Chapter Five: The Walking Corpse

Turning around, I realized it was Yu Xiaoxue. Not only did she not dare to light incense, but she also grabbed hold of me.

“Brother Tian... the incense... there isn’t enough left. What should we do?” Yu Xiaoxue looked at me with a mournful expression, pointing at the scattered empty incense boxes on the ground and the few sticks still left in the last bundle.

Yin ghosts are wandering spirits—lost souls who, for various reasons, were not taken away by the underworld’s ghost messengers after death. They feed on yang energy and incense just like people need to eat food; it’s a natural law.

Generally, wandering spirits only absorb a bit of the yang energy and incense from the earthly realm, which is usually sufficient. But those that are greedy or heavily burdened with resentment not only feed on the yang energy and incense in the living world but also on that belonging to people. For someone like me, born with heavy yin and weak yang energy, I am particularly attractive to these yin ghosts.

If I can’t feed the spirits outside, they immediately latch onto me.

So when I first arrived in Xiaoyi Village, they already knew I was here, which meant the Yin-sealing talisman I carried had some effect. But once the incense ran out...

The thought sent me into a panic.

“I’ll go check Grandma’s bedroom to see if there’s any extra incense,” I reassured her.

“I... I’ve already looked. The incense outside was all taken from inside by me. Who’s been delivering incense these past few days?” Yu Xiaoxue answered nervously.

Incense was a staple for Grandma; usually, there was a large box full of it in her bedroom. But Yu Xiaoxue had been alone for two days, following this burning ritual, so it was understandable that there was none left now.

My heart sank. It wasn’t even the middle of the night yet, and without incense, we’d be devoured alive by a pack of wandering spirits.

“I’ll go take a look first...” I said.

Standing before Grandma’s bedroom door, my wife suddenly grabbed me sharply. I sighed. With no way back, I tried to stay calm, but anxiety crept in. I pushed open the door.

As it swung open, a pale greenish face nearly collided with mine!

My hairs stood on end, and I fell to the floor in fright. When I got a clearer look, I recognized her as Old Mrs. Wu, the neighbor who used to chat and tell stories with Grandma.

Now, Mrs. Wu’s face was expressionless and wrinkled, her pupils entirely pale, staring straight at me. It was hard not to think she might leap at me with a terrifying face at any moment.

Besides her, a few wandering spirits were drifting about in Grandma’s room.

Even Grandma’s room is haunted!?

I scrambled back to Yu Xiaoxue’s side.

Regaining my composure, I glanced at the bedroom’s open window. The shock was as intense as encountering a ghost for the first time. It seemed even the door gods at the entrance had lost their power, incapable of blocking the spirits!

This was the conclusion I arrived at after careful consideration. Unlike humans, wandering spirits don’t have complicated schemes; they are fixated on a particular event or activity from their life.

Like visiting a once-loved person or a favorite place—Mrs. Wu’s presence here was somewhat understandable.

This time, I had really messed up, leaving such a pathetic impression on Yu Xiaoxue.

I’m a normal man; when faced with a beautiful woman, I try to keep my courage up. Now that I’d lost face, I had to explain.

Turning awkwardly to Yu Xiaoxue, ready to say something, I found she had already fainted.

I quickly slapped her face several times until she woke.

When Yu Xiaoxue came to, she looked miserable, unable to speak, and clung to me, sobbing softly.

She wasn’t afraid when she didn’t know. But once she understood these things were no longer human but wandering spirits, fear gripped her. That little girl’s nerves were something I really couldn’t figure out.

That said, she had eaten the Yin-sealing talisman, so the spirits dared not come close. This made her mistakenly think people were deliberately avoiding her. Now that she knew the truth, the shock overwhelmed her, causing her to faint.

Especially since Mrs. Wu had always behaved ghost-like in life—quietly sneaking up behind people—and now with those white, pupil-less eyes, even I was terrified. Yu Xiaoxue had it worse.

To enter Grandma’s bedroom, I followed Grandma’s old method: picking up a few sticks of incense, bowing forward, and chanting, “Separated by yin and yang, burning incense to seek passage; I humbly ask all spirits to grant us a path.”

