Salted Fish Zombie

On the clean and tidy road of Huaiyang Village, the butcher dragged Ning Su by the back of his collar in silence.

In the moonlight, the two shadows merged into a strange shape.

Ning Su neatly folded his hands on his stomach, and he obediently let the butcher drag him along with his strong arms.

After a while, without having to move himself, he lowered his gaze to his calves and made a reasonable request, “Big brother, you’re dragging me a bit low, and my pants are rubbing against the ground.”

The butcher raised his hand in silence, and Ning Su’s upper body rose as a result.

He looked down and was satisfied to see that his calves were off the ground.

After moving for a while longer, Ning Su spoke again, “Big brother, the back of my feet is rubbing the ground.”

“...”

The butcher exerted force with his elbow, slung Ning Su over his shoulder, and carried him.

Ning Su’s head and hands hung behind the butcher’s shoulder. He looked at their shadows on the ground for a while, and said, “Big brother, my body won’t rub against the ground anymore with this position, but can you turn your head around so I can see your face?”

The butcher paused his steps.

By the time he lifted his foot again, Ning Su’s head had already been turned forward.

Now he could see the butcher’s face.

He looked at him and negotiated, “Big brother, when I was staking out the slaughterhouse gate, I saw you light two piles of bonfires.”

“You can’t waste bonfires, right? Can you roast a lamb leg for me to eat?”

“I have eaten no meat all day today, and I’m starving after working all night.”

The butcher refused to give him the roasted lamb leg and instead shoved him into the incinerator.

After the incinerator’s door was closed, the interior sank into a bottomless darkness.

This was an incinerator, but it’s not hot at all. Instead, it’s bone-chillingly cold.

Who knew how many living creatures have been burned alive in this incinerator? This much coldness was normal.

Ning Su waited, thinking that the temperature might rise once the incinerator was turned on.

He waited for a while, but it was still freezing. The bone-chilling coldness drilled into his body like the winter wind.

Ning Su couldn’t wait any longer and reached out to touch the furnace wall.

The wall wasn’t hot yet.

It was uneven and had sticky things attached to it, so sticky that when Ning Su’s fingers touched it, he felt like he was being wrapped up in it.

His fingers kept moving, and when he reached forward, he didn’t touch the wall.

Ning Su was puzzled and crawled forward bit by bit. He didn’t know how long he crawled in the endless darkness, but he finally touched something different from the furnace wall.

Ning Su pushed hard and opened it.

This was the incinerator’s door.

After opening it, Ning Su saw the slaughterhouse from where he was.

Only...

Ning Su looked up and quietly watched the blood-red moon in the night sky.

The sky above was as dark as ink, and the wind hurried past like a rushing stream. A heavy, blood-red moon loomed in the darkness, emanating an eerie and foreboding atmosphere.

Just as Ning Su was about to continue sticking his head out, his ankle suddenly felt cold. A cold little hand had half-grasped his ankle and was dragging him backward.

Ning Su crawled to the door with difficulty and was about to escape, but he was dragged back into the incinerator.

He lay still, unable to do anything as the space inside the incinerator was not high enough for him to raise himself higher.

Ning Su was slowly pulled backwards until his feet were dangling and he was yanked out of the incinerator.

He almost fell face first.

Ning Su stood up and turned to see the ghost child.

The child was standing crookedly in the moonlight and did not hide or run away this time, probably because he had already revealed his face to Ning Su last time.

However, he still hung his head and did not fully reveal his face, only lifting one large eye to silently stare at Ning Su.

This time, Ning Su had time to take a closer look at the child.

He had fine, soft hair and a small face. In the bleak moonlight, his skin was white with a tinge of gray, and his two cheeks were different.

Ning Su had not been mistaken last time. The skin color on the two sides of the child’s face was subtly different. One side was normal white, while the other was covered with a layer of fine purplish gray.

Thinking of last time, when his hand went through the child’s hand but managed to grab the other hand, and now seeing the subtle difference on the two sides of the child’s face, Ning Su couldn’t help but become interested.

He reached out to touch the child’s face, but when he saw the child’s mouth tighten, he inexplicably sensed the child’s unhappiness.

He changed the direction of his hand and poked the child’s forehead, “What’s making you unhappy...”

As the child had just learned to stand and was not stable yet, he immediately toppled over when Ning Su poked him.

“...”

Looking at the child lying on the ground, Ning Su felt a rare twinge of guilt. He squatted down to pick up the child, but the child reached out with two small hands and hugged his neck.

The child clung to Ning Su’s neck and rubbed his small head against it, leaving a cold and soft touch.

Ning Su’s lips curved slightly, but when the child licked his neck, he pulled the child’s head away, which was pressed against his neck.

The child’s two arms hung around his neck, and he looked up at Ning Su quietly. One of his eyes was big and black, with curled lashes that seemed to have caught a layer of pale moonlight, while the other side had no eyeball, only a round and black eye socket that was particularly big.

Ning Su couldn’t resist anymore, and reached out to pinch the child’s cheeks. “Little child, why are you so cute?”

The tender cheeks were cool and soft, very easy to pinch, and Ning Su couldn’t get enough, pinching the little face until it turned purple and black.

Meanwhile, the child, who had been staring at Ning Su, was stunned by his words, and his eyes seemed to have grown even bigger.

In those large eyes, there was a slight glow that reflected the full face of a person. The glow seemed to gather around this individual, flickering slightly because of their presence.

Meanwhile, the entire slaughterhouse was illuminated by moonlight, revealing two individuals, one big and one small, standing next to a withered tree and both equally stunned.

Ning Su waited for a while and looked at the child in confusion. “I already asked you before but, are you really not going to tell me what’s going on in Huaiyang Village?”