On the hills, under the moonlight, there are few trees, old branches and withered vines, and empty bird nests.
There was originally a temple on the mountain, and I don’t know which mountain god Tuwang was enshrined. The statue was chopped up as firewood and dragged away in an unknown year.
Nothing remains, including the beams, thatched doors, windows, and even the threshold. Only four mud walls are of no use, and they are still left in this mountain wilderness.
The six people from Wangjiacun hid in the mud wall, picked up some dead branches, and made a fire. They found a place that could block the wind and keep warm.
A few branches were inserted next to the fire, with rabbit and bird meat on skewers. They had been roasted until they were slightly brown, exuding the unique aroma of meat.
Although there is no salt, ginger or garlic, when you eat it, the aroma of the meat will be greatly reduced and mixed with fishy smell, but it is enough to attract the attention of those around the fire.
Wang Qianqian picked up the rabbit meat and tore it open a little. When he saw that the parts near the bones were cooked, he nodded and distributed it to several children.
She is in her early twenties and is already the oldest among the six. The other five, four boys and one girl, are all under the age of thirteen.
After receiving the rabbit meat, several children ate it in a hurry. They chewed the rabbit meat while blowing air because it was too hot. They were really hungry, and the thin bones were slowly chewed up by their efforts. Slowly bite into pieces and swallow.
Wang Xiangqian saw that they had almost eaten, and divided the bird meat among them.
The girl took a bird wing and hesitated: "Sister, won't you eat it?"
As soon as she spoke, several boys came back to their senses and looked at Wang Qianqian.
Wang Xiangqian shook his head: "I ate a snake, drank rabbit blood, and a few bird eggs. That's enough. You can eat it."
Wang Xiangqian did not lie. The child still depends on her to survive, and she must not let herself go hungry.
Besides, if children eat things like rabbit blood and snake meat, they are likely to get sick, but if she eats it, except that the taste is unacceptable, it is no different from eating a meal of mutton. .
The cold and strange-smelling snake blood, snake meat, snake bones, and the juice extracted from leaves and grass will all turn into strength when eaten.
"After eating, go to bed as soon as your stomach is hot."
Wang Xiangqian warned, "We will set off at dawn tomorrow, and try to get there before dark. Walk to the city. "
The children were very well-behaved and very tired. After eating, they wrapped themselves in clothes and curled up by the fire and fell asleep.
The king moved the fire forward to prevent them from being burned by the fire, then sat on the side and closed his eyes.
Crack!
The dry branches burned, and the firelight reflected her face. Even the ugly centipede-like scars on her face became less conspicuous, revealing a somewhat peaceful feeling.
Because she was so beautiful when she was a child, and her family loved her so much, not only did she not think of selling her for money when she fled, but she was also afraid that she would cause trouble, so she gritted her teeth and scratched her face.
As people grow up, the scars become shallower, but also become thicker. Some are connected from the corner of the mouth to the forehead, some are across the bridge of the nose, and some are connected from the cheek to the side of the ear.
The flesh at the scar was stretched tighter than the rest of her face, which also caused her facial features to grow abnormally, making her expression, speech or smile look particularly ugly.
But after moving to Wangjia Village, many elders in the village also had various scars on their bodies. She blended in without being very conspicuous, and lived a stable life for several years.
Unfortunately, Wangjiacun is gone now.
Crack! !
A scar inside the branch was burned and cracked, making a very obvious sound.
Wang Qianqian suddenly opened his eyes and looked out the door.
She seemed to hear the sound of wild animals jumping, which was quite heavy.
Wild dogs? Wild wolf? There won't be any tigers, right?
Wang Xiangqian became vigilant, quietly woke up several children, asked them to gather together and hide in the corner, then took out some burning branches from the fire and threw them out the door.
In the light of the fire, something did move past in the low trees outside the door.
Wang Xiangqian felt even more nervous. He asked several children to pick up a branch each while he clenched his fists.
After a while, there was no movement outside, and there was only the smell of burning trees in the air.
Wang Qianqian frowned more and more tightly, and suddenly looked back.
This ruined temple has no roof. The children are hiding in the corner, and on top of the dim wall, a half-crouching black figure is swooping down.
“Get out!!!”
Wang Qianqian’s fist hit the black shadow hard.
