That old man was clearly a seasoned troublemaker. Satisfied, Zhang Yuanqing put away his knife and asked:
"First question: how did Wang Xiao'er become like this?"
Generally speaking, there were two ways a yin corpse could form. One was through human refinement, like how he had refined Undead No. 1.
The other was for a corpse to be buried in a place thick with yin energy, slowly absorbing it over time and developing a faint intelligence, becoming a zombie—a yin corpse.
Wang Xiao'er did not fit the second scenario. If it was the first, then whoever had turned an ordinary villager into such a powerful yin corpse—one even stronger than Undead No. 1—possessed a rather terrifying method.
The old man said bitterly:
"Wasn't it because he went tomb raiding and brought back something unclean? A while ago, Wang Xiao'er disappeared for several days, then suddenly returned to the village carrying a huge bag of gold, silver, jade, and antiques. He said he'd struck it rich, that he was going to build the best house in the village and marry a girl from the provincial capital.
"He went to Mr. Xu, the village schoolteacher, and asked him to appraise a few antiques and estimate their value."
Antiques? Zhang Yuanqing did not dwell on how Wang Xiao'er had become a yin corpse. Instead, he asked:
"What antiques did he bring back?"
The old man recalled:
"I was there watching the excitement. He showed Mr. Xu three antiques. One was a sculpture of a little girl without a tongue. It had a pair of protruding ears, and it was black and glossy. It felt cool to the touch. Mr. Xu said it was yin jade, the kind that had to sit in a tomb for years to become so sleek and lustrous."
"One