In the desolate mountains and wild ridges, the moon is bright and the stars are sparse.
The blue phosphorescent light floated around the wild grave in the mountains, appearing and disappearing with the strange wind of late autumn, rising and falling. A black figure stood on the grave and dug the soil. The dull sound of digging was accompanied by the creaking sound of the coffin being opened, and even some stranger sounds.
"Haha—haha—" It was like a weak groan torn from the throat of a dying old man.
“Damn, why are there so many zombies around here!” The black shadow jumped to the edge of the coffin, pinched out a talisman and threw it into the coffin. Suddenly, flames burst into flames, and the groaning turned into a distorted scream.
This bustle in this scene is enough to scare anyone walking at night. But Luo Yujing is used to it. She follows the noise behind her, sits in front of a fire not far from the wild grave, wrapped in a quilt, and stirs the porridge in the small pot with a wooden spoon.
There was some minced meat and yam dug up on the bitter road in the porridge, which looked pretty good.
The flames and the sounds of the zombies scratching the coffin behind him had disappeared, and the monotonous sound of digging had returned. Just now they were digging, and now they were burying it back.
Luo Yujing ignored what happened after her death and sprinkled some salt into the pot. She lived with a Taoist zombie who didn't need to eat or sleep, living in the open air, and her life was irregular.
At first, Ku Sheng just found something and cooked it for her, but... Luo Yujing couldn't stand it when she saw Ku Sheng pinching the zombie's head and then turning around to cook for her.
It's one thing for him to have no desire to survive and be depressed every day, but he just caught a handful of zombies and there was corpse oil on his fingers, and he went to cook for her, and all of it ended up in the pot!
—This is no longer simply a question of whether it tastes good or not, but rather a question of what will happen to it after eating it.
"Why, you don't want to eat today?" Ku Sheng, who was stopped by her, asked puzzledly.
Luo Yujing: "I still say the same thing, if you want me dead, just kill me with your sword."
"Why are you saying that again!" Kusheng almost jumped up, "I didn't do anything!"
Luo Yujing took the pot and washed it three hundred times.
From then on, she had to take care of her own food. Kusheng not only bought some rice for her in the town, but also found some edible and inedible ingredients for her in the mountains.
For example, the various strange mushrooms on the mountain, the poisonous snakes that jumped in front of them while they were on the road and were caught by Kusheng, and the ginseng that they dug out while resting under the tree...
"You slept very soundly yesterday and couldn't be woken up even if I called you." Ku Sheng said one day.
"... Didn't you realize that I was poisoned by those poisonous mushrooms you found and passed out?" Luo Yujing took a deep breath.
"???"
"Why is your nose bleeding so much suddenly? Damn it, what's wrong with you again!" Another day, Kusheng said anxiously, grabbing his hair.
“… You’re asking me? Didn’t you secretly put the dug ginseng into the pot?” Luo Yujing took a deep breath.
Kusheng: "Ginseng is a good thing. Many people like to eat ginseng. I only used ginseng to keep you alive because I saw you were dying!"
Luo Yujing: "You are killing me."
Ku Sheng still didn't believe it, and pointed at the Sword of Evil Slaying: "If I did something wrong, why didn't the Sword of Evil Slaying react?"
"The Zhuxie Sword has given up on you, right?" Luo Yujing finally stopped the nosebleed, but felt dizzy. She didn't know if it was the aftereffect of using too much ginseng or because she was angry.
"Impossible!" Ku Sheng said firmly. He looked at the Zhuxie Sword again and his tone slowly became hesitant. "Impossible...?"
Luo Yujing: “Heh.”
If he has to be pointed at for every mistake he makes, then the Sword of Evil-Slaying no longer needs a scabbard and can just be pointed at him all day long.
Every morning when she woke up, Luo Yujing would feel strange. Why was she still alive today
Almost a month had passed before she knew it, and her will to live seemed to have miraculously revived. If she hadn't had any will to live, her life would have come to an end long ago as she went through so much suffering.
In the second half of the night, the sound of digging finally stopped. Luo Yujing finished eating and wrapped herself in a quilt, watching the fire jumping. A smell of earth approached, and Kusheng walked with the wind and sat cross-legged beside the fire.
