Qin Zhen ran as fast as she could away from the vile criminal. To keep the terrifying man-eating zombie from following her, she kept glancing back warily as she ran. After taking several detours and confirming that nothing was trailing her, she finally returned to the little restaurant with a sigh of relief.
The first thing she did was refund the money and apologize.
The big shot called Tycoon Among the Dead seemed to be busy with something. He hadn’t replied to her message, nor had he accepted the money.
Whatever. She had done everything she was supposed to do.
If she had to admit that she’d done something wrong, it was that after seeing the big shot say “make money legally,” she had assumed his friends were all law-abiding, upstanding zombies too…
Ugh. She couldn’t think about it. The more she did, the more she regretted it.
Fortunately, after spending so long outside her tomb, she had absorbed enough of humanity’s deep cunning to escape that dangerous novice through a few well-placed lies.
That was the only way Qin Zhen could comfort herself.
She had taken an hour off. When she returned to the restaurant, she still had fifteen minutes left. She wanted to look at her phone for a while and soothe her frightened soul, but the boss spotted her and gave her a scornful look. She hurriedly put her phone away and went back to work.
Poor little zombie. Because her identity couldn’t see the light of day, she could only let humans bully her.
She waited on customers, handled the cash register, wiped tables, delivered dishes, cleaned up, and worked diligently for several hours. After finally making it through the mealtime rush, Qin Zhen still had to go to the kitchen to help wash dishes and prepare the ingredients for the afternoon.
Just as she was busy with that, the auntie in charge of washing vegetables wandered into the kitchen, cracking sunflower seeds. She leaned in mysteriously and asked, “Little Qin, when are you planning to get married?”
Qin Zhen’s heart ached the instant she heard the subject.
The auntie’s nephew had gotten married just last month, and she had made Qin Zhen give five hundred yuan as a wedding gift.
She didn’t even know that nephew!
“I’m not getting married,” Qin Zhen replied as she washed the vegetables.
She didn’t even have a boyfriend.
Besides, most zombies’ marriages had been arranged before they died. These days, she had only ever seen zombies dating; she had never heard of any of them getting married.
“I’m single by choice. I’m never getting married in this lifetime.” Qin Zhen deliberately added the last sentence, hoping to awaken the auntie’s conscience.
She didn’t even expect the auntie to voluntarily return all the money she had contributed to weddings, birthdays, funerals, and the like. She only hoped that from now on, the auntie would stop taking advantage of her under the pretext of human customs and social obligations.
It wasn’t easy for a rare species to make money in human society. She was nearly broke!
But the auntie either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. With an exaggerated “Oh my,” she said, “How can you not get married? If you don’t get married, how will you have children? What will happen to the country if nobody has children? If everyone thought like you, wouldn’t humanity go extinct?”
Qin Zhen: “I…”
“You young people are always coming up with this sort of nonsense. My niece is the same way. She’s well over thirty and still refuses to get married. Whenever we urge her, she says that us old people have nothing but feudal trash in our heads…”
Once the auntie started rambling, Qin Zhen couldn’t get a word in.
She was used to it. She muttered inwardly: Whether your niece gets married or not is none of my business. But nagging a zombie to get married? That kind of thinking is definitely feudal trash.
This was a ghost marriage, after all!
Completely unaware that she was being criticized by a zombie, the auntie moved on from feudal trash to loyalty, filial piety, etiquette, and righteousness. She seemed to be implying that anyone who didn’t get married deserved to be dragged outside and shot.
The only thing she showed no intention of doing was helping with the vegetable washing that was supposed to be her job.
After prattling on for ages, and waiting until Qin Zhen had done almost all the work for her, the auntie finally said with a deeply disapproving expression, “If you don’t want to get married, why are you dating? Aren’t you just wasting that young man’s time?”
Qin Zhen asked blankly, “Which young man am I wasting time on?”
