Chapter 1 Uprising

On the rooftop,
Zhou Ze, at the edge, was slowly turning around.

The priest's lips parted in surprise.

The headless woman still stood there. The wind was high on the roof, but her skirt remained motionless.

"It shouldn't be possible. As a ghost messenger, his physical body from his previous life should be gone. Most can only walk in the human world by inhabiting someone else's body.

How exactly did this zombie come about?"

The priest muttered to himself, his forehead covered in question marks.

As a qualified bystander, being good at observing and diligent in thinking are essential qualities.

When Zhou Ze turned around, the priest's lips, which had been parted, slowly changed their curve, turning into a smile, as he realized:

"So that's how it is!"

Unlike the copper color that was starting to appear on Zhou Ze's arms, the skin exposed on Zhou Ze's front, although also showing a faint bronze luster, was very light and uneven.

At the same time, some areas of skin began to wrinkle and crack, and blood slowly flowed out, creating a terrifying scene.

"His soul carries a small portion of the zombie heritage. Now, after receiving extreme mental stimulation, the zombie part of his soul is manifesting.

But his body is still that of an ordinary person, unable to withstand and inherit this burden, which has led to this strange situation.

This is a zombie, and yet, it isn't a zombie."

The priest murmured to himself, a hint of excitement in his eyes. He slightly opened his hands under his sleeves, and two scalpels appeared in his palms.

"Which part should I cut off to take back for slow study, or should I take the whole body back?"

His tongue licked his lips, and the priest looked a little troubled.

The other party was a ghost messenger. Qing Yi Niangniang (Azure-Clad Lady) might not care about the other party's identity as a ghost messenger, but he couldn't. If Qing Yi Niangniang completely killed him, then the corpse he took back would have no research value.

"It's really troubling."

The priest scratched his head, looking very conflicted, but the two scalpels in his hand shone brightly in the sunlight, instantly attracting the attention of both the headless woman and Zhou Ze.

"Oh!"

The priest's expression froze.

He immediately threw the two scalpels in his hand on the ground, took a step back,

bowed slightly,

and said very sincerely:

"Sorry to bother you, please continue."

A bystander who drags himself into the battle will end up dying in confusion, which is a major taboo for bystanders.

Zhou Ze's gaze fell on the headless woman again. To be honest, the previous Zhou Ze was completely a "back view killer." At this time, the blood constantly seeping out of his front and the constantly tearing skin truly showed Zhou Ze's extremely bad physical condition.

Rather than saying that the current Zhou Ze was a zombie, it was more like a zombie extra in a Western zombie movie.

The only difference was that

Zhou Ze's eyes emitted a green light.

This made him look more advanced than the extras in Western zombie movies who could be killed with an axe.

Well, he's upgraded from an extra to an extra with five mao (a small amount of money) worth of special effects.

"Ah!"

Zhou Ze opened his mouth

and let out a roar.

There was no earth-shattering volume,

nor surging,澎湃豪邁 (peng pai hao mai) heroic spirit,

but more like a wail after damaged vocal cords.

The headless woman continued to stand there, motionless.

Then,

Zhou Ze moved. His physical movements were very exaggerated. He ran like a sprinter in a 100-meter race, his body movements were huge, and he pounced directly at the headless woman.

There was no impact, no dazzling fireworks,

just like a drunken man pouncing on a weak woman.

There was no aesthetic feeling at all.

"Whirr..."

Zhou Ze, who had fallen to the ground, pressed down on the headless woman beneath him and directly raised his fist to smash down.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Punch after punch landed,

each punch landed on the cement slab of the rooftop.

Bloodstains were everywhere,

not Qing Yi Niangniang's bloodstains, but Zhou Ze's.

"Because in this state, only instinct remains and there is no room for thought, he is no longer affected by Qing Yi Niangniang's abilities.

Also, because he carries the aura of a zombie, he can touch the soul body and launch his own attacks."

The priest opened his mouth and said "Oh,"

"How did this kind of person become a ghost messenger? Has the auditing system of hell collapsed to this point?"

Under the repeated heavy blows, it seemed that Zhou Ze was hitting the cement slab every time, but in fact, Qing Yi Niangniang's body was slowly twisting, like a pool of lake water, constantly rippling.

The surface of the water

was no longer calm.

"It seems that Qing Yi Niangniang is destined to lose. Although she does not belong to the sequence of ghosts, she does not have any physical attack ability other than mental influence.

Now she can only be beaten passively."

As he spoke, the priest looked at the construction site in the distance again.

"But anyway, it's almost here. Dying to that one or dying to the one in front of her, the ending is the same, right?"

However,

just as he finished gloating,

the priest's eyes suddenly became cloudy.

Qing Yi Niangniang, who was pressed under Zhou Ze, suddenly flipped her left hand towards the priest.

"I made a mistake. I could have watched the melon (gossip) from a distance with binoculars and enjoyed it,

Why did I get so close?

This time, I'm going to be controlled and become a thug.

What bad luck..."

The priest lowered his head, then suddenly raised his head, his eyes showing a green light. Then, he quickly picked up the scalpel he had just thrown on the ground and rushed towards Zhou Ze.

"Swish!

Swish!"

Two scalpels

were directly stabbed into Zhou Ze's back.

"Ah!"

Zhou Ze raised his head and let out a silent roar.

Immediately afterward, the priest, holding the scalpel, wanted to pull it down along the inserted wound, but the blade seemed to be stuck in Zhou Ze's bones and could not move.

