Rainy Night Walking Corpses

What a delight it was when good fortune came knocking. Duan Yun had only entered the martial world a few days ago, yet he had not only met three martial world friends—Hua Wen, Hua Wu, and Zhang Tielan—but had also successfully passed on martial arts for the first time, planting two seeds of goodwill in this martial world of killing and violation.

By morning, even the lame gray donkey was no longer limping. It bounced around before Duan Yun, its donkey face brimming with joy.

This time, Duan Yun truly had to set off again.

This place was merely a stopover for him. Besides, after stuffing themselves with fish and meat and drinking from jug after jug these past two days, he felt as though he was about to eat Zhang Tielan into poverty.

Duan Yun was leaving, and Zhang Tielan was naturally reluctant to part with him. Hua Wen and Hua Wu, meanwhile, were engrossed in cultivation. They also knew it would be easy to find Duan Yun, this Great Medicine, again, so they did not force him to stay.

"Brother Duan truly is a hero in his youth," Zhang Tielan remarked as he watched Duan Yun ride away on his donkey.

"Yeah. He's a pretty decent fellow," Hua Wu sighed.

"Go on, hop around. A Great Medicine this rare will soon turn into medicinal juice. It's quite a pity."

Hua Wen and Hua Wu exchanged a glance, understanding each other without a word.

"On life's road, beautiful dreams seem like a road without end.

On the road, wind and frost lash one's face.

In the mortal world, how many directions can beautiful dreams take?"

Having only recently entered the martial world, Duan Yun had already grown accustomed to long journeys and sleeping in the wilderness.

Sometimes, he even deliberately chose to sleep in the wild. He believed that in the wilderness, where one had to contend with danger, neither body nor mind could easily slacken. That made it more beneficial for cultivation.

Of course, that was only the surface reason. The bigger reason was that he could save the money he would have spent staying at an inn.

Ever since that wild feast and drinking session with Hua Wen and Hua Wu, Duan Yun had unexpectedly fallen in love with alcohol.

One had to know that in his previous life, he had not liked drinking. Normally, he only drank things like fatty-homebody happy water.

Who would have thought that after drinking to his heart's content twice in this world, he would find it even better than the fatty-homebody happy water from his previous life?

Thus, with his funds already limited, Duan Yun felt that spending silver on an inn was less worthwhile than buying alcohol.

Now, riding atop the little gray donkey and looking at the boundless wild grass and forests lining the road, Duan Yun could not help humming that song.

These days on the road, his strongest impression had been one of desolation—and the sheer number of graves.

When spending the night in the wilderness, he could never avoid those graves, some with names and some without.

Some old brothers slept beneath the earth without even pulling up their blankets properly. He often saw white bones exposed in the open.

Such scenes always made Duan Yun feel as though he had somehow entered the world of A Chinese Ghost Story.

He was separated from Springwatch City by more than a thousand li. After traveling for so many days, he still had not seen the slightest trace of prosperity.

The weather was overcast today, thick clouds weighing down upon the sky with a suffocating heaviness.

Duan Yun took a swig of wine and asked doubtfully, "Could it be about to rain?"

The moment he spoke, a raindrop smacked him right in the forehead.

Duan Yun could not help saying, "This rain came out of nowhere, but thankfully, it doesn't look too heavy."

Yet before ten breaths had passed, a sudden downpour came crashing down in a crackling barrage.

"Fuck!"

Rain instantly drenched him from head to toe, and Duan Yun could not help complaining.

It was one thing for the rain to come so suddenly. He traveled outside often enough that rain was perfectly normal, and usually he could just grit his teeth and endure it.

But today's rain was different. It was freezing rain.

When the rain fell on a person, it felt as though it would freeze them solid, the chill piercing straight into the bones.

Duan Yun had true qi protecting his body, so he could withstand it. But the donkey could not bear it.

White vapor continuously puffed from the donkey's mouth, and its normally sturdy body soon began to tremble.

Duan Yun gritted his teeth and lifted it up.

Thus, a figure carrying a donkey while running soon appeared along the muddy road—a gynecologist on the move.

For a moment, Duan Yun felt that encountering such damned weather while having to carry a donkey made him even more awkward than Ning Caichen caught in the rain.

The freezing rain was fierce. At one point, little ice pellets even pelted Duan Yun's body.

He knew that he had to find shelter from the rain now. Otherwise, they would be forced into becoming donkey-meat flatbread.

Duan Yun sped forward.

More shrubs appeared along both sides of the road ahead. Buffeted by the gale, they looked like swaying ghostly shadows in the rain.

At that moment, Duan Yun's eyes suddenly lit up.

Through the sudden rain and cold mist, he saw a sloping path rising toward higher ground. Above it, the outline of a building could faintly be seen.

