He involuntarily loosened his grip. Before the oil lamp nearly fell to the ground, Wei Wuxian rescued it, and calmly rubbed the still burning fire talisman in his other hand, lit it, put it on the table, and said, "Did you make all these, old man? You have great skills."

Only then did everyone realize that the people standing in the room were not real people, but a group of paper people.

The faces and bodies of these paper figures were the same size as real people, and were made very delicately. There were men, women, and even boys. The men were all "yin warriors", made to be tall and strong, with angry hair standing on end. The women were all beautiful women with good looks, some with double braids, some with cloud buns, and even under the wide paper clothes, they could still be seen to be graceful. The patterns on the paper clothes were even more exquisite than the real brocade robes. Some were painted, with thick ink and bright colors of bright red and green; some were not yet painted, and were all white. Each paper figure had two large blushes on its cheeks to imitate the complexion of a living person, but it seemed that they had not had time to paint their eyeballs, and their eye sockets were completely white. The thicker the blush, the more gloomy and miserable they looked.

There was also a table in the main hall, on which there were several candles of varying lengths. Wei Wuxian lit one of them, and the yellow light illuminated most of the room. In addition to these paper figures, there were two large wreaths placed on the left and right of the main hall, and in the corners, paper gold ingots, ghost money, and pagodas were piled up into a small mountain.

Jin Ling had already drawn his sword three-quarters out of its sheath, but when he saw that it was just a shop selling funeral supplies, he breathed a sigh of relief and sheathed his sword. Even if a cultivator from an immortal family passed away, they never held such messy and spooky ceremonies as those of ordinary people. They had rarely seen such things, and after the initial shock, they became curious and had goose bumps all over their bodies. Instead, they felt that it was more exciting than hunting ordinary monsters at night.

No matter how thick the fog was, it could not enter the house. After entering Yicheng, they could now easily see each other's faces and feel relieved. Seeing that they were relaxed, Wei Wuxian asked the old lady again: "Excuse me, can I borrow the kitchen for a while?"

The old lady seemed to dislike the light of fire. She stared at the oil lamp almost viciously and said, "The kitchen is in the back, use it yourself." After that, she hid in another room like a plague god. She closed the door with a loud sound, which made several people shudder. Jin Ling said, "There must be something strange about this old witch! You..." Wei Wuxian said, "Okay, stop talking. I need someone to help me. Who will come with me?"

Lan Sizhui said hurriedly: "I'll do it."

Lan Jingyi still stood straight and said, "Then what should I do?"

Wei WuXian said, “Keep standing. If I tell you not to move, then don’t move.”

Lan Sizhui followed Wei Wuxian to the kitchen at the back. As soon as they entered, a foul and musty smell hit them in the face. Lan Sizhui had never smelled such a terrible smell in his life. He felt dizzy, but he resisted the urge to rush out. Jin Ling followed and jumped out as soon as he entered the door, fanning himself desperately and saying, "What a terrible smell! ! ! Why are you here if you don't want to find a way to detoxify!"

Wei WuXian said: “Hey? You came just in time. How did you know I wanted you to come over? Come help me.”

Jin Ling said: "I'm not here to help! Ugh! Did anyone here kill someone and forget to bury him?!"

Wei WuXian said, “Miss Jin, are you coming or not? If you are coming, come in and help me. If not, go back and sit down and ask someone else to come over.”

Jin Ling was furious: "Who is Miss Jin? Be careful with your words!" He pinched his nose for a while, hesitated for a while, and finally snorted: "I want to see what you are up to." Then he angrily stepped in with his clothes lifted. Unexpectedly, Wei Wuxian opened a box on the ground with a bang, and the stench came from inside. There was a pig leg and a chicken in the box, the red meat was full of green, and there were white maggots curled up in the green.

Jin Ling was forced out again. Wei Wuxian picked up the box and handed it to him, saying, "Throw it away. Just throw it anywhere, as long as we can't smell it."

Jin Ling felt disgusted and suspicious, so he threw it out as he was told, wiped his fingers with a handkerchief, and threw it away. When he returned to the kitchen, Wei Wuxian and Lan Sizhui had actually drawn two buckets of water from the well in the backyard and were cleaning the kitchen. Jin Ling asked, "What are you doing?"

Lan Sizhui wiped diligently while saying, "As you can see, wash the stove."

Jin Ling said: "Why are you cleaning the stove? You're not going to cook."

Wei WuXian said, “Who said it wasn’t? It’s for food. You come and sweep the Yangchen and remove all the spider webs.”

He said it so confidently and so naturally that Jin Ling was inexplicably stuffed with a Yangchen Broom and began to do as he was told. The more he swept, the more he felt something was wrong. Just as he was about to throw the broom at Wei Wuxian's head, Wei Wuxian opened another box, startling him and making him run out. Fortunately, there was no stench this time.