The black shadow flew more than ten feet high. Before it landed, Wang Qianqian had already jumped onto the wall. When the black shadow reached the height of the wall, he punched it out again.
The black shadow flew across and hit the earthen wall where the doorway was opened, knocking down the top of the wall and causing dust to fly. When it fell, it hit the burning firewood directly.
The flames were stamped out by two feet, and the black shadow roared.
That was actually a person.
But this man only had some pieces of cloth hanging on his body that were almost tattered. His skin was blue and black, covered with wrinkles like bark, and had a weird hardness.
From his face to his body, he was extremely skinny, his facial features were all skinny, his teeth were exposed, his head was bald, and only some sparse white hair remained on the back of his head.
“Living corpse?!”
Several children screamed, and Wang Qianqian’s heart was beating wildly. He jumped down from the wall and stood in front of the children.
Although she hit the living corpse twice, her fists still hurt, as if they were hit on solid blue rock.
This kind of living corpse must be at least five or six years old. Ordinary hand crossbows cannot penetrate his flesh.
Moreover, this kind of living corpse is very vengeful, with a flexible body and a keen sense of smell. If it encounters a living person who has resisted it, it will definitely pursue it to the death.
To a certain extent, even if you encounter a tiger, it is better than encountering a living corpse like this.
After the living corpse roared, it pounced on him again. Just now, he pounced from the sky and was caught off guard. Wang Qianqian hit him in the chest.
This time he pounced with his feet on the ground, as fast as a tiger or leopard, with his arms clasped in front of his chest, and his nails were as black as iron pieces, and he grabbed the king forward.
Wang moved forward and suddenly leaned back, kicked high, and kicked the living corpse's chin with his heel.
The legs were longer than the hands. Before the living corpse could catch anyone, it was kicked and fell out.
However, the force of his attack was too great. After Wang kicked him forward, he could not stand still and staggered several steps.
"Run!"
Wang stomped forward and hit an earth wall sideways. The entire earth wall shook and fell down.
A few children ran as hard as they could, but before they got four or five feet away, they screamed again and smashed out the burning branches in their hands.
In the sparse forest, there were actually more than a dozen living corpses, and they were also surrounding here.
Even if a burning branch hits their faces, it will be of little use.
When Wang Xiangqian saw this scene, his heart dropped.
But something strange happened. When the dozen or so living corpses rushed towards us, there was a sudden violent sound of wind in the forest.
Woo! ! !
The violent wind caught the moment when the feet of the living corpses left the ground, and actually sucked them into the forest. What's even more strange is that it can suck these living corpses back when they pounce forward. Such a strong suction force has no impact on Wang Qianqian and the others who are not far away from the living corpses.
“After running so far, I finally saw some people...”
Under the moonlight, Su Hanshan’s robes fluttered, standing on a branch, and he could see clearly The words of these "people" who were attracted by him couldn't help but get stuck in their mouths.
He quickly turned his swallowing into vomiting, turned his palms, and the vortex-like energy turned into a thick wall of Gangfeng Qi, which he suppressed.
Boom! !
These living corpses in mid-air were dancing and dancing before they were smashed into the ground by him, and most of their bodies were buried in the ground.
"What the hell? The zombies don't look as unique as you."
As Su Hanshan spoke, he looked forward and pointed.
In the ruined temple, the living corpse that had just climbed up was penetrated by a flash of ice-blue energy through its head. It shook its head and continued to pounce forward.
Well, destroying your brain is useless?
Wang Xiangqian came back from the shock, saw the scene behind him, and shouted: "You have to cut off the whole head."
Before he finished speaking, there was another icy blue glare. The energy shot through and cut off the neck of the living corpse.
The incision is frozen, like a bright mirror.
After the head rolled down, the headless living corpse jumped and fell down.
Seeing that it was indeed effective, Su Hanshan followed the same method and killed all the living corpses he had just smashed into the ground.
Wang Qianqian was stunned. He didn't expect that these living corpses, which made people angry, would be easier to kill than the chickens and ducks waiting to be slaughtered in front of the man in white who suddenly appeared.
Almost in the blink of an eye, more than a dozen living corpses of a certain age died completely.
When Su Hanshan flew down in front of her, Wang Xiangqian led the children to kneel down.
“Thank you, thank you so much for saving my life!!”
