Chapter 1 Facing the Gratitude

Yingying really didn't know how to respond to that thank you.

Zhou Ze waved his hand, too lazy to argue with this "silly treasure" about anything else.

He asked directly:

"How did you turn your mom, oh, and yourself, into this?

Answer well, cooperate well, and I can let you and your mom off."

Zhou Ze really couldn't be bothered to deceive them. He didn't have any crusader tendencies, nor did he aspire to "clean up the world." Besides, people were just drinking chicken blood and duck blood at home; it didn't seem like a heinous crime, did it?

Otherwise, wouldn't all the "Jinling Duck Blood Vermicelli Soup" places be deeply sinful?

"This… I… this… that…"

The man stammered, seeming to have some misgivings.

Even at this point, he didn't seem to have made up his mind.

Zhou Ze leaned forward,

turning his ear towards the man,

and said:

"Spit it out!"

"After something happened to my mom, I've been searching for ways to treat her. Over the past few years, I went to all the major hospitals, but nothing worked.

But a year ago, a group of people found me. They said they could help me cure my mother, restore her, but the requirement was that I do things for them."

"Do things?" Zhou Ze lit a cigarette and asked, "What do you do?"

"Biological research."

Zhou Ze frowned. "You mean, there's also their research institute here?"

Wasn't this a plot from foreign science fiction novels? And one of those overused settings.

"There's no research institute, just a sanatorium, and it's not very big. Compared to the cutting-edge international laboratories, it's just an anthill. Even domestically, it's not considered a top-tier facility."

"Is it... private?"

"It's private. My job is actually to treat the Master."

"The Master? Treat? Who is the Master?"

"I don't know. He always covers his face, but he bit me, and he bit my mother too.

They said it was a recognition and bestowal of life, a kind of evolution…"

"You really believe that? Those are lines from movies that have been done to death."

"I didn't believe it, but my mother really couldn't hold on anymore.

Many years ago, when my mother was still conscious, she begged me to give up on her, to let her be free, to let her die!

She knelt in front of me, grabbed my hand, and pleaded again and again, saying that she was suffering unspeakably, couldn't bear it anymore, and would rather die.

But I refused because of my selfishness. I lost my father when I was young, and I didn't want to lose my mother again. It was me who made my mother endure so many years of pain.

I couldn't just watch her die, otherwise, wouldn't all these years of suffering have been in vain?

Regardless of whether he was lying or if he was really deceiving and using me, I had no choice. At least, he really made my mother become… become very… very…"

The man seemed to have a hard time describing his mother's current state with a definite adjective.

"Very energetic."

Zhou Ze helped him describe it.

"Yes, very energetic."

Zhou Ze looked at the time. It was almost seven o'clock. After thinking about it, he worried that delays might bring trouble, so he said directly:

"Take us to that place. By the way, if I kill those three, will it alarm them?"

"It doesn't matter, because that Master can't leave. He's been there ever since before I went there."

"Oh, good."

"Lead the way. We'll take your car."

After the car drove out of the villa gate, in the bedroom of the building across the way, A Hong, who was re-bandaging her wounds, stood by the window, watching the situation below through the curtains.

Her face held a hint of loss, and she herself didn't know exactly what she was feeling lost about, probably a helpless sadness after some seemingly beautiful bubbles were burst.

In short,

she was being sentimental.

Zhou Ze was too lazy to care about these things. He wasn't so free that a Tongcheng ghost constable would run all the way to Sichuan to care about a female ghost messenger's love life.

…………

After the car left Dujiangyan city, it kept heading towards Mount Qingcheng. Zhou Ze sat in the passenger seat, and Yingying sat in the back.

"Do you think you're really vampires?"

Zhou Ze asked, looking at the scenery outside the car window.

The man shook his head. "In my opinion, this should be a kind of infectious disease."

"Mm."

Zhou Ze remembered the scene of those three cosplayers, their bodies basically hollowed out.

This infectious disease was similar to the feeling of doing drugs, gaining a high by consuming life.

In fact, when many people are dying from illness, the probability of all their organs failing collectively is very, very low. Most of the time, it's that one lesion completely deteriorates, leading to irreversible results.