The three of them worked quickly, and soon the kitchen was completely renovated. It finally had some life, not like a haunted house that had been abandoned for years. There was chopped firewood in the corner, so they piled it under the stove and lit it with a fire talisman. They placed a cleaned large pot on top and let it boil water. Wei Wuxian poured out a pile of glutinous rice from the second box, washed it clean, and put it in the pot.

Jin Ling asked: "Cook porridge?"

Wei WuXian: “Yeah.”

Jin Ling threw the rag. Wei Wuxian said, "Look at you, you get angry after working for a while. Look at Sizhui, he's working the hardest and he didn't say anything. What's wrong with the porridge?"

Jin Ling said: "What's so good about the porridge? It's just watery! No... am I angry because the porridge is not good?!"

Wei WuXian said, “It’s not for you to eat anyway.”

Jin Ling got even angrier: "What did you say? I've been working for so long and I still don't get my share?!"

Lan Sizhui asked, "Mr. Mo, is it true that porridge can cure corpse poison?"

Wei WuXian smiled and said, “Yes, you can, but it’s not porridge that can cure corpse poison, it’s glutinous rice. It’s a folk remedy. Usually, you apply glutinous rice to the wound caused by scratches or bites. If you encounter this kind of situation in the future, you can try it. Although it will be painful, it will definitely work and the effect will be immediate. However, they were not scratched or bitten, but inhaled the corpse poison powder, so we can only cook a bowl of glutinous rice porridge to drink.”

Lan Sizhui suddenly realized, "No wonder you have to go into the house, and into a house with people. Only where there are people living there is likely to be a kitchen, and only in the kitchen is there likely to be glutinous rice."

Jin Ling asked, "Who knows if this rice is still edible after being stored for a long time? And this kitchen has not been used for at least a year. It is full of dust and the meat is smelly. Didn't that old woman need to eat for a year? She can't be fasting, how did she survive?"

Wei WuXian said, “Either this room has never been occupied and she is not the owner of this shop. Or, she doesn’t need to eat.”

Lan Sizhui whispered, "If he doesn't need to eat, he will be dead. But this old man is clearly breathing."

While Wei WuXian was casually stirring the porridge with the contents of various bottles and jars using a spatula, he said, “By the way. You guys haven’t finished talking yet. How did you come to Yicheng together? It can’t be such a coincidence that you just happened to run into us again, right?”

The two young men's faces immediately became serious. Jin Ling said, "I, the Lan family, and several people from other families are all chasing the same thing. I came from Qinghe." Lan Sizhui said, "We came from Langxie."

Wei WuXian asked, “What is this?”

Lan Sizhui shook his head and said, "I don't know. It has never shown up, and we don't know what it is, or who it is... or what organization it is."

It turned out that Jin Ling had tricked his uncle into letting Wei Wuxian run away a few days ago. He was always worried that Jiang Cheng would really break his legs this time, so he decided to sneak away and disappear for ten days or half a day, and then appear in front of Jiang Cheng after his anger subsided. He handed Zidian to Jiang Cheng's trusted subordinates and ran away. He went all the way to a small town near Qinghe River to find the next night hunting location and rested in a large inn. That night, he was reciting the spell in his room, and suddenly, the fairy lying at his feet shouted to the outside of the door. It was already late at night, and Jin Ling stopped the spirit dog, but then heard a knock on the door.

Although the fairy stopped calling, she was very anxious, digging the ground with her sharp claws and growling. Jin Ling became alert and asked who it was, but he ignored her after hearing no response. However, half an hour later, the knock on the door sounded again.

Jin Ling took the fairy out of the window, circled around, and came up from downstairs, intending to attack from behind, to catch them by surprise, to see who was causing trouble in the middle of the night. But they came up empty-handed, and after quietly guarding for a while, they still didn't see anyone in front of their door.

He was careful and asked the fairy to guard the door, ready to attack anyone who came. He didn't rest all night, but nothing happened that night. He just kept hearing a strange sound, like water dripping.

The next morning, there was a scream outside the door. Jin Ling kicked the door open and stepped into a pool of blood. Something fell from above the door, but Jin Ling dodged and was not hit.

A black cat!

Someone had nailed a dead cat above his door at some point, and the strange dripping sound he heard in the middle of the night was the cat's blood dripping down.

Jin Ling said, "I've been to several inns and it's all the same. I took the initiative to chase after them. If I heard that a dead cat had appeared somewhere inexplicably, I would go over to take a look and find out who was causing the trouble."

Wei WuXian turned to Lan SiZhui: “You guys too?”

