Chapter 332: The Divine Tomb of the Underground Palace (19)
When they realized that the one who had just helped fend off the corpses outside the house was actually a wolf, everyone froze in stunned silence. For a moment, they didn’t know whether to feel relieved or terrified.
Sure, they were grateful that it had stopped the living corpses for them, but—it was still a wild wolf. Who knew if it had any human-like understanding?
Judging by the wolf’s earlier movements, if it had wanted to harm them, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
The uncertainty of whether it was friend or foe made everyone tense up. Their expressions turned grim, and they gripped their weapons tightly, not daring to let their guard down.
But the wolf only gave their so-called “weapons” a lazy glance, flicked its large, fluffy tail nonchalantly, and with a leap, sprang onto the top of the wall. There, it raised its head solemnly and looked far into the distance.
“…Why do I feel like I’ve just been looked down on by a wolf?”
An Nanyuan rubbed his eyes in disbelief, questioning reality itself. He figured he must have been too shocked and started hallucinating.
He looked down at the oversized memorial portrait he was holding. The stern-looking old man in the black-and-white photo stared back at him with a gloomy expression. After a moment’s hesitation, he muttered, “Well… this could count as a weapon, right?”
Somehow, that wolf’s glance just now had seemed to say: That? Seriously?
“???”
An Nanyuan tilted his head, his mind full of question marks.
Bai Shuang also glanced down at the large iron pot in her hands with a complicated expression and said, “Me too…”
What was so contemptible about an iron pot? It was a household essential! It could block bullets and blades, cook meals, and even be carried on one’s back in a pinch. Why couldn’t it be used as a weapon?
Nan Tian had been observing the wolf’s behavior. After a brief hesitation, he said, “Is it surveying the area? Watching the corpses in the village?”
His voice was so soft that not many people heard him.
Yet the wolf flicked the tip of its tail slowly in Nan Tian’s direction—as if responding to him.
Nan Tian was instantly shocked. “Huh??? Could this wolf really understand me?”
The wolf snorted dismissively through its nose. It felt that it had overestimated the intelligence of the people traveling with Yan Shixun. Communicating with them was hopeless.
Its fluffy ears twitched. From its high vantage point, its sharp gaze swept across the treetops and rooftops, all the way into the village, as if it had heard something.
Even while it had been taking down the corpses with its claws, the wolf had been silently counting. It mentally tallied the number of undead and compared it to the number of villagers who had died that night.
It quickly sensed something was wrong.
The guests might not have known the exact situation in the village, but the wolf was intimately familiar with its territory.
It patrolled the mountains day and night, even aware of how many ghosts wandered through the woods. Knowing how many living humans were in the village was a given.
Upon comparison, it found not only a mismatch in the numbers but also something odd about the corpses themselves.
—Some of the corpses had already begun to rot. Beneath their decaying, foul-smelling flesh, white bones were visible.
These weren’t villagers killed by ghosts that very night.
They were people who had died long ago, already buried in the rear hills.
The wolf knew perfectly well—this was the resurgence of grudges and sins that had lain dormant for over a hundred years, now spreading completely over this land.
None of the descendants of those who had committed massacres back then could escape the curse passed down through generations. Every last one had become these half-human, half-ghost living corpses.
No wonder it had heard faint noises while running through the mountains…
The wolf cast another glance at the people inside the house. Seeing how utterly clueless they were about what was going on, it looked away in disdain.
Totally uncommunicative. What a bunch of dumb humans.
“Oh oh oh! That’s it! That’s the look!”
An Nanyuan pointed excitedly at the wolf on the wall, motioning for everyone to look. He gestured wildly as he said, “That’s exactly how it looked at me earlier! It was definitely looking down on me!”
Everyone: “…………”
Thinking about it more carefully… they honestly couldn’t find anything they had over the wolf.
They weren’t physically stronger, weren’t better at dealing with corpses, and couldn’t even jump onto the wall… Maybe being looked down on wasn’t that unreasonable?
“But… it really doesn’t seem like it wants to hurt us,”
Bai Shuang said, summoning her courage and inching toward the door. She wanted to test the wolf’s reaction. “It arrived just in time… do you think Brother Yan sent it to save us?”
