The undead were extremely dangerous creatures. Animated by unnatural, resentful energy, they were stronger and faster than any mundane human could ever be. Moreover, they knew no fear nor pain. Attracted to the life energy of living beings, they would absorb it to heal themselves, and consume the flesh of their victims, trying to quench their unending hunger- until some cultivator properly exorcised them out of their misery.

Although the threat of undead was considered a thing of the past in this day and age, mostly thanks to widespread burial rites, the sects would use the existence of such abhorrent abominations as an active justification of sectarian world order- a line of reasoning no one who ever faced such creatures would dare to dispute.

Not wanting to take any chances, Fengli raised her hand up and summoned a projectile of black energy. Just as before, it began absorbing nearby energy immediately. Not willing to wait for it to grow overly large and become unmanageable, she threw it in the general direction of her target.

The unstable dark orb made crackling noises as it flew forward, and splendidly exploded the part of the roof it was directed at. Alas, it was too slow- Jiangshi saw what’s up and hopped to the opposite ledge.

Ah, if only she had some way to make it trace the target! Or perhaps, shoot many tiny projectiles and cover a wide area….

There wasn’t any time left for idle pondering, though! The Jiangshi, seeing his target’s consternation, immediately jumped at her.

If she was a human, she’d be dead meat now. But her wolf reflexes warned her in time, and she dodged to the side, then slashed blindly where her opponent landed. The sword made a rather unpleasant noise as it grazed flesh and bone, but that alone wasn’t enough to defeat the Jiangshi.

Unfazed at all by the damage it sustained from the cut, the monster swung all its four limbs wildly at her, and she found herself retreating away from the warehouse and towards the inner courtyard.

It is only now that Fengli noticed that the Jiangshi is barefoot, and all its fingernails had morphed into sharp claws. If at least one of these scratched her, it could go as deep as muscle tissue and, in the worst-case scenario, cut a tendon….

When fighting an unarmed human, no matter how much stronger or faster they were, a sharp sword would be enough of a deterrent to make them think twice before attacking from the front.

But this is an undead…it doesn’t know fear…and it shouldn’t know tactics, either!

A risky plan hatched in Fengli’s mind.

Suddenly she stopped retreating and thrust the sword forwards with all her might. As expected, the Jiangshi got impaled….and grabbed her neck with its monstrous hand, about to suffocate all life from her.

However, this was all she hoped it would do. At this moment, she projected a ball of energy at point-blank, and fired it at its chest….

It should have worked. There is no way it wouldn’t, by all means, undead are stupid creatures with non-existent survival instincts. But this hopping bastard….let go of her neck and jumped over Fengli just as she projected the explosion.

Thus, rather than exploding its torso into tiny pieces, it merely hit one of its legs, shredding it apart just as expected.

Unfortunately, as Wen Fengli was so close to the impact, she was also blown away by the force of the explosion, and ended up sprawled on her back, the entire world spinning around and high-pitched noise ringing in her ears.

For a while, she couldn’t feel anything and just lied there, waiting for nothing in particular. And indeed, nothing happened. She’d expect the monster to use this opportunity to finish her off, alas, it didn’t seem any overgrown teeth were munching on her. Slowly her hearing stabilized and her vision returned to normal.

She touched her face frantically. It seemed all her fingers were there, and no part of her face was missing, though there was a thick stream of blood running from her nose. No matter, she’d deal with it later!

Using the sword as a crutch, her hands still shaking unsteadily, she raised herself up. Where was the Jiangshi?

Ah, there it was, a dozen meters or so away, munching on something. Its back turned to Fengli, it seemed completely oblivious to her presence. Its missing leg was, slowly but steadily, growing back, but was still too formless to be of any use.

“Haha..haha…” someone laughed.

Ah, it was herself.

“Hahahaha”

The monster shouldn’t have shown its back to her….as expected of a mindless creature, it abandoned the greatest threat only because it spotted a better meal nearby….

She waved her hand dismissively in its general direction. This time not one, but several tiny….not balls, but spikes…of black energy manifested in its wake, and they immediately barraged the jiangshi, shredding apart pieces of its skin, fat tissue, muscle….although their damage output was rather meager, their speed was much greater from the previous ball of energy, and they didn’t even require aiming.

So that’s how it worked, huh?

But the enemy didn’t react and instead continued feasting. Persistent bastard…fine, if it wouldn’t come to her, she’d come to it….

As she limped over towards her target, she finally grasped what exactly was the Jiangshi feasting at.

It was Annu.

What was he doing there? She told him to wait in the reception hall!?

Enraged, she projected another spike of energy and waved it forward just like before. The dark ray hit the elbow, shredding it to tiny pieces, and removing the forearm from the rest of the rotten torso.

This finally succeeded at drawing the monster’s attention, and it slowly turned in her direction, fresh blood still dripping from its fangs.

She gritted her teeth and raised her sword with her right hand in an inviting gesture. At the same time, her left hand summoned a circular orb above her other hand- a miniature black hole slowly growing in size and strength as it absorbed the surrounding resentful energy.

A bait this type of creature couldn’t ignore. It had no cognitive ability to realize that this tasty snack will be the last in its life.

In a motion characteristic to its subspecies, it hopped up high in the air, wishing to quickly close the distance between them in one leap and descend upon its victim from above….just as it did before. However, this is all Wen Fengli hoped it would do- once in the air, the Jiangshi couldn’t change its trajectory anymore.

She shot the ball at its center of mass, the dark energy making a cracking noise as it flew through the air and met its target several meters above. There was a loud explosion, and the Jiangshi was shredded into countless bits and pieces that showered Wen Fengli from above. There was barely any blood though- the undead was as dry as long-deceased people went.

