A faint glimmer of light. I opened my eyes, yawned, and climbed out of bed. I had lost track of how many days had passed, whether it was day or night. I could only live in this space created by Lucille Xing and the others.
None of the nine generals were present; they were still planning. All I could do was wait.
"You zombies really know how to cook—the food is always good."
As I spoke, Luo Yu had already prepared my meal. Like Tan Tian, he could cook something different every day. Today's dishes were still lavish, and I finished eating quickly.
"Do you cook just because you have nothing else to do?"
I looked at Luo Yu in confusion. He nodded.
"Only eating gives us a sense of being alive."
I finally understood. Although they were just corpses, devoid of emotion, their sense of taste remained. Every day, I saw Luo Yu cook a dish for himself before starting to prepare my meal.
I smiled. At that moment, I noticed Luo Yu's gaze lingering on my smile, almost imperceptibly. I walked right up to him, smiling openly.
"Why don't you try smiling? Just like you do when you disguise yourself on the street—smile naturally."
Luo Yu avoided my gaze, saying nothing more, and quietly began tidying up.
"We may not have emotions, but we can still perceive joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness. When I was alive, I simply loved my wife's smile, so I paid attention to it. That's all."
I nodded.
"How long have you been a zombie?"
"More than seven hundred years."
I always thought zombies like Luo Yu, the kind whose bones never dissolve, must have lived for over a thousand years. I didn’t expect it to be only seven hundred.
"I became a zombie after being bitten by Luo Yichen, but I remember never hating him when I was alive."
"Anyway, it's boring. Tell me about your past."
Luo Yu didn’t avoid the topic anymore. After tidying up the bowls and plates, he came to the small pavilion, carrying a pot of tea.
More than seven hundred years ago, there was a place called Luo Family Town, a large settlement with nearly two thousand households. That era enjoyed brief stability thanks to a somewhat wise foreign king.
As the largest town near Xiang City, Luo Family Town’s residents lived fairly comfortable lives. Although the local foreign officials imposed many harsh taxes that the imperial court never sanctioned, no one complained during prosperous times. The local official, Bayatu, was not greedy; in years of poor harvest, he would even share some of his own stores. When times were good, people would naturally repay his kindness. Bayatu managed everything around Xiang City well, and many officials from other provinces came to learn from him.
Luo Family Town was a gathering place for several large clans, and Bayatu paid special attention to them. For centuries, the Luo family had run a unique business: corpse driving.
Whenever someone died far from home, the people of Luo Family Town would collect the body and use secret arts to bring it back to their homeland. Only the main Luo family line could inherit these arts and run the business; the larger branches lacked the ability. Many didn’t even know what the main family did, only that they made money from the dead.
As the sole heir of the Luo family’s three main branches, Luo Yu began helping his uncle with corpse deliveries in his early teens and could already drive corpses on his own. The rivalry among the three branches was fierce, so Luo Yu often saw his second and third uncles at home—sometimes arguing with his father, sometimes seeking reconciliation. Corpse driving is a long-term job, and if your fate isn’t strong enough, you attract trouble. Luo Yu himself had been tormented by wandering ghosts while working.
Problems had plagued the corpse drivers in his second and third uncle’s families in recent years, so their business lagged behind. A distant uncle, Luo Jue, became the focus of their disputes because he always finished his tasks quickly, boosting the family’s reputation.
Jealous, the second and third uncles often picked fights, but his father didn’t care—he was used to it. He always tried to mediate, but when pushed too far, he would argue back.
Luo Yu was a quick learner. By age fourteen, his father thought he was ready to work alone. His guiding uncle, Luo Jue, warned him seriously: avoid places where yin and yang clash. Such spots make corpses mutate. If the corpse qi inside is disturbed, the secret arts can’t control it. Yin energy in those places can seep in, and mindless corpses might connect with the earth’s energy, turning into zombies. If they’re not bloodthirsty, it’s manageable; but people with strong murderous urges easily become vampires, and that’s trouble.
Luo Yu took his uncle’s words to heart. Every time he went out, he was extremely careful, picking up corpses from mortuaries and using a bagua compass to check directions before leading the bodies on their journey.
One day, after collecting three corpses from a mortuary, Luo Yu set out. The mortuary owner warned him that the area had been restless lately, with bandits about, and advised him to take the main road instead of the side path.
But if he took the main road before dawn, he might run into people. Avoiding the living is crucial in corpse driving—if a corpse comes into contact with someone whose birth date matches, it can mutate. The only way to deal with a mutated corpse is to burn it. That’s why Luo Yu always carried fuel; if he saw signs of mutation, his uncle had told him to douse the body and set it alight immediately.
Just recently, the second and third uncle’s families had to burn a corpse mid-journey. They stopped, made ashes, and brought them home to the family. Many people were upset—"The living need to be seen, the dead need to be shown." Most of their pay was docked.
Luo Yu was gifted, always diligent in practice, which made the first and second uncle’s families even more jealous.
Ignoring the mortuary owner's advice, Luo Yu chose the side path—he’d walked it many times before.
But unexpectedly, that familiar path had a place where yin and yang clashed. Luo Yu had to stop; dawn was near, and the woods were too open to shield the corpses from sunlight.
Panic set in. He needed to cross the mountain ahead to reach the next mortuary. If the corpses were exposed to sunlight, the corpse qi would be forced out, and they’d rot before he could deliver them.
Corpse qi preserves the bodies, but now there was no way out. Luo Yu, desperate, led the three corpses through the clashing energies. One began to show early signs of mutation—its pale skin turned blue, then yellow, then black, and its nails started to grow.
With no choice, Luo Yu went to the mortuary, only to be shocked—the owner was dead, murdered, the body ransacked. Luo Yu remembered the warning about bandits.
Fear gripped him, but he had no other option. He left the three corpses in the mortuary to prevent corpse qi from leaking. The mutated corpse didn’t look too bad yet, so Luo Yu planned to expose it to sunlight to reduce the corpse qi.
After burying the mortuary owner, Luo Yu found the man’s usual room and rested. He slept until the sun was high. Then panic struck—the mutated corpse’s nails had turned black, its lips were swollen, and when he pried the mouth open, the canines had grown sharp.
What his uncle Luo Jue had warned about was happening. Luo Yu hurriedly grabbed the kerosene. Just then, hoofbeats sounded outside. Bandits burst in, pressed a knife to his throat, demanded valuables, and started searching the corpses. From one, they pried off a jade ring.
Luo Yu’s money was stolen, but the bandits wanted more—they planned to kidnap him and ransom him to his family. Luo Yu panicked, begged desperately, but they took him anyway.
The bandits hid out in a small village over twenty li from the mortuary. It was remote and secretive; no one knew it existed. Luo Yu had no choice but to reveal his family’s location. The bandits believed corpse drivers were rich, especially the Luo family.
Even while captured, Luo Yu worried more about the mutating corpse in the mortuary. Corpse mutation usually lasted about two days. He explained this to the bandit leader, who half-believed him and casually promised to burn the body. Then they prepared to go to Luo Family Town to find Luo Yu’s father.
Luo Yu wasn’t worried about anything else—only that his father would be shamed if he returned. That was the last thing he wanted. Locked up, Luo Yu drifted into sleep. At the sound of hoofbeats, he jolted awake and saw a masked man talking to the bandits.