Chapter 25- Part 3

Wen Hai had been frightened into submission by the recent chaos. After witnessing Wen Shu single-handedly cut down a burly man who had come to the mansion to steal food, he no longer dared to casually criticize or berate him.

Wen Shu felt nothing for Wen Hai and despised Wen Bo, wishing he could kill him on the spot. However, his upbringing prevented him from directly killing his own father. Moreover, there was still his somewhat caring stepmother and younger brother in the mansion. So Wen Shu led others to guard the Duke’s Mansion and did everything possible to gather rice and grain.

During this time, he went to his maternal grandfather’s mansion, the Marquis of Pingle, only to find that half the household had perished. His grandfather, grandmother, and uncle were all dead. He brought the survivors back to the Duke’s Mansion.

The Capital’s gates held for three months. Every day, people rushed the Duke’s mansion, trying to steal food, and at night, hordes of zombies would bang on the gates. Wen Shu’s sword blade had been blunted, and half of his subordinate soldiers had died.

In the fourth month, some of the purple zombies in the city evolved into more formidable black zombies. Food supplies were exhausted, and the starving mob broke open the city gates, letting the zombies from outside swarm in.

The entire Imperial Capital became a living hell. Countless zombies rushed into the city, biting citizens and turning them into new zombies. One tightly closed door after another was smashed open by the flood of zombies. Screams were followed by horrifying sucking sounds, and the corpses, drained of blood, would stand up to become new combatants.

Wen Shu led his remaining soldiers and household guards in defense for a day and a night, with almost all of his subordinates either dead or wounded.

On the second night, a dragon’s roar suddenly sounded from the imperial palace. Then a golden light burst forth, and a barrier rose from Changchun Palace, barely covering the inner palace.

The surviving citizens in the Capital began to move towards the imperial palace. It was said that the barrier was formed by the Emperor’s dragon energy and could ward off ghosts and evil spirits.

Thanks to Wen Shu, nearly a hundred people from the Duke’s Mansion and the Lin family had survived. Moving such a large group inevitably attracted the attention of zombies.

No matter how strong Wen Shu was, he was still made of flesh and blood. He couldn’t protect everyone. Wen Zhuo was bitten and fell into the zombie horde during the journey. His stepmother wailed, demanding that he go and save his brother, but Wen Shu didn’t stop. If he stopped, then everyone would be surrounded by the zombie horde, and even he wouldn’t be able to escape.

However, Wen Shu never imagined that because of this, his stepmother would come to hate him. When he brought everyone to the front of the imperial palace, with the path to survival just ahead, his stepmother hugged him and rushed into the zombie horde.

He clearly remembered how he died. He had long been exhausted from the long battle and his body was weak and powerless. The zombies’ foul-smelling teeth bit into his body, his blood being sucked away bit by bit. As his consciousness faded, he saw his stepmother, who had caused his death, being torn apart by several zombies, already as dead as one could be.

And the family members he had protected for months ran towards the barrier one after another, struggling to be first. Except for his little sister born to his stepmother, who cried out “Mother” once, not a single person looked back at him.

Wen Shu died at the age of twenty-two.

Seven years later, Wen Shu, now a fully formed jiangshi^[1]Jiangshi literally translates as “stiff corpse”. It is also known as a Chinese hopping vampire or undead (zombie). It is a type of reanimated corpse in Chinese legends and folklore, so they are a … Continue reading, regained his human appearance, consciousness, and memories. But he was no longer human.

His pupils were blood-red, and his canine teeth would turn into fangs when sucking blood. His skin was impervious to weapons, and he could move swiftly by riding the wind. He was unaffected by heat or cold and he neither aged nor died. He craved blood and was easily angered. He became a jiangshi king.

Later, the supposedly immortal Wen Shu chose to end himself. At first, he wanted to kill all the members of the Wen and Lin families, only to find that most of them were already dead, and those still alive were living lives worse than death.

Thus, apart from occasionally fighting with other jiangshi kings, Wen Shu didn’t know what to do with himself. Unlike the other two jiangshi kings, one who loved beauty and another who loved wine, he had no interests. For a jiangshi like him, perhaps restoring his human consciousness was the greatest punishment.

