10. Severing Ties

Page 1 of 3

“Big! Fat! Liar!”

Qin Zhen brought her fist down, but Fu Qi warily blocked it with his other hand. He immediately realized that the zombie had come to her senses and hurriedly explained, “I already made everything clear to you, and you agreed. Once everything returns to normal, I’ll help you get internet access in your tomb. We had a deal.”

“Deal my ass!”

Trying to take advantage of her brain freezing up and bluff his way through it? Not a chance!

The zombie was determined to give him a thorough beating. She hit with tremendous force, while Fu Qi struggled to fend her off and dodge.

“You mustn’t swear. You could be shot for that.”

Qin Zhen: “Fuck!”

“We had a deal. Now you’re going back on your word, and I’m getting angry. I won’t be your neighbor anymore, and I won’t take you anywhere with me.”

“Go to hell!”

The zombie was furious.

She could tolerate Old Seven Fu arguing with her. She could tolerate him kicking the lid of her coffin. She could even tolerate him deceiving her. She had endured it all for the sake of leaving her tomb and enjoying humanity’s advanced technology. But now her tomb was gone, and he was telling her that all of it had been a lie—that human technology had already collapsed and humans could barely protect themselves?

She was going to let Old Seven Fu experience what it meant to be unable to protect himself!

Both of Qin Zhen’s hands were caught by Fu Qi. No matter how hard she struggled, she could not break free, leaving her no hand with which to strike him. In her rage, she spotted his sturdy wheat-colored forearm and simply opened her mouth to bite it.

Fu Qi’s eyelid twitched. He quickly released one hand to block her, and Qin Zhen’s right hand was free again. She immediately brought it down in another vicious blow.

The punch landed squarely on Fu Qi’s face, sending a searing pain through him.

He hissed. Seeing her fist about to come down again, he hurriedly seized her hand and said, “How could you break your vow? Biting people and harming humans means you’re no longer a good zombie. Aren’t you afraid a Daoist priest will come capture you?”

“From now on, zombies’ en—enemies... Daoist priests are se—second. You’re first!”

Fu Qi: “...”

She was not even afraid of Daoist priests anymore. She was truly angry.

The zombie’s fury was beyond anything Fu Qi had expected. With a sigh, he caught Qin Zhen by the wrist and said, “It’s not that I won’t let you hit me. It’s just that I’m a grown man. Isn’t it a little inappropriate for you to keep aiming at my face?”

Qin Zhen said nothing and opened her mouth to bite him again.

Fu Qi had only just tilted his head to avoid her when she lunged for his neck. Realizing that this could not continue, he pushed hard with his injured lower leg and rolled off the sofa with Qin Zhen.

Using his size to his advantage, he pinned her down and said in a gentle voice, “I’ll let you go if you promise not to hit me in the face anymore.”

Qin Zhen tried to turn over, but failed. She glared fiercely at him. After they remained locked in a stalemate for quite some time, she reluctantly moved her eyelids.

“We had a deal. No hitting in the face, sweetheart. The most important thing about being a zombie is keeping your promises.”

As soon as Fu Qi finished speaking, he released her hands. The next instant, a second punch slammed into his face, and he was flipped onto his back.

Lying on the floor with his face throbbing, he thought that for all the zombie’s skinny appearance, she certainly packed a punch.

A gentleman never hits someone in the face during a fight. A zombie, however, only hits people in the face. Yet once Fu Qi lay there and let her hit him, Qin Zhen suddenly stopped.

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

The sun had already gone down. The apartment was small, and so were the windows; only a faint trace of afterglow filtered inside. In the dimness, Qin Zhen sat astride Fu Qi and silently looked down at him for a while. Then she abruptly released him and stood up.

“Not hitting me anymore?” Fu Qi sat up as well. Seeing her head toward the window, he asked, “Where are you going?”

The zombie stopped. With her back to Fu Qi, she gazed through the small window at the desolate ruins and the indistinct, wandering shadows within them.

“Break up with you. Go back to my tomb!”

Humanity was insane. Their world had no advanced technology after all—not even computers or the internet. Corpses were everywhere, and everything reeked. The zombie had a cleanliness obsession. She could not accept this.

There was nothing worth staying for in the human world.

Qin Zhen was utterly disheartened and decided to pack up and return underground.

“Go back to your tomb? Sweetheart, your tomb was blown up, remember?”

Reminded of this, the zombie turned around and came back, delivering another punch to Fu Qi’s stomach.

She really showed no mercy.

Only after the zombie had crossed the line of not harming humans did Fu Qi realize how much the nonexistent, supremely powerful Daoist priest had protected him without his knowing.

What immeasurable merit.

Fu Qi raised his hands in surrender. “I won’t say anything else. Just one last thing, really, just one last thing... If you go back now, you’ll easily run into those foreigners. If they discover you aren’t human, they’ll hunt you relentlessly.”

The zombie paused.