“Even if these wild beasts have some intelligence, they can’t possibly understand human emotions to that extent, right? It’s already good enough that they don’t attack us—how could they behave the way you’re describing?”
Nan Tian shook his head with a laugh and said, “Brother Yan isn’t some beast tamer. How could he possibly make wild wolves understand his intentions, let alone have them follow his orders so precisely?”
But just as Nan Tian finished speaking, and right as Bai Shuang was about to open the door, the wolf suddenly turned its head and shot her a cold glare. The intensity of that look stopped Bai Shuang in her tracks, too afraid to move forward.
The wolf didn’t attack her. It merely jerked its chin, signaling her to step back and not come out.
Such a reckless human. What if a living corpse happened to appear just then?
It flicked its tail again, thinking that these humans weren’t even as capable as the cubs in its own pack. If it left them here on their own, they’d probably starve to death just trying to find food.
After noticing how thorough and considerate the wild wolf’s actions were, the young master couldn’t help but be amazed. Suddenly, he began to wonder—was it possible that what Nan Tian had said wasn’t completely without merit?
Song Ci walked to the window and leaned out, trying to see what was going on outside that had made the wild wolf so tense and intimidating.
But after listening carefully for a long while, he still didn’t hear a thing.
In the pitch-black forest, there wasn’t another living soul besides them. The silence was eerily unsettling.
The wild wolf landed soundlessly on the ground, then bolted swiftly toward the nearby village, ready to investigate and verify its suspicions firsthand.
As soon as it entered the village, a strong stench of blood hit it square in the face.
Strangely, even though they were in the open and the mountain wind kept blowing, the bloody scent hadn’t dissipated—in fact, it had grown even thicker and more nauseating.
But after a few sniffs, the wild wolf quickly noticed something off about the smell.
It wasn’t the scent of fresh blood. On the contrary, it smelled like old, decaying blood that had been left sitting for a long time.
The guests might have been too dull to distinguish it—they probably identified blood simply by its metallic tang. To them, it made no difference whether it was fresh or old.
But the wild wolf had survived on raw meat. In such matters, it was practically a natural-born expert. Nothing could escape its sensitive nose.
Not even the tiniest difference.
Guided by the strange stench, the wild wolf trotted deeper into the village.
Sure enough, there wasn’t a single corpse in sight.
All the bodies that had previously fallen to the ground after being killed had risen again. They had either gone to attack the cave or the houses outside the village—none had been left behind.
But even if it included the corpses from near the cave and the ones outside the buildings, the total number still didn’t match up…
The wild wolf came to a halt on a patch of clean earth, and with a very human-like expression of confusion and caution, it tilted its head. Its fluffy ears flicked toward the side as it perked up to listen.
In the sound of the wind, all the clues needed for hunting were hidden.
There were still more corpses concealed deeper in the village.
Once it had locked onto its target, the wild wolf moved instantly. From the poised elegance of moments before to the explosive leap forward, it took less than a second before it shot straight toward the source of the putrid, bloody stench.
*Bang!* The wild wolf crashed through a door.
Inside the village chief’s home, several dull-eyed walking corpses stood in the courtyard. Upon hearing the noise, their stiff heads turned to look at the wild wolf.
The wild wolf’s pupils instantly narrowed into vertical slits. It bared its teeth and let out a low growl, clearly furious.
These corpses weren’t villagers who had died that night, nor were they long-buried bodies dug up from the cemetery—they were the ones from the yizhuang!
As the pack leader, the wolf knew its territory inside out, and was deeply familiar with the yizhuangit had guarded.
It remembered clearly who among them had been the pitiful villagers slaughtered back then, and who had been the perpetrators who later died at the hands of vengeful spirits.
The walking corpses before it were unmistakably some of the very perpetrators.
Because of the lingering resentment in the yizhuang, these corpses had retained much of their appearance from when they were alive. At first glance, they looked nearly identical to living people.
But the funeral garments they wore, the pale, lifeless faces—these told the truth of what they really were.
These walking corpses were not like the ones the wild wolf had fought and killed earlier. They seemed to retain some fragment of their former consciousness, still capable of independent thought and movement.
