Chapter 1 The Night

Night fell, and the door of the small mud house was half-closed.

Zhou Ze deliberately arranged for the girl to sit on the threshold. As for Old Cui, Xu Qinglang tied him up with rope, gagged his mouth, and made him sit on a small stool in the living room.

Just as Old Cui himself had said, he would rather the entire village be killed by zombies than let his "granddaughter" leave him.

This was human nature.

Making such a choice and saying such words was understandable and normal.

Therefore,

It was also normal and understandable for Xu Qinglang, in order to protect the village where he was born, to have the little girl stand outside as bait.

Zhou Ze planned to send the girl to hell after everything was over so she could be reincarnated. This wasn't wrong. After all, birth, old age, sickness, and death were natural laws. The little girl was already dead, so going to hell to get another chance to be reborn was the right path. Staying in the mortal realm would inevitably lead to problems sooner or later.

If Old Cui didn't care about the lives of the entire village, why should Zhou Ze and Xu Qinglang care about his opinion?

Most importantly,

The old man's temper was really annoying. Anyway, Boss Zhou didn't have the slightest impulse to help him with anything. It was best to handle things according to the rules, and there was no need to talk about personal relationships; it was too much trouble.

Zhou Ze and Xu Qinglang were both standing behind the door, leaning against the door frame.

"Will it come?"

"It depends on whether this old guy is hiding anything else." Zhou Ze glanced at Old Cui, who was tied up like a "zongzi" (sticky rice dumpling).

"What else is he hiding?"

"A person who has had yin-yang eyes (the ability to see ghosts) since birth and has lived until now... Could his life really have been so peaceful?"

"That's true."

As the night deepened, Xu Qinglang became a little tired and sat directly on the ground, leaning against the wall. Zhou Ze was fine, smoking one cigarette after another. He didn't need coffee or anything to ward off sleepiness; anyway, he couldn't sleep without a refrigerator or Bai Yingying (White Oriole).

However, waiting like this was quite boring.

Old Cui was tired from all the struggling and had actually fallen asleep. The girl continued to sit obediently on the threshold, constantly looking around, and occasionally turning her head to look at her grandfather.

To be able to harden his heart and use a girl as bait, Zhou Ze himself felt a little guilty. But you can't catch a wolf without putting out bait, and the girl was a corpse fetus (a stillborn child who is reanimated as a spirit), so there was no need to really treat her as a pure child.

"Crack... crack..."

Sounds came from the vegetable field in the distance.

Zhou Ze immediately straightened up. Xu Qinglang, who had been dozing off, also stood up quickly.

The girl hugged her shoulders, feeling cold, and also feeling fear.

"Crack... crack..."

The sound got closer and closer.

Zhou Ze looked out through the crack in the door, but he could only hear the sound now, and hadn't yet seen the bouncing figure.

After waiting for about ten more minutes, the sound was still circling nearby, hiding itself in the darkness, but it didn't show its face.

"Do zombies have intelligence?"

Xu Qinglang exclaimed.

"..." Zhou Ze.

But this wasn't the time to argue. The zombie might really have sensed something was wrong, so it was temporarily afraid to approach.

The girl turned her head, her fear growing stronger. She instinctively wanted to call for her grandfather, but Zhou Ze, standing behind her, made a "shh" gesture to her. The girl held back, but her eyes were red.

Zhou Ze then stretched out his palm, and nails grew out. Layers of black mist began to surround it. Zhou Ze crouched down and stabbed his nails into the ground.

The black mist began to spread out, pointing in one direction!

"There!"

In the next moment,

Zhou Ze rushed out of the door.

Since that thing was not coming over, he would take the initiative to attack. Dealing with a zombie was nothing to be afraid of for Boss Zhou.

Back when he first met Bai Yingying,

Bai Yingying's aura was like Empress Wu Zetian holding court, but in the end, didn't he make her cry?

In front of him was a vegetable field with a simple fence blocking it. As Zhou Ze rushed over, a figure also actively "jumped" over.

It was indeed jumping. The other party was wearing a black t-shirt and shorts. When it jumped out, it broke all the fences around it.

"Bang!"

Zhou Ze's body collided with the other party. A hardness similar to steel plates came from the other party, and the other party's momentum did not diminish, carrying a kind of terrible determination.

And Zhou Ze's nails also took the opportunity to pierce into the other party's chest.

In front of his nails,

Even the hardest chest had to turn into a soft touch.

"Splatter!"

It felt like inserting a finger into a watermelon that had been cracked open – greasy, soft, and with a thick feeling.

The other party's body trembled, and then twisted directly, curling up on the ground like a leech sprinkled with salt.

"How is it?"

Xu Qinglang also ran over.

"Resolved."

Zhou Ze crouched down beside the man. The man had gradually stopped twitching, and black mist began to rise from his body.

Taking out his phone, he shone it on the man's face. Zhou Ze found that he had seen this man during the day; he was one of the villagers who went into the water to save the drowning woman.

How could it be him?