“You’re living together and still refusing to make it public?” the auntie said. “Your boyfriend even came to the restaurant to wait for you so you could go home together! I’m not saying anything, but the young man is handsome and polite. If you really don’t like him, then break up with him. Don’t waste his time…”
Qin Zhen was utterly baffled.
She had been out of her tomb for nearly two years. Apart from the extraordinary relationship she’d developed with the old man guarding the park when she first lived there, she had always kept a careful distance from humans. She had never had any ambiguous dealings with a human man, nor was she close to any of her own kind. So where had this boyfriend come from?
Besides, she was a staunch member of the breakup brigade. Every post about a zombie-human relationship on the supernatural forum had one of her comments urging them to split up. How could she possibly be secretly dating a human?
Could she have run into a trafficker pretending to be her boyfriend?
Qin Zhen grew a little nervous. As she wiped her hands, she thought through all the clever ways to respond that she had seen online. Then she left the kitchen and lifted the curtain—
Only to come face-to-face with the dangerous man she had just ditched.
The moment their eyes met, Fu Qi flashed Qin Zhen a smile.
His smile was devastatingly handsome. Qin Zhen’s mind went blank, and she dropped the curtain as if she’d been electrocuted, shrinking back into the kitchen.
Oh no. He’d come looking for her.
Qin Zhen’s internal alarm bells were blaring as she frantically considered how to deal with the situation. Beside her, the vegetable-washing auntie had been utterly captivated by Fu Qi’s smile. She clicked her tongue and said, “What a handsome young man. And so polite, too. Such a pleasant way of speaking…”
“And he has quite an appetite…” Qin Zhen added in a complicated tone.
The auntie said, “That’s a good thing. A good appetite means he’s healthy…”
…
Qin Zhen didn’t have time to chat with the auntie. Her mind was entirely occupied with figuring out how to get rid of this man-eating zombie as quickly as possible!
She went to the break room, grabbed her shoulder bag, and was about to run. But when she reached the back door of the restaurant, she stopped, sighed heavily, and went back inside.
She couldn’t leave.
Fu Qi had clearly latched onto her. If he couldn’t find her, what if he lost his temper and ate the auntie and the boss?
Sure, the two of them bullied her all the time… but they didn’t deserve to die.
And if that happened, the police would definitely question her as an employee. Once her identity was exposed, she would be doomed anyway!
Qin Zhen was in despair.
To prevent an even bigger criminal case, she took half a day off for the first time in her life and led Fu Qi out of the little restaurant.
The boss even made a sarcastic comment: “Looks like Little Qin doesn’t need to work hard anymore. She’s got a man to support her now.”
That hateful little boss had no idea who he was dealing with!
Qin Zhen had originally intended to swallow her anger, but considering that she would definitely be unable to keep working there if she wanted to get rid of Fu Qi, she steeled herself and said, “That’s right. I don’t want to work hard anymore. I quit!”
The boss was shocked. He wanted to keep this cheap, easy-to-bully worker, but he was too proud to beg her to stay. He looked at Qin Zhen’s determined expression, then at Fu Qi beside her—tall, broad-shouldered, smiling, and obviously not someone who could be bullied easily.
In the end, he paid Qin Zhen half a month’s wages with a sour expression and terminated her employment on the spot.
Qin Zhen stuffed the one thousand yuan into her pocket, her heart filled with sorrow over losing her job.
Unfortunately, Fu Qi had no sense of the situation. Beaming, he said, “You lost me, but I found you myself. Why do you look so unhappy?”
She’d be a ghost if she were happy!
But he hadn’t openly turned against her, and Qin Zhen, who had been deeply influenced by human civilization, couldn’t bring herself to say anything too harsh. She merely put on a stern face and asked, “Why did you tell the auntie all that nonsense?”
Fu Qi said, “The auntie asked whom I’d come to see. I said I’d come to see you and wait for you so we could go home together after you bought me a pair of slippers. How is that nonsense?”