The previously severed hand was still crawling around, not being able to see nor hear, it was merely using its sense of touch, trying to go…somewhere. Fengli absent-mindedly impaled it on the sword, then raised up to examine.

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It was an overly muscular, grayish hand with long, claw-like fingernails and visible, large veins that despite their prominent size pumped no blood through the host’s body. Thus, they were useless. A structural weakness. Who designed it like that?

Is it a fault of nature, and thus its nature imperfect, or are Jiangshi so because they are unnatural creatures….

*Just like you*

A sharp pain shot through her head. Now that the immediate danger was gone, the voice music was coming back to torment her. And if previous experience in Kiyi was of any indication, other symptoms would soon follow…There is no time to play with the undead hand, there is something she had to do while she’s still lucid enough…

She walked towards the warehouse. At first moving in a straight line, soon she noticed she was stumbling too much to the left, then over to the right…the effects of qi deviation…in that case what she planned to do now was perhaps a bit unwise, but there was no other option….

The possibility that there were other undead in this place was rather slim. If there were they’d be here already, thirsting for an irresistible meal…

However the Jiangshi from before….would come back, sooner or later. What was destroyed was merely its physical vessel. Unless exorcised by a cultivator trained to do such a thing, the forlorn soul would linger around and eventually recreate its lost body.

In other words, if she wanted to come back here at some point in the future, she’d have to fight the grueling battle again.

Fengli raised her hand up and shot at the large doorframe leading to the warehouse. The wooden entrance exploded into tiny bits, in a manner no different from the undead before, leaving a smoking hole where it used to be. She probably used a bit too much power for that, but her control over qi…no, over resentful energy, was becoming as unstable as her grasp over her senses and physical body.

Inside the small building, there were various tools and bits of equipment that didn’t interest her. She approached a rather large cabinet composed of countless drawers. The archive.

Randomly skimming through the papers, she was grateful this part of the settlement was undamaged…and unplundered…in fact, it seemed that whoever razed this village didn’t bother to properly pillage it afterwards. What could that mean?

Didn’t know, and didn’t care. The yearbook…she had to find the yearbook. The individual symbols were dancing in front of her eyes, which made reading somewhat difficult, but finally, she found what she thought was the correct one.

A rather hefty notebook labeled December 92-December 93. The year of her arrival in this facility. Her name should be somewhere within…

She wanted to start flipping through it in that instant, but whatever reason remained in her skull told her its not a good idea. For now, she’d just take it with her, and read it afterwards…she had to get out of this cursed place first, and tend to…

Annu.

His chest was all covered in deep bite marks and stained in his blood. Underneath his torn robes was…the amulet he took from her. Apparently, he was wearing it as a necklace….which is probably what attracted the Jiangshi.

Although his body and cloth were in a rather miserable shape, there was no bite mark, not even a scratch on the amulet. Since it was rather unlikely a rabid undead creature, in its endless hunger, would take care to avoid the source of energy it so much craved, that probably meant this thing was build tougher than it looked…

She carefully took it off and tied it to her forearm just as before. The blue and violet parts, filled with unknown substances, were now shifting to red, orange, and a weird shade of pink. Did something change within the amulet, or was it just her vision?

Now, for the foolish sheepboy who…

*Was just a liability….*

…who came to her rescue…right now he wasn’t moving, and by all means and accounts, he could have been dead. However, the wounds the monster inflicted on him, as gruesome as they looked, weren’t deep enough to kill….

Thus, he was probably just unconscious. Since undead feed on life energy, their victims usually pass out after their qi drops beyond a certain threshold. Counting on Wang Shunji’s lessons being true, she picked up the sheepboy’s body and carried it to the reception hall.

…Since when did he get so heavy…Fengli struggled with carrying him, her every little step felt like a huge leap forward, sweat dripping off her forehead and getting into her eyes…Finally, she reached her destination. Donkey waited there. Unlike Annu, who was part human, this full-time animal wasn’t stupid enough to move in direction of noise and danger.

However, even after pulling her unconscious friend over the donkey and stabilizing his limp body with straps, her sweating didn’t stop. Even though she was feeling deadly cold, and every muscle in her body was shaking….her face, hands, and body were completely drenched in sweat….

…that’s right, water. At times like these, drinking water was advised. She opened the backpack and reached for the flask. It too was quite heavy. They should make them lighter, what the hell…

She put it to her lips and drank. Tiny sip after tiny sip, she kept drinking and drinking…

…and drinking and drinking…

Could this flask be bottomless? Did Annu have such an amazing magical device and didn’t tell her? It felt like she drank an ocean already. Any more and she’d burst from the inside..!!

Scared by this notion, she put the flask down. It was no larger than before- and just as before, it was almost completely full. This, combined with how it seemed to actively change its dimensions within her grasp, reinforced her idea that it must be some kind of demonic artifact and she made a mental note to check it out later.

A loud cracking sound knocked her out of her ruminations. This isn’t the time…she undid the makeshift barricade, and lead the donkey out. Although the ass was usually hostile to her, this time it was fairly obedient, perhaps sensing the gravity of the situation or perhaps getting used to her already.

And so, slowly, the trio left the cursed ghost village. The unpleasant, cracking noise continued following them for some time, but after a while, it stopped…. Fengli had no idea what was that about…

However, other noises didn’t leave her be just yet.

Coming from the inside of her head, they played sinister melodies of gritting gears and steel cutting steel. Occasionally nonsensical words and sentences would form in front of her eyes, occasionally they would obstruct her vision, but she did her best to ignore them as right now, her only objective was making as much distance as she could from the orphanage, while she could still walk….