Zombie Life Begins in Hongxi Village

Lin Yi was stunned.

He knew that song too well—Dong Xiaoyu was accompanied by this signature background music almost every time she appeared; it was so catchy that he couldn't forget it.

He looked in the direction of the singing.

Not far from the roadside stood a large banyan tree, its branches and leaves lush and verdant. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in its canopy, scattering silver fragments across the ground.

A woman in her early twenties, dressed in white, with long hair draped over her shoulders, was standing under the tree. She was leaning against the tree trunk, one hand covering her face, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed softly.

Dong Xiaoyu.

Lin Yi saw right through her.

In his zombie vision, the woman was surrounded by a thin layer of gray mist, something that shouldn't be present on a living person.

Although her figure appeared solid, she cast no shadow.

The moonlight shone at her feet, where the ground was empty and without even a blurry outline.

If it were an ordinary person, seeing her looking so pitiful amidst that alluring singing voice, they would completely ignore all the inconsistencies and impulsively rush to her rescue.

That's how Qiu Sheng fell for her trick.

But Lin Yi is a second-generation zombie. If she could be bewitched by a female ghost who has only been dead for a few years, then Jiang Chen's lineage of zombies should have been wiped out.

However, Lin Yi still frowned.

Wait a minute, doesn't Dong Xiaoyu like Qiu Sheng?

According to the original plot, she became involved with Qiu Sheng because he offered incense at her grave, and she took a liking to him.

Why is she not going to find Qiu Sheng, but instead coming to intercept him on the way?

His gaze lingered on Dong Xiaoyu for a moment, and then he suddenly realized—the nickname "playboy" was indeed well-deserved.

This female ghost not only wants Qiu Sheng, but she doesn't intend to let him go either.

She probably bumped into him by chance on her way to find Qiu Sheng, thought he was handsome, and decided on the spot to win him over before going to meet her lover.

The main point is to have it all.

Although Dong Xiaoyu did look very beautiful at the moment—with an oval face, skin so white it was almost transparent, and her tearful eyes like two pools of autumn water, any normal man would feel pity upon seeing her.

But when Lin Yi thought of the scene in the original drama where half of her face was rotten, her stomach churned.

Half of his face was completely rotten, revealing the white bone and black, decaying flesh underneath. His eyeballs dangled outside their sockets, swaying aimlessly. The image was truly unforgettable.

Dong Xiaoyu cried under the tree for a long time, but when she realized that Lin Yi was just standing by the roadside watching and had no intention of coming over to comfort her, her crying gradually subsided.

She gritted her teeth secretly—why doesn't this person play by the rules? In the past, whenever she stood by the roadside, those men would flock to her like cats smelling fish.

This guy, on the other hand, just stood by the roadside like he was watching a show.

After waiting a few moments, she decided to change her strategy.

She wiped away her tears with her sleeve, stepped out from under the tree, and walked gracefully toward Lin Yi.

The moonlight shone on her white dress, and the hem of her skirt swayed gently with her steps, giving her a somewhat eerie appearance.

As she walked, she called out softly, "Young master, I'm lost. Could you please take me home?"

An ordinary man would melt at the sound of that voice.

Dong Xiaoyu was planning in her mind that as soon as Lin Yi reached out to help her, she would throw herself into his arms and then use her bewitching eyes to bewitch him.

She must enjoy such a handsome man for at least the whole night.

But just as she reached a distance of three steps from Lin Yi, Lin Yi dodged to the side as if avoiding a plague. The movement was so quick and large that Dong Xiaoyu missed her target, stumbled a couple of steps, and almost fell to the ground.

"Are you crazy?"

Lin Yi frowned, her disdain undisguised in her voice.

Dong Xiaoyu straightened up, turned around, and the pitiful look on her face vanished instantly.

Her face went from tear-streaked to ashen, then from ashen to bright red—she was furious.

In the years she's been a ghost, she's seduced at least eighty or a hundred men, and every single one of them was completely infatuated with her.

The man in front of her not only wasn't moved, but he avoided her like the plague.

This is an insult to her!

"You! Are you even a man?!" Dong Xiaoyu pointed at Lin Yi's nose, her voice shrill, completely devoid of its previous gentle and ethereal quality.

Her furious expression, coupled with her deathly pale face, looked particularly incongruous.

Dong Xiaoyu is a womanizer; she's always the one manipulating men, and no man ever has the right to look down on her.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She no longer wanted to play hard to get; instead, she stared directly into Lin Yi's eyes, a ghostly gray-green aura flashing in her pupils—

She planned to use her "ghostly eye" technique to hypnotize the man and force herself on him.

Although hypnotized men aren't very interesting, I'll save face first.

However, her bewitching eyes, which could easily subdue a Taoist boy like Qiu Sheng, didn't even cause a ripple in Lin Yi's eyes.

Lin Yi felt a slight brightness before his eyes, and then nothing happened—it was as if someone had shone a flashlight at him, without him even needing to blink.

This completely annoyed Lin Yi.