“…”
No, it wasn’t. Those had been Qin Zhen’s exact words.
But why did it sound so strange when someone else said it?
Fu Qi clearly didn’t think there was anything odd about it. He continued, “Oh, right. Where are the slippers you bought me?”
Qin Zhen: “…”
Not a chance! She never spent money on men!
Qin Zhen pretended not to understand what Fu Qi was implying. After making a few casual remarks, she led him to a nearby park.
The park was old, with dense trees and countless winding paths. Qin Zhen pretended to explain how humans lived while keeping an eye on Fu Qi as he looked around. The moment an opportunity presented itself, she bent down and slipped through the entrance of a rocky grotto nearby. In less than ten seconds, she had used the terrain to shake Fu Qi off.
Qin Zhen was delighted. After all, she was an experienced senior. Outsmarting a little zombie fresh out of his tomb should be a piece of cake!
She swaggered out of the park, but when she saw the bright sunlight and the pedestrians heading to and from work, she remembered that she had lost her job and grew depressed again...
Her gloom lasted less than two minutes before she heard a pleasant voice from behind her.
“We’re done touring the park. Are we going home now?”
Qin Zhen stiffened. She turned around as if she had seen a ghost—and once again saw Fu Qi’s handsome face and that infuriating smile.
“You—you—you...”
“I accidentally lost track of you just now,” Fu Qi said with complete seriousness. “Fortunately, I have the Heavenly Eye, so I can always find you... We’re going home now, right?”
Qin Zhen felt something catch in her chest.
She was an innocent zombie, and she had absolutely no desire to be dragged down by a man-eating zombie. Covering her heart, she took a moment to recover, then made a third attempt to get rid of Fu Qi.
This time, she succeeded just as easily. But Fu Qi once again found his way back to her, so quickly and with such pinpoint accuracy that Qin Zhen began to wonder whether he really did have the Heavenly Eye.
After repeating this process three times, Qin Zhen finally accepted that she could not shake off this murderous zombie. After careful consideration, when Fu Qi once again asked whether she was going home, Qin Zhen decided to come clean.
As the humans said, it was best to cut one’s losses in time.
She stared straight at Fu Qi and said, “There is no ‘we’! That’s my home. It has absolutely nothing to do with you!”
“How could it have nothing to do with me?” Fu Qi said. “You accepted the money, so you’re my guardian zombie. Your home is my home.”
Guardian zombie, my ass!
Did he really think he was some innocent, naïve little zombie?
Qin Zhen shouted, “I’ll give the money back. Then we can end this guardianship arrangement!”
Fu Qi said, “I haven’t received any notification.”
Of course he hadn’t. The Tycoon Among the Dead had never replied to Qin Zhen, so the ten thousand yuan care fee had naturally never been returned.
Fu Qi said that whoever had the money also had the responsibility of looking after him. In any case, he intended to follow Qin Zhen.
Qin Zhen was deeply frustrated. She felt as if she had been hounded by a stray dog, yet she couldn’t find a reason to get rid of him.
She spent half the day wandering around the streets with Fu Qi, racking her brains. In the end, she decided to take in this problem zombie.
It wasn’t because money had swayed her, nor because she had taken a fancy to Fu Qi’s handsome face. Rather, it was because while the two of them were aimlessly wandering around, a speeding electric car came roaring toward them.
At the time, they had been arguing over whether Qin Zhen could pay Fu Qi compensation to find another zombie to look after him.
Even after the compensation had increased from ten yuan to one hundred, Fu Qi remained unmoved and stubbornly clung to Qin Zhen.
His reasoning was perfectly sound, too.
“I have an imprinting complex,” he said.
The moment Qin Zhen heard the words “imprinting complex,” her vision went black. She failed to notice the electric car hurtling toward her. Fu Qi, however, reacted quickly and grabbed her, yanking her out of the way.
That incident changed Qin Zhen’s mind.
