Butcher Zhang, Zhang Jiuchuan.
At that name, both Li Xiang and Guo Kai felt their hearts jolt.
"As long as my father, that god of slaughter, holds the north," Zhang Yunqing said, absolute confidence gleaming in his eyes, "never mind those surviving demons, those clowns dancing on a stage—even if the Western powers sail their ironclad fleets in again, my father can chop them into scrap, one stroke at a time!"
"The sky over the north won't fall."
Zhang Yunqing stubbed his half-smoked cigar out in the ashtray, then returned to the sofa and sat down.
"All right, that's everything on my end."
Zhang Yunqing folded his arms and fixed his gaze on Li Xiang. Once again, the oppressive weight of a superior scrutinizing a subordinate settled over him.
"Now it's your turn."
"Li Xiang, what exactly did you go through during these six months in that sunless Netherworld?"
An undisguised hunger for answers ran through Zhang Yunqing's voice.
"And how did you crawl back to the Living World alive, right under the Million Ghost Army's noses?"
Faced with Zhang Yunqing's barrage of questions,
Li Xiang showed no trace of panic. He walked over to the sofa, sat down, and took a light sip of the tea on the table, which had long since gone cold.
"What we went through felt even less real than the most absurd nightmare."
Li Xiang set down his cup. His voice as calm as still water, he began recounting everything that had happened after they fell into Ghost Gate Pass.
From disguising themselves as corpse ghouls on Yellow Springs Road and slipping into a procession of newly dead wandering souls.
To struggling to survive in that abandoned Bone House in Wangsi City Outer City, with Lin Xuanshu gravely injured and Guo Kai afflicted by