Teasing the Pretty Lady

Chen Family Village.

The advancement of the Grand Ancestor Saber Technique had allowed Wei Xuanfeng to gain an initial grasp of saber aura.

Coupled with the fact that his attributes had already reached their peak, he no longer had to flee in disarray when facing a wolf pack.

The process of slaughtering demons all the way as they fought their way out need not be mentioned for now. By the time they reached Chen Family Village, dawn had already broken.

"Why is it so quiet?"

Before they had even entered, Fox Murong frowned slightly.

Even if all the wolf demons had been lured away, Embroidery and Seven Killings should at least have stationed saber soldiers around the village to keep watch.

Yet from afar, the entire village was deathly silent. Not even the crow of a rooster or the bark of a dog could be heard.

Morning light spilled across the rooftops. It should have been time for cooking smoke to rise, yet only a few intermittent strands of black smoke drifted from a burned-out house, like the final breath of a dying man.

"Be careful." Wei Xuanfeng lowered his voice and drew his Embroidered Spring Saber.

The three of them edged inward along the earthen wall by the village entrance.

Their feet sank into the muddy road, every step carrying a sticky echo.

Wei Xuanfeng looked down and saw that the soles of his shoes were coated in a layer of dark-red substance, mostly dried, like the crust formed when syrup cooled.

Then he saw the first corpse.

A saber soldier sat propped against the base of a wall, his head tilted to one side and his eyes wide open.

There were no wounds on his body, no bloodstains. His face was white as a sheet of paper soaked in water, and even his lips had turned a grayish white.

Wei Xuanfeng crouched to inspect him for two seconds, then reached out and touched the back of his hand...

The flesh had sunken beneath the skin, and the veins and sinews had shriveled, as though something had drained every drop of moisture from his body.

"Dead?" Fox Murong swallowed behind him.

"Dead." Wei Xuanfeng rose to his feet. "But I don't know what killed him."

As they continued forward, the corpses grew more numerous.

Seven or eight saber soldiers lay sprawled crookedly along the village road, each in a different pose...

Some were face-down in the mud, their fingers still clawing at the ground as though they had been crawling before they died.

Others lay on their backs with mouths agape, their eye sockets sunken, their skin stretched taut over bone like mummified corpses left for three months without rotting.

Their clothes were all intact, without tears or signs of a struggle. Their weapons were still sheathed.

They had not even had time to draw their sabers.

Wen Shihan clenched the chain of her meteor hammer, her knuckles turning white.

Wei Xuanfeng pushed open a half-closed courtyard gate, glanced inside, then shut it again.

"Several villagers inside. The same way." His voice was very low, but there was still a hint of tightness in it. "No blood, no wounds. It's like... something drained every drop of blood from their bodies."

Fox Murong's lips moved, but no words came out.

She had endured three months of wolf demons besieging the city. She had seen corpses gutted open, seen mangled limbs gnawed down to bare skeletons.

But wolf demons killed with blood and violence, with flesh and blood flying everywhere—a brutal kind of misery.

The corpses here were far too clean.

So clean, it felt like a ritual.

"How could this even be done..." Fox Murong's voice trembled. "They didn't even have time to cry out?"

Wei Xuanfeng did not answer.

He continued onward, passing through the village road, crossing the grain-drying field, then climbing over two ridges between the fields.

There were corpses everywhere.

Old people, children, saber soldiers...

All the same.

Not a single wound anywhere on their bodies, yet each person seemed to have been hollowed out from within by something.

"Could it be..." Wei Xuanfeng said in a low voice, "that zombies exist in this world?"

"Zombies?" Fox Murong turned to look at him.

"Those things... dead people who come back to life, then suck people's blood..." Wei Xuanfeng said solemnly. "There was a legend back where I came from. It said that some people who died unjustly had resentment too heavy to disperse, their souls lingering on, and they would turn into zombies..."

After he finished, both Wen Shihan and Fox Murong's expressions changed.

