Hong Kong Island, Green Mountain Road.
Beneath the coastal stretch of Green Dragon Head Road, headlights suddenly pierced the hazy curtain of a drizzly night, shining onto a muddy path.
An engine roared. A secondhand black Dafa sedan rocked its way along the dirt road and pulled up in front of a dilapidated freight warehouse concealed behind trees and weeds.
Big Mouth Wai, a burly man with a ponytail tied at the back of his head, climbed out of the car. He rubbed his crotch, which had grown a little tight after sitting for so long, then looked at the freight warehouse and spat. "This place is remote enough. Fei Zai Dong, you've got him locked up in here?"
The young man called Fei Zai Dong had a short crew cut and wore a loose-fitting T-shirt. He looked rather pleased with himself as he replied,
"Yeah, Brother Wai. Long Zai and I found him in less than half a day. You told us not to draw attention, so I brought him over here. It's close to the marine police station. Nobody would think to look for him here..."
"With brains like yours, what the hell are you doing as a street punk? Go start a company."
Big Mouth Wai snorted and waved a hand. "Take me to see him first. That bastard's been hiding for days, and he's got me riled up. Once this is taken care of, you two can officially follow me."
"Thank you, Brother Wai..."
Fei Zai Dong let out a few strange laughs, then called to the burly young man climbing out of the back seat. "Long Zai, hurry up and open the door! Once we've taken care of this, we'll be following Brother Wai."
"Mm—"
The burly young man wore a filthy tank top and seemed a little slow-witted. He raised his chin in acknowledgment, took a key from his pocket, and silently walked to the warehouse door.
Clang—
The warehouse's iron gate swung open, and a pungent stench of rot, blood, and rust surged out of the pitch-black interior, stinging their noses.
"It's like a cesspit! Why does it stink so bad?"
Big Mouth Wai hurriedly covered his nose and mouth and backed away two steps. He took a pack of red Marlboros from his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. After taking a deep drag, he noticed Fei Zai Dong staring at him, so he casually tossed him the pack.
"Thanks, Brother Wai!"
Fei Zai Dong waved away the air in front of him, grinning as he accepted the cigarettes. He took one from the pack, lit it too, and savored a few puffs.
Only Long Zai, the burly young man, seemed not to notice the stench inside the warehouse. He walked straight in and turned on the lights.
"Dong, the lights are on," Long Zai called out in a deep voice.
"Brother Wai, he's inside."
With a cigarette between the fingers of his right hand, Fei Zai Dong emphasized once again, "As soon as we got your message, Long Zai and I found him in half a day."
"Impressive. All those triads couldn't find him, but he fell into your hands, Fei Zai Dong."
Big Mouth Wai tapped ash from his cigarette and patted Fei Zai Dong on the shoulder, a smile spreading across his face.
"It was nothing. The kid just happened to run into me."
As they talked, the three of them entered the warehouse. Three energy-saving tube lights hanging from the ceiling flickered on, their white light illuminating the modest space with startling clarity.
Wooden crates and scrap metal were piled haphazardly throughout the warehouse. It had clearly been abandoned for a long time.
There were several more warehouses like it nearby. Most had been left behind decades ago by smugglers transporting goods on sampans, and no one had looked after them in years.
An old three-bladed ceiling fan above the middle of the warehouse turned slowly, creaking with every rotation.
On the filthy, stinking concrete floor beneath it stood an iron cage meant for keeping large pets. A filthy figure was currently lying inside.
Fei Zai Dong walked over and kicked the cage, shouting angrily, "Black Fish Zai, look who's here!"
But the man inside lay face down on the ground, as if dead, and didn't respond at all.
"Fei Zai Dong, I told you to find him. Don't you dare kill him. My boss still has questions for him."
Holding his cigarette, Big Mouth Wai pointed at Fei Zai Dong, his tone carrying a trace of displeasure.
"Don't worry, Brother Wai. He was still alive when we left. Damn you, Black Fish Zai..."
With the cigarette dangling from his lips, Fei Zai Dong kicked the cage again. The heavy impact rang through the warehouse, but the figure inside remained completely still.
Smack! Big Mouth Wai slapped Fei Zai Dong on the back of the head. "Hurry up and get him out! Damn it! My boss sent me to find this bastard alive."
"He's definitely alive, definitely alive." The slap knocked the cigarette from Fei Zai Dong's mouth. He didn't dare raise his voice, merely hunching his shoulders as he called to the burly young man beside him. "Long Zai, come give me a hand. Get him out."
"Okay." Long Zai looked up at Big Mouth Wai, then walked over to Fei Zai Dong with a guileless expression. Together, they opened the cage door and dragged the man out.