He had finally found somewhere to shelter from the rain.

Carrying the donkey, Duan Yun headed all the way up and discovered that there was a Daoist temple on the slope. It appeared to have been abandoned.

Its red walls were mottled in patches, thick with green moss, and in the rain they resembled the face of someone with a skin disease.

"Good thing it's a Daoist temple, not a Buddhist temple. Otherwise, the sense of déjà vu would be too strong."

Duan Yun muttered, already somewhat regretting singing that song.

Seeing that the gray donkey was nearly frozen stiff, Duan Yun hesitated no longer and carried it straight into the Daoist temple.

After sleeping beside grave mounds so often these days, he no longer had much to fear.

Duan Yun went directly to the temple's main hall. Many of the surrounding buildings had collapsed, and only there could barely keep out the rain.

Only after reaching the dilapidated eaves did he put down the gray donkey.

Even then, he could not help shivering several times.

This rain was far too freezing.

The gray donkey, meanwhile, shook its stiff body and flung off the rainwater.

After entering the main hall, he found wooden frames from doors and windows scattered across the floor.

Duan Yun selected several relatively dry pieces, found a spot where the roof tiles were comparatively intact, and began building a fire.

Along the way, he raised his gourd and gulped down a huge mouthful of wine, gradually feeling warmth return to his body.

Seeing that the gray donkey was still frozen stiff, he poured it a little as well.

After drinking that small mouthful of wine, and as the fire gradually began burning, the gray donkey's condition slowly steadied.

Duan Yun let out a breath and sighed, "No need for donkey-meat flatbread for the time being."

By then, the sky had grown darker and darker. Though it was only afternoon, it already seemed like night had fallen.

From time to time, hailstones struck the roof, sounding like eggs rolling across it.

The freezing rain also brought a cold mist with it, making the ruined Daoist temple seem mysterious and sinister.

From here, he could see a huge old tree in the courtyard.

Several strips of dark red cloth could faintly be seen hanging from its branches. Beneath its roots lay densely packed incense stubs and traces of red candles, likely left behind by worshippers making wishes in the past.

One could imagine how flourishing this Daoist temple had once been.

Compared to then, the statues of deities in the hall had now been reduced to only half their original forms. There was no way to tell which gods they had been, and they looked steeped in ghostly gloom.

This eerie feeling was completely different from that beside grave mounds. It even seemed deeper and more oppressive.

Still, finding such a place to rest in this ghastly weather was no easy matter.

He did not believe his luck could be so bad that he would run into a ghost.

Especially after drinking so much, Duan Yun's young-hero spirit had risen, and all fear had long since vanished.

Even if ghosts existed in this world, he aspired to become someone like Yan Chixia—perhaps with a side job as a doctor.

Gulp, gulp, gulp!

Duan Yun took another huge swig of wine, then assumed the Jade Sword Stance.

No matter when it was, he could not forget to practice martial arts.

At that moment, cold mist blew in with the wind, and the already weak fire immediately began to waver as though it might collapse at any moment.

Duan Yun made a prompt decision, extended his Sword Finger, and jabbed forward.

The instant the white sword light landed in the fire, the flames surged up with a boom.

The gray donkey had long grown accustomed to this trick of his, because Duan Yun had mixed wine into his Sword Qi.

Duan Yun had fallen in love with drinking not merely because alcohol brought him the same joy as fatty-homebody happy water. Shooting it out felt rather good too.

Yes, over these past few days, he had become accustomed to shooting wine out through his fingers.

Wine and Sword Qi intertwined, gaining an explosive aura.

His Sword Qi could now not only easily pierce through another person's body, but could even disinfect their puncture wound with wine while he was at it—or set it on fire.

The flames had stabilized, but the freezing rain showed no sign of stopping.

Duan Yun knew that he would likely have to spend the night here.

Just as he was about to get some dried provisions to eat, the sound of a bell suddenly drifted through the rainy mist.

Within this ruined Daoist temple, amid the spreading rain and fog, the ringing carried a mysterious, bizarre aura of its own that inspired fear.

Duan Yun peered out from the doorway and discovered that people had truly come to the Daoist temple.

A whole line of them.

These people wore tightly wrapped white coverings over their upper bodies, with not even their eyes exposed. Their hands rested in turn on the shoulders of the person ahead, and they followed the bell forward.

Duan Yun discovered that they carried none of the aura of living people. Their feet made no sound when touching the ground, and even their steps were perfectly synchronized.

What walked there were clearly corpses, one after another.

Rainy weather, an abandoned Daoist temple, mysterious bell chimes, walking corpses—

Duan Yun's scalp tingled.

My goodness, had he really run into ghosts?

That line of corpses did not pause in the slightest. Through the curtain of rain, they headed straight for the main hall where he was.