Chapter 1 The Beginning

The clear sky was as clean as if it had been washed, an azure blue without a trace of impurities, the sky high and clear.

The mountains were majestic and continuous, cutting across several countries. At the higher elevations, the snow line formed a continuous thread, resembling a barrier across the Tianshan Mountains. Lower down, the vegetation was lush, the air fresh, and the scenery picturesque.

In a black SUV traveling on a straight highway, Chu Fan lightly stepped on the brakes, reducing his speed. The look in his eyes as he gazed out the window was quite complex.

This place was precisely where their group of climbers had encountered disaster last time, the beginning of all their nightmares.

Unlike the last time when they traveled together, this time, he was alone.

Zombies, cannon fire, a hail of bullets, bloodshed, swamps, tattered clothing, living like savages...

Returning to this place once more, Chu Fan felt as if a lifetime had passed. In his heart, it seemed as if everything that had happened in the past six months was still echoing, yet before his eyes was a picturesque scene.

It was as if nothing had ever happened.

Chu Fan pulled over to the side of the road and took out several white chrysanthemums from the trunk. He walked to a patch of wild land beside the road.

The trees here were not tall, but the grass was very lush, forming swirls in the wind. Among the grass and trees were simple graves, each engraved with simple words and a photograph.

"Cheng Ji, Bi Wang, Fu Yuanyuan, Li Tong..."

Chu Fan bowed slightly, placing the white chrysanthemums down, silently reciting the names of his companions in his heart:

"May you rest in peace..."

Screech~

Amidst the sound of tires rubbing against the ground, another SUV stopped beside the road.

Feng Mingtao, a burly man like a black bear spirit, opened the car door, carrying a large bouquet of white chrysanthemums. His face was solemn as he stepped out of the car.

"May you all rest in peace."

Feng Mingtao placed the white chrysanthemums down, removed his sunglasses, and also bowed deeply, offering a heavy lament.

Afterward, he stood up and glanced at Chu Fan: "Kid Chu, are you the only one who came? Or have the others already been here?"

During the previous 'Zombie King Incident', only he and Chu Fan had survived from their group. But the mountain was not just home to their group; there were other climbing teams, and naturally, there were also survivors in other places.

After recuperating for several months, they had initially agreed to come together to pay respects to the deceased.

But now, only the two of them were here. It seemed the others had not come.

"Ge Yun and I have already broken up. I don't know if she will come, but the others should have already been here. When I arrived, the tombstones and weeds had all been cleared away."

Chu Fan's expression was calm, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes.

Adversity does not necessarily reveal true feelings; it may reveal more of the other person's ugliness. Between life and death, this is nothing. Once they returned, the conflicts erupted.

Breaking up was only normal.

But he was saddened, immersed in his own world, and did not notice that when he said the words 'Ge Yun', Feng Mingtao's expression changed drastically.

"Who did you say?! Who broke up with you?!"

Feng Mingtao's voice was already loud, and raising his voice made Chu Fan jump in fright.

"Brother Feng?"

Chu Fan frowned, somewhat puzzled: "Who else could it be? My girlfriend, Qi Ge Yun."

"Have you lost your memory? Or are you joking with me?"

Feng Mingtao looked at Chu Fan, who showed no signs of anything being amiss, with suspicion and uncertainty. He involuntarily took a step back:

"Qi Ge Yun is already dead. Have you forgotten?"

Qi Ge Yun is dead!

Chu Fan's heart trembled, his mind buzzing.

He remembered.

Qi Ge Yun had already turned into a zombie and was killed in the Himalayan mountains, her body completely destroyed…

But…

His whole body trembled, and he collapsed to the ground.

Feng Mingtao lifted him up, only to find that he had already fainted.

"This isn't right…"

Feng Mingtao put Chu Fan down, his heart filled with suspicion.

He didn't think that Chu Fan had gone mad from the overwhelming shock, because he knew that this kid's will was strong. He had overcome dozens of life-and-death crises in the mountains. How could he suddenly go mad after returning?

In this, perhaps…

"Ah!"

Not long after, Chu Fan cried out, sitting up abruptly. Cold sweat had already soaked his clothes:

"No, that's not right. How could I, how could I?"

"What exactly happened?"

Seeing him wake up, Feng Mingtao couldn't help but ask: "You wouldn't be bewitched by a ghost, would you?"

If it had been before, Feng Mingtao would never have said these words, but after personally experiencing the 'Zombie King Incident', he was no longer a pure atheist.

"I don't know…"

Chu Fan's voice was hoarse, his chest rising and falling, a deep chill rising in his heart: "There's something wrong with my memory…"

"What happened when you went home?"

Feng Mingtao was still somewhat incredulous.

How could there be something wrong with his memory for no reason?