As for these "vampires," Zhou Ze didn't know if they were the real deal, but based on what he had just come into contact with and the vampires he had killed, they all belonged to the kind who sustained their lives by injecting "chicken blood."

Purely burning, but ultimately, it would still come to an end.

Vampires are said to have very long lifespans, but here, Zhou Ze didn't believe that their lifespans would become much longer after becoming vampires. They could only be shorter than ordinary people, but it seemed they could resolve some of the torments of illness. For terminally ill patients, it was indeed "extending their lives."

"Have you never thought about calling the police?" Zhou Ze asked with a smile. "Like, turning them over to the country?"

"They… they actually haven't done anything heinous. The seven or eight people in the sanatorium are all volunteers. When life is coming to an end, someone is willing to offer a method to exchange for the continuation of life, even if it's just a few years, or even just half a year, it's hard to refuse."

"Oh, so do you want to drink human blood?"

"I don't have that impulse. Chicken blood and duck blood are generally enough. Human blood actually makes me feel disgusted."

"So environmentally friendly?"

"Hehe, I guess."

"What specific responsibilities do you have at that sanatorium?"

"Cleaning."

"…………" Zhou Ze was speechless.

"I'm not lying to you. My job really is cleaning. There really is a very crude biological laboratory there, but it hasn't been put into normal operation and use.

Because that Master said the time hasn't come yet, he still needs to wait.

I believe that the Master seems to be trying to solve a… a defect, or a shackle, on his body, and the sanatorium, including me, are all prepared for him to solve his shackle."

"Oh, so what do you think he'll have you do after that?"

"Gene recombination, you know?"

Zhou Ze nodded.

I think he should want me to help him do something similar."

"Pretty professional topic."

Zhou Ze put the seat back and said:

"By the way, do you know about the zombie incident from the last century?"

The man was stunned for a moment, looked at Zhou Ze, and asked:

"Was that form you took when you were at my house earlier, a zombie?"

"I'm asking you, not you asking me."

"I once suspected that my mother was a victim of that incident, but I couldn't find out much about the specifics. I tried to ask the Master about it, but he didn't answer me."

He didn't answer, rather than saying he didn't know.

"But I checked. That sanatorium was contracted in '96, and it's been that way until now."

"Did your mother tell you any details when she was bitten?"

The man shook his head. "She was knocked unconscious at the time, and only discovered the wound on her body after waking up."

"Have you ever suspected?"

The man smiled.

The topic ended like that.

Zhou Ze didn't continue to ask,

but pointed to the mountain scenery outside and said to Yingying in the back:

"Yingying, this is Mount Qingcheng.

How does that song go?

White Maiden of Qingcheng Mountain,

Thousands of years of cultivation in the cave,

Ah~~~ Ah~~~"

"Boss, did the White Maiden come from here?"

"It should be, she cultivated from a snake to a human here."

"Oh, so the White Maiden was here. Wait, Boss, the White Maiden cultivated here, so why is the Leifeng Pagoda in Hangzhou?

And West Lake is also in Hangzhou."

This question,

made Zhou Ze pause.

It seemed that very few people actually thought about this question.

A snake spirit cultivating in Sichuan, near Chengdu,

why would she run all the way to Hangzhou to fall in love?

"She's a snake spirit, she can fly. Once she flies, she flies very far, all the way to West Lake."

"Wow, Boss is so smart, you even know that!"

The male driver next to them had a dark look on his face.

About half an hour later, it was completely dark. The man parked the car. Ahead was a very simple sanatorium. The gate was rusty, looking somewhat semi-abandoned.

"It's inside."

The man pointed ahead and said.

Zhou Ze and Yingying got out of the car together.

Zhou Ze stretched.

Just then, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, and it was Lawyer An.

"Hello."

"Hello, Boss, I'll have to go back later tonight."

"What a coincidence, I have to go back later too."

"I found some clues here. Following the guidance of that retired old policeman, I found a place and I'm going to check it out."

"It's about the same here."

"Hahaha, then let's see who can discover more, who can find that guy sooner."

"Okay, let's have a competition."

"Alright, Boss…………"

At this moment,

a Jeep appeared on the road behind them, stopped, and then two figures, one large and one small, got out of the car.

The large figure was still talking loudly on the phone:

"Alright, Boss, let's have a competition… uh…"