At those words, all the players stopped and looked at the house Yi Zhongzhou said the zombie had visited.
Were they going to encounter a zombie on their very first day? But it was broad daylight. Weren't zombies afraid of the light?
Their sudden stop puzzled the five middle-aged men walking ahead, who asked what was wrong.
Yi Zhongzhou simply asked whether they knew how many people lived in that house and what their names were.
"Oh-that's Wang Gang's place. Three people in his family. Why?"
Yi Zhongzhou shook his head without answering. Instead, he beckoned everyone over to Wang Gang's house, then knocked on the door.
As Qi Wu approached the entrance, he caught a faint smell of blood, seemingly mixed with a rank, musky odor. Perhaps Yi Zhongzhou had smelled the blood and concluded that a zombie had been there.
Knock, knock-
Before long, someone opened the door.
It was Wang Gang's wife. She seemed to have been woken by the knocking, and the sight of a crowd of strangers outside frightened her fully awake.
Yi Zhongzhou hurried to reassure her, asking gently, "Do you keep chickens?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Go check the coop and see if any have died."
The possibility that her chickens had died alarmed the woman. They had raised them to sell in town. If the chickens died, they would lose their investment, and the coming New Year would be hard on them.
"Sister Gang, go have a look."
The speaker was one of the middle-aged men who had led them there, a Peach Blossom Village local. Seeing a familiar face, Wang Gang's wife lowered her guard and hurried to the coop to check on the chickens.
Qi Wu looked at Yi Zhongzhou. "You mean the zombie drank chicken blood last night?"
Yi Zhongzhou nodded,