When the wild wolf charged into the courtyard, the corpses instantly recognized it as the same creature that had once stood guard outside the yizhuang, preventing them from leaving.
Slowly and stiffly, they turned toward the wolf. Then, with jerky, awkward movements, they began walking toward it, trying to grab hold and kill it to vent their hatred.
For over a hundred years, they had been trapped, unable to escape. Their agony had echoed endlessly in the yizhuang, day and night, never seeing the light of day… Their eyes now glowed red with rage. They bared rows of sharp fangs, and their mutated, claw-like fingers swiped toward the wild wolf.
The wild wolf, however, simply snorted from its nose and cast the approaching corpses a contemptuous glance. Even though it was outnumbered, not a hint of fear showed in its eyes.
A low growl rumbled from its throat as it lowered its front half, poised to strike.
Then, just as one of the corpses bent forward and lunged at it, the wild wolf shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bowstring, leaping straight onto the corpse’s face.
Before the zombie could even react, the wild wolf’s sharp claws had already torn its face to shreds. Its blood-red eyeball burst into a pulp, splattering across its bluish-pale face. The stark contrast between red and white made it look terrifying and gruesome.
But the wolf didn’t stop. It immediately pounced on the next one, and then the one after that…
The noble and chilling aura of a top-tier predator was on full display in every move it made.
By the time the wild wolf landed gracefully again, the walking corpses were already standing stiffly in place, motionless.
The next moment—“Boom!”—the mutilated corpses, now reduced to chunks of flesh, collapsed onto the ground in a pile.
The wild wolf gasped a few times. Its beautiful silver-gray fur was now stained with splashes of blood. The clotted, sticky mess caused its fur to clump together, making the wolf visibly disgusted with itself.
It lifted its front paw and quietly looked at the bowl-sized wound left by the zombie’s bite. Blood was already trailing down its fur, soaking its paw.
Uncomfortable, it gave its body a hard shake, flinging off the blood. Then it turned its head toward the village chief’s house and recalled the faces it had seen earlier. It confirmed that the zombies bore a strong resemblance to the chief’s family.
It seemed that the corpses from the yizhuang, long since dead, had somehow sensed the massacre in the village that night. Had they risen again, hoping to avenge their descendants?
The wild wolf let out a snort, as if mocking the notion.
Did the perpetrators ever think, when they slaughtered the village back then, that their sins would come back to haunt them—and their children?
Revenge? What a ridiculous joke.
Once it confirmed the strange happenings in the village, the wild wolf quickly pieced everything together. It realized that what it was facing wasn’t just the corpses buried in the village over the past century, but also the ones stored in the abandoned yizhuang.
The wolf didn’t dare waste any time. It still remembered how those people outside the village were even more helpless than cubs. It immediately turned and sprinted out of the village, determined to make it back before the walking corpses attacked again.
Back in the house, the others had indeed followed the wolf’s instructions and hadn’t acted rashly.
Even though the immediate danger seemed to have passed, the house still provided relatively solid shelter—stable enough that they didn’t have to exhaust themselves further.
But they had just escaped from the southwest. Fear and fatigue weighed heavily on them, and both body and spirit were worn out. They hadn’t even had time to rest properly before having to face another wave of zombies—creatures that neither feared death nor felt pain. Everyone was on the verge of breaking.
Seizing the moment of calm, they quickly discussed and agreed to split into two alternating groups—one to keep watch, the other to rest.
Even just sitting down for a moment made a difference—it eased their mental exhaustion a little.
All of them had been jolted awake from sleep. To go from the warmth and safety of rest straight into a life-threatening crisis—it chilled them to the bone. They shivered uncontrollably, and even bundling themselves in thick blankets did little to help.
“The last time I was this tired, I was rushing through three provinces in one day, running between five different film sets just to shoot background scenes.”
Zhao Zhen said with a bitter smile as he stood by the window: “Back then, I was wired to fly, dropped from buildings, beaten again and again thanks to some big-shot actor’s scheming—but I managed to endure all that. Only now do I realize the real exhaustion comes from the heart.”
“I clearly slept a few hours, but why does it feel like I’ve been working nonstop for years?”
