You couldn’t really blame the zombie for going back on her word. She hadn’t expected that, despite both being phones, Fu Qi’s had more functions than hers.
After reneging, pretending to be sick, and attempting to snatch it by force, she had been caught red-handed. The zombie froze awkwardly for several seconds, then launched a stiff preemptive attack.
“You’re scolding me? I’m angry!”
With that, she let go of his hand, curled up in the passenger seat, wrapped her arms around her knees, and lowered her head.
“I’m injured.”
She had assumed Fu Qi would accuse her of trying to get away with something and then turning the blame around on him, so she quickly began thinking of how to respond. But Fu Qi said nothing. He simply sat there laughing—laughing so hard that Qin Zhen could feel the vibrations he was making.
This was even more humiliating than being mocked outright.
Qin Zhen couldn’t keep up her hurt act any longer. She turned around and started hitting him.
“Here, you can play with it. I’ll find something to make a stylus, and then you can use it. Did you forget you can’t operate a touchscreen?” Fu Qi said with a laugh as he handed the phone to her. “Am I really as petty as you?”
That should have been the end of it, but he just had to add, “I’m not a puppy, either.”
Qin Zhen shook a fist at him. Since he had handed the phone over willingly and helped solve the problem of how to operate it, she decided to let him off—for now.
Once their little quarrel was over, the two of them examined the maps sent by their teammates.
The phone had been developed by the base after dismantling one of the A-nation survivors’ holographic watches and extracting its key technology. To get it into use as quickly as possible, they had removed the projection technology and kept the old-fashioned phone design, distributing the devices among the various bases.
“It took them f-five years to develop this?”
Fu Qi said, “Our country has a vast territory and a dense population.”
The denser the population, the greater the damage caused when a contagious disaster struck, and the more difficult the subsequent relief efforts became.
And the more expansive the territory, the harder it was to locate the relevant technicians amid the chaos.
There was another reason, too: at the beginning, the country had focused all its efforts on rescuing people and researching the virus.
The people from A-nation had kept their operations hidden in the early stages. Whenever one of them was injured or killed, their watch would self-destruct immediately. The first teams to encounter them had no idea that the watches were secret communications devices equipped with biometric identification technology.
With information arriving so late, their research naturally lagged behind.
“They had it from the b-beginning. They were preparing for us,” Qin Zhen said.
Fu Qi smiled when he heard her say “us.”
“That’s right. They’re the bad guys.”
He had only said that one sentence, but Qin Zhen somehow felt that he had another one waiting behind it: “And you’re a little bad guy.”
She immediately raised an elbow and jabbed him.
Fu Qi blinked. “What?”
Did he have to get hit even when he hadn’t said anything? Had the zombie developed mind-reading abilities, too?
The zombie was fierce, and she was impossible to argue with. For the sake of team harmony, Captain Fu could only swallow his grievances and continue explaining.
This was the phone that had originally been in the hands of the acting captain of the security team. Since Fu Qi’s mission was unusual, the base had coordinated with headquarters and left it with him.
The phone could communicate remotely and charge via solar power. However, since it had been produced in a hurry, its network functions were not particularly reliable. It could only contact their two other teammates and have them send over the information they had gathered.
What they were sending now consisted entirely of maps. Some showed routes leading to their destination—the hometown of Academician Jiang, a small county called Linxiang—while others were detailed maps of the city they were currently in.
The journey from their present location to Linxiang was a long one. In the past, it would have taken around four hours by plane. Under current conditions, even if everything went smoothly, it would take more than a month. And that was without considering that the weather was growing colder and that all kinds of accidents could occur along the way.
Fu Qi decided to replenish their supplies in the city first.
Qin Zhen had no objections. She had only one request.
“Can you find me a r-robe?”
Not just any robe, either. She wanted the old-fashioned kind, black and yellow, embroidered with yin-yang symbols, the Eight Trigrams, and various divination patterns—the kind that made the wearer look like a true master.
Naturally, nothing like that could be found here. To get one, they would first have to investigate where old-fashioned Taoist and zombie movies had been filmed, then go to the film studio sets.
“An overcoat is basically the same thing,” Fu Qi said.
“Then I’d rather have a t-trench coat. Cool.”
“Trench coats are cold.”
The cold and heat had no effect on zombies. Qin Zhen was thinking only about looking cool, never considering how people would view her later, once the snow came and they saw her walking around in such an outfit.
Her suggestion was rejected, of course.
Fu Qi planned both their route and their actions. Qin Zhen, as a member of the team, only had to follow. And so one man and one zombie entered the nearby city.
The city had long since become a gathering place for zombies. Fortunately, Qin Zhen was one of them, allowing her to swagger through the hordes.