At this time, the man was already lifeless, and his body began to soften. Black pus and blood began to overflow from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

Being directly pierced by Zhou Ze's nails was equivalent to disrupting his foundation. Even Bai Yingying couldn't bear it when Zhou Ze's nails brushed against her, let alone this guy, who was obviously incomparable to Bai Yingying.

"I know this person." Xu Qinglang also took out his phone and shone it on him. "He's the third son of Auntie Xu's family, his name is..."

"I know him too."

Zhou Ze interrupted Xu Qinglang and turned the man's neck over.

On the left side of the other party's neck, there were two clear tooth marks.

Zhou Ze's fingers stroked the tooth marks, and then his eyes suddenly froze:

"No, this is a substitute who was just bitten by a zombie and controlled into a walking corpse!"

In the next moment,

Zhou Ze immediately got up and rushed back to the small mud house. The girl who had been sitting on the threshold had already disappeared.

When Zhou Ze rushed into the house, Old Cui, who had been tied up like a zongzi by Xu Qinglang, was also gone. Only a circle of rope and a stool were left in place.

They had been tricked,

They had actually been tricked.

Xu Qinglang frowned when he ran back and saw the empty scene in the house.

"How is this possible..."

Xu Qinglang couldn't believe it.

This zombie wasn't Zhou Ze, nor was it Bai Yingying, who had been nourished by Madam Bai for two hundred years.

But it could actually play "lure the tiger away from the mountain" (a military tactic)?

"Was this old man also eaten by the zombie?" Xu Qinglang said to himself.

"No."

Zhou Ze crouched down and picked up the rope scattered on the ground.

"The rope was repeatedly cut to break it. It wasn't torn by the zombie's claws. The old man broke free himself."

Saying this, Zhou Ze stood up. He first looked in the direction outside,

"We were just in the vegetable field in front. If the old man ran out of the house, we couldn't have not known. Moreover, the old man knows that there is a zombie outside eyeing him covetously, so he shouldn't be stupid enough to rush out trying to escape. At least in the house, we can guarantee the safety of him and his granddaughter."

Hearing this, Xu Qinglang first went to the kitchen to take a look, then went to the bedroom and pointed to the bed, shouting:

"There's a tunnel under here!"

Zhou Ze got up and walked over. Sure enough, the bed was lifted open, and there really was a tunnel underneath.

A lonely old man, accompanied only by a ghost granddaughter, with a very bad reputation in the village, what would he do digging a tunnel?

Could it be that Old Cui was fascinated by *Tunnel Warfare* when he was young and made one for himself when he had nothing to do?

"You go and deal with the corpse first, and hide it in the house. I'll follow the tunnel to chase. Be careful."

Zhou Ze instructed Xu Qinglang.

Xu Qinglang nodded. The walking corpse had just been killed by Zhou Ze, but if the corpse was just left outside like that, it would inevitably cause a big disturbance when villagers passed by in the morning. It was true that someone needed to deal with it first.

After Xu Qinglang left, Zhou Ze jumped into the tunnel alone. The tunnel wasn't spacious, and most of the area had to be passed by bending over or even crawling.

Moreover, the tunnel was really long.

Zhou Ze began to admire the old bachelor's ability to toss around at night. People were plowing the fields and sowing seeds, but he was digging holes here.

About four minutes later, the tunnel began to rise, and Zhou Ze also noticed traces of friction from someone passing by just now. The door panel above was also open. Zhou Ze walked out easily.

After coming in,

Zhou Ze was surprised to find that this was also an old tiled house, very old, and it seemed that no one would come here often.

There were many such houses in the countryside. In the past, they were generally for the elderly to live in. After the elderly passed away, the younger generation had long moved into the buildings that had been built. These old houses were either used as kitchens or as places to store sundries.

Sure enough, when Zhou Ze turned a corner and walked into the hall, he saw a spirit altar with two lamps and candles on it, unlit and covered with cobwebs. There was an incense ash burner between the lamps and candles, and behind it was a black and white photo of an old woman.

The old woman was showing her white teeth, smiling very happily.

Old Cui's tunnel led to here. Could it be that this old woman was Old Cui's lover when she was alive?

Maybe the old woman had been widowed for a long time, but she had children, so it was inconvenient to be with Old Cui. In the countryside, it was still very difficult to find another partner for widowed parents. The key was that the children felt they would lose face.

But Old Cui's spirit of digging tunnels for secret meetings was really touching.

But times had changed,

The old woman had passed away first,

It was estimated that Old Cui hadn't used this tunnel for a long time. This time, it was purely a means of escape and transfer.

"Hehe."

Zhou Ze shook his head and walked through the hall. He now had to find Old Cui as soon as possible, because he knew that the intelligent zombie was also looking for them.

Moreover,

That zombie was only stealing chickens and dogs at first,

But now it had begun to kill people!

What Zhou Ze didn't see was that,

After he walked through the hall,

On the spirit altar covered with cobwebs,

The old woman in the black and white photo, who was already smiling,

Her smile,

Grew even stronger.