Zhao Zhen sighed, growing more worried about Yan Shixun. “I wonder how Brother Yan is doing. At least we got some sleep, but he hasn’t closed his eyes all night—and he’s still injured…”
Even though Zhao Zhen knew deep down that with the Lord of Fengdu and the King of Hell present, Yan Shixun likely wouldn’t be in too much danger, he couldn’t shake the anxiety. His mind buzzed with unease, as if something terrible was about to happen. He paced back and forth by the window restlessly.
It was unclear whether he was trying to stay warm, waiting for the wild wolf to return—or hoping for some news about Yan Shixun.
Wrapped in a blanket and trying to catch some rest, Song Ci frowned and complained, “You’re giving me a headache with all that walking. What’s wrong with you? You finally got some food tonight, and now you’re pacing like you’re trying to digest it all at once?”
Zhao Zhen immediately stopped in place like an obedient child and joked bitterly, “You’re right. I should be grateful to Brother Yan. If he hadn’t coerced and bribed the villagers, we wouldn’t have had anything to eat tonight.”
An Nanyuan nodded and said with relief, “In all this misfortune, that’s at least one thing to be thankful for—we’re not starving yet. Otherwise, things would’ve been even worse.”
If they were exhausted, hungry, and sleep-deprived all at once, even the strongest and fittest of men wouldn’t be able to hold out under such pressure.
Hearing An Nanyuan’s comment, everyone finally managed to find a small silver lining. Their spirits lifted slightly.
“I don’t know when Brother Yan will return… I don’t know if that wolf will come back either…”
Bai Shuang lowered her head, staring at the large iron pot in her hands as she muttered gloomily, “I just hope we can all make it through the night safely.”
The big iron pot was covered in dust and greasy soot built up over time. Now, all of that grime had rubbed off onto Bai Shuang, leaving her once-beautiful clothes in a wretched state. Her hands and even her face were marked with black streaks, making her look nothing like the vibrant singer she used to be on camera.
Yet she felt that only after joining this show—after witnessing so many ghosts and sacrifices firsthand—had she truly found herself and begun to grow.
She still didn’t know how Lu Xingxing was doing, or if she could even be saved… Bai Shuang didn’t want anyone else around her to get hurt.
Even if she were injured herself, it was better than watching someone close to her get hurt—or worse, face life or death uncertainty—without being able to do anything.
This feeling of losing control, of being utterly helpless, made Bai Shuang feel deeply uneasy.
“But… that wild wolf must know what’s happening outside.”
Nan Tian frowned and said, “Since it was Brother Yan who asked it to come back and help outside, it must know the situation out there—and maybe even what’s going on with Brother Yan. It’s just a pity it can’t speak human language, otherwise we could ask it. Sigh…”
An Nanyuan, “…Bro, wake up. A wolf talking like a person? You think that’s normal?”
“Is a corpse coming back to life normal, then?”
Nan Tian thought about it after speaking and sighed again. “Well, you’re right. A talking wolf would be kind of scary. Maybe I should just learn wolf language.”
As soon as he said that, An Nanyuan rushed forward, clearly concerned, and reached out to feel Nan Tian’s forehead—only to have his hand slapped away.
“What are you doing? You think I have a fever or something?”
An Nanyuan, “Why else would you be talking nonsense?”
He tried to comfort him with worry in his voice. “Nan Tian, I know you’ve been under a lot of stress since what happened to Xingxing, but you really need to relax a bit. Don’t push yourself so hard. Otherwise, before anything even happens to Xingxing, you’ll be the one losing it. Everyone’s anxious right now, but there’s nothing we can do except wait.”
Nan Tian couldn’t help but laugh and cry at the same time. “Don’t worry. I haven’t lost my mind. A lot of shamans communicate with animals. Not just wolves—there are even shamans who speak with rats to ask about natural disasters.”
Bai Shuang suddenly grabbed Nan Tian’s arm, her eyes full of hope. “So you can ask that wolf how Brother Yan is doing now?”
Nan Tian hesitated. “…I said I wanted to learn, not that I already can.”
“Oh.”
Bai Shuang instantly slumped back, puffing out her cheeks in disappointment.