He couldn't understand it at all. He clearly saw Qi Ge Yun's death with his own eyes. How could he forget it in the blink of an eye?

And Qi Ge Yun was clearly dead, her body burned to ashes by high-intensity flames and placed in a special alloy box. What did Chu Fan see?

A ghost?

"I…"

Chu Fan had just opened his mouth when he heard a sharp horn sound.

The two of them turned their heads together, and a silver-gray sedan sped over like a gust of wind, executing a beautiful drift and stopping horizontally beside the road.

The car door opened.

A bright and beautiful young woman stepped out of the car.

The young woman looked pure and beautiful, with fair skin. She was holding a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and looked stunning.

But both Feng Mingtao and Chu Fan felt a chill in their hearts, and their hairs stood on end.

This young woman was none other than Qi Ge Yun, who should have been dead, her ashes taken away by the Special Affairs Bureau!

"Chu Fan, Brother Feng, you've been waiting long."

Qi Ge Yun smiled gently, but the beautiful smile seemed particularly terrifying and frightening to the two men at this moment.

“?”

Feng Mingtao's scalp exploded, and the cold air he inhaled was exhaled along with the hot air rising from his lungs, exploding like drumbeats:

"F*ck!"

He grabbed Chu Fan and ran.

Living ghosts!

This was a real ghost sighting!

Feng Mingtao almost vomited blood. What was wrong with this world?

Run!

Run!

Feng Mingtao gritted his teeth, dragging Chu Fan, whose face was even more terrible, and fled back into the jungle, not stopping for a moment, running away frantically.

The two men were very fast, more agile than monkeys in the jungle.

But no matter how they ran, they both felt a coldness on their backs, like a wet, icy snake coiling around their backs and licking their necks.

Making the two men feel a chill in their hearts.

"Where, are you going?"

A voice without any warmth followed them like a shadow, like the cold wind of the twelfth lunar month, chilling them to the bone.

"Damn it, I'm going to be killed by you!"

Feng Mingtao gritted his teeth, running and cursing: "I'm so stupid, why did I agree to meet you here?"

"What? Didn't you ask me to come here?"

Hearing these words, Chu Fan couldn't help but speak.

The two men cursed at each other, their hearts shaking, as if they knew something, but they didn't have time to think about it, and rolled on the spot, scattering in different directions.

Boom!

The air surged, and a long gully spread for several meters.

'Qi Ge Yun' looked at the two men with a sinister sneer on her face, and a cold aura continuously spread out from her body, like thousands of venomous snakes hissing and spitting their tongues at the same time.

Making Feng Mingtao and the other men's scalps tingle.

Each looked up, and suddenly gasped. The one standing in place, where was 'Qi Ge Yun'? It was clearly a burly figure, with a cold face, and a three-imprint person as black as charcoal.

It was not known whether it was a human, a ghost, or a zombie.

"F*ck, Chu Fan, you kid slept with this thing for three months?!"

Feng Mingtao was shocked.

If the environment wasn't wrong, he would have expressed his admiration for Chu Fan.

Chu Fan was also dumbfounded.

Even though he had always been calm and steady, and had been tempered after several near-death experiences, he almost vomited when he saw this scene.

"I swear!"

Chu Fan almost vomited blood, feeling both angry and furious in his heart, and almost couldn't help but go up and fight this monster.

Fortunately, he had suffered severe trauma to his body and mind in the past three months, and had been celibate for three months, otherwise…

But even so, thinking of hugging such a monster, his stomach still churned.

Whoosh!

The monster lunged forward, and the cold aura turned into a cold wind, grabbing at Feng Mingtao.

Feng Mingtao stepped heavily on the ground, like a wild bull also crashed into the monster:

"Run separately, if you live, you brat will have to wear mourning clothes for me!"

"Brother Feng!"

Chu Fan's eyes were about to burst, he gritted his teeth, turned around and ran towards the outside of the forest.

This monster was too fast, and he would definitely not be able to outrun it with his legs alone.

Feng Mingtao had natural strength, and his Elephant Form Fist was also a top-notch powerful fist technique. This sudden collision was even fiercer than a raging bull in a bullring.

Bang!

But with just one collision, he was knocked to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood, and many of the bones in his body were shattered.

"Hahaha, monster, you're far from killing your Feng grandfather!"

Feng Mingtao coughed up blood, but instead laughed 'haha', using the force of the collision to fly more than ten meters, and then stepped heavily on a big tree in mid-air to borrow strength.

He endured the severe pain and ran in the opposite direction from Chu Fan.

One left and one right, running away separately, this was the tacit understanding that the two men had developed during the 'Zombie King Incident'.

In a real life-and-death situation, there was no pretension. It was better to save one than to die together.

