi corpse driving technique has existed for over a thousand years. It's just that later on, it was made known to society and people found out that it wasn't like what the news said, using bamboo poles to tie the hands of the dead together to drive them away, but rather forcing the soul back into the corpse, making it move."

  "The movie also describes a talisman on the corpse, called a 'hurry-up corpse talisman', which is used to suppress the soul in the corpse. Once the talisman falls, the soul will take effect and cause the corpse to change into a zombie!"

  "Wait a minute, didn't you say that zombies don't have souls?" This made me feel like what he said was a bit contradictory.

  "It's soulless, the soul that the corpse driver injects into the corpse is not a human's three souls, but an animal or tree spirit, and it's also used to drive corpses. Once a zombie is formed, the soul will automatically flow away."

  "What! You're not kidding me! Animals I can understand, but where did the soul of trees come from!" This is unbearable for me.

  "Everything in the world has a spirit, have you forgotten about the willow tree spirit?"

  Ze Hong brought up the willow spirit, I remembered it now...

  "Is this related to the corpse raiser?"

  "Listen to me, the corpse raisers were originally also from the Corpse Driving Sect. At that time, the Corpse Driving Sect was gaining popularity, and slowly some people thought that instead of driving corpses for others, it would be better to refine them and sell them or do something bad, which could make more money than driving corpses honestly."

  "Does anyone want zombies?"

  "In the vast world, there are many things you don't know. Gradually, these people became extreme and thus the Hurrying Corpse Sect slowly produced divisions, eventually evolving into two kinds: Corpse Hurriers and Corpse Nurturers..."

  "So you mean grave robbers are good and corpse breeders are bad?"

  "It can also be said... it depends on how you understand it." After hearing Zehong say this, I also understood, "Then this corpse-eating creature was trained by the person who raised the dead, but why is the corpse-eater present while the person is nowhere to be seen? Who would buy such a disgusting corpse-eater?"

  "Who knows who will buy it, maybe it's really possible that this food corpse is running out to travel?" Forget it, I feel like asking him is just nonsense!

  "Then you think there might be someone who deliberately releases zombies to cause trouble?"

  "It's impossible, the corpse is just a small thing, apart from being disgusting, even if it wants to cause trouble, it will let the corpse go, it's really possible that it sneaked out."

  "I said why you always think it's like a person who loves traveling!" I feel like I can't keep up with Zehong's logic.