"Creak!"

Zhou Ze turned around suddenly, his arm swept across.

Yes,

Zhou Ze didn't know how to fight, hadn't learned martial arts, and hadn't practiced Sanda (Chinese kickboxing) or Muay Thai. Therefore, when he was crazy, he could only counterattack according to instinct.

If a mosquito bites me,

I'll slap the mosquito to death.

Zhou Ze's arm directly hit the priest's face.

The priest's entire face almost twisted, and he was sent flying, landing right on the edge of the rooftop. If he had been off by just a little bit, he would have fallen.

The left side of his face was swollen high, he opened his mouth, and spat out several broken teeth,

His teeth were stained with blood.

"Baga!" (idiot/fool in Japanese)

The priest flipped his hands again, and two paper talismans appeared. These were Onmyōji's (Japanese diviner) ghost-taming runes.

When he rushed towards Zhou Ze again, he dodged Zhou Ze's fist, and then directly stuck the two talismans on Zhou Ze's chest.

For a time, the runes seemed to burn, and two charred marks appeared on Zhou Ze's chest, and a burst of meat fragrance even permeated the air.

However, Zhou Ze directly wrapped his arms around the priest and hugged him tightly. Then, holding him like this, he slammed hard into the wall on the rooftop.

"Bang!"

Most of the cement wall shattered, and the priest spat out a mouthful of blood.

Two big men,

on the rooftop,

for a woman,

fought to the death.

…………

"Hey, pay attention over there, push it down quickly, push it down before those old fogeys come over, hurry up!"

A construction foreman directed a bulldozer to advance.

In front was an old, dilapidated temple. The temple did not enshrine any Bodhisattvas or Taoist figures. In fact, the temple didn't even have a plaque.

"Boom!"

The temple wall was pushed down, along with the broken statue inside, which had lost its head who knows how many years ago.

Excavators and bulldozers worked together to completely flatten the temple.

"Hey, what kind of temple is this?"

The excavator driver got out of his machine. To be honest, he was most afraid of encountering this kind of situation during demolition. Demolishing other people's temples might damage his yin virtue and easily attract misfortune.

Every industry, in fact, has more or less some similar superstitions.

"Small temple, when I was a kid, some people would go to worship, but now it's gone. My grandfather took me to worship there, called Qing Yi Niangniang, similar to the Child-Giving Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy), worshiping her to pray for children."

"Then why did you let us push it down?"

"If we don't push it down, how will the project proceed? You don't know, just because of this broken temple, the old people who originally lived here argued with us for a long time. Now who still worships this damned Qing Yi Niangniang? Infertility hospitals are everywhere, so if you can't have children, just go to the doctor.

Besides, when I was a kid, I thought this Qing Yi Niangniang was some big shot, but later I realized that there doesn't seem to be such a person in history at all. Old superstitions and feudal things, we're breaking superstitions."

The foreman spat a mouthful of thick phlegm on the ground and shouted:

"Tell those over there to hurry up and tear down this area before the sun goes down!"

…………

On the rooftop,

the body of Qing Yi Niangniang, who had been knocked down by Zhou Ze, slowly shattered.

The priest was right,

she was not a ghost.

As Qing Yi Niangniang collapsed,

a touch of clarity appeared in the priest's eyes. He stood up, clutching his chest, God knows how many ribs were broken. When he saw Zhou Ze rushing towards him again, he was so scared that he opened the rooftop door and ran towards the stairwell, not even daring to look back.

Zhou Ze, who was sprinting halfway, suddenly slowed down, his whole body staggered, and the green light in his eyes gradually dissipated.

The bronze luster on his body also gradually faded,

leaving only from top to bottom,

those dense and terrifying wounds.

Zhou Ze's body swayed for a while, and finally walked to the edge of the rooftop, unable to control his body,

One slip,

and he fell straight down.

The back of the building was a garbage disposal area,

where piles of domestic waste were piled up like mountains, and many stray cats and dogs were looking for food here.

"Bang!"

"Meow meow meow!!!"

"Woof woof woof!!!"

When Zhou Ze crashed into this place,

it startled the cats and dogs here.

Zhou Ze had almost lost most of his consciousness, with only his fingers still instinctively curling.

Two brave stray dogs came over and kept sniffing Zhou Ze's body with their noses.

"Squeak squeak squeak!!!"

At this moment, a golden monkey holding a plastic toy hammer jumped up in three steps and two steps, waving the plastic toy hammer to drive the two dogs away.

Then it looked at the man who was covered in wounds and had more air going out than coming in.

When it saw the man's face,

the monkey scratched its head.

It didn't know why,

but when it saw this face, it felt so uncomfortable.

It didn't remember the past, and it had been living here all this time. These stray dogs and cats had also been tamed by it, and it was good to be a big boss in the garbage dump.

But this face

really made the monkey feel so annoyed, although it didn't know where this annoyance came from, it was just annoyed!

"Bo bo bo!"

The monkey used the plastic toy hammer to hit Zhou Ze's head several times.

Serves you right for making this monkey feel annoyed,

Serves you right for looking so annoying to this monkey!

After hitting it several times,

Zhou Ze's head tilted,

and he completely fainted.

"Whoa!"

The monkey was so scared that it immediately dropped the plastic toy hammer in its hand,

covered its mouth with both hands.

It was really worried that it had just hammered this guy to death.