There are many tombs in the mountains in this area, and most of them are old tombs. Recently, Kusheng always has to stop to dig up the graves and open the coffins, and burn to death with talisman fire the zombies in the coffins that were resurrected by the breath.
Kusheng is a living zombie transformed from a divine fetus. As a divine fetus, his bones are naturally endowed with a strange fragrance, which can drive away evil spirits and misfortunes. But when he becomes a zombie, he changes from a "divine thing" to an "evil thing", and driving away evil spirits becomes inviting them.
It has a particularly intriguing and deterrent effect on zombies. Those rigid corpses buried in the soil may become restless and come back to life when he passes by, and instinctively crawl out of the soil to chase him.
No matter where Kusheng goes, he will kill not only evil spirits but also zombies.
If he didn't care, the zombies that escaped due to his aura would be related to him if they committed murders, so he had to care.
They dug graves at night and traveled during the day, and this went on for several days.
That afternoon, it was still early for them to stop and rest, and the sky was dark and low, as if it was going to rain. Luo Yujing noticed that Kusheng was a little strange, his steps were heavy and he was unusually silent.
Suddenly, he stopped and said to himself: "Oh no, I'm afraid the time has come again."
Luo Yujing didn't say anything. Seeing him lean back slightly, he said, "Let me find a temple to stay in. I'll rest early today."
As there were more demons and monsters, there were also more legends about gods and immortals, so temples were built everywhere. Sometimes there were hundreds of temples of all sizes in the countryside, and even on the roadsides at the entrances of villages, small shrines half a person's height could be seen everywhere.
After walking more than half a mile, we saw a mountain temple carved out of the mountain wall.
The cave was not big, and it was unclear what deity was enshrined there. All I knew was that it seemed like no one had been here for a long time, the statues and tables were covered in dust, and there were a few broken coffins piled up in the back corner. It must have been used by nearby villagers as a temporary place to store corpses.
Kusheng stepped into a puddle, splashing water. Just as he ran into the mountain temple, the heavy rain outside had already started to pour down, and the raindrops formed a door curtain that fell straight down.
He staggered forward and put Luo Yujing down from his back. Kusheng shook his head, dragged out a broken coffin, and turned over to lie down in it.
"I will fall asleep tonight and wake up tomorrow morning." Kusheng took off the sword and gave it to Luo Yujing. "If some ghosts appear at night, don't worry about me. The sword will protect you."
When he was about to say a few more words, he recalled the scene of her fighting with the evil spirit when they first met. He felt that there was no need to say more. He took out a talisman from his sleeve and was about to stick it on his forehead. But before he could stick it on, he stopped and added, "Don't even think about running away!"
After saying this, he stuck the talisman on his forehead and instantly there was no movement.
Luo Yujing stood up with the sword to kill evil and took a look. There was a yellow talisman pasted on the face of a bitter-skinned person in the coffin, and it was motionless like a corpse.
She didn't know what was going on and didn't try to find out. No one was around to chatter or urge her, so she didn't bother to cook and just sat there alone watching the rain outside.
As she was in a daze, the sky quickly darkened and she suddenly smelled a faint, strange fragrance.
The fragrance keeps changing. Once your nose smells it, it seems to connect to your five senses through the smell, and a picture naturally appears in your mind.
With her eyes closed, Luo Yujing smelled a familiar scent. The scent of laundry detergent, toilet water, mosquito repellent mothballs in the closet, and trees in the old neighborhood outside the window... all mixed together to form the scent of her home.
Then there was the richer, more homely aroma of food. It was the roast duck made by my sister. She often said that she had a secret to making roast duck and that the taste was different from that of others.
Following the scent, Luo Yujing came to the coffin where Kusheng lay. The various smells that belonged to her memory dissipated, revealing the original wonderful fragrance that was like the fragrance of flowers and fruits.
It was emitted from Ku Sheng. Luo Yujing leaned in a little closer and sniffed it, feeling a little dazed. She was on Ku Sheng's back, and through the back of the chair, she could occasionally smell a faint, fleeting fragrance that was hard to capture, and she didn't know where it came from.
Suddenly, the quiet Zhuxie Sword trembled. Luo Yujing was startled and withdrew her hand. She found that there seemed to be something new in the cave.