"Get up."
Su Hanshan raised his hand, and the surging air flow made Wang Qianqian and others stand up straight, and said, "My name is Su Hanshan, and I just happened to be passing by. What are your names? These What happened to the monster?”
Wang reported his name to Xiangqian and said: "These living corpses must have been hiding nearby. Maybe there are no living people in the surrounding villages, so they went dormant. We didn't expect to encounter them."
< br>Su Hanshan looked solemn and had some thoughts in his heart.
He originally thought that these monsters were something like poisonous zombies, specially concocted by some Jianghu sect.
In that case, there shouldn't be too many.
However, looking at Wang Xiangqian's appearance, it seems that this kind of thing is very common and common.
At most, they treat them like tigers, leopards and wild wolves. They don’t think it’s so strange that these things can still move after their heads have been punched through.
Su Hanshan said: "Then what should be done with these living corpses after they are killed?"
Wang Qianqian showed a confused look: "How... should be dealt with?"
"I have frozen their wounds now, but if I leave them here, won't the poisonous blood and poisonous gas be released after the ice melts?"
Su Hanshan said, "You seem to be concerned about these The things are very familiar. How did you deal with them before?”
Wang Qianqian said in confusion: “Just leave them there. Although living corpses are very scary, But after cutting off their heads, the corpses left behind are similar to wood and stones. They are not particularly toxic and are not even as perishable as the corpses of chickens, ducks and living people."
"Wait. They rot, just like wood rotting.”
If human corpses are not buried, plague may occur after they rot.
But the corpses of these living corpses rot very slowly even in summer and will not breed plague.
Su Hanshan was full of questions and didn't want to talk bit by bit.
After he swept the living corpse out of the ruined temple, he took Wang Qianqian and others back to reunite with the fire.
Beside the fire, Su Hanshan simply said that he hit his head two days ago and seemed to have lost part of his memory. He did not understand many things nowadays and wanted to ask Wang Qianqian to teach him.
This excuse is really perfunctory in the extreme.
Wang Xiangqian was dubious, but the other party saved her and the children and just wanted her to talk about common sense at the moment, and there was no reason to refuse.
She carefully organized her thoughts and started explaining.
Let’s talk about history first. The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period were unified by the Xuan Dynasty. After the death of the Second Dynasty, the Xiaohan Dynasty took its place. It was divided into east and west sections for a total of 500 years. After that, the three kingdoms stood together and evolved into the coexistence of the Han and Hu kingdoms. , after the chaos of various countries, the nine states in the world were unified by the Kaihuang Dynasty, but it only lasted two generations before reaching the Wude Dynasty.
She talked about this paragraph very roughly. She probably didn’t learn it in detail, it was just passed down from word of mouth among the people.
Three hundred years of the Takeru Dynasty were marked by turmoil and chaos in the world.
The emperor existed in name only, and the governors from various places all had the ambition to become kings and emperors, so they attacked each other and annexed territories.
But at this time, living corpses appeared in the world.
As if overnight, many people lost their body temperature and heartbeat, lost their minds, and attacked and bit others crazily.
No one knows how many people turned into living corpses at that time.
However, most of those arrogant and arrogant Jiedu envoys and their unscrupulous troops collapsed quickly when faced with living corpses.
Civil officials died or fled, the army was torn apart, and complete authority in one place could no longer be maintained.
But fortunately, these living corpses have no ability to infect others, they just need to be treated as a large number of wild beasts.
People finally adapted to the existence of living corpses, reunited the team, and occupied territory.
But on the winter solstice of the next year, another group of people turned into living corpses.
I don’t know how many years passed before people came up with some rules.
On the winter solstice every year, you must not fall asleep within twelve hours.
If you fall asleep, there is a high chance of turning into a living corpse. If you don't fall asleep, there is almost no possibility of turning into a living corpse.
In this way, people gradually resumed their lives, killing the living corpses and expelling them from the large cities.
In the past forty or fifty years since the emergence of living corpses, there have been very few new living corpses added every year.
However, the world is still in troubled times, and no one can rebuild the dynasty in such a world.
Some people dare to call themselves kings as long as they occupy a city, and no matter how weak they are, they dare to call themselves generals.
Even a country man like Wang Xiangqian has met many princes because of his early refugee experience.
(End of this chapter)