It’s very difficult for a jiangshi king to die, and Wen Shu didn’t want to let the other two drain his blood. He caught a mutant who could control fire (in the apocalypse, people with special abilities were called mutants). Ordinary fire could no longer harm him, so he forced this person to continuously use his fire ability to burn him to ashes.

However, heaven played a joke on him. The one who wanted to die didn’t succeed; instead, he was thrown back to when he was twelve years old.

What’s even stranger is that his body gradually began to change. Wen Shu clearly felt that his special abilities from his previous life had returned, and it was getting stronger with time. He could hear and see further and further.

Moreover, his physical attributes were improving at an incredible rate. His strength, speed, and stamina far surpassed normal humans. Wen Shu had tried to cut his arm with a knife, and although he wasn’t impervious to weapons like a jiangshi, if he didn’t use much force, the knife couldn’t break his skin.

Though still in a human body, he had some characteristics of a jiangshi. His emotions fluctuated greatly, and his mood was easily out of control. Although he didn’t need blood to survive, he occasionally craved it.

He was still human, but not quite human.

What could he do with this start over? Wen Shu still found life meaningless. He had no one he cared about and nothing he liked. Suicide seemed foolish, and with his current physical state, it would undoubtedly be torturous.

The only thing Wen Shu wanted to do was to live until ten years later. This time, he wanted to personally watch those ungrateful people be devoured by zombies, and then burn them to ashes.

So this time, Wen Shu didn’t endure anymore. To be the heir of the Duke’s Mansion? Don’t make him laugh. Whoever wanted to be that could go ahead, as long as they could live until the time came to inherit the title.

When Wen Hai took the opportunity to drive him away, Wen Shu was very cooperative in leaving. After all, he didn’t want to stay in the Duke’s Mansion either. He feared that seeing those people wandering around in front of him every day would make him unable to resist killing them prematurely.

Wen Shu hadn’t expected that by casually choosing a temple to recuperate in, he would accidentally pick up a little flower spirit.

After the apocalypse in his previous life, he had occasionally heard of animals and plants gaining sentience—all of which were terrifyingly destructive beings. He had once encountered a blood-sucking vine with tens of thousands of tentacles that could blot out the sky when raised.

His little flower spirit… well, apart from being able to talk and having a pleasant voice, its only other virtue seemed to be cuteness.

Heaven had given him a chance to start over and sent this little flower spirit to his side. It must mean that the spirit was meant to be his. 

Humans couldn’t be trusted, but what about spirits? 

He was too lonely by himself; keeping a silly little flower spirit didn’t seem like a bad idea. As long as it didn’t betray him, having a few little secrets was fine. Even if it lied to him, that was okay too. Children needed to be taught slowly.

But if it betrayed me…

Wen Shu’s pupils were tinged with a thin layer of red. He had crawled back from hell and would never let anyone push him back in.

---

In the system space, Xia Chen, completely unaware of the kind of being he had gotten involved with, put away the trumpet flower. He chatted with Xia Tongban about his newly met online friend as he organized his inventory.

“Zijian’s father is really not a good person. He must often be bullied at home. He’s so pitiful,” Xia Chen said while cupping his face and sighing. He wasn’t being overly kind-hearted; he had experienced similar circumstances himself and knew how painful and powerless it was for a young boy who was neither physically nor mentally mature.

His situation back then had been slightly better. At least he was physically healthy and had money in hand. He just needed to stay at school and not go home. But Zijian had nowhere to go and was even sent to a temple. They said it was for recovery, but it was more like exile.

After Xia Chen finished speaking, Xia Tongban remained silent for a while.

Xia Chen asked curiously, “What’s wrong? Do you think what I said isn’t right?”

[I think… System error, initiating self-check… Check complete, no program disorder detected. Initiating virus scan, virus scan complete, system running normally.]

Xia Chen was startled by this sudden string of responses and quickly asked, “Tongban, are you alright?”

Although Xia Tongban could be a bit tricky at times, overall, it was a good system. He didn’t want anything to happen to it. For such a high-tech AI system, he wouldn’t know where to get it fixed, not now, and not even in his previous life.

[I’m fine.] Xia Tongban’s voice seemed no different from usual, but it didn’t mention what had just happened. Instead, it changed the subject: [The space cannot provide sufficient solar energy for the trumpet flower to absorb. It is recommended that the host take the trumpet flower outside.]

