One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

The mountain path was longer than expected. After clearing the zombies at the fork in the road, the Dawn Squad continued their advance into the depths of the Yimeng Mountains along a gravel path half-hidden by fallen leaves. Moonlight occasionally peeked through gaps in the clouds, casting a cold, white glow on the forest clearing, only to be quickly obscured by newly arriving clouds. The trees on either side grew increasingly thin, their trunks covered with a fine layer of black spots, like traces of some liquid seeping from within, dry and brittle to the touch, crumbling off with the slightest pressure.

Zhang Chulan walked behind Wang Ye. As he passed a crooked wild walnut tree, he casually touched a drooping branch. The branch broke off immediately upon his touch, revealing an abnormal dark gray cross-section. The wood seemed to have been hollowed out by something, leaving only a thin shell to maintain its surface shape.

"This tree has been drained dry," he muttered, tossing the broken branch aside.

"It's not draining, it's replacing." Wang Ye stopped, squatted down, and rubbed some soil from around the tree roots with his fingertips, sniffing it. The lines between his brows deepened. "The residual Qi in the soil has a clear exclusivity—it's squeezing the normal plant Qi out of the roots and filling it with something else. What's being filled in is incompatible with the living thing's own Qi, so the tree doesn't appear to be dead, but rather decaying from the inside."

"What kind of energy can drive away living things?" Lu Linglong stood a few steps away, one hand gripping the hilt of her sword, her gaze constantly scanning the dark corners of the surrounding forest.

"Qi related to death." Wang Ye stood up, brushing the loose soil off his hands. "It's not ordinary yin energy; it's something purer. I've had contact with the corpse-driving lineage in western Hunan. The qi they use deals with corpses, but that qi has room for harmonization; it still retains the control of the living. But this—" He glanced down at the dark soil residue on his fingertips, "it doesn't even have the intention to control; it's just spreading."

Nie Lingfeng walked at the front, his pace unwavering. The first bluestone slab on the road ahead marked their departure from the purely wild mountain path and entry into the outskirts of Qingshan Town. The slab was worn smooth by the soles of their shoes and the wheels of their wheels, withered yellow weeds growing in the cracks, and low brick and stone buildings began to appear on both sides—initially a few abandoned tool sheds and storage rooms, gradually transitioning into densely packed residential walls.

At the entrance to the town stands a blue stone tablet. The surface of the tablet has been eroded by wind and rain for many years, and the characters are somewhat mottled, but the three characters are still clearly legible: "Qingshan Town". Scattered around the base of the tablet are several overturned earthenware pots and an upside-down bamboo basket. Inside the basket are a few shriveled red dates, covered with a layer of grayish-white mold.

Nie Lingfeng stopped in front of the monument. He could feel that the sinister aura in the air was at least twice as strong here—it was no longer the faint, ethereal aura that slowly seeped from the soil, but rather formed a thin, covering texture that felt damp and cool against the skin, like someone had placed a piece of paper soaked in cold water on his face.

"You felt it all?" he asked, turning his head to the side.

"I felt it," Wang Zhenqiu answered the fastest. "The cold air climbed up my neck, like I was in an ice cellar."

"It's a Qi field barrier." Wang Ye stretched his palm forward, facing the town. "The entire Qingshan Town is encased in an invisible shell. Once we step over this stone tablet, we'll enter the interior of the shell, which is separated from the outside environment."

"Liu Yanyan has been inside for more than two days—" Zhang Chulan lowered his voice, "...can she still hold on?"

"The Liu family of Xiangxi has a much higher tolerance for Yin Qi than ordinary people." Nie Lingfeng stepped across the boundary line of the stone tablet, the sound of his boots hitting the bluestone slabs was deeper than outside, as if he were stepping into air of a different density. "She won't fall easily."

The procession crossed the unseen boundary in orderly formation. The change in feel underfoot was almost instantaneous—the ground seemed damper than outside, a fine layer of condensation hovering over the stone slabs, each shoe leaving a gradually receding wet imprint. Most of the doors and windows of the houses on either side were tightly shut, some doors bearing dark brown handprints, fingers spread and pointing downwards, as if someone had used their last strength to grasp the doorframe only to slip away. Other windows had broken panes, and nothing could be seen behind the dark openings, but a faint hissing sound, like air passing through a narrow gap, could be heard.

Lu Linglong followed closely behind Nie Lingfeng, her gaze narrower than usual, lingering briefly on each window and door crack, yet covering a wide area. She could sense that there was indeed nothing watching her from behind those empty windows, but that feeling of "absence" itself was abnormal—a deliberately maintained, clean, and quiet "absence," like emptying the room and then intentionally leaving the door open for others to see.

