Zombie World: Starting as an apprentice of the Thunder King

By evening, Awei returned looking dejected. Lin Bei glanced at him and knew he hadn't gained anything.

Awei muttered under his breath, "Didn't find any zombies, but we did run into a bear!"

It's a pity Lin Bei didn't hear it, otherwise perhaps he would have remembered something...

As night fell as black as ink, a tall figure slowly emerged from the depths of a cave amidst the mountains thirty miles outside Renjia Town.

The moonlight shone on the tattered, purplish-black body. The wound cleaved open by Uncle Nine's sword was still oozing wisps of corpse energy, though it was much shallower than it had been two days ago.

Two gray-white eyeballs slowly rolled in their sockets, and a low gurgling sound came from his throat.

Liu Santong stood outside the cave entrance, gazing at the distant village lights, a cold smile playing on his lips.

A wisp of black yin energy condensed at his fingertips and drifted with the night wind toward the face of the purple zombie.

The purple zombie sniffed the yin energy, a barely perceptible tremor emanating from deep within its corpse, before leaping towards the village below the mountain.

It leaped several meters, landing silently.

"Blame your bad luck!" Liu Santong turned and walked into the cave!

At the foot of the mountain, in Liujia'ao, there are about thirty households. They have all turned off their lights and gone to bed. Only one household at the entrance of the village still has a dim light shining from its window.

Liu Dazhuang had just returned from the fields and was sitting in front of the stove eating a bowl of hot brown rice while his wife was in the inner room putting the child to sleep.

Although life was tiring, Liu Dazhuang felt very at ease!

The gate to his courtyard was not bolted. When the purple zombie jumped into the yard, the door was forced open by the surge of corpse energy emanating from it, and it crashed against the wall with a bang.

Liu Dazhuang was startled. When he went out to look, the bowl in his hand crashed to the ground. He saw a purplish-black monster standing upright at the entrance of the main room, with two sharp fangs showing in its mouth.

"Zombie...!"

"Mother...women, run!"

Liu Dazhuang let out a roar, grabbed the wood-chopping knife beside him, and chopped at the purple zombie's head.

The machete struck the zombie's skull, bounced off with a clang, and a nick appeared on the blade, causing blood to gush from the impact.

The purple zombie didn't even flinch; it stretched out its two claws and pierced straight into Liu Dazhuang's chest.

The moment the fangs pierced his neck, Liu Dazhuang convulsed violently twice, made a muffled gurgling sound in his throat, and then collapsed.

The purple zombie loosened its grip on the corpse, turned around, and walked into the inner room. Then, a woman's scream and a child's cry came from the inner room, but they stopped abruptly after a few breaths.

The family of three was wiped out.

The purple zombie absorbed the blood of the three people, and the wound on its chest healed at a speed visible to the naked eye. The pale color in its eyes also deepened slightly, revealing a hint of spiritual light.

It licked the blood from its mouth, still seemingly unsatisfied, and hopped toward the next house.

Overnight, in the three villages of Liujia'ao, Wangjiapo, and Lijia Gou, seven households and twenty-three people were all drained of their blood and lay dead in their homes.

The purple zombie had drunk the blood of twenty-three people, and its injuries had greatly improved. Its bluish-black skin once again gleamed with a metallic cold light, and even its fingernails had grown by half an inch.

Liu Santong walked out of the cave and looked at the purple zombie jumping around in the moonlight. A cold smile appeared on his lips: "Suck it, suck it more. When you've had enough, I'll let you go find your most beloved granddaughter."

The purple zombie seemed to sense something, glanced in the direction of Liu Santong, and then leaped into the depths of the dense forest, disappearing without a trace.

The next morning, Renjia Town was in an uproar.

Three shriveled corpses were carried into the ancestral hall in the center of town, covered with white cloth, but the wound on Liu Dazhuang's chest and the two purplish-black holes on his neck were still conspicuous.

The crowd of onlookers packed in three or four layers, whispering and discussing amongst themselves.

"The entire Liu family of three is gone. They looked terrifying; the holes in their necks looked like they'd been poked with chopsticks!"

"Several people died in Wangjiapo too. Some people said they saw a dark figure leap several meters high!"

"Those corpses were completely bloodless, like dehydrated mummies!"

"Have you heard? Glutinous rice! They say glutinous rice can repel zombies! Go grab some glutinous rice!"

The news spread like wildfire, and the rice shop was instantly surrounded by people.

The glutinous rice in the three rice shops in Renjia Town was sold out, and even the rice shops in the neighboring Huangjia Town were out of stock.

The price of rice tripled from eight coins per pound, yet it was still in short supply.

Awei and his security team, drenched in sweat, worked tirelessly to maintain order, their voices hoarse from shouting: "Don't push! Don't push! Each household is limited to five jin!"

Inside the mortuary, Uncle Nine led the group to inspect several corpses that had been brought in. Lin Bei squatted down next to one of them, reached out and carefully examined the wound on the side of the deceased's neck, his brows furrowed.

"Uncle-Master, the wounds are healing much faster than those from yesterday, and there is a lot of residual corpse energy. It was obviously the work of that purple zombie. I'm afraid its injuries have recovered by about 70 or 80 percent."

"It has sucked the blood of at least twenty people." Uncle Nine put down the white cloth in his hand and stood up straight. "Twenty lives are enough for it to heal most of its wounds. If it drags on any longer, it will take a lot of effort for me to fully recover and even break through to the level of a hairy zombie."

Ren Tingting stood to the side, her small face filled with fear and unease, looking at the corpses with a deep sense of guilt.

Qiu Sheng couldn't bear to see her like this, so he whispered a few words of comfort. Wen Cai also nodded and bowed beside her, saying, "Tingting, don't be afraid. With Master and us... and your two senior brothers here, we'll kill every zombie that comes, one by one, two by two!"

Lin Bei glanced at him. "You speak so casually. What are you going to do when the zombies come?"

Uncle Nine sent people to collect lychee wood to burn these corpses; they'll probably turn into zombies tonight!

Then he turned and walked into the mortuary: "Lin Bei, come with me."

In the main room, Uncle Nine sat down opposite Lin Bei. He was silent for a moment before breaking the silence: "Since that feng shui master can control the purple zombie, it means he placed a restriction on this zombie. I guess he used a technique like the Corpse Puppet Technique."

"If we don't get rid of him, even if we kill the zombie, he can just create a new one."

Lin Bei nodded: "This disciple has also thought of this. Shall we split into two groups? This disciple will go out during the day to look for traces of the zombies, while Uncle Master will go to investigate the whereabouts of the feng shui master at night?"

"There's no need to separate." Uncle Nine shook his head. "That purple zombie's target is Ren Tingting. Ren Tingting is with us. It will come to us sooner or later."

"The feng shui master wants Ren Tingting dead, and he'll also be eyeing the mortuary. We just need to wait and see, and let them walk right into our trap."

"What about during the day? Are we just going to wait around like this?"

"During the day, you and I will take turns patrolling the mountains, forests, and cemeteries within a radius of twenty miles. If we can find a purple zombie, we will eliminate it on the spot. If we can't find it, we will find out the location of its nest."

This was the first time Uncle Nine had felt so passive. "Tonight you'll take the first shift. I'll take Qiu Sheng and Wen Cai out. Tomorrow you'll take Shao Jian out, and I'll stay at the mortuary."

Lin Bei agreed: "Okay, then let's do as Uncle says."