MMLZ CH9
“Ding! Killed a zombie, gained 50 merit points.”
“Ding! Killed a zombie, gained 50 merit points.”
The two low-level black-haired zombies gave Xu Yan a total of 100 merit points. He smiled, feeling like even the surrounding stench had faded a little.
Unfortunately, 100 merit points still felt too little.
Is my junior brother really that happy just from killing two zombies…
“Let’s move!” Xu Yan ignored his gaze and gave the order to continue.
With experience now under their belt, the two of them handled ordinary black-haired zombies with much more ease.
On the way to the town’s entrance, they encountered three more zombies. Qiu Sheng took the lead, kicking the zombies down swiftly, and Xu Yan followed up with a precise stab using the Coin Sword before burning the corpses.
“Tch! These zombies aren’t so tough after all.”
After taking out a few, Qiu Sheng got a little cocky.
He didn’t realize that without Xu Yan’s finishing strikes, even the weakest of zombies could have chased him across the mountains.
“Master!!”
When the two arrived at the rendezvous point, they saw Uncle Jiu already waiting. But the peach wood sword he had taken with him was now only half a blade, charred black like it had been burned.
Xu Yan’s eyes twitched. Just by looking at that sword, he could guess what happened—Uncle Jiu must’ve taken down quite a few zombies himself.
“You two alright?”
Uncle Jiu walked over, clearly concerned that his disciples, due to their inexperience, might have been injured. Zombie poison wasn’t a joke—if untreated, one could turn into a zombie too.
“We’re fine, Master! My junior brother and I killed five zombies in total! Aren’t we awesome?”
Qiu Sheng beamed with pride, boasting loudly—after all, bragging doesn’t cost anything.
Uncle Jiu glanced at Xu Yan, who was rolling his eyes nearby, and immediately saw through the exaggeration. Raising his hand, he made Qiu Sheng leap aside in panic.
“Master, what are you doing?!”
“You spend all day messing around and learning nothing!”
Uncle Jiu scolded Qiu Sheng, who felt quite wronged—he wasn’t lying, so why the scolding?
“Let’s go. We need to gather intel in town and search for the origin of the elder zombie.”
There was only one original zombie—the rest had turned after being bitten and were spreading the infection. Uncle Jiu hadn’t encountered the original on the way here.
The worst-case scenario: the zombie made it into town. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what had happened.
“These fake Taoist practitioners—causing nothing but harm!”
At the inn, Uncle Jiu threw a discarded Taoist robe onto the table. If a corpse-handler has an accident en route, it could easily lead to a zombie transformation. These cases were common, and unqualified so-called “Taoist masters” often caused trouble, putting their own lives and others’ at risk.
“But Master, where do we even start looking?”
Even with a living person, tracking them down in a town isn’t easy—let alone a zombie. Qiu Sheng was already struggling to keep his eyelids open, desperate for sleep.
Xu Yan sipped his tea. He was just as clueless.
“If we knew the zombie’s identity, that would help. No idea if the zombie was originally someone from town…”
Zombies are naturally drawn to their blood relatives. Knowing the identity would make things much easier.
“Hard to say.”
Uncle Jiu shook his head. “From what your uncle communicated to me, this zombie turned during a corpse transport.”
Well, that’s that then. Xu Yan helplessly spread his hands.
“So what do we do now?” Qiu Sheng looked utterly hopeless. It’s one thing if they got paid for this, but doing it for free? No thanks.
“For now, we wait!!”
Uncle Jiu’s expression was unreadable, and Xu Yan began to feel uneasy. He had a bad feeling about this…
“Junior brother… do you think the zombie might come looking for us?”
On the street, Qiu Sheng kept looking over his shoulder, terrified a zombie might leap out and bite him.
“No idea.”
Xu Yan already felt like something bad was bound to happen. While everyone else was warm and cozy in bed, the three of them were wandering the streets like night patrols, waiting for a zombie to show up.
Oddly enough, even in a town full of people, zombies often attacked those wandering the streets—like in movies, where night watchmen always get attacked.
Xu Yan and Qiu Sheng were playing the role of bait, pretending to be aimless wanderers while Uncle Jiu followed behind at a distance. If a zombie appeared, all three would spring into action.
As troublesome as it was, this was still better than searching for the zombie in the wilderness.
Ghosts and demons are one thing—but zombies always seek out populated areas.
“Don’t look back. It might alert the zombie. Master bought glutinous rice and made ink lines with it. Zombies fear those. If it shows up, we’ll take it down!”
Anti-zombie tools were easy to get if you had the money. Glutinous rice could be bought from a rice shop. Ink lines were trickier—requiring rooster blood and black dog blood—but everything was cheap in those days.
“I can’t help it! I heard zombies love to bite people from behind!”
“Idiot. Master is behind us. What are you afraid of?”
“Junior brother… what if the zombie ignores us and goes for Master instead?”
“……”
Honestly, that was a real possibility. Ghosts and demons are wary of strong spiritual energy, but mindless zombies? They’ll just go after whoever’s easiest to bite.
“What are you two brats whispering about?”
Uncle Jiu snorted from the shadows less than a hundred meters behind them. As bait, they were supposed to attract the zombie, but instead it sounded like they were just chatting away like they were on a walk.
Xu Yan blamed Qiu Sheng’s big mouth, but he had no idea that—right in the darkness near Uncle Jiu—a giant mouth filled with four sharp fangs was slowly opening.
Mindless zombies bite anything in sight, ignoring decoys entirely and going for the closest victim.
Uncle Jiu’s bad luck was that he had been focused on his disciples and didn’t notice something was wrong with the nearby alley.
“Stop talking. If Master hears us, he’ll skin you alive.”
The two hushed up and continued walking—completely unaware that a shadow was creeping up behind Uncle Jiu.
“Not good!!”
Just as Uncle Jiu was about to catch up with them, he suddenly felt a chill crawl up the back of his neck. His instincts kicked in immediately.
A zombie was targeting him—he’d fallen into its trap!
“Aaargh!!”
The fang-filled mouth lunged at Uncle Jiu’s throat. He rolled away and tossed a handful of glutinous rice.
When the rice touched the zombie’s flesh, it exploded like fireworks, crackling loudly. The zombie’s screams pierced the dark night.
“Behind us!!”
Xu Yan froze. Qiu Sheng’s cursed mouth had actually predicted it right.