Her mind lingered on the wild wolf that had just run off, and she kept subconsciously glancing at the top of the courtyard wall.
But instead of seeing the wolf, she suddenly noticed—there was a hand on the wall!
Whether it was the moonlight or not, that hand looked paper-white and terrifying, gripping the top of the wall tightly like someone on the other side was trying to climb over.
Bai Shuang quickly told everyone what she saw. The whole group tensed up, each grabbing their weapons again, staring anxiously at the top of the wall, trying to figure out what the thing was.
Because the wolf had previously warned them not to go outside, none of them dared approach the wall or check the situation beyond it. All they could do was fill in the blanks with their imagination based on the little they could see now.
Bai Shuang could feel her heart pounding furiously, blood rushing backward up to her brain, making her face flush red while her ears buzzed.
She clutched the big iron pot tightly. Right now, it felt like the only thing that could give her a sense of security.
An Nanyuan didn’t dare speak loudly. In a hushed breath, he asked Zhao Zhen, “Don’t you think the layer of clothes under that hand looks kind of familiar? I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before. Was it in a movie I watched?”
An Nanyuan knew himself well. Besides endless days of practicing and studying, his only hobby was watching movies to relax.
If he’d seen it somewhere, it had to be in a film.
Zhao Zhen had already felt the pattern of the clothing under the hand looked oddly familiar. Hearing An Nanyuan’s words jogged his memory.
In a disbelieving whisper, he murmured, “Isn’t… isn’t that a burial shroud?”
Zhao Zhen, though he debuted as a child star, had always focused on honing his acting skills. Without popularity, he never got good scripts, so he spent years playing small parts or extras in different film crews—including many roles as dead bodies.
One of those roles, he remembered now, had been playing a corpse lying in a coffin.
As the memory came back, he recalled that the costume he’d worn had the same patterned shroud!
As soon as he said this, everyone jumped in shock.
A chill inexplicably crept up their spines, making them tremble. Their eyes grew even more terrified as they stared at the hand on the wall.
The next moment, another hand suddenly slapped onto the top of the wall.
Then, a head slowly rose from the other side.
Everyone could clearly see a pale, stiff face peeking over the wall, its blood-red eyes staring blankly and directly at them.
The moment their eyes met those red pupils, every hair on their bodies stood on end—they trembled from the sudden cold.
This wasn’t like any of the living corpses they had seen before. With this one’s arrival, it felt like even the surrounding temperature had dropped by several degrees.
And the burial robe it wore only intensified their fear.
But it didn’t stop there. One by one, more corpses began appearing at the top of the wall. They moved more agilely than the ones they’d seen earlier, leaping down directly from the wall and advancing toward the house they were in.
Meanwhile, loud banging started coming from the courtyard gate. The iron door was quickly dented in, as if someone—or something—outside was trying to break in.
Even though the group was terrified, they knew they had no way out. So, they tightened their grip on their weapons, took a deep breath, and prepared to deal with the crisis before them once more.
“How high do you think our chances of winning are?”
Zhao Zhen asked Nan Tian quietly, wanting to get a sense of where they stood.
Nan Tian could only give a bitter smile. “We’ll take it one step at a time.”
He was not Yan Shixun. He didn’t have the unshakable composure to face danger without flinching. The only promise he could make was that he would give it his all—fearless, even in the face of death.
Just like how the Taoists at Haiyun Temple had taught through words and deeds.
Zhao Zhen didn’t blame Nan Tian. He simply patted his shoulder and smiled with determination. “Just hearing you say that is enough.”
“Brother Yan isn’t here, so we have to protect ourselves. We absolutely won’t drag him down.”
Zhao Zhen clenched his jaw and encouraged the others around him, “As long as we hold out until dawn when Brother Yan returns, we’ll be fine. Don’t worry!”
“Those people are already dead—but we’re still alive. The living can definitely beat the dead!”
As he spoke, Zhao Zhen was the first to charge forward, swinging the axe in his hands at a zombie trying to crawl in through the window.
That corpse wore a burial shroud, and its hair had been neatly combed, as if it had been carefully prepared for burial.
But now, it bared its mouth full of sharp teeth, letting out a chilling screech from its throat. Its blood-red eyes locked onto the living person rushing toward it.
