Chapter 111: You Gotta Be Kidding Me—running Into This?
Facing Lin Yan’s statement “I’m an ordinary person so it’s reasonable to bring a zombie into the tomb,” Lao Yang unexpectedly felt it made sense for a moment. What sense! Never mind whether you’re an ordinary person or not, this zombie growing like this is already unreasonable, right? Besides, can an ordinary person raise a zombie? And this zombie can even ying ying ying? Even though Lao Yang had experienced more fantastical things, he was completely dumbfounded this time.
Bai Jiang Jiang peaked the moment it appeared, nearly scaring the guide NPC insane, which was also worth bragging about.
Seeing Lao Yang with his worldview shattered and feeling life was hopeless, on the verge of committing suicide on the spot to verify if this world was real, Wu Xie finally couldn’t hold back: “Hahaha, Lao Yang, this expression of yours. Hahahaha I can’t take it anymore, I’m dying of laughter. I’ve known you for so many years, and this is the first time I’ve seen this expression on you hahahahaha!”
These words somewhat brought back Lao Yang’s consciousness. He finally reluctantly digested the facts that “this little thing is a zombie,” “Lin Yan actually raised a zombie,” and “zombies can act spoiled too,” and carefully shuffled back step by step.
“Lin, Brother Lin, this—this zombie, it—it doesn’t suck blood, right?”
Lao Yang sat in a slightly farther position, keeping his upper body far away. Lin Yan smiled: “It does suck, but not much. So far, it has only sucked my blood.”
When he said the first half of the sentence, Lao Yang once again demonstrated his amazing jumping ability, instantly distancing himself from them, his face full of “don’t come closer or I’ll bolt out the door.”
Wu Xie couldn’t hold back his laughter again. For a moment, the room was filled with his and Lin Yan’s wild laughter. Until someone knocked on the door, and an extremely impatient voice startled Lao Yang all over: “What are you laughing at? Have some public decency! You know you’ve disturbed people?”
So the laughter stopped abruptly.
After a while, Lao Yang gradually came to his senses. This little thing definitely wasn’t dangerous, otherwise Wu Xie and the others wouldn’t act like this. He mustered his courage and shuffled back: “This thing… really no danger?”
Wu Xie smiled and petted its head again.
Although he was still afraid of the zombie, Wu Xie and Lin Yan’s completely unguarded attitude toward it made him slightly relieved. After swallowing, he tremblingly reached out to touch its head.
“?”
After touching it, Lao Yang was stunned and looked at them with eyes full of suspicion: “You sure—sure this, this is really a zombie? I-I how do I feel like I’m—I’m touching a plush toy?”
Lin Yan nodded and said with a grin: “The real deal!”
Lao Yang still had that incredulous look. Although he still couldn’t fully accept the fact that this thing was a zombie, he was at least not afraid anymore.
After calming down, he suddenly remembered the main matter: “We… not—not going?” He looked outside at the sun: “If we don’t—don’t go soon, it’ll—it’ll be dark!”
Wu Xie and Lin Yan looked at the sky outside: “Holy shit!”
The two exchanged a glance, hurriedly grabbed their backpacks, each grabbing one of Lao Yang’s arms, and dragged him along. Lao Yang was dumbfounded again: he just wanted to remind them of the time, but these two didn’t need to be in such a hurry, right?
Only after leaving the town did Wu Xie and the other stop. Lao Yang was a bit puzzled: “Wha-what, why not going anymore?”
Wu Xie and Lin Yan exchanged a glance and let go of Lao Yang’s arms. Wu Xie gave him a slightly embarrassed smile: “We don’t know the way! Didn’t you say you remember the way?”
Lao Yang rolled his eyes at Wu Xie and punched his shoulder: “Damn it, running—running so fast ahead, I thought you knew how to—how to go into the mountains!”
Wu Xie coughed awkwardly: “Alright, you lead the way. You’ve been here before, who else to follow but you?”
Lao Yang glanced at him and strode ahead.
