Ghost Immortal

That night, Li Feng went to bed.

Oh no, I mean I'm at work.

The sound of the clapper echoed through the empty alley, shattering the moonlight on the ground.

Li Feng, dressed in a blue long gown with a hemp rope tied around his waist and straw sandals on his feet, carried a paper lantern in his left hand and a clapper in his right. Following the route map given to him by Zhao Tiezhu, he began knocking from the first alley in the south of the city.

It was the end of the first watch of the night, around 7 PM.

After it got completely dark, Qingyan City was eerily quiet; you couldn't even hear a dog barking.

Only the sound of the clapper in Li Feng's hand rang out one after another.

"Bang...bang bang!"

Knock three times, pause three times, then knock three more times.

This is the rule for night watchmen.

Li Feng didn't walk very fast, but he activated all five senses, capturing the movements around him.

The doors and windows of the houses on both sides of the alley were tightly closed, with faint light shining through the cracks in the doors.

Li Feng could sense that even this light had the power to ward off evil spirits and frighten ghosts; no wonder ordinary people couldn't afford it.

Occasionally, an oil lamp was still lit in one or two windows, and the dim yellow flame cast blurry human figures on the window paper.

The eerie, ghostly figures roamed the alleyways, more numerous and intense than he had sensed the night he entered the city.

The vast majority of these yin energies were scattered fragments of wandering souls, not even complete ghosts, and they dissipated on their own when shaken by the sound of the clapper.

However, the dark figures huddled in some corners were much more solid, having already formed the prototype of complete vengeful spirits.

Li Feng casually rolled the dough into a ball, intending to take it back to feed Gao Feng.

He's like an ordinary person going out to work, and Gao Feng is like a cat at home, waiting for him to come back and feed him after he's gone hunting.

As you walk by, striking the clapper, the sound waves of the clapper will drive away any useless vengeful spirits.

Zhao Tiezhu is right. The night watchman should just strike the clapper and not meddle in other people's business.

But minding one's own business doesn't mean not observing.

Li Feng silently noted in his mind which alley had the strongest yin energy, the most vengeful spirits, and the unique fishy-sweet smell of the Black Mist.

After walking through just four alleys, he figured out a pattern.

The closer you get to the north of the city, the heavier the yin energy becomes, and the higher the concentration of dark and ominous energy.

The north of the city is the direction of the mass grave, which perfectly matches the information Zhang Gengtou gave before his death.

By the time we finished walking through the seventh alley, it was already past midnight.

Li Feng turned into the eighth alley, which was a bit wider than the previous ones. Several shops were open on both sides, but they were all closed and boarded up.

Only at the end of the alley, a row of large red lanterns remained lit, with the words "Yihonglou" written on them, their red light warming half the alley.

Brothel.

Li Feng wasn't really interested at the moment; he just wanted to collect spirit stones, so he continued walking forward, banging on his clapper as usual.

Just as I reached the alleyway opposite Yihong Building, I heard a cacophony of shouting and cursing coming from inside the building.

"Get out! Get the hell out of here! You dare come here to drink and seduce people when you have no money? Do you think this place is a charity?"

A shrill, shrewish voice rang out, particularly jarring in the night.

Immediately afterwards, the door of Yihonglou was kicked open from the inside.

A man dressed in a gray cloth short jacket was pushed out unsteadily, lost his footing, tumbled down the steps, and fell onto the bluestone pavement.

"Ouch!"

The man screamed and struggled to his feet. He reeked of alcohol, his face covered in dirt and blood, and it was impossible to tell whether he had fallen or been beaten.

He staggered to his feet and cursed at the entrance of the brothel, "Bitches! What a fucking bunch of bitches!"

"When I have money, I'm treated like royalty; when I'm broke, I just throw it away! You know I'll be rich tomorrow, I'll dig up some treasure!"

A middle-aged woman dressed in red and green stood at the entrance of Yihong Tower; she was the madam of Yihong Tower.

She stood with her hands on her hips, her face covered in thick makeup, and a large black mole on the corner of her mouth, with three long hairs growing from it.

Hearing the man's drunken ramblings, she scoffed and shrieked, "Digging for treasure? You, Zhao Laosan, are so poor you can barely afford pants, what kind of bullshit treasure are you talking about? If you can find any treasure, I'll twist my head off and give it to you as a stool!"

"Get out of here, or I'll have your legs broken!"

Zhao Laosan was cursing and about to say something more, but suddenly, as if frightened by something, he widened his eyes and stared intently at the red lanterns hanging at the entrance of Yihonglou.