Holding the crooked talismans she had drawn herself, she stuck one onto the forehead of each zombie.
“This is a binding talisman. Once it’s on, you can’t move, okay?”
The zombies couldn’t understand her. They continued wandering around with talismans stuck to their foreheads, whereupon Little Daoist Zombie beat them soundly with her peachwood sword for failing to follow the rules and offending the Daoist tradition.
Fu Qi himself was agile and nimble. As long as he had something to use as a foothold, he could leap to a high place in the blink of an eye. It was no exaggeration to say that he could move across rooftops and walls like he was flying.
With Little Daoist Zombie clearing the way and drawing away large groups of zombies, and with the maps in hand, entering the zombie-infested city center was far easier than it had been before.
Fu Qi not only made it into the city center; he also left numerous conspicuous “DF” marks along the way, waiting for the people from A-nation to follow the same route he had taken.
Given how relentlessly those people pursued them, even if they knew it was a trap, they would still charge straight in.
Qin Zhen called him sinister.
Fu Qi said that this was nowhere near sinister enough. If the conditions had allowed it, he should have set up several more deadly traps.
After finding the supplies they needed in the shopping mall, the man and the zombie withdrew from the city and continued toward their destination.
Little Daoist Zombie had failed to find a proper robe, so she could only wear the long overcoat and knee-high boots Captain Fu had found for her. Dressed all in black and wearing a pair of sunglasses she had picked up along the way, she looked both cool and striking. The only problem was that she looked nothing like a highly accomplished Daoist.
“Daoists in the modern era dress like this,” Fu Qi explained to her. “You’ve lived in a tomb for too long and lost touch with society. Little Daoist Zombie, you need to keep up with the times.”
Little Daoist Zombie accepted this explanation. She picked up the lipstick they had found in the shopping mall and began touching up her makeup using the mirror inside the vehicle.
The large mall had everything. She also found eyeshadow, blush, and an eyebrow pencil, and applied them to her face one by one according to the names printed on the products.
After satisfying her urge to play with makeup, she used the lipstick to draw talismans. Once a talisman was finished, she got out of the vehicle and stuck it onto a zombie.
Afterward, she beat up anyone who refused to obey, then returned to the vehicle to play with the phone.
She still couldn’t use a touchscreen phone. Fu Qi had found her a packet of ham sausages to use as a stylus, allowing her to tap the screen herself to check the map and chat with their teammates.
It could even be eaten when her mouth grew bored, though Qin Zhen couldn’t bear to waste it.
“Xiao Jiang, Xiao Jiang, are you out yet?” Their teammate Chen Xiang sent a voice message. “Are you hurt?”
Qin Zhen was too embarrassed to send a voice message. She struggled to type, tapping each character while reading aloud, “We’re out. No one’s hurt.”
“Just the two of you went into the big shopping mall in the city center, came out with that many supplies, and made it back without so much as a scratch?” Chen Xiang found it unbelievable. “Since the captain decided to go, he must have had a plan to get out safely. But you, Little Jiang—nothing happened to you either?”
“If anything happened to Sweetie, nothing could happen to me!” Qin Zhen said, poking at her phone. “I’m a master, you know!”
Fu Qi, sitting nearby, heard her and asked, “Is that really what you told him?”
Qin Zhen turned around and scolded him, “Focus on driving. Stop asking questions left and right. Ever heard of safe driving?”
Fu Qi: “...That’s enough.”
Ever since she got a ham-sausage stylus, she had been clutching her phone day and night. Even when she dressed up as a Daoist priest to fight zombies, she kept it tucked on her person. Fu Qi, the captain, had barely gotten to touch it in ages.
Whenever she had something to ask Chen Xiang, she had to use the zombie as her secretary, and before long, she and Chen Xiang had become engrossed in endless conversations.
Chen Xiang and the others were on the road and couldn’t possibly check their phones every second. Whenever no one was chatting with her, Qin Zhen would cradle the phone in both hands, poking away at the screen. She would type something, delete it, and then giggle to herself.
For the first time, Fu Qi felt that solar charging technology was a little too convenient.
“We’ll have to limit your phone time from now on.”
The zombie hugged the phone protectively and said nervously, “If you dare limit me, I’ll join forces with Little Chen to oust you and re-elect a new, new captain!”
Fu Qi said, “You want to kick me out and become captain yourself? Then I won’t help you hide your identity anymore.”
The zombie immediately realized that this wouldn’t do.
If her identity was exposed, forget about playing with her phone—she would lose both her teammates and her online friend.
“Not, not that kind of reply.” The zombie compromised. “I said I was fine and hadn’t been hurt.”