He originally just wanted to avoid the situation and not bother with a female ghost. But she actually dared to use her ghost-bewitching ability?

His eyes suddenly flashed with a green light, and fangs protruded from his upper jaw.

The anger on Dong Xiaoyu's face turned into extreme fear in an instant.

Her ghostly eyes could clearly "see" the aura emanating from the man before her—a primal, violent power.

That power was like an abyss; her ghostly body was like a candle flame in the wind before this aura, ready to be blown out at any moment.

She didn't even have time to beg for mercy.

Lin Yi threw a punch.

Before the fist even touched Dong Xiaoyu's body, the special bio-force field carried by the fist wind had already torn apart her ghost body.

Her figure froze in mid-air for a moment, then shattered into pieces like a mirror broken by a stone.

Countless gray-green specks of light burst forth from her ghostly body, drifting and scattering in the night wind before finally extinguishing.

"snort!"

Lin Yi withdrew his fist, his fangs slowly retracted into his jaw, and the green light in his eyes faded back to its normal black.

He picked up the box he had placed on the ground and continued walking eastward into the town without looking back.

For Dong Xiaoyu, who had been a womanizer for half the movie, this ending was probably something she never expected—she just wanted to flirt with a handsome guy, but ended up flirting with a zombie.

When they returned to the Ren residence, the lights in the main hall were still on.

Lin Yi pushed open the door, and the two security guards snapped to attention upon seeing him: "Mr. Lin!"

Lin Yi nodded to them, carried her suitcase, and walked through the front yard into the main hall.

Ren Tingting sat in a grand chair, an account book spread out in front of her, and a calligraphy brush in her hand, looking like she had been waiting for a long time.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up and saw Lin Yi carrying a box as she walked in. She placed the calligraphy brush on the brush holder and got up to greet her.

"Why are you so late?" She took the suitcase from Lin Yi and put it on the table, then poured him a cup of hot tea.

Lin Yi took a sip of hot tea, sat down in the armchair, and opened the box to show Ren Tingting—ten large gold bars, twenty-four small gold bars, ten silver dollars, more than a thousand loose silver dollars, and several stacks of US dollars and Japanese yen.

Ren Tingting stared wide-eyed at the box full of gold bars and silver coins.

Although she came from a wealthy family, she had never seen so much cash before.

"Take these and keep them safe. Use them as needed, don't be shy," Lin Yi said.

"Okay, I understand."

She paused, then remembered something. Her smile faded slightly, and she said seriously, "By the way, Commander Long's adjutant just called and asked us to go to Commander Long's residence in the county town tomorrow to meet him. He said there's business to discuss."

"General Long?" Lin Yi raised an eyebrow.

"Commander Long is a warlord in the county town, with more than two thousand men under his command."

The Ren family has always had business dealings with them. When my father was alive, we supplied the military rations for the area under Commander Long's jurisdiction.

But my father has always been the one handling this matter; I've never had any dealings with Commander Long.

Ren Tingting frowned slightly as she said this, "My father had just died when he had someone call, saying it was to discuss business, but I was afraid the caller had ill intentions."

Lin Yi placed the teacup on the table, leaned back in her armchair, and thought for a moment.

His understanding of the warlords of the Republic of China came mainly from movies and novels; few of those guys were good people.

However, even the most powerful warlord in a county town only had a couple of thousand men.

In those days, the ragtag army was so poorly equipped that they couldn't even get a full complement of rifles, and they had to conserve their ammunition. They had at most one or two outdated breech-loading cannons, and whether they could fire them was entirely a matter of luck.

To ordinary people, he was indeed a force to be reckoned with, but to him, two thousand soldiers carrying old-fashioned rifles were just two thousand mobile blood packs.

"I'll go with you," Lin Yi said. "We'll leave first thing tomorrow morning. Have someone prepare a car."

Ren Tingting's eyes reddened slightly.

While waiting for Lin Yi to return, she was thinking about how to ask him to come with her, but to her surprise, he agreed without hesitation.

"Thank you," she said softly, then added, "If Commander Long really has any ill intentions—"

"Then don't blame me for being ruthless," Lin Yi finished the sentence.

As night deepened, the lights in the Ren residence went out.

Lin Yi held Ren Tingting, who had fallen asleep from exhaustion after playing cards, and listened to the chirping of crickets outside the window and the occasional barking of dogs in the distance. His consciousness gradually sank.

dark.

Endless darkness.

He stood in that void once again.

The blue glass bead floated directly in front of me, emitting a soft blue light, like a lonely little star.

Lin Yi looked at it, but this time he didn't reach out to grab it—his previous experience told him that the bead would disappear as soon as he reached out.

He just stood there, staring at it, like two silent adversaries facing off.

The bead suddenly lit up.

A message flooded into his mind without warning—something more direct, as if someone had directly inserted a memory into his consciousness.

"Complete the Mr. Zombie storyline."

Kill the feng shui master Wang Teng, kill Old Master Ren Weiyong, and kill the female ghost Dong Xiaoyu.

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