Xia Chen instinctively looked up at the sky. The system space was always spring-like with no night. He hadn’t noticed before, but now he realized that above was just a vast expanse of white sky, with no sun visible.

“I need to find a flower pot first,” Xia Chen said, a bit worried. “This instant noodle box can’t be taken out. I’ll move the trumpet flower out to sunbathe after I find a flower pot.”

Xia Chen made a mental note of this task. He then took out a magic seed and planted it in the white sand. He still had some water and soil left from what Xu Helai had brought him. He followed the same steps he had used to plant the trumpet flower, hoping to grow another one.

Unfortunately, success can sometimes be accidental and not replicable. This time, what grew wasn’t mutated at all. By dinnertime, a tomato plant had grown. Xia Chen tasted one; it was juicy and had a rich flavor, very delicious.

The next day, Xia Chen, still thinking about how the trumpet flower needed a flower pot, pleaded with his big brother, who had come to pick him and Nan’er up after school, to let them wander around the county town and buy some small items.

He thought he would have to beg for a while, but to his surprise, his big brother agreed immediately and said, “What a coincidence. Father gave me some silver and told me not to rush to bring you home. He said to let you look around first. If you don’t want to wander the streets, we can also visit your uncle’s house.”

Nan’er had already started cheering, clamoring for candied hawthorns. But Xia Chen’s mind was racing. His father wanted to send them away first? And he didn’t ask his big brother to keep it a secret, which meant this was something he was supposed to know about.

After a moment’s thought, Xia Chen came to a conclusion: his father must be planning to deal with Granny Lei.

Back when Granny Lei had tricked him out and caused him to fall into the river, his father had said he would teach that wicked old woman a lesson when he found out. There had been no movement for a while, and Xia Chen also wasn’t in a hurry. He was sure his father wouldn’t keep someone who had harmed him in the household.

It wasn’t until spring plowing that he realized what his father was planning. His father had actually sent Granny Lei to work in the fields.

It’s worth noting that when Granny Lei was bought, it was to work in the house, mainly to prepare three meals a day and occasionally help with other chores. Everyone in the Xia family, except for the young ones like Dong’er and Nan’er, had experienced hardship. If there was something they could do themselves, they would just do it, so Granny Lei hadn’t really been mistreated in the Xia household.

After being well-fed for several years, Master Xia suddenly ordered her to work in the fields. She was a servant bought by the Xia family, so no one could say anything against her being sent to do farm work. Granny Lei was both worried that her actions had been exposed and afraid to show any signs of it, so she went to the fields every day to do hard labor with a group of strong workers.

In just a month’s time, the well-fed and cared-for Granny Lei had lost over ten kilograms and aged more than ten years. Her facial skin sagged, with almost no flesh and only skin visible, which looked quite terrifying. She endured the hardship to make some snacks in the hope of getting information from Xia Chen. But Xia Chen pretended to be scared, wailing and hiding behind his father’s back. Even little glutton Nan’er was no longer willing to go near her.

Although the women in the family were puzzled by Father Xia’s actions, they all knew he wasn’t someone who would torment people without reason. There must be a good reason for him to do this.

Watching his father cleverly torment Granny Lei, Xia Chen finally felt some vindication for his near-drowning experience. After that, he didn’t pay much attention to her situation anymore.

Counting the days, spring plowing had already ended, and they could relax a bit now. Xia Chen couldn’t help but click his tongue. His father was quite ruthless, first squeezing out all of Granny Lei’s remaining labor value, and then dealing with her. He certainly wasn’t losing out in any way.

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Translator’s Note: 

What we know so far…

Zombie levels (in order of weak to strong):

Purple Zombie
Black Zombie
Jiangshi
Jiangshi King

Today’s release (3/3). There you go folks. Thank you for reading! 

Announcement: Releases will still be sporadic for a while, but no longer hiatus. Cause I still have other projects to translate and this is mainly my side project. (For those reading my other projects: FFSITA and Immortal Prodigy will be updated tom, Long Wind Crossing by Fri.) I’m sorry guys, I have to stack up chapters for my main projects first so the next update will be next week. (*╯-╰)ノ 

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