The stench of rot that burst from its mouth nearly made Zhao Zhen vomit. Still, he gritted his teeth and didn’t retreat. After a brief hesitation, he swung the axe down toward the corpse’s head.
He didn’t know exactly what this thing was, or the best way to deal with it. All he had to rely on were the things Yan Shixun had said in the past, echoing in his mind.
Yan Shixun once said, as long as you don’t give up, you’ll never lose.
Yan Shixun also said that a corpse’s weak spot was its head, and all of its spiritual energy gathered at the crown. Even if a corpse couldn’t feel pain, smashing the skull usually worked.
In Yan Shixun’s absence, Zhao Zhen was willing to become the “Yan Shixun” who protected the people he cared about.
Even if he was inexperienced and small, he never backed down.
Zhao Zhen let out a low growl and struck the corpse.
With a loud *bang!*, the zombie’s skull exploded under the axe, bursting into a spray of blood. The zombie froze on the spot, motionless.
Zhao Zhen was immediately splattered with blood and flesh. A burst eyeball stuck to his hair, slowly sliding down with the pull of gravity.
He forced down his nausea and didn’t let himself get distracted.
But just as he was about to smile in relief, he saw the zombie, after a brief pause, suddenly lunge at him again—faster and more agile than before. It didn’t even seem like a corpse anymore, but more like a living person!
Zhao Zhen was stunned.
And not just that—other zombies had also started climbing over the walls and dropping into the courtyard. With a deafening crash, the front gate was slammed open, and more zombies stormed in from outside.
These were clearly not the same as the earlier corpses. Though all dressed in burial clothes, as if they had clawed their way out of graves, they were far more nimble. They no longer stood around dumbly waiting to be hit—they now knew how to dodge.
They could even snatch weapons from people’s hands.
The variety show celebrity—caught off guard—had the large iron kettle he was holding snatched by a zombie.
His chubby body twisted with unexpected agility in a desperate effort to dodge the creature’s snapping teeth. He screamed in panic as he swayed back and forth at the window, afraid of being bitten.
He didn’t know exactly what those things were, but he’d seen zombie movies!
What if those teeth carried some kind of zombie virus? What if he got infected and turned into one himself?
Variety Show Celebrity: Everyone laughed at An Nanyuan. But everyone is An Nanyuan! This is freaking terrifying! I can’t take it, Brother Yan!!!
But at times like this, a nearby Bai Shuang was better than a distant Brother Yan.
Standing right next to him, Bai Shuang rushed over to help. Swinging a large iron wok, she slammed it down over the variety show guy’s head to shield him.
*Crunch!* The zombie bit down on the wok.
Its teeth shattered and flew out.
The zombie was stunned.
Bai Shuang and the variety show celebrity were also stunned.
“Uh… I’m sorry,”
Bai Shuang said, her voice trembling. She awkwardly apologized to the zombie, “Maybe I should pay for your dentist? Wait—do you corpses even have dentists?”
They stared at each other in awkward silence.
Zombie: …………
The next second, all the zombies flew into a rage and launched an even more frenzied assault on the house.
The guests could only grit their teeth and desperately hold the doors and windows, not letting the zombies find an opening.
Better to face enemies in front than be attacked from behind!
Taking the chance, the variety show celebrity scrambled to the side, grabbed a snow shovel at random, and with a loud yell, charged back toward the window, swinging wildly.
Meanwhile, the wild wolf—realizing something was wrong—immediately rushed back, only to find the courtyard surrounded by zombies attracted to the scent of the living.
It had no time to deal with those zombies. Leaping in long strides, it climbed to the top of the wall to check on the people it had sworn to protect.
After all, these were people even less capable than pups. If any one of them got hurt, Yan Shixun might think the wolf couldn’t be trusted to keep its word…
But the wolf’s worry disappeared the moment it saw what was happening inside the walls.
It stood tall on the wall, looking down at the people below who were swinging their weapons with eyes tightly shut, their expressions blank.
On the other side, just as Yan Shixun was about to step past the stone wall, he suddenly sensed something and turned to look back.
?
Was someone talking about him just now? Or was it his imagination?
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