He quietly crept to the doorway. Grace Walker glanced around, but saw nothing unusual. Just as he was about to return inside for another nap, a sudden chill ran down his spine. He looked over to where the blacksmith and that soldier’s corpses had been, only to find the spot completely empty—not even a single hair remained.

“Could it be... there are zombies in this world?”

All the atheistic beliefs in his memory had completely vanished at this moment. Thinking back on everything he’d seen in the past few days since arriving in this world, Grace Walker could only mutter to himself, “No way, there can’t be ghosts in this world. I must have watched too much Van Helsing... Bah! I’ve never even seen Van Helsing, only Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Another muffled sound came from somewhere. Grace Walker looked in the direction of the noise, but a mud wall blocked his view. At this point, he absolutely didn’t have the courage to climb up and take a look.

Ugh! Ugh! Ugh...

The more afraid he was, the more unlucky he seemed to get. Suddenly, from a courtyard to the east, a strange sound rang out. With a loud crash, the door was smashed to pieces, and a pitch-black figure slowly entered Grace Walker’s line of sight.

“Isn’t that the blacksmith? But... he doesn’t look alive.”

Watching the other’s staggering, sluggish steps, and the faint green light flickering in his eyes, Grace Walker didn’t dare greet him or ask any small talk like “Have you eaten? Good evening...” He turned and shrank back into the house, glancing around, trying to find a place to hide.

He hadn’t even found a hiding spot yet when the blacksmith walked straight toward him. Even when he reached the wall, he didn’t turn or stop—he just leaned against it and forced his way through, collapsing the wall.

Grace Walker’s hair stood on end. In a moment of desperation, he looked up and saw the roof beam was quite high. Scanning the room, he spotted a bundle of straw rope in the corner, rushed over, shook it loose, tossed it over the beam, and quickly climbed up, hand over hand.

He had just gotten onto the beam when he heard the wall being smashed down. The blacksmith barged in as if no one else was there, then strode straight ahead without turning, and when he reached the opposite wall, he leaned against it and crashed right through.

“What the heck is going on? Is this some kind of feint?”

Grace Walker had no idea whether the blacksmith was dead or alive, or why he was acting so strangely. He raised his hand to scratch his head, forgetting he was on the beam, and ended up breaking a roof tile above him, hurting his hand.

But this gave him an idea. Grace Walker leaned out and poked his head through the broken tile, spotting the blacksmith not far away. From this vantage point, he could see the path of destruction the blacksmith had left, forming a semicircle—as if he was determined to walk a perfect full moon.

“Isn’t that the dead soldier?”

From above, he could see that the source of the first noise was that rebel soldier, moving strangely, as if he were practicing martial arts.

Chapter Three: Don’t Be Too Naive

The dead soldier was practicing each move very slowly and stiffly. After watching for a while, Grace Walker noticed a faint blue glow gradually emanating from the dead soldier’s body. As the rebel soldier, who had died in the daytime, moved under the starlight, there was truly an eerie, ghostly aura about him.

Recalling the blood-crying words of the poet Du Fu, “Beacon fires light the night, corpses lie everywhere,” Grace Walker felt a chill run endlessly down his back, his scalp tingling.

He didn’t know how he made it to dawn. Grace Walker had thought, according to his memory of Chinese tradition, that these reanimated corpses would fear sunlight and go find a coffin to sleep in, giving him a chance to escape.

But with the blazing sun high in the sky, the blacksmith and the rebel soldier showed no sign of retreat. One had already memorized his big circle, smashing through every obstacle in his path. The other had practiced the same set of moves a hundred times, so much so that Grace Walker had memorized them himself.

“This can’t go on.”

After squatting on the beam all night, chilled to the bone, Grace Walker was already exhausted. Taking advantage of the moment when the blacksmith had just passed below, he quietly jumped to the ground, intending to avoid the two zombies and seek refuge outside the village. After only a few steps, he kicked something on the ground. Picking it up, he found it looked familiar—it was the ancient bronze ring the blacksmith had been holding. He had no idea when it had fallen here.

“What use could this thing have?”

Grace Walker remembered hearing the rebel soldier shout yesterday about a corpse-controlling bronze ring. He couldn’t help but have some thoughts, and absentmindedly slipped it into his pocket.

After circling around a few houses and nearly reaching the edge of the village, he spotted the military saber that the blacksmith had knocked away at the village entrance. He gave a bitter laugh and picked it up, thinking, “Now I’m just a five- or six-year-old child—I can barely grip the handle!”

Grace Walker racked his brains, recalling all the history textbooks he’d studied, but couldn’t find any era quite like this chaotic world. This saber, which should have been strong evidence, was about 1.2 or 1.3 meters long, its blade gleaming. Though it had chopped off many heads, it only had two or three bean-sized nicks. The quality of the steel was unmatched, ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign.

From the side, a living person could see three heads reflected...