Taoist priest goes to America

Ang Lee finished the rest of the chicken leg, leaving only a pile of bones in the paper bucket. He drank the last drop of his Coke, chewed the ice cubes a couple of times with a crunching sound, and then spat them back into the cup.

He stood up, picked up the tray, walked to the recycling station, poured the bones and paper bucket into the trash can, and stacked the tray on the recycling rack.

Just then, the waiter came over carrying a small white box. Inside the box were four fried chicken wings, their golden-brown skin garnished with a pinch of parsley.

"This is..." Li An looked at her in confusion.

"This is a gift from the manager, a special offer for new customers. Welcome to visit again." She handed the box to Li An with a smile, then turned and walked towards the kitchen.

Ang Lee glanced at the four chicken wings, then looked in the direction the waiter had left. Standing at the kitchen door was the manager in the gray suit. One hand was in his pocket, the other held a cup of coffee, and he was watching Ang Lee.

The manager nodded slightly, a standard "Welcome back next time" smile playing on his lips.

Ang Lee looked at him and smiled back. He then picked up a chicken wing, took a bite, and the juices burned his mouth. He blew on it, turned around, and ate as he walked away.

Pushing open the door, the refreshing night breeze carrying moisture outside sent a pleasant shiver down Li An's spine.

He walked to the corner where Lao Bai was.

There was no one in the corner, only an orange cat squatting next to the tent cloth on the ground. It was so thin that it looked like a skeleton, with dull fur, ribs protruding one by one, and loose fur hanging down on its arched back.

Its eyes were bright green. When it saw Ang Lee approaching, it arched its back, raised its tail, and opened its mouth to hiss at him. Its teeth were yellow and sharp, and its whiskers trembled.

As Ang Lee munched on a chicken wing, he looked down at the cat. Just as he was about to kick the cat's neck like a soccer ball, a hand reached out from the darkness behind the cat.

The hand was covered by an old piece of clothing, revealing a bit of grayish-blue skin. It gripped the orange cat by the scruff of its neck like it was holding a plush toy, lifting the skinny cat off the ground.

The orange cat hissed, its limbs flailing wildly in the air, its claws futilely pawing at the air. Its body writhed violently in mid-air, but the grip of that hand was too strong; it couldn't break free.

Old White emerged from the darkness. It was still wrapped in a tent, but there was a hole in the tent, revealing its grayish-blue chin and half-open mouth through the gap in the tent, its lips turning purple.

Old Bai brought the orange cat in front of him. The cat was still hissing, its claws scratching Old Bai's chin, leaving not even a white mark on his grayish-blue skin.

Old Bai didn't react. He lowered his head, his mouth sticking out from the hole in the tent fabric, and bit the orange cat's head.

With a crisp crack, the cat's meow stopped, its body twitched twice, and then went limp. Old White's throat gurgled as it ripped the cat's head off, dark red liquid dripping from the severed surface onto the ground.

Old Bai held the cat's head in his mouth and chewed it carefully, the sound of bones cracking coming from his tightly closed mouth. After chewing three times, he swallowed it.

The remaining cat body was chewed off piece by piece by Lao Bai. The cat's body was twitching slightly, and after its tail twitched twice, it stopped moving.

Ang Lee stood outside the alley watching this scene. A wisp of dark red cat hair still clung to the corner of Old Bai's mouth. Its blood-red eyes peeked out from the gaps in the tent fabric, still empty and blank, like an infant who knew nothing chewing.

The system panel popped up in Ang Lee's field of vision.

[Detection detected that the zombie servant consumed a live creature (cat)]

[The Corpse Servant gains +0.2 points for killing a living creature; Evolution Progress: Purple Zombie (1.2/100).]

[Current status of the Corpse Servant: Purple Zombie (Lowest Rank)]

[Evolutionary Route 1: Consume or kill living beings. Corpse servants can strengthen themselves through blood sacrifices (killing living beings, or consuming the blood and flesh of living creatures).]

[It is also effective on ordinary animals, but the best supplement is humans, or animals that have eaten human flesh.]