The moment he was out, the stench of all kinds of foul odors became even more overpowering. Fei Zai Dong took one look and turned deathly pale, stumbling backward as he muttered, "He... he's really dead?!"
The man lying on the floor was a young man in his twenties, with a mop of messy yellow hair plastered to his scalp. His face was bluish, his lips black and purple, and he lay there like a heap of rotting meat, without the slightest movement.
Big Mouth Wai tossed aside the half-smoked cigarette in his hand and strode over to the young man. First, he checked for breath, then pressed the artery in the man's neck.
"He's dead, Brother Wai. We've killed someone!"
Standing several meters away, Fei Zai Dong watched Big Mouth Wai check the man's pulse. He was completely panicked.
He glanced at Long Zai, then suddenly leaped at him, punching and kicking. "Long Zai, you idiot! I told you not to hit him, and you beat him to death!"
"I didn't!"
The tall, burly Long Zai covered his head and didn't fight back. He only answered in his deep, rumbling voice.
"Enough!"
Big Mouth Wai roared. His face livid, he stood up from the floor and glared at Fei Zai Dong.
Fei Zai Dong immediately fell silent, his voice trembling. "W-what do we do, Brother Wai? He's dead."
"You two did it. What the hell does it have to do with me?"
Big Mouth Wai cursed him without hesitation. He glanced at the panicked Fei Zai Dong and the wooden-faced Long Zai, then grew even more agitated. "My boss sent me to get answers from this bastard... Damn it, what are you two standing around for? If you don't want to go on the run, get rid of the body! Do I have to spell it out for you?"
"Right, right, get rid of the body."
Big Mouth Wai's scolding seemed to snap Fei Zai Dong out of his panic. "We'll sink the body at sea. Then..."
"No." Big Mouth Wai cut him off before he could finish. "This place is too close to the marine police station. The sea isn't safe, either. The body could wash back up at any time. And if we go to the shore now and run into the marine police, then we're really finished."
Fei Zai Dong forced a smile onto his pale face and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "Yes, yes. You've thought it through, Brother Wai."
Big Mouth Wai lifted his head and scanned the warehouse. In the corner, he spotted a few shovels and hoes among some farming tools. "Let's go find a patch of ground, dig a hole, and bury him. We'll take this secret to our graves..."
Click, click—
Just then, an extremely strange sound suddenly rang out.
"What?! Black Fish Zai—Black Fish Zai moved! Brother Wai, Black Fish Zai moved!"
Fei Zai Dong, who was standing near the iron cage, leaped three feet into the air like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He pointed dramatically at the yellow-haired young man's body and screamed in terror.
"Damn it, moved my—"
Big Mouth Wai jumped at Fei Zai Dong's reaction and was about to curse him out. But then he felt something brush against his foot. In an instant, a chill ran from his tailbone to the back of his head, and he sprang several meters backward.
Click, click—
Click, click—
Two more faint, brittle sounds followed.
The body of Black Fish Zai lying on the ground began twitching in an utterly bizarre manner.
Then the corpse's joints twisted and stiffened, and he swayed unsteadily to his feet like a puppet in a puppet show.
"Z-z-z... zombie..."
Fei Zai Dong's teeth chattered, his face full of terror. He spun around and ran for the exit, but he was so panicked that his foot caught on a broken stool. He crashed heavily to the ground.
"Ah Dong, you fell!"
Seeing Fei Zai Dong fall, the dazed Long Zai hurried over and reached out to help him up.
From beginning to end, he seemed largely unfazed by the corpse that had suddenly stood up.
"Long Zai, you're such an idiot!"
Seeing Long Zai's vacant expression, Fei Zai Dong hurriedly grabbed his arm. "Let's get out of here!"
"Don't run!"
Big Mouth Wai suddenly roared, stopping Fei Zai Dong from escaping. He turned to stare at Black Fish Zai's swaying corpse, his expression shifting uneasily. "Black Fish Zai, you bastard. Are you a man or a ghost?"
For the past few years, every film studio had been churning out supernatural and zombie movies to cash in on the trend. Big Mouth Wai had drunk and fought alongside plenty of stuntmen who played zombies. He didn't believe in this stuff at all.
The "Black Fish Zai" who had stood up from the floor didn't react at all to Big Mouth Wai's shout.
His head drooped, and his eyes were closed beneath his messy hair. Yet his hands, feet, shoulders, and body moved one jerky twitch at a time, as if lifted by puppet strings.
The sight was utterly bizarre.
"Fei Zai Dong, go take a look."
