I stood in the yard of the village head's house with Si Jiangchen. Around us were zombies kneeling on the ground.
The village head, Lu Erzhong, swore to the sky that aside from raising Lu Dayong, a zombie of his uncle's generation, all the other deceased elders in the village had been buried in the old village cemetery according to traditional customs. For decades, there had never been any strange occurrences!
"Then... why have there been so many strange things happening these days?!"
The uneasiness in my heart resurfaced.
Aunt Li, who had been scared senseless beside us, finally came to her senses at this moment. Covering her arm, she said in a trembling voice, "Actually... it's not just these two days. Ever since Lu Dayong took on a job last month, strange things have been happening in the village!"
"What job?"
My voice grew more tense.
"A ruler!"
Aunt Li gestured at a size. "Since I'm a tailor, I could tell that the ruler was different from ordinary ones..."
"Made of ebony? Half an inch thick? With characters written in cinnabar on it?" I quickly asked.
"Yes, yes, yes!"
Aunt Li nodded every time I asked a question. "I saw that it was written with something like 'Noble Star' and 'Calamity Star'. So I asked about it. Lu Dayong said it was an antique and he took it back to the cellar to repair it preciously..."
Uncle Li looked extremely embarrassed. He and his wife had joined hands to deceive us into believing that Lu Dayong was dead. Now his wife was chattering on and on about what Lu Dayong had done. He really didn't have the face to stand in front of me anymore.
"Sorry, Miss Du. This is the rule of the village."
Uncle Li tried to explain, but I didn't have the time to pay attention to him.
The strange events in the village started right when my Dinglan ruler was sent for repair... I never believed in coincidences!
It was simply unbelievable to say that such a large - scale appearance of black zombies was a natural occurrence.
"Aunt Li, what strange things have happened in the village?"
I had a plan in mind. So I burned a talisman and sprinkled the ash on Aunt Li's bleeding arm. Lu Erzhong went back into the house and took out the leftover wound medicine and bandages used by his wife to simply wrap her wound.
While bandaging the wound, Aunt Li recalled the strange things that had happened a month ago.
At first, the chickens free - ranged in the mountains of the village kept disappearing. There were always a few missing when they returned to the coop every day. At first, people thought they had stayed in the mountains and not come back. But when they went up the mountain to look for them, they found that the same thing had happened to several other families in the village.
The number of chickens decreased every day. Everyone thought it was the wild dogs in the mountains that had carried them away. So they could only keep the chickens penned up in their own yards.
Unexpectedly, even the chickens kept in the yards were stolen. There wasn't even the sound of a chicken crowing in the middle of the night. When they got up in the morning, all that was left was a pile of chicken feathers.
This really frightened the farmers who had lost their chickens in the village. Many of the older elders said it was the yellow weasels that had stolen them. So several villagers joined hands and went up the mountain to smoke out the yellow weasel dens.
But when they got to the mountain and searched around, not only were there no yellow weasels! There were no pheasants, hares, or even the wild rats that were seen every day...
The entire Miaofeng Mountain seemed like a dead mountain! Not a single living thing could be found!
After making this discovery, everyone quickly returned to the village and reported the situation to the village head, Lu Erzhong.
Lu Erzhong didn't take it seriously. The wild animals in the mountains were originally vigilant. Of course, they would hide without a trace when they saw so many people going up the mountain to raid their "homes"!
After this mountain - searching incident, the chickens and ducks in the village didn't disappear anymore. Gradually, some pheasants and hares appeared around the village. Lu Erzhong thought the villagers were just making a fuss and looking for trouble...
After listening to Aunt Li's account, I finally understood how so many black zombies had appeared in Lu Village!
You should know that every zombie is raised on blood.
When they first rise as zombies, these in - between beings are afraid of light, fire, and people. They can be easily eliminated. At this time, black zombies can only hide in the dark underground during the day and only dare to come out at night to catch some livestock to fill their stomachs.
It turned out that they had almost eaten all the wild animals in the mountains and then took the risk of coming down the mountain to eat the livestock raised by the villagers!
On this summer night, standing in the middle of this dark horde of zombies, the hairs on my body stood on end...
I was already certain that these thousands of zombies were created artificially!
Considering all these strange coincidences, I came to a terrifying conclusion.
The people of the Yu - Bei Du Family had already set a trap here, just waiting for me, this stupid little mouse, to jump in!
"Little master, what should we do now!"
Lu Erzhong's face turned green with fear. The only zombie he had ever seen was Lu Dayong. That guy, apart from having different eating habits from ordinary people, knew how to enjoy life better than most living people.
Now, facing these uncles and grandfathers who were so decayed that they hardly looked human, even though he was a man, he couldn't bear this visual shock.
"I... I have to leave! You guys quickly call 110 to report this!"
For events that I couldn't handle, I never overestimated my abilities and took them on myself. Moreover, this was already related to the main branch of the Du Family!
The Du Family was so famous in Duyang Town because, aside from being the secular - affiliated practitioners of the Taoist tradition, they had a terrifying skill... raising corpses!
This family was a large clan that had migrated north from western Hunan to Yu - Bei hundreds of years ago.
It was said that several generations of them had served the imperial court.
Over the years, they had not only amassed great wealth but also had extremely powerful connections!
I didn't know the details of why my grandfather had offended them, but I deeply felt the horror of their fatal pursuit!
From Yu - Bei to southern Sichuan, my grandfather and I were just two unknown nobodies. Our escape route was extremely secretive and cautious, but we were still constantly discovered!
Now, in order to lure me into the trap, they didn't hesitate to drag the entire Lu Village into this mess and create this inhumane zombie formation... If Si Jiangchen hadn't been by my side, even if I had the most powerful magic and many spiritual servants, I would surely have died here.
Zombies were monsters that were not under the jurisdiction of either the human world or the underworld. They ignored the laws of the human world, and the regulations of the underworld couldn't restrain them. They had been starved for a few days on purpose and were released when I entered Lu Village. It was obvious that they were here to surround and capture me!
Cold sweat broke out on my back. Whether they caught me today or not, the people in Lu Village would surely suffer a great disaster!
These zombies were extremely hungry and would surely slaughter everyone in the village during this long night!
Now, the only thing to do was to take advantage of the fact that these zombies were being suppressed by Si Jiangchen's blood and not moving, and quickly find the police to deal with them. Shoot them in the head or burn them...
In any case, their bodies infected with corpse poison had to be physically destroyed!
"Call... call the police?!"
A look of disbelief appeared on Lu Erzhong's face. He had never heard of a witch or a sorcerer asking to call the police on their own initiative. He only knew that the police could manage people. Could they also manage ghosts?!
Seeing me nod firmly, Lu Erzhong quickly took out his phone and made a call.
"... Out of service area..."
The phone's voice was so loud that the mechanical electronic voice could be heard without turning on the speaker.
"This is impossible!! It's never been like this here!!"
Lu Erzhong was sweating profusely!