His expression was terrified; the color drained from his face, his lips trembled, and he pointed a trembling finger at the lantern.

"The lantern... why did one of the lanterns go out?"

The madam glanced back, then turned and yelled, "What nonsense are you spouting? All the lanterns are lit! Are you drunk? Get out of here!"

Zhao Laosan acted as if he hadn't heard her, and suddenly turned and ran.

He ran extremely fast, his staggering steps making a clattering sound on the bluestone slabs, like a horse stumbling.

As she ran, she kept looking back, letting out a piercing scream.

"A ghost! A ghost is following me! Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!"

The madam was startled by his appearance, but she assumed he was just a drunkard acting crazy. She spat and quickly turned around and went back into the building.

The gates of Yihong Pavilion closed again, and the red lanterns still swayed in the night breeze.

Li Feng stood at the alley entrance, watching Zhao Laosan run towards him.

Zhao Laosan ran unsteadily, nearly falling several times, while constantly shouting "There's a ghost!"

As he passed Li Feng, he didn't even glance at him, rushing past him and continuing to run deeper into the alley.

Li Feng frowned slightly.

He hadn't sensed any unusual fluctuations in yin energy.

The red lanterns at the entrance of Yihonglou were all lit, not one of them went out.

This person is either genuinely drunk and hallucinating, or there's something else going on.

He didn't chase after them, but continued walking forward while banging on his clapper.

Less than twenty steps later, a muffled thud suddenly came from the corner of the alley ahead, like the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.

Immediately afterwards, Zhao Laosan's screams came to an abrupt halt.

The alleyway fell silent again, as if dead.

Li Feng paused, picked up the lantern, and walked towards the corner.

Turning the corner, the light from the lantern shone on the ground, casting the image of a curled-up body.

Zhao Laosan lay face down on the ground, motionless.

Li Feng strode forward, squatted down, and brought the lantern closer.

Zhao Laosan's face was turned to one side, his eyes wide open, his mouth agape, his expression frozen in extreme fear, as if he had seen something horrific before he died.

He reached out to check Zhao Laosan's pulse and found that there was no pulse at all.

The moment my fingers touched my skin, an abnormally cold sensation came through.

It wasn't the gradually cooling body temperature of a recently deceased person; it was more like frozen meat that had been in a refrigerator for months.

Li Feng's expression suddenly changed drastically.

He placed the lantern on the ground and reached out to turn Zhao Laosan's body over.

The lantern light shone on Zhao Laosan's face, and Li Feng's pupils suddenly contracted.

Zhao Laosan's face is rotting!

The skin was bluish-gray with multiple ulcers oozing pus. The skin around the corners of the mouth and eyes was peeled back, revealing grayish-white tissue underneath.

A faint stench of decay emanated from him, which, carried by the night breeze, entered Li Feng's nostrils.

This is clearly a corpse that has been dead for at least ten days!

Just now, this person was kicked out of the brothel, standing on the street cursing, and ran past him quickly.

Li Feng pressed his fingers on Zhao Laosan's chest. He could feel the yin energy within the corpse slowly dissipating, drawing away his last bit of life.

The walking dead! The walking dead!

The word instantly popped into his mind.

The tattered book records that under certain special circumstances, a person who has recently died will have yin energy forcibly injected into their body, temporarily maintaining their ability to move and making them look no different from a living person, but in reality, they are already a corpse.

These walking corpses only last for a short time, usually only a few hours, and they will return to their original form once the yin energy dissipates.

But Zhao Laosan's situation was clearly different.

His body had been decomposed for at least ten days.

What kind of person can walk around on the street, drink, and curse like a living person even after being dead for ten days?

Unless he had been controlled by something for ten days and had been moving around the city in a zombie-like state.

Li Feng stood up, took a step back, and examined Zhao Laosan's corpse.

He now finally understood why Zhao Laosan had suddenly gone mad.

It wasn't because he was drunk, but because the yin energy of the walking corpse had dissipated, and he himself hadn't realized that he was completely dead.

Li Feng picked up the lantern, preparing to leave, when suddenly hurried footsteps came from the alley entrance.

"Who's there!"

Seven or eight constables rushed in from the alley entrance carrying torches. The leader was a lean man in his early thirties, dressed in black clothes, with a knife at his waist, and his triangular eyes gleaming in the firelight.

The constables following behind him quickly dispersed, forming a fan shape to surround Li Feng and the corpse on the ground.