Lan Sizhui nodded and said, "That's right. A few days ago, we were hunting at night in Langye. One night during dinner, we suddenly fished out a cat head that had not been skinned from the soup... We didn't know it was targeting us, but when we changed to an inn to rest that day, we found a cat corpse in the bedding in the room. This happened for several days in a row. We chased to Liyang and met Master Jin. We found that we were investigating the same thing, so we acted together. We just chased to this area today, and asked a hunter in a village in front of a stone tablet, and he pointed the way to Yicheng."

Wei WuXian thought, “A hunter?”

The younger generations should have passed by the village at Shibeikou later than he and Lan Wangji, and they didn't see any hunters at that time, only a few shy farm girls feeding chickens looking after the house. They said that the men in the family had gone out to transport goods and would not be back for a long time.

The more Wei Wuxian thought about it, the more solemn his expression became.

According to the description, the other party did not take any other actions except killing the cat and disposing of the body. Although it sounded and looked horrible, they were not actually hurt. Instead, these things aroused their curiosity and desire to get to the bottom of the matter.

Also, the meeting place for this group of youngsters was Liyang, and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji happened to be heading south from Liyang to Shudong. It seemed as if someone was deliberately guiding this group of ignorant kids to meet these two people here.

Leading a bunch of ignorant youngsters to a dangerous and unknown place, facing the murderous remains of a ferocious corpse - isn't this exactly the same routine as what happened in Mojiazhuang?

And this is not the most complicated thing. What Wei Wuxian is more afraid of now is... the Yin Tiger Talisman, which may be in Yicheng at this moment.

Although Wei Wuxian himself did not want to accept this possibility, it was the most reasonable explanation. After all, there was someone who could restore half of the Yin Tiger Talisman. Although it was said that he had been cleared, who knew who had the Yin Tiger Talisman that he had restored?

At this moment, Lan Sizhui squatted on the ground, fanning the firewood, and looked up and said, "Senior Mo,  the glutinous rice porridge seems to be cooked?"

Wei WuXian came back to his senses, stopped stirring the pot, took the bowl that Lan SiZhui had just washed, scooped a spoonful to taste, and said, “Alright. Bring it out, one bowl for each of the poisoned people, and feed them.”

However, after serving it, Lan Jingyi only took one bite and spit out, "What is this, poison?!"

Wei WuXian said: “What kind of poison? This is the antidote!  Glutinous rice porridge.”

Lan Jingyi said: "Regardless of why  glutinous rice is the antidote, I have never eaten such spicy glutinous rice porridge!"

The others who had taken a bite all nodded, all with tears in their eyes. Wei Wuxian touched his chin. He grew up in Yunmeng, and the people of Yunmeng can eat spicy food. Wei Wuxian's taste is even more important. Whenever he makes a dish, it must be so spicy that Jiang Cheng can't stand it and throws the bowl and curses it's unpalatable. But he can never help but add spoonful after spoonful of ingredients to the pot, and it seems that he didn't control his hands just now. Out of curiosity, Lan Sizhui took a bite of the bowl, his face flushed, and he pursed his lips to hold back from spitting, his eyes red, thinking to himself: "This taste... is so terrible that it seems a bit familiar..."

Wei WuXian said, “Medicine is three-quarters poisonous. The spiciness will make you sweat and heal faster.”

The young men all sighed in disbelief, but still finished the porridge with bitter faces. For a moment, everyone's face was flushed and sweaty, and everyone was in agony and felt like they were living a life worse than death. Wei Wuxian couldn't help but ask, "Is it that serious? Han Guangjun is also from Gusu, and he can eat spicy food too. Why are you like this?"

Lan Sizhui covered his mouth and said, "No, senior, Han Guangjun has a very light taste and he never eats spicy food..."

Wei WuXian was stunned for a moment, and said, “Really?”

But he remembered that in his previous life, after he rebelled against the Yunmeng Jiang Clan, he had met Lan Wangji in Yiling. Although Wei Wuxian was criticized at that time, he was not to the point where everyone wanted to kill him, so he shamelessly wanted to have dinner with Lan Wangji to reminisce about the past. Lan Wangji always ordered spicy dishes with a plate full of peppercorns, so he always thought that Lan Wangji's taste was similar to his.

Now that he thought about it, he couldn't even remember whether Lan Wangji had used chopsticks for those dishes. However, he even forgot after he finished eating that he had said he would treat them, and it was Lan Wangji who paid the bill, so naturally he wouldn't remember such details.

For some reason, he suddenly wanted very, very much to see Lan Wangji's face.

“…Senior, Senior Mo!”

“Hmm?” Wei Wuxian finally came back to his senses. Lan Sizhui whispered, “The old lady’s door… is open.”