Big Mouth Wai didn't believe that Black Fish Zai had somehow become a zombie, but he couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.
He had personally checked Black Fish Zai's corpse earlier. Not only had the man's pulse and breathing stopped, but his skin had gone cold, too.
"Brother Wai, I—I—I can't. My legs are weak..."
Fei Zai Dong, leaning against Long Zai, turned deathly pale at the order and hurriedly waved it off.
"Don't be a coward. It's not that easy to turn into a zombie. At worst, he's just risen from the dead."
Big Mouth Wai cursed. Seeing that Fei Zai Dong was useless, he fixed his gaze on Black Fish Zai, who stood before him.
Big Mouth Wai didn't believe Black Fish Zai had become a zombie, but he thought it was possible the corpse had risen from the dead.
He'd dealt with directors and stuntmen who worked on supernatural movies. A screenwriter called Ah Hua had once told him that zombies were corpses transformed by accumulated resentment and the feng shui of their burial site, or by being infected with corpse poison before death. Zombies had stiff bodies, black, sharp fingernails, and sharp canine teeth.
Black Fish Zai hadn't been infected with corpse poison, nor had he been buried. Clearly, he wasn't a zombie, but it was entirely possible that he had risen from the dead.
When people died, a breath sometimes remained in their chests. If something startled the body, it could seem to come back to life. That was what people called rising from the dead.
But a corpse that rose from the dead could only rely on that one remaining breath. It couldn't truly come back to life. Once that breath was used up, it would be completely dead.
Big Mouth Wai figured that was probably what was happening to the "Black Fish Zai" in front of him.
"Damn it, let's see what the hell you are."
Big Mouth Wai gritted his teeth and glanced around. He grabbed a two-meter-long square timber beam of the kind commonly used atop cargo containers, then cautiously approached "Black Fish Zai," who stood swaying in place like a scarecrow.
"Ha!"
With a furious shout, Big Mouth Wai suddenly raised the beam and swung it hard at "Black Fish Zai's" head.
Crack! The beam slammed into Black Fish Zai's forehead and snapped in two.
Black Fish Zai remained completely motionless. He didn't cry out in pain, and not a drop of blood ran from his forehead. He simply stood there, staring blankly ahead.
Big Mouth Wai swallowed, unable to help himself as he stared at the eerie sight.
But just then—
The body of "Black Fish Zai," which had been as still as a corpse, suddenly remained motionless as his left leg shot up in a lightning-fast kick. His foot slammed into Big Mouth Wai's chin.
The kick was as fast as lightning, with no warning whatsoever, and astonishingly powerful.
Crack! Big Mouth Wai's head twisted backward at an unnatural angle, and the force of the kick sent him flying.
"Brother Wai?!"
Fei Zai Dong, who had witnessed the entire scene, stared in shock, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
Big Mouth Wai lay on the ground with his jaw shattered, blood gushing from his mouth and nose. His neck was broken, too. His twisted body twitched a few times, then fell completely still.
"Ah!!! Long Zai, run! Hurry!"
Fei Zai Dong glanced again at Black Fish Zai, then grabbed the wooden-headed Long Zai by the arm and dragged him toward the warehouse exit.
Though he'd never joined a triad, he'd made a name for himself in Tuen Mun by learning a few moves as a boy at the White Crane Boxing Gym.
For an ordinary person to kick from a standing position without moving their body, their foot could hardly reach higher than their shoulder unless they were trained or exceptionally flexible. And even then, their kick wouldn't be especially powerful.
They'd kept Black Fish Zai locked up for days, abusing and beating him. They knew exactly what kind of man he was. There was no way he could be that strong.
But the force of Black Fish Zai's kick had been terrifying. It hadn't just shattered Big Mouth Wai's jaw; it had broken his neck, too.
His head had been struck without a drop of blood. Then, with his eyes closed, he'd kicked Big Mouth Wai to death.
This... This Black Fish Zai couldn't be human!
The slow-witted Long Zai glanced at Fei Zai Dong, who was anxiously urging him to hurry, then at the "corpse" he'd apparently beaten to death, which had stood back up. He suddenly nodded, grabbed Fei Zai Dong, and ran outside.
Outside the warehouse, the Dafa sedan's engine roared to life and gradually faded into the distance.
The "living corpse" standing in place still didn't move.
Gradually, however, a trace of color returned to his paper-white face, and thin streams of red blood seeped out from between the hair on his forehead.
"Phew—"
After a long while, a deep breath escaped the "living corpse." A hoarse voice rang out in the filthy, abandoned warehouse.
"I... finally... came back to life."