Zombie Life Begins in Hongxi Village

Lin Yi withdrew the flames, and the corpse energy, malevolent energy, and essence of plants and trees that had been absorbed by the flames flowed back along with the flames.

He felt his strength increase slightly, but there was little joy on his face.

As the royal zombies were burned to nothingness, the power of the innate corpse fire silently spread.

The surrounding rain was evaporated completely in an instant.

The water on the ground dried up at a visible speed, and the soil changed from a moist dark brown to a dry, cracked grayish-white, with cracks extending in all directions like a spider web.

The trees in the tall forest went through the entire process of turning from lush green to withered yellow in just a few seconds.

The entire forest didn't look like it had just been rained on; it looked more like it had been through a drought that lasted for months.

Master Qianhe slumped onto the cracked mud, his throat feeling as if it were stuffed with a lump of burning coal.

His lips were chapped and peeling, and every breath made his throat ache. The hair on his skin was all curled up from the heat.

He felt as if he had been walking in the desert for days without drinking water, and his head was dizzy.

His three apprentices shared the same feeling, slumped on the ground, swallowing hard to quench their thirst.

Inside the tent, Steward Wu and the Seventy-First Prince were in no better shape; both of their hands were trembling.

This is the power of the innate corpse fire, which has been fused with the fire of the drought demon.

He had only released a small ball of flame to burn the royal zombie to death, which wasn't even a warm-up, yet the surrounding environment had already turned into this state.

Indeed, a demon is a demon!

No matter how much he tries to act like a respectable person, he is still a demon.

Moreover, he was the ultimate among demons—the Ancestor of Zombies.

If he were to actually use such flames in battle, it's hard to say what would happen to the enemy after one fight, but the life on the land surrounding the battlefield would certainly be destroyed.

After Hanba fell from heaven as a god and became the progenitor of zombies, why did the Yellow Emperor exile her to the north of the Red River?

It's not just because wherever she goes, drought follows; it's also because her very existence is a threat to the life of the earth.

Now that he has merged with the bloodline of the drought demon, he has also inherited this threat, only it has changed from a passive skill to an active skill.

No wonder many powerful demons are rarely provoked.

Besides their formidable strength, what's even more troublesome is that their destructive power itself is a natural deterrent.

Once someone goes to subdue the great demon, the consequences of the great battle will naturally fall on the shoulders of the one who initiated it.

If a powerful figure were to engage in a fierce battle with Lin Yi, and his flames caused a catastrophe on earth, then not only would Lin Yi bear the consequences, but the person who actively sought out him for a fight would also have to share in the burden.

After all, they were just trying to keep a low profile, but you insisted on causing them trouble.

As a result, the fight destroyed everything around them, and this debt cannot be attributed solely to Lin Yi.

The greater one's ability, the greater one's responsibility.

He is the exact opposite—the greater his ability, the greater the harm he can cause.

His very existence is a potential disaster.

"That's good, at least I don't have to live such a tiring life."

He is not the kind of person who feels guilty about his destructive power.

He didn't even blink when killing Japanese soldiers, and he certainly didn't feel any guilt about damaging the environment.

There is no absolute good or evil in this world, only absolute power. When you have power, it doesn't matter who you are.

He didn't care whether he was a god or a demon; as long as he could live freely, there was nothing wrong with being a great demon that others feared.

At least those righteous people should think twice before coming to their door about whether they can afford the cost of a fight.

The essence from the flames slightly increased his power—very little, perhaps less than one ten-thousandth, but it was indeed an increase.

He didn't expect that his innate Corpse Fire not only had area-of-effect damage, but also an automatic mana regeneration effect.

The life force and corpse energy that had been drained by the corpse fire were all refined into the purest energy by the flames and automatically replenished into his body.

"Master, have some water."

A-Dong handed the water bag to Qian-He, who took it and tilted her head back to gulp it down, taking several large mouthfuls before she could recover.

Ah Dong, Ah Nan, and Ah Bei each clutched their water bags and drank desperately; they had never tasted water so good in their entire lives.

"Seventy-first Prince, come, have some water."

Steward Wu carefully handed a sheepskin water bag to the child dressed in a zombie suit, and only began to drink from it himself after the child had finished.

After drinking the water, he finally regained some of his energy. He stepped out of the tent, pointed at Lin Yi with a delicate, orchid-like finger, and shouted in a shrill voice:

"Hey, you there, why did you burn down the old prince! Let me tell you, you're in big trouble now! Come and apologize to the seventy-first prince!"

