Zombie

Zhu Jiusi's eyes snapped open. He raised his head and looked at the sky.

Rain... He'd almost forgotten the last time he'd been caught in the rain.

In his previous run, he'd had a vehicle. It was only a unicycle, but after one upgrade, it came with a roof. When it rained, he'd climb inside.

Getting soaked had become a very niche concept.

Zhu Jiusi looked up at the sky. This rain would probably last a long time.

Mountains, deserts, shadowy forests... The Path Seekers' Dao Path was probably full of places like this.

The temperature was around late autumn's. A lone traveler caught in a downpour had no idea how many people would die on this rainy night.

In this place, there was almost no way to ward off hypothermia.

Every ordinary change in the weather was a natural disaster for Path Seekers.

Zhu Jiusi sighed, then sprang up and let out a series of snorting pig squeals.

Rain was great!

Rain meant water!

He leaped out of his nest and let the downpour wash it clean. Then he dug it out until it sloped down like a proper vat, watching as the rainwater steadily collected inside.

He drank his fill.

Then he took out the empty Gourds he'd accumulated over the past few days and used his hoof to push them under the water. They bubbled as they filled. He plugged them and stowed them in his pack.

He even opened the unopened Gourd he'd gotten from Heart Without Darkness, along with the others.

Open one, fill one. This time, he'd stored at least forty or fifty liters of water. He wouldn't die of thirst for at least ten days.

Journey Survival had its patterns. A drenching downpour meant that for a long while afterward, the odds of finding drinking water in a Gourd would plummet.

Zhu Jiusi wasn't the only clever one. One glance at the Scroll showed that people had already been reminding everyone to store water. They didn't know the patterns of Journey Survival, but they knew how hard it was to find drinking water!

Almost nobody was sleeping. Everyone was sharing ways to store water in the group chat.

Someone even posted an especially lively short video.

Rain Seeker: [A fish leaping in a shallow puddle.]

A fish had gone five or six days without water. At last, it had found some. The sheer joy and excitement were beyond anyone else's understanding.

Crack!

Thunder lit up the night. In the downpour, hailstones as big as fish eyes clattered to the ground.

The weather in Journey Survival could change in an instant, without warning.

Just like sunset and sunrise.

Downpours, gales, blizzards, hail... These were the kinds of weather Path Seekers dreaded most.

Such weather often came with more powerful monsters.

But the rougher the waters, the bigger the catch. This kind of weather also meant better odds of finding high-grade Gourds.

They were still in the newbie protection period, so no monsters had appeared.

Great. Time to get rich.

Zhu Jiusi jumped up, packed away his nest, then plunged into the night through the rain and hail.

He ran while checking the Scroll.

Sparrow: "Fuck! I just finished remodeling my nest, and three hailstones punched right through it! Anyone have wool or feathers? I need to repair it."

One Step Won't Walk: "What's the point of fixing it? Who knows how long this hail will last. You fix it, and then it gets smashed again?"

Sparrow: "...Fair point! But the nest's soaked and weighs a ton. How am I supposed to travel tomorrow?"

One Step Won't Walk: "Wait for the rain to stop and the sun to come up. A few hours in the sun will dry it out. You can fly anyway, so traveling's easy."

Sparrow: "Don't mess with me! Flying isn't easy at all. The first fifty li are easy, but if you want to go farther, you'll run into strong headwinds wherever you fly. One slip and you're going backward..."

Journey Survival was more or less balanced overall. No race had such a huge advantage that it stood alone at the top.

Birds could fly, but not without limits. Fish had a huge advantage on land too—what other creature could breathe on land and roll along on a Skateboard with a flick of its tail?

Even Zhu Jiusi. As a Wild Boar, his health had increased, but his constitution was only 4.

His mental and intellectual faculties were affected too. If he hadn't been starting over with years of experience, it was anyone's guess whether he'd have survived the seven-day newbie protection period.

Some people were excited; others were worried.

They were glad there was finally plenty of water and they could drink their fill. But they feared catching hypothermia in the rain at night. They couldn't even start a fire.