The phone lit up. She lowered her head and pressed the screen, and Chen Xiang’s voice came through:
“Little Jiang, you’re amazing too! Be honest—are you secretly the disciple of some reclusive Daoist master? You heard there was a disaster in the human world and came out specially to undergo training? You know, like those hidden ancient martial arts sects in the novels...”
This was about Qin Zhen’s origins.
She looked at Fu Qi. Fu Qi said, “It was inevitable. Next he’ll ask where you were over the past few years, how you and I met, how many people are in your family, what your star sign is, and so on.”
The zombie looked troubled, her little face wrinkling as she leaned toward Fu Qi and asked, “What should I say?”
“Up to you,” Fu Qi said. “If you want to tell him, tell him. If you don’t, make up a background for yourself.”
Qin Zhen hesitated. “Wouldn’t that be... lying to people?”
Fu Qi frowned and asked, genuinely puzzled, “When you lied to me, did it never occur to you that I was a person too?”
The zombie broke into a giggle.
After laughing for a while, she frowned again and said helplessly, “Sweetie, I can’t decide whether I should tell him.”
Fu Qi said nothing. He simply stopped the car. Once they had pulled over, he reached for the phone—but didn’t get it.
He was truly speechless. Turning sideways, he rested one elbow on the steering wheel, pointed at the zombie with his index finger, then at the phone she was guarding, and sternly crooked his finger at her.
Only then did Qin Zhen reluctantly hand over the phone.
Fu Qi tapped the screen and replied, “She lived with her relatives in the mountains. After they passed away, I happened to encounter her while tracking those people from Country A. I thought she was special, so I invited her to travel with us and brought her out.”
This was perhaps the art of language: every sentence was true, yet taken together, they had almost nothing to do with the truth.
And Chen Xiang actually believed him. He excitedly replied, “Old Mo, Old Mo, did you hear what the captain said? Little Jiang really is descended from some mountain hermit! I knew all those settings from the novels were real!”
“...”
After encountering so many strange and bizarre human beings, the zombie had now developed a complete understanding of this chaotic world and its absurd inhabitants. No matter how outlandish their thoughts or actions were, she would never be surprised again.
She thanked Fu Qi and said, “Sweetie, you’re such a good person! After you die and turn into a zombie, even if you don’t listen, I’ll only hit you very lightly.”
“Then I’d better keep being a bad person,” Fu Qi said as he put away the phone. “Confiscated.”
“No—!”
The zombie was shocked. Then she let out a heart-wrenching cry and lunged forward to rescue her beloved.
“It doesn’t matter whether you agree.” Fu Qi brushed aside her grasping hands and reprimanded her. “You’re getting addicted to too many things. You don’t drive anymore, you don’t keep watch at night, and all you know how to do is play... You can play if you want, but draw up a schedule and follow it strictly.”
“No...”
“Then you’re not allowed to play.”
Captain Xiangxiang was far too strict. The zombie couldn’t win the phone back, so she angrily took up some paper and a pen and began writing a schedule.
At first, she was extremely unwilling. But after being forced to use her brain and organize all the knowledge she had recently gained and the odds and ends she had acquired, she gradually found it rather interesting. Her schedule became more and more serious. Several times, Fu Qi spoke to her, but she didn’t even hear him.
That had never happened before, and it aroused Fu Qi’s curiosity.
That evening, when they stopped to rest, he tried to look at Qin Zhen’s schedule, but she refused him in the sternest possible terms.
“That’s private!”
“Fine. Then I won’t look,” Fu Qi said.
He turned around and took out his phone. The screen had barely lit up when a dark shadow flashed before his eyes. In an instant, the zombie had darted up beside his shoulder, the tip of her nose nearly touching Fu Qi’s cheek.
While the zombie’s attention was drawn to the phone, Fu Qi reached out and snatched the notebook from the passenger seat.
“One: Play on my phone for twenty-three hours every day without fail. Two: Wipe the bracelet frequently to protect my property. Three: Draw talismans diligently. Little Daoist Zombie’s cool and dashing image must remain intact...”
At that point, the zombie realized she had fallen for his trick. She whipped around and tried to snatch the notebook back, but her arms were shorter than his, and he easily raised it out of her reach.
“Four: Join forces with Little Chen to overthrow Sweetie’s tyranny. Five: Make up a complete background...”
In the struggle, he read the final item aloud.
“...Nine: Find out exactly what Sweetie’s body feels like...”
Fu Qi was deeply shocked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Hadn’t that matter already been settled? Why had she specifically written it down in her notebook?
After a pause, he questioned her even more incredulously, “I’m ranked last?”
That was far too disrespectful!