The mountain roads in the Qinling Mountains were difficult to traverse. Even though it was a dirt road, the uphill path still exhausted them. They walked from afternoon to dusk, the sun almost setting, and still hadn’t seen any sign of a tomb.
Wu Xie panted as he walked; he had the weakest physical fitness here: “Lao, Lao Yang, how much longer? If not, let’s rest here, find a campsite… I can’t go on.”
Lao Yang was also sweating profusely, almost sticking out his tongue: “I-I don’t—don’t know either. Three years ago I followed—followed here, don’t—don’t remember very clearly, being able to remember the general position is already pretty good!”
Lin Yan stopped dead in his tracks upon hearing this: “What do you mean just remember the position? Aren’t you screwing us over? You came from here three years ago too?”
Wu Xie saw him stop and didn’t want to go on either, simply resting with hands on his knees. Lao Yang took two steps and saw they weren’t following, so he stopped too: “N-not from here, but I—I remember the position. The position is—is right, just find the markers!”
Lin Yan looked around; estimating within a hundred li radius there was nothing but road and forest, not even a bird, and he couldn’t help but suspect Lao Yang: “You sure you didn’t take a wrong turn?”
Lao Yang pulled out a compass and gestured a bit: “Should—shouldn’t have.”
That tone sounded very unsure. But they’d come this far, no point nitpicking. Lin Yan simply started looking for a campsite: “Forget it, we’ll stop here today and rest overnight.”
Lao Yang gave a sheepish smile, somewhat regretting his bravado. What if they really couldn’t find it? Wasted trip.
“Should’ve known it’d be this—this hard to find, better off following those—those people and scavenging behind!” Hearing Lao Yang’s words and recalling the group they saw in the afternoon, Wu Xie felt tempted too. The tomb chamber that person drew was obviously not small; by the scale, it might really be some Han dynasty tomb with plenty of good stuff.
“You’re right, we should’ve followed them. Might’ve scavenged something! I’m not greedy; they take the big share, we take the small. Stuff from nearby satellite burials could be worth hundreds of thousands.”
Lin Yan rolled his eyes at the two daydreamers: “Enough, don’t you see what we are? One who got caught after one tomb raid—” He pointed at Lao Yang, then at himself and Wu Xie: “Two who stumbled through somehow. Who gave you the guts to track a bunch of old-timers clearly in the business for decades? They outnumber us; if discovered in these barren mountains and wilderness, we’d die not knowing how, at best family finds our corpses after we go missing. What are you thinking!”
Wu Xie and Lao Yang thought about it and agreed; those people definitely wouldn’t cooperate with them. If they ran into them, it might be a tough fight they couldn’t win! Better to stick to finding their own tomb honestly.
Exchanging glances, they extinguished their greedy thoughts and started looking for a campsite. Where they stood barely counted as road; if someone passed by at night and saw them sleeping, who knows if they’d get robbed or straight-up murdered? So the campsite had to be a safe spot away from main and side roads, preferably near a water source. But not too close to water; in these mountains, who knows if there are large carnivores. If too near water and they smell them, with their weak bodies, wouldn’t they just be delivering themselves as midnight snacks?
But if they didn’t seek trouble, trouble came to them.
Just as they were half-dead from exhaustion looking for a campsite, vague voices came from the already dim front.
“Holy shit, people!” Lin Yan whisper-exclaimed. They hurriedly crouched down, not daring to move.
“Wait, this voice sounds kinda familiar?” Hearing the characteristic Cantonese-accented Mandarin, Wu Xie and Lin Yan exchanged glances: This damn… isn’t that the young man’s voice with the Cantonese accent? Sure enough, they crept forward quietly, and the conversation grew clearer. They heard Uncle Tai’s strange-accented Mandarin: “…You damn only know eating, drinking, whoring, gambling; that’ll be enough for you!”
After the torment of the Cantonese-accented Mandarin, Uncle Tai’s Mandarin was much easier to understand than that young man’s!
Didn’t expect by a twist of fate to end up on the same road as this “rich second-gen” crew! They exchanged glances; the thoughts Wu Xie and Lao Yang had extinguished earlier quietly resurfaced: How about following them?