Feng Baobao walked at the back of the group, her steps lighter than usual. She held the scabbard of her katana in her left hand, the blade facing downwards, her thumb resting on the scabbard opening. Her gaze shifted irregularly in all directions, a half-beat off-beat from the others, creating a complementary perspective.

Zhang Chulan walked slightly to the right of the middle of the group. A thin layer of electric charge had already formed between his fingers, enough to unleash a strike with a mere rub. He hesitated for a moment as he passed a half-open wooden door, peering inside—a square table lay overturned on the floor, its four legs pointing upwards. Several broken bowls and a pool of dried, blackened liquid lay scattered around it. In the corner, a few rummaged-through old newspapers were piled up, their surfaces covered with a fine layer of gray powder.

"They've been here before." Zhang Chulan pulled his head back and continued walking forward with the group, whispering to Wang Zhenqiu beside him, "They searched everywhere, like they'd looked for something, turning over every possible hiding place."

"That's why they're loitering on the streets." Wang Zhenqiu's gaze was fixed on the corner of the alley ahead. "Because they've searched every place with living creatures, all that's left is to keep patrolling and wait for any that slip through the net to surface."

The instant he finished speaking, Feng Baobao paused for a moment. Her chin tilted less than a finger's width to the left towards a narrow alley. She didn't speak, but that gesture was enough to silence everyone.

There was a sound coming from deep within the alley.

It wasn't footsteps—it was something finer, dragging, like the sound of fabric or limbs being slowly pulled across the ground. It lasted for about two seconds, then stopped. After about three seconds, it started again.

Everyone stopped moving. Nie Lingfeng drew the Snow Drinking Blade an inch from his waist, then withdrew it, using this action to send a signal to Lu Linglong behind him: stay still, don't approach, observe first.

The zombie staggered out of the shadows at the alley entrance.

She wore a faded red cotton-padded jacket, with a circle of small, indistinguishable flowers embroidered around the collar. Her hair was held back behind her ears with an old plastic headband, with half of it falling loose and swaying slightly in the night breeze. Her skin was a dark reddish-gray, completely different from the grayish-white of the green-eyed zombies she had encountered on the mountain path. Her eyes were a murky dark red, the color of rusted iron that had been submerged in water for a long time.

Her gait was different from the green-eyed zombie's. The green-eyed zombie's steps were stiff and hesitant, as if it needed to regain its balance with each step; this woman in the red coat, though not fast, walked with a steady rhythm, pausing very briefly between every two steps, as if using those pauses to sense her surroundings. After she emerged from the alley, she tilted her head slightly, the movement almost "natural," and then her gaze—those red eyes—landed precisely in the direction of the group.

That wasn't just a lucky coincidence.

Zhang Chulan held his breath.

Then the woman opened her mouth. Her jaw detached downwards at an angle far exceeding the range of human joint movement, stretching the skin at the corners of her mouth until it was white and translucent, revealing her teeth—teeth that had clearly been altered in shape, with longer, sharper replacements growing in the canine positions, arranged more densely than human teeth.

The scream that came from that abnormal mouth did not pass through the normal vocal tract.

It was an extremely high-frequency, highly penetrating sound wave that pierced Zhang Chulan's eardrums, making his entire skull vibrate. The sound lasted for a little over three seconds before abruptly stopping. But in those three seconds, it had already spread to every street and alley in Qingshan Town.

Then, the silence was shattered.

From behind the doors and windows on all sides, from the corners of alleyways, from behind the roof tiles, countless responses rang out—hoarse, uneven, overlapping cries, like countless ripples spreading simultaneously on the surface of a pool of water tossed with stones.

"She's calling." Nie Ling drew his Snowdrift Blade fully. "Form ranks and engage in battle in place."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the first wave of red-eyed zombies emerged from the nearest windows. Their movements were noticeably faster than the green-eyed zombies—they could brace themselves with their hands upon landing, and after standing up, they pounced on the crowd almost without hesitation. Two of them climbed up the drainpipes on the side wall and leaped out of a broken second-floor window, adjusting their posture in mid-air before landing with naturally bent knees, demonstrating joint flexibility far exceeding that of their counterparts on the mountain path.

Zhang Chulan's lightning technique was the first to strike. He compressed the electrical charge into two parallel thin lines, precisely striking the chests of the two red-eyed zombies charging at him. The current passing through their torsos caused brief muscle spasms, momentarily disrupting their movements. However, the effect after the strike was not as he expected—green-eyed zombies would be briefly stunned for three or four seconds by this level of electric shock, while these two red-eyed zombies were stunned for less than a second before readjusting their posture.

"Their reaction speed is faster than Green Eyes', but their body structure is more fragile!" Wang relayed his observations from behind. "Hitting their joints and skull is more effective than hitting their torso!"