A thousand people, a thousand worries. There wasn't much Zhu Jiusi could do to help. Anyway, he was a sturdy Wild Boar and didn't feel cold.

He burst through the curtains of rain and hail. After running three li, he spotted a Gourd vine, with a Bronze Gourd gleaming on it in the lightning.

Zhu Jiusi was delighted. Sure enough, the combined effects of night and extreme weather could bring in a handsome haul.

He ran toward the vine, but before he reached it, the sky suddenly flashed.

Crack!

Lightning struck the Gourd vine. Before his eyes, two more Bronze Gourds grew from it, while the original one swelled by a third.

Beautiful!

This was the second time Zhu Jiusi had seen a Gourd grow.

The Gourds in Journey Survival all came about this way. Floods, lightning, earthquakes... Any place where energy was released could give rise to a Gourd.

Without something like that, they needed a long time to grow slowly.

With lightning supplying the energy, this vine should have produced a Silver Gourd. But Silver Gourds didn't appear during the newbie protection period, so the vine had borne three Bronze Gourds instead.

These were bound to be the finest of Bronze Gourds!

Zhu Jiusi stood completely still. Only after more than ten minutes, when he was sure the vine no longer held an electrical charge, did he dart over and yank it up, Gourds and all.

He set the Gourds beneath his feet and pulled out a stopper.

White mist poured out, followed by a cry of "Awooo!"

Wretched and eerie.

Zhu Jiusi instantly backed away. His forehooves scraped at the ground, his hind legs crouched, and his hooves sank halfway into the earth. He took the stance best suited for a charge.

The downpour scattered the mist from the Gourd, revealing a monster.

Humanoid, gaunt, covered in frost-white fuzz.

A zombie!

The moment it appeared, it let out a long howl and bounded toward Zhu Jiusi.

Its ten fingers ended in pitch-black nails more than an inch long. Even in midair, it was already reaching to stab him.

But the instant it jumped, Zhu Jiusi kicked off with all four hooves and hurtled forward like a pig-shaped tank.

Thud!

It was like crashing into a cold coffin lid. The creature's whole body was stiff as a board.

Zhu Jiusi slammed into it, sending the zombie tumbling through the air and crashing to the ground.

But it sprang right back up, stiff as a corpse. The Wild Boar's brutal charge hadn't hurt it at all.

The stench of a corpse rushed toward him with the wind and rain.

The zombie reeked of death, yet its eyes held a trace of life. Its head lolled at an eerie angle as it stared fixedly at the artery in Zhu Jiusi's neck.

The blood surging through Zhu Jiusi's body held an irresistible allure for it.

"Uuu—"

A chilling howl rang out. Zhu Jiusi felt a buzz in his head, and the whole world trembled a few times.

It was like being seasick.

The thing's cry struck directly at the soul. As luck would have it, Zhu Jiusi's constitution was only 5!

The zombie howled again and lunged at him. Zhu Jiusi rolled along the ground, barely dodging the attack, and tumbled into the nearby woods.

The icy rain pelted his head and brought him back to his senses. Zhu Jiusi lowered his body and watched the zombie, backing away inch by inch, with a trace of terror in his eyes.

Fear was the finest nourishment for all yin creatures.

The zombie's howls grew short and excited, hungry for blood. It shrieked as it sprang at Zhu Jiusi.

It leaped into the air and struck at the Wild Boar, only to suddenly realize that the fear on the pig's face had vanished.

The pig not only didn't dodge, but hunched its body and charged straight at it, slipping underneath.

Then it turned and charged!

Thud!

With a dull boom, the zombie had barely hit the ground when Zhu Jiusi slammed into it and sent it flying. It crashed straight into the mist beyond the woods.

His earlier rolling and dodging had only been to lead the zombie step by step toward the mist.

Zhu Jiusi might not be clever, but the instincts and experience from three years of Journey Survival hadn't gone anywhere.

Zhu Jiusi shook his head, still rattled by the Corpse Howl, then turned and headed back toward the road to check what the Gourd had dropped.

It was a lump of mud.