Incense connects the living with ghosts and deities. As soon as I finished, Old Mrs. Wu parted to make way. I promptly stuck the incense sticks into the door gap and entered the room with Yu Xiaoxue.

Yu Xiaoxue was truly scared now, clutching my clothes like a second wife, making the air around us chill with ghostly drafts. It seemed even my wife was a little angry now, but there was no other choice.

We searched the room together for a long time and indeed found no incense. But there were a few cheap cigarettes Grandma smoked, which lifted my spirits. Since cigarettes and incense both carry “fragrance,” maybe these would work too.

There was nothing else except Grandma’s locked leather trunk, which I also brought out. Since the incense at the door might go out anytime, I didn’t dare linger.

Back beside the coffin, I opened the cigarettes, lit three, and stuck them into the ashtray. Thin wisps of smoke curled upward.

The cigarettes, unlit by human mouths, burned as if someone was drawing on them—odd and eerie, but effective.

However, cigarettes burned much faster than incense. In less than a minute, the three sticks were gone, and the spirits outside grew restless.

Looks like cigarettes won’t do the trick either.

I glanced at the spirits approaching the threshold. The cold night sweat trickled down my forehead. With no choice, I sat with my back to the ashtray, focusing on lighting cigarette after cigarette.

Yu Xiaoxue sat by the coffin, utterly helpless, eyes swollen from crying.

I kept lighting cigarettes. My wife still wouldn’t settle down, tugging at my sleeve incessantly. I knew there were many spirits behind us, all deadly threats, so her warnings weren’t unwarranted. Plus, Yu Xiaoxue’s earlier reaction had angered her; she was probably going to fuss a bit more.

By three or four in the morning, after hearing the “wolf is coming” fairy tale one too many times, I stopped believing it. I figured even if she tore my shirt to shreds, I wouldn’t bother looking back at those gloomy creatures.

After all, there were still several cigarettes left.

Just as I thought that, sure enough, my shirt was torn.

I looked up at Yu Xiaoxue. The girl’s hands were trembling, and she shakily pointed behind me as if she saw something terrifying.

Suddenly alert, I whipped around. Outside, the cold wind howled, and even the ghosts kept their distance.

Without my noticing, the spirits had parted to form a path. In the center stood a woman drenched in blood at the doorway.

She was gaunt and bony, her hair disheveled. Aside from being covered in blood, her eyes were hollow, with worms trailing from them, dripping down in a grotesque display. The scene was terrifying.

“Blood... blood corpse...” I shuddered. If it were just a wandering spirit, I wouldn’t be so scared with these cigarettes in hand. But this was unmistakably a walking corpse!

What is a walking corpse? As the name implies, it’s a corpse that moves.

Usually, walking corpses are born from souls with overwhelming resentment, those who died unjustly, causing their bodies to mutate after death.

Of course, that’s merely a corpse mutation, not a true walking corpse. A real walking corpse is crafted by a “walking corpse master” using these mutated corpses. Without such a master, a corpse never becomes a walking corpse.

As for the blood corpse among walking corpses—that is one forged with intense malevolence, a type of corpse formed through the condensation of killing intent. It is extremely difficult to create but incredibly powerful once formed.

The night wind blew, making the blood corpse’s black hair sway. Through the parting strands, I clearly saw her face and froze on the spot.

“Zhou Xuan, sister-in-law!” Yu Xiaoxue instinctively cried out, then covered her mouth as tears streamed down.

She was my dear sister-in-law, Zhou Xuan, Zhang Yidan’s wife!?

How on earth had she been turned into a blood corpse? A nameless rage flared in my chest.

I remembered the days before Zhang Yidan’s wedding, when I was away in another city. Over the phone, Zhang Yidan had suppressed his usual coarse language, exaggerating how virtuous and gentle his wife was, how hard they had worked preparing for the wedding.

The happiness was so infectious even I felt it.

After seeing their wedding photos, I truly rejoiced that my childhood friend had found a lifelong love. Zhou Xuan wasn’t especially beautiful, but she looked genuinely kind and gentle.

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