A gust of cold wind blew from somewhere, opening the door of the small room a crack, sometimes opening, sometimes closing. The room was dark, and a hunched figure could be vaguely seen sitting at the table. Wei Wuxian signaled them not to move, and walked into the room.

The dim light of the oil lamp and candle in the main room came into the room. The old lady lowered her head, as if she didn't notice someone coming in. She had a piece of cloth on her knees, stretched on a cloth, and seemed to be doing needlework. Her two hands were stiffly pressed together, trying to thread a thread into a needle.

Wei WuXian also sat down at the table and said, "Why don't you light a lamp when you're threading a needle, old man? Let me do it."

He took the needle and thread, threaded it through in one go, and returned it to the old lady. Then he walked out of the room as if nothing had happened, closed the door, and said, "Don't go in."

Jin Ling asked, "When you went in just now, did you see clearly whether the old witch was dead or alive?"

Wei WuXian said, “Don’t call her an old witch. It’s rude. This old lady is a living corpse.”

The boys looked at each other in bewilderment. Lan Sizhui asked, "What is a zombie?"

Wei WuXian said: “From head to toe, it has the characteristics of a corpse, but the person is alive. This is called a zombie.”

Jin Ling was shocked: "You said she is still alive?!"

Wei WuXian asked, “Did you guys look inside just now?”

“I have.”

"See what? What is she doing?"

"Threading the needle."

"Have you put it on yet?"

"……without."

"Yes, it can't be threaded. The muscles of a dead person are stiff, so they can't do complex movements like threading a needle. Those aren't age spots on her face, they're corpse spots. And she doesn't need to eat, but she can breathe. She's alive."

Lan Sizhui said, “But, but this old lady is very old. Many old ladies have poor eyesight and cannot thread a needle by themselves.”

Wei WuXian said, “So I helped her put it on. But did you notice another thing? From the moment she opened the door until now, she hasn’t blinked once.”

The young men blinked repeatedly. Wei WuXian said, “Living people blink to prevent their eyes from getting dry, but for dead people, this is unnecessary. Also, when I took the needle and thread, did anyone notice how she looked at me?”

Jin Ling said: "She didn't move her eyes...she moved her head!"

Wei WuXian said, “That’s it. When ordinary people look in another direction, their eyes will move a little, but the dead won’t, because they can’t move their eyes as delicately as they can. They can only move their heads and necks.”

Lan Jingyi said blankly: "Should we take notes?"

Wei WuXian said, “It’s a good habit. But when we’re hunting at night, there’s no time for you to look through your notes. Just remember it.”

Jin Ling gritted his teeth and said, "Walking corpses are weird enough, why are there such things as zombies!"

Wei WuXian said, “It’s hard for zombies to form naturally. They’re usually made by humans, like this one.”

"Done?! Why did you do it?!"

Wei WuXian said: “Dead people have many shortcomings: stiff muscles, slow movements, etc. But dead people also have many advantages: not afraid of pain, unable to think, easy to be controlled. Some people think that they can improve its shortcomings and create a perfect corpse puppet. That’s how zombies came about.”

Although the young men didn't blurt out the answer, their faces were already filled with a line of big words: "This person must be Wei! Wu! Xian!"

Wei WuXian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and thought to himself, “I’ve never made anything like this before!”

It does sound like his style though!

He said, "Well, it was Wei Wuxian who started it, but he succeeded in creating Wen Ning, also known as the Ghost General. I've always wanted to know who gave him this nickname? It's so stupid. There are also some people who wanted to imitate but couldn't do it well, so they took a crooked approach and used living people to create things like zombies." He concluded, "A failed imitation."

Hearing Wei Wuxian's name, Jin Ling's expression turned cold, and he snorted, "Wei Ying himself is a perverted person."

Wei WuXian said: “Well, those who become zombies are the most evil among the evil ways.”

Lan Sizhui asked: "Senior Mo, what should we do now?"

Wei WuXian said, “Some zombies may not know they are dead. I think this old lady is not very clear about the situation, so we should not disturb her for now.”

At this moment, a crisp sound of bamboo poles hitting the ground suddenly rang out.

The sound came from a window that was close to the window. The window was sealed with black wooden boards. All the nobles in the hall turned pale. They had been constantly harassed by this sound since they entered the city, and their faces turned pale. Wei Wuxian gestured to keep quiet, and they held their breath, watching Wei Wuxian stand by the window and look out through a very thin crack in the door.

As Wei WuXian approached the crack in the wood, he saw a patch of white. He thought it was because the fog outside was too thick to see clearly. But suddenly, the patch of white quickly retreated.

He saw a pair of ferocious white pupils, staring fiercely at the crack in the door. The white he saw just now was not fog, but a pair of pupilless eyes.