The evolution path is: Purple Zombie → White-haired Zombie → Black-haired Zombie → Green-haired Zombie → Red-haired Zombie → Golden-haired Zombie → Flying Zombie/Undying Bone. Current progress: Purple Zombie (1.2/100).

[Evolutionary Route Two: Fulfilling the Last Wish.]

[If the host helps fulfill the unfulfilled wishes of the corpse servant before its death, the corpse servant can be greatly strengthened, and the evolution effect is far superior to devouring blood food.]

[After fulfilling their last wish, the corpse servant will gain greater autonomy and intelligence.]

[The Corpse Servant - The Nameless Homeless Man's Last Wish has been unlocked]

Occupation before death: Construction worker, originally from Europe, undocumented immigrant. He had worked at a construction site in Brooklyn for ten years before falling from scaffolding three years ago, injuring his lumbar spine and becoming unable to continue working.

To pay for medical expenses, she exhausted her savings and borrowed money from the "Skull Finger" gang at exorbitant interest rates, which ballooned to $80,000. The local child protection association investigated, claiming that a neighbor had reported her daughter for living in an "unsafe environment," and the daughter was taken away.

Three days later, a social worker informed him that his daughter had been placed in a suitable foster family. In reality, staff members of the child protection association colluded with a human trafficking network and sold his daughter to a real estate developer in Queens for $40,000.

Six weeks later, the girl died from abuse; her body was found embedded in the concrete wall of a basement. Police ruled it an accidental death, the real estate developer was not prosecuted, and the social worker involved was reassigned to another district.

After learning the news, Old Bai went to the developer's house to demand an explanation, but his legs were broken by the developer's bodyguards. Despondent, he then began using drugs. Three months later, he became a homeless drug addict covered in needle marks.

[His last wish: To kill all the social workers and administrators within the child protection association who were involved in selling his daughter, and to kill the real estate developer who abused his daughter to death.]

Looking at the words on the system screen, Li An reached out his greasy hand, greasy from eating chicken wings, and patted Lao Bai on the shoulder. Under the tent fabric, its body was cold and hard, as cold as a sheet of iron in winter.

"I'll kill it for you," he said. Old Bai didn't react, but a faint fluctuation came from the mental connection between them.

Ang Lee pulled his hand back and tucked in the corner of the tent fabric to cover Lao Bai's skin.

They continued west along 14th Street, where at the end of the walkway was a small parking lot with seven or eight cars, mostly SUVs and pickup trucks.

The parking lot's lampposts are very tall, and the light from the bulbs casts circular patches of light on the ground.

Ang Lee took out the last chicken wing, threw the box into the parking lot's trash can, and planned to lead Old White through the parking lot to take a shortcut to the city center.

Just then, a dark-colored Ford van drove in from the north entrance of the parking lot. The headlights were bright, and the tires made a soft, crunching sound as they rolled over the asphalt.

The van didn't stop; it drove directly in front of Li An and Lao Bai, with the front of the van facing Li An, the two beams of light from the low beams shining on his face.

He squinted, bit off the remaining meat from the chicken wing in his left hand, and reached for the Glock pistol handle at his waist with his right hand.

Suddenly, Ang Lee sensed someone behind him. He didn't turn around, but the footsteps told him that there were two people running out of the shadows of the parking lot, one on the left and one on the right.

They stopped behind him, each holding a gun to his and Old Bai's heads.

The bread was also parked sideways in front, blocking their way, thus blocking both him and Lao Bai from the front and back.

The sliding door of the bread cart was pulled open with a "whoosh".

There were five people in the car: one in the driver's seat and four in the back. The four men got out and stood next to the sliding side door of the van, each holding a gun with the dark muzzle pointed directly at Li An. Their posture didn't suggest they were there for a chat.

The four men were dressed in black, with different animal head masks on their faces: a cow's face, a goat's face, a wolf's face, and a lion's face. Only their eyes and chins were visible. The goat and lion masks were holding longer, short-barreled black shotguns.

"Behave yourself. Our boss wants to ask you a few questions."

The voice came from behind him; it was the man who had a gun pointed at his head.