No young girl could remain completely fearless in such an atmosphere.

"How... how is that possible... How could dead people come back to life?" Fox Murong suddenly laughed. "Old Wei, that story isn't scary at all."

"This isn't a story. Those zombies come and go without a sound, their movements as elusive as ghosts. They usually creep up behind living people, and when you turn around..."

As Wei Xuanfeng spoke, he twisted his face into a ferocious expression, startling both girls into taking a step back.

"You're lying. I don't believe zombies exist in this world!" Fox Murong said, grabbing Wen Shihan's hand.

"What's that behind you?"

"Ahhh!!! Old Wei, save me!!"

Fox Murong screamed and plunged headfirst into Wei Xuanfeng's arms.

She buried her face in his chest, both hands clutching his lapels tight, her entire body trembling.

The impact forced Wei Xuanfeng half a step back. He was still holding his saber aloft, unsure whether to push her away or hold her. All he could feel was the body in his arms—soft and warm, carrying a faint scent of gardenias...

They had slaughtered wolf demons all the way here, yet she still smelled sweet.

At the same time, Wen Shihan reacted much faster.

Almost the instant Wei Xuanfeng finished saying, "What's that behind you?" she spun around.

The meteor hammer in her hand had already flown free, hurtling with perfect accuracy toward the empty grain-drying yard behind her.

It hit nothing...

The Li Fire Pearl smashed a shallow crater into the muddy ground, sending shards of stone flying half a foot high.

Wen Shihan froze for a moment before realizing she had been fooled.

She stood there, still gripping the meteor hammer's chain. Her face first went pale, then flushed with a thin layer of red.

She said nothing, but those phoenix eyes shot Wei Xuanfeng a glare...

It did not look quite like anger. Rather, she looked like a cat with its fur standing on end after someone had patted it from behind—furious, a little aggrieved, even the tips of her ears red.

Wei Xuanfeng wanted to laugh, but held it in.

There was still someone nuzzling her head against his chest.

"I was teasing you. Let go already. If you don't," he finally said, "do you believe I can swing your head out like a meteor hammer?"

Fox Murong abruptly raised her head. Her eyes were still red-rimmed, but the terror on her face had already turned to fury.

"Wei Xuanfeng! Are you sick in the head?! You're still joking at a time like this!"

"Didn't you say you didn't believe me? Why were you so scared, then?"

"You!!!"

Furious and embarrassed, Fox Murong punched him hard in the chest.

"The mood was too tense, so I made a joke." Wei Xuanfeng rubbed his chest. "All right, all right. Let's talk business."

He sat down on the stone mill in the grain-drying yard, laying his saber across his knees.

"The bodies are all here. But two people are missing." He held up his fingers. "Seven Killings and Embroidery aren't among these corpses."

"So they're still alive?" Fox Murong asked.

"Not sure. There are two possibilities right now," Wei Xuanfeng said. "First, these people were all killed by Embroidery and Seven Killings, who used their position as guards to steal what they were guarding and take the Earth Immortal Spring Lotus."

"That doesn't make sense logically. We can rule it out. What's the second possibility?" Fox Murong asked.

"The second possibility..." Wei Xuanfeng said, "is that another faction got involved, captured Seven Killings and Embroidery, and forced the location of the Earth Immortal Spring Lotus out of them..."

"If it's the second possibility, then nothing we do now will matter." Fox Murong crouched down, resting her chin on her knees. "What do we do now?"

Sitting on the stone mill, Wei Xuanfeng looked at the corpses strewn across the ground, then at the distant village, quiet as a graveyard. He remained silent for a long time.

Just as he was deep in thought, a wolf's howl suddenly rang out from the Xuan Cliff behind the mountain.

At the sound, Wei Xuanfeng and Fox Murong's eyes lit up.

"Old Wei, could it be..."

"Very likely!"

"Are we going?"

"We're going!"

Wen Shihan:???

What were these two talking about...