Seeing this, Fu Qi softened his voice and continued, “Besides, although human society no longer has the internet, clothes still exist. If you go back without taking anything, what will you wear when your clothes rot away in a few years? What if you run into grave robbers? Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to be naked?”

The zombie hesitated.

“Lying to you was my fault. You’ve cursed me and beaten me, so calm down. After dawn, I’ll take you to find some clothes. Then you can decide whether you still want to go underground. How about it?”

The zombie hesitated for a moment, then nodded and walked back. As she passed Fu Qi, she punched him again without warning.

Fu Qi: “?”

Qin Zhen kept her blue-gray little face stiff and said coldly, “One sentence. That was more than one.”

Fu Qi: “...Fine.”

The man and the zombie reached a temporary truce. Fu Qi rebandaged himself on the sofa, since their childish scuffle had torn the wrappings loose again, while Qin Zhen sat on the bed with her knees hugged to her chest, sulking.

After the apocalypse, the water and electricity had failed completely. With no lighting available, humanity had been forced to return to the traditional routine of resting at sunset. Qin Zhen and Fu Qi spent the night in their separate corners.

During that time, Fu Qi tried to initiate a friendly conversation. The moment he opened his mouth, the zombie raised a steel fist and brought it to an end.

At dawn the next day, heavy rain began to fall.

Qin Zhen had been thoroughly disappointed by the human world. Her original plan had been to find some clothes after sunrise and immediately return to the mountains to dig out a new tomb, but the downpour stopped her.

“After the apocalypse broke out, humans fled in every direction. The streets were full of corpses and severed limbs, and the city’s drainage system was clogged long ago...” Fu Qi watched the muddy floodwater swirling along the street below the window. Then he changed tack and asked, “But zombies can’t get athlete’s foot, can they?”

“Shut your stinking mouth!”

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

The zombie could not stand to hear a single word from him now, especially since Fu Qi was forever failing to speak like a normal human being.

She could not leave, so she sat off to one side and sulked by herself.

Fu Qi, however, was accustomed to situations like this. If he could not go outside, he simply used ropes to cross into neighboring apartments and search for supplies. After five years of apocalypse, there was certainly no food left, but there were plenty of rotting skeletons and zombies prowling for prey. With his wealth of experience, he escaped without trouble and returned with some clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and a washbasin. There was not much, but everything was usable.

Fu Qi collected a great deal of rainwater for washing.

It might not have been especially clean, but at least it had not been soaking in severed limbs and corpses.

He also found a razor and shaved away his stubble, then changed into a comfortable tracksuit, restoring the neat, refreshing appearance he had possessed when he first met Qin Zhen.

The backpacks confiscated from the two people from Country A were fully equipped. One even contained binoculars. After tidying himself up, Old Seven Fu planted one foot on the windowsill, balanced on the other, and bent forward to survey the outside through the binoculars.

The pose accentuated his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs, making him devastatingly handsome. If one ignored the filthy cityscape outside and the zombies drawn by the scent of living humans, constantly hurling themselves against the door, he could have formed a beautiful picture all by himself.

Qin Zhen had also washed herself and changed into well-fitting women’s clothing: a soft white sweater and blue trousers. The colors were clean and simple, and if one ignored her complexion, she looked like a vibrant college student.

Zombies were not usually vengeful, but this time Qin Zhen had been infuriated beyond measure. Her anger was not going to fade easily. She did not want to look at Fu Qi, so she hugged her knees and shuffled away in the opposite direction.

Fu Qi leaned toward her. After finishing his survey of the outside, he came over and asked, “I even collected bathwater for you, and you’re still unhappy?”

Having accepted someone’s help, it was difficult to turn around and immediately bite the hand that fed her. Besides, Fu Qi had been punished as well; one side of his mouth and one cheekbone were each marked by a large bruise.

Qin Zhen simply ignored him.

Fu Qi said, “You dislike me so much, but do you still want me to help you with your makeup? And do you still want to wear the colored contact lenses I went to such trouble to find?”

She did want those.

Aside from loving beauty, the zombie also wanted to conceal her complexion, lest she encounter other humans and be mistaken for a zombie and beheaded. That would be far too ugly.

Besides, she had never seen colored contact lenses before. Anything she had never seen was automatically classified as advanced human technology, and therefore had to be tried.

Qin Zhen gave a lofty nod and accepted the opening Fu Qi had offered her.

“Still keeping that long face?” Fu Qi seemed to smile, which tugged at the bruises on his face and made him hiss softly. Even so, he continued teasing her. “Still holding a grudge? Aren’t you being a little petty?”

Qin Zhen kept her face stern. “Call me your husband.”

Fu Qi thought about it, then picked up the dirty clothes he had changed out of earlier and handed them to her, saying gently, “Your husband isn’t here. Use this as a substitute for now. Go wash it, and wash it properly.”

Qin Zhen took the jacket and walked away. After two steps, she turned around, grabbed the garment, and started beating Old Seven Fu with it.

“Wash your own damn head!”

Give her an inch and she would open an entire dye shop. She was asking to be beaten!