She still didn’t want to get mixed up with any criminal zombies, and she still despised Fu Qi’s shameless persistence. But she knew that although Fu Qi’s robbery, man-eating, pestering, and utter lack of shame were unforgivable crimes in the eyes of humans—crimes that rightly deserved a bullet—in the eyes of the zombie race, he was a good zombie.
He simply hadn’t been civilized yet and didn’t understand how terrifying humans were.
Qin Zhen remembered the female zombie who had helped her when she first emerged from her tomb. After hesitating again and again, she looked at Fu Qi, who was following her every step, and took a deep breath.
“I can’t be your guardian zombie,” she said, “but I can teach you some basic things that every zombie ought to know.”
Fu Qi said, “Go ahead.”
The two zombies temporarily reached an agreement. Qin Zhen took on the important task of educating an ignorant newcomer and, after a brief moment of thought, decided to start from the very beginning.
“Do you know why you woke up?” she asked.
“Because my tomb collapsed,” Fu Qi replied.
Qin Zhen asked again, “Why did your tomb collapse?”
“Maybe because of grave robbers?” Fu Qi sounded uncertain at first. But after saying it aloud, he suddenly looked enlightened. “No wonder there was nothing valuable in my tomb. So the grave robbers stole it all!”
Could it possibly be that you were simply poor to begin with?
Qin Zhen grumbled inwardly. She sorted out her emotions and, for the sake of the Tycoon Among the Dead, reluctantly tolerated Fu Qi’s baseless speculation before giving him a serious lesson.
“Humans! It all began with the rapid development of human technology...”
Actually, Qin Zhen didn’t know the details either. She had only read about it on forums where other zombies discussed the subject. Humans had flexible minds and were highly creative, inquisitive, and destructive. Once their technology had advanced to a certain point, they began attacking one another. Then, one day, a massive explosion triggered strange fluctuations in the magnetic field, and the species that had been sleeping underground for years gradually began to awaken.
Apart from zombies like them, some spirits and monsters were said to have revived as well. But they were few and far between. Qin Zhen had never seen any, so she didn’t know whether the rumors were true.
In any case, her own tomb really had collapsed for no apparent reason. She had awakened as a result, entered human society, and begun a life of working herself to the bone day and night.
“Humans woke us up, but they also made a rule: after the founding of the nation, no one is allowed to become a monster. So our existence is illegal. We have to disguise ourselves as humans as much as possible and keep out of sight. Got it?”
Fu Qi said, “I don’t get it... Can’t we just wipe out all the humans and take their place?”
“No!”
That idea was exactly like the one held by certain radical factions among the zombie race—far too dangerous. Qin Zhen immediately rejected it in a stern, emphatic voice.
“Humanity has developed at an incredible speed. Even back in the days of cold weapons, they were able to defeat our zombie ancestors. Now they have all kinds of weapons. A single atomic bomb can destroy a city and kill millions, with consequences lasting for generations... Even our zombie ancestors at the height of their power couldn’t do that. There’s no way we, their degenerated descendants, could manage it.”
Qin Zhen went on for quite some time before concluding gravely, “Listen to your big sister. Humans are the masters of Earth now. We should work hard, be honest zombies, and keep our heads down. It may be a little pathetic, but at least it’s safe.”
As her voice fell, a sly, suppressed chuckle seemed to escape from Fu Qi’s throat.
Qin Zhen looked at him suspiciously. There was a hazy smile in his eyes. She was just about to ask what he was laughing at when Fu Qi asked, puzzled, “What does ‘working’ mean?”
As expected of a stupid zombie fresh out of his tomb. He looked cool and intimidating, but in reality he didn’t understand anything. He was even more clueless than she was!
Qin Zhen instantly felt proud of herself and decided not to pursue the suspicious laughter from earlier.
“Working means doing things for humans,” she explained. “You do the work, and they give you money. You know what money is, right? With money, you can buy a phone...”