The face of the small and crude statue in the cave twisted and a mass of white hair appeared, which grew long and hung down to the ground, as if the statue had suddenly grown a long beard that spread towards the coffin.
In the shadows beneath the altar, a string of small red lights flickered, as if a group of people were hiding there and talking in low voices. But when one tried to hear what they were saying, one couldn't make out clearly.
There was a sound of footsteps in the rain outside. Luo Yujing looked over and saw that the rain at the door suddenly stopped, as if it was stopped for a moment. In the intermittent sound, it seemed that five or six invisible people walked in one after another.
Slight water marks appeared on the ground. Luo Yujing leaned back against the coffin. The Sword of Zhuxie floated in front of her. The sword emitted a faint light, which shocked and blocked the invisible things at a distance.
Judging from the water marks on the ground, those things were circling the coffin, seemingly at a loss. After a while, the water marks dried up completely, and Luo Yujing had no idea where they were. She only knew that they probably didn't go out and were still here.
On the dusty desk, a half-burned red candle was suddenly lit, illuminating a piece of shiny fur beside the desk - it was a long weasel.
"It is a rare fortune for me to encounter the magical incense in the wilderness." The weasel narrowed its eyes and smiled, with a ball of golden gold revealed under its claws.
It said to Luo Yujing: "Do you want this gold? If you want it, take the sword in front of you and go out!"
Luo Yujing picked up a stone at her feet and threw it at it, knocking some debris on the table to the ground.
The weasel bared its teeth and said angrily, "What an ignorant girl!"
As soon as it finished speaking, the red eyes under the table began to blink, and the sound of grinding teeth came one after another.
Seeing that Luo Yujing was not afraid and did not move, the weasel rolled its eyes, hooked its long tail, and blew out a yellow cloud. The yellow cloud dispersed, and Luo Yujing smelled a foul odor. Her mind gradually became confused, and in the confusion, she heard a shrill voice saying, "You see the person you fear the most appear in front of you."
Luo Yujing looked up, her eyes were red, and suddenly she held her head and screamed, her whole body shaking.
The voice continued, "Now take the sword in front of you and run away. Run as far away as possible from the one you fear..."
Luo Yujing really grabbed the sword in front of her in fear, but she did not run away as she was told. Instead, she trembled and murmured, "I'm dead, I'm already dead."
"How come I... died?" Her face seemed to be half crying and half laughing, but gradually a ferocious look emerged, and she suddenly drew out the Sword of the Evil Slayer and slashed forward.
"Duk--" The sword shaved off a corner of the table. The weasel was caught off guard and a piece of its tail tip was also shaved off. It screamed in anger, "I told you to run away! Run away!"
However, no matter what it said, Luo Yujing had already fallen into madness. Her eyes were full of bloodshot, and she slashed at the weasel with her sword again.
Luo Yujing chased the weasel, slashing it with his sword here and there, leaving sword marks on the surrounding table and stone walls. The weasel didn't care about being forced into this state by a human, so it pounced on the coffin. Luo Yujing slashed at the coffin with his sword again, cutting off the weasel's tail.
"ah!"
In the red flickering candlelight, several shadows were reflected on the wall of the cave and were poked by Luo Yujing.
In the chaos, the white beard quietly detached from the statue and covered Luo Yujing. Luo Yujing looked down and saw some kind of illusion. She suddenly laughed: "Haha... Haha!"
He smiled and raised the Sword of Demon Slaying to stab himself. The tip of the sword pierced the white beard and followed her force to stab into his stomach. The Sword of Demon Slaying was in a stalemate with her and pulled back, preventing her from piercing him through with this ruthless sword.
…
In the early morning, the cinnabar yellow talisman on Kusheng's forehead burned out by itself. He sat up, wondering if anything had happened last night. When he looked up, he saw—
The cave was covered with sword marks, even the coffin he was lying in was almost chopped apart, a group of weasels were scattered on the ground with their skin and flesh separated, a group of hairy spiders were cut in half with their hair scattered, and the scent of some ghosts that were burned to ashes by the Sword of Killing Evil lingered in the air.
The only living thing left was Luo Yujing, who was sitting beside the coffin with the Zhuxie Sword in his hand.
"…" Kusheng looked at the top of the woman's head and shouted, "Evil-killing Sword! What's wrong with you!"