If all the guards hadn't been dead, he would have had Lin Yi captured long ago.

Lin Yi turned around and looked at him expressionlessly.

Steward Wu felt a little uneasy under his gaze and subconsciously took a half step back, but when he thought of his status as a sixth-rank steward, his courage returned.

In his view, no matter how powerful a Taoist practitioner is, they cannot use Taoist magic to deal with officials like them who are protected by the imperial court's fortune.

Although Manchukuo was a puppet state of the Qing Dynasty, it did inherit the legal system of the former Qing Dynasty and thus had some semblance of fortune.

This is also why he treated Master Qianhe with disdain, even though he knew Master Qianhe was capable.

In his view, Lin Yi, this Taoist practitioner, was not as threatening as the imperial guards.

He didn't see Lin Yi lift the coffin lid at all; he was huddled in his tent shivering at the time.

He only saw Lin Yi burn the zombie to death with fire, and that was using Taoist magic.

"What are you looking at? Do you know who I am? Believe me or not, I can wipe out your entire sect with a single word!"

"Shut up." Lin Yi casually kicked a pebble with her toe, sending it flying from the ground and piercing Steward Wu's forehead like a bullet.

The sound of the pebble piercing the skull was crisp and clear. Manager Wu's delicate fingers were still raised in mid-air when he fell backward, leaving a bloody hole the size of a peanut on his forehead.

Master Qianhe knew things were going badly the moment Steward Wu spoke.

The person in front of me is definitely a decisive and powerful figure.

Moreover, the restrictions and rules imposed on cultivators are probably ineffective in restraining them.

Not to mention his fiery supernatural power that can evaporate an entire forest, even the strength to lift a coffin lid with one hand is beyond the reach of ordinary people.

But he didn't stop him, because the man surnamed Wu had indeed offended them.

Putting aside the fact that he couldn't beat him, just considering the kindness he showed by saving his master and his disciples' lives, he wouldn't offend Lin Yi for the sake of a dead eunuch like Steward Wu.

It's just a job, only a few hundred dollars, why is he risking his life?

Moreover, it was precisely because this dead eunuch delayed the coffin's entry into the tent that the zombie emerged from the coffin and killed his apprentice, Axi.

It's impossible to say that I don't feel any resentment at all.

Chizuru simply sighed and turned her head away.

Lin Yi didn't even glance at the corpse of Steward Wu on the ground.

With a wave of his hand, he put the golden coffin into his Qiankun Ring, then turned to Daoist Qianhe and said, "Daoist Qianhe, I'm leaving this place to you." Before he finished speaking, he had already disappeared from the spot.

Chizuru bowed deeply in the direction where Lin Yi had disappeared, straightened up, and walked to Axi's body.

Axi is his youngest apprentice, only seventeen years old this year, and is usually his favorite.

With a heavy heart, he threw down a fire talisman and cremated Axi's body. The firelight was particularly dazzling in the dry forest.

The three senior brothers sat around the fire, their eyes red and swollen.

Chizuru then cremated the bodies of the guards and Steward Wu together before walking up to the Seventy-First Prince, who was dressed in zombie clothes.

"Seventy-first Prince, my mission has failed. I will return the deposit to you when I get back. I will send you to the Northeast, so that things will be properly concluded."

The seventy-first prince shook his head, his eyes revealing a maturity beyond his years. "Master Qianhe, I don't want to go to the Northeast."

The court there is a puppet of the Japanese; I don't want to be a traitor to my nation.

He looked up at Chizuru, his eyes filled with a determination beyond his years. "I want to learn from you how to deal with zombies, is that alright?"

Chizuru was stunned and stared into the eyes of the Seventy-First Prince for a long time.

There was not a trace of hesitation on that tender little face, only a resolute determination to burn one's bridges.

Qianhe suddenly laughed and pressed her rough palm hard on the top of the seventy-first prince's head.

"Alright. From now on, you will be my disciple. However, you can no longer be called Jue Luo; you will take my surname. I have eight disciples, and you are the ninth; from now on, you will be called Zhong Jiu."

Zhong Jiu knelt on the cracked mud and kowtowed three times to Qian He, leaving red marks on his forehead as he struck the hard, dry earth.

From now on, there will be no Seventy-One Prince, only Zhong Jiu—Master Qianhe's ninth disciple.

……