Mentioning phones reminded Qin Zhen that Fu Qi had one. She reached out her hand.
“Give me your phone.”
Fu Qi hesitated slightly before handing it over.
Qin Zhen took it, weighed it in her hand, then raised her arm and threw it away.
The silver-gray phone traced an arc through the air before dropping into the small river nearby with a sharp splash. In the blink of an eye, it sank without a trace.
After throwing away the phone, Qin Zhen turned back and saw Fu Qi looking grim, the corner of his eye twitching slightly, as if he had just lost his hard-earned wages.
He must really hate to part with the phone.
That was only natural.
“Even if you hate to part with it, you still have to throw it away,” Qin Zhen said sternly. “That phone is evidence from your murder. If you don’t want the humans to track you down, arrest you, and send you to prison, you have to learn how to destroy the evidence!”
Fu Qi’s expression had changed the moment she mentioned “evidence,” but unfortunately, Qin Zhen failed to notice.
He waited until she had finished before saying with a strange look, “You know quite a lot?”
Qin Zhen waved her hand dismissively. “It’s all like that on TV.”
Fu Qi: “…”
That was true enough.
“Humans are terrifying!” Qin Zhen assumed his silence meant he doubted the humans’ capabilities, so she forcefully set him straight. “They have surveillance systems too, and theirs are much more advanced than yours. Their monitoring network is everywhere. If they don’t notice you, fine—but once they set their sights on you, whether you’re human or a zombie, you’re completely finished.”
Fu Qi’s eyes shifted, his gaze lightly sweeping over Qin Zhen’s animated face.
She was still talking. “Don’t look at me like you don’t believe me.”
As she spoke, Qin Zhen pinched his arm and said, “Leaving aside this incredibly lifelike synthetic skin, they’ve also developed all kinds of strange weapons related to magnetic fields and biological electricity. They’re specifically designed to target zombies. They call it scientific ghost-catching…”
She rambled on for quite a while before finally concluding, “So from now on, you can’t hurt humans anymore. Got it?”
Fu Qi raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean I have to work for humans just like you?”
Qin Zhen nodded approvingly.
“What exactly would I do?” Fu Qi asked.
Qin Zhen had just lost her own job, so where was she supposed to find one for someone else? Still, as a senior, she felt she had to offer the junior at least some support.
After thinking for a moment, she asked, “What are you especially good at?”
Fu Qi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Does eating people count?”
“…” Qin Zhen shouted, “Nothing illegal!”
Fu Qi mulled it over, then said, “In that case, lying… conning people?”
Qin Zhen finally saw the truth: this zombie not only liked doing whatever he pleased, but also had terrible morals.
What an evil little zombie!
Carrying the noble wish of guiding a fellow who had strayed onto the wrong path back to the straight and narrow, Qin Zhen let out a heavy sigh. “Forget about the job for now. I’ll take you to get a fake ID first.”
Fu Qi’s brows lifted. “A fake ID like yours?”
“Mm.” Qin Zhen nodded. “Once you have identification, you’ll be able to use a phone. Let me tell you, life is difficult these days. Without an ID, you can’t take a single step. Fortunately, our zombie clan has its own channels… This is a classified secret of our species, so whatever you do, don’t let anyone from the Special Enforcement Department find out!”
Fu Qi asked, “The Special Enforcement Department?”
“It’s an organization established by humans specifically to deal with non-human species.” Qin Zhen carefully warned him, “If you ever run into them, run without looking back!”
“Are they really that scary?”
“Scary doesn’t even begin to cover it!” Qin Zhen’s expression turned fearful. She emphasized her words again and again. “The humans in that department are cruel, vicious, devious, and malicious… In short, they’re all terrible people! The number one rule in the Zombie Survival Guide is to avoid them at all costs!”
“Terrible people…” Fu Qi repeated in a low voice. As he did, he looked Qin Zhen up and down, his expression growing increasingly strange.