"Chu Fan…"

The monster's mouth dripped with mucus. Without a second's hesitation, it lunged forward and chased after Chu Fan.

Those who escaped into the mountains could not escape, and if he escaped by car, he would be exposed.

Whoosh whoosh~~~

Chu Fan strode forward. He originally had a foundation in boxing, and had made great progress after experiencing great changes. At this time, he ran much faster and more persistently than ordinary people.

But even so, he was simply not as fast as that monster.

Looking at the vehicles on the road in the distance, and feeling the increasing danger behind him, Chu Fan roared loudly and fell to the ground.

Whoosh~

The monster swept past, blocking Chu Fan's path, the expression on its face becoming more and more terrifying:

"You run again?"

Chu Fan's heart fell to the bottom. This monster was different from those unthinking zombies, and actually had an intelligence no weaker than humans.

It would also trick them into coming here and then kill them.

It seemed that those who had arrived earlier were not gone, but had also been killed by this monster.

Chu Fan slowly stood up, and stopped running. He looked at the monster with a solemn expression:

"What exactly are you?"

"Dead people don't need to know…"

The monster licked its lips and was about to attack when its body suddenly stiffened.

A calm voice came faintly, neither high nor low, but it was as heavy as Mount Tai, causing the monster to freeze in place in an instant:

"Just a zhang gui (伥鬼, spirit of someone eaten by a tiger who then serves the tiger), not such a great thing."

"Who?"

Chu Fan looked up and saw an SUV parked on the highway in the distance at some unknown time.

A young man in white sportswear was sitting lazily in the driver's seat with the car door wide open.

"A fierce tiger devours people, and its soul will transform into a zhang gui and be manipulated by the fierce tiger. The monster in the mountain is much more powerful than a fierce tiger, so naturally, it also has this method."

An Qisheng got out of the car, closed the car door casually, and spoke as he walked.

His expression was calm, and his movements were neither hurried nor slow. Before he finished speaking, he had already arrived in front of the man and the ghost.

An Qisheng looked at this zhang gui indifferently.

Zombies are born by gathering the resentment of heaven and earth. They are immortal. This Zombie King, Zhu Shang, is stronger than the Huangtian Ten Fiends in some ways.

It was sealed by a talisman, and relegated to a land of spiritual exhaustion, but it could still stir up trouble.

Just because a few people saw the coffin, it infected a large group of monsters that were zombies when they were alive, and could still turn into zhang gui after they died.

But that was all. This kind of hastily created zombie ghost, even if it could replenish itself by sucking blood, would not live for more than half a year in this land of spiritual exhaustion.

Its strength was also extremely low.

For him at this time, there was not even a trace of mystery left.

The zhang gui was glanced at by An Qisheng, and immediately seemed to have died, no longer having any breath, dull and stiff, even stiffer than a zombie.

"You, you are An, Mr. An…"

Seeing An Qisheng, Chu Fan's heart trembled wildly, and he immediately recognized him.

They were trapped in the mountains, and Qi Ge Yun was transformed into a zombie. Dozens or hundreds of elite gunmen could not stop her, and several armored vehicles were overturned.

It was this person who casually nailed the zombie to the ground with an iron rod, and stepped on it to death.

After returning, he inquired from many sources and already knew that this young man was actually a Great Grandmaster who had seen God. It was said that he had killed Mu Longcheng, the leader of the Qi Dao Society, in a head-on confrontation!

He had even heard that this An Qisheng had traveled alone to the West, killing countless mercenaries and assassins who had assassinated him along the way, and had overthrown the Qi Dao Society, a powerful overseas force with a three-hundred-year history!

On the Law Enforcement Warrior Forum, he had already been touted as the number one expert in ancient and modern East and West!

"You…"

The three-imprint-like monster just wanted to speak when a hand had already landed on its shoulder.

Pa~

A crisp sound.

Chu Fan's eyelids twitched wildly. He saw that the monster that had chased him until he could not escape, was hammered into the ground like a nail being hammered by a sledgehammer.

Bang~

Accompanied by a scream, there seemed to be muffled thunder exploding underground, and the ground was already soaked with crimson blood.

Heaven and earth have fortune, all things have spirit, the world is running, and has its own trajectory.

The universe is replaced, and waves of crises are coming. The Profound Star itself is also undergoing changes that are difficult for ordinary people to detect.

In the words of the Jiuyou Floating Realm, it is that the fortune is prosperous, and the heavenly beings should be born.

In terms of the Profound Star, it is what Xu Hongyun, the Taoist priest of the Special Affairs Bureau, said, 'Yinghuo (Mars) guards the heart, and a sage should be born!'

Sage…

Thinking in his heart, An Qisheng looked at Chu Fan's eyes, and there was a ripple.