Joining Tiandao Company: Starting by mending a zombie world

After the darkened hall and the concert ended.

Chu Sheng put the "List of Eight Banners Martyrs in Jingzhou Garrison" into his spatial storage and returned to the old house with Duan Henian and Dai Ran.

Night had fallen, and the shadows of the sycamore trees swayed under the streetlights. Occasionally, vehicles would drive by on the road, their tires rustling over the fallen leaves.

Back at the villa, Duan Henian turned and glanced at Chu Sheng: "Little Chu, come to the study with me."

Chu Sheng and Dai Ran exchanged a glance and nodded.

Duan Henian's study is at the far end of the second floor. It is not large, but it is very tidy.

"Sit down." Duan Henian pointed to the chair opposite the desk, then sat down behind the desk and took out a tin box from the drawer.

The box was opened, revealing a stack of yellowed letters and several black-and-white photographs.

The edges of the letter were brittle, and the creases were carefully taped back together.

"Old Zhou gave you that directory. There are some things I should tell you too." Duan Henian pulled out a photo from it and pushed it in front of Chu Sheng.

The photo shows a broken stele with a few blurry characters engraved on it: "The Martyrdom Site of Zhang Gong of Xuanqing Temple in Fuxi Hall".

"This monument," Chu Sheng picked up the photograph, pointing to the few blurry characters on it, "is it still at Green Pine Ridge?"

"It's still there." Duan Henian nodded. "I went there thirty years ago. I had just retired then, and I thought I should take advantage of my good health to complete the task my master left behind."

He lit his pipe and took a deep drag. In the swirling smoke, his wrinkled old face appeared somewhat dazed.

"And the result?"

"As a result, I stayed in that dilapidated temple for three days and three nights, and didn't even see a single ghost," Duan Henian said with a wry smile, shaking his head.

"The remains of the Demon-Sealing Array have been found, beneath the foundation of the rear hall."

"The array patterns are so blurred that they are unrecognizable, but a few lines of text are engraved at the core of the array."

He pulled a yellowed letter from the tin box and handed it to Chu Sheng.

The letter contained a few lines of small characters, copied with a fountain pen; the characters were archaic and simple, likely taken from a stone tablet.

"If there are no descendants, then it is the will of Heaven."

Chu Sheng remained silent for a moment, not understanding the meaning behind those words, and asked, "Grandpa Duan, do you still remember the details of Qingsong Ridge?"

"I remember." Duan Henian took a notebook from the bookshelf, turned to a page with a hand-drawn map on it.

He handed the notebook to Chu Sheng: "Keep this map."

"Thank you, Grandpa Duan."

"No need to thank me." Duan Henian waved his hand and tapped the ash from his pipe.

"I'm old and can't walk anymore, so I can't do these things. You're young and capable, so the best way to thank me is to take care of this for us old folks."

Chu Sheng nodded solemnly.

Back in his room, he sat down on the edge of the bed and took out his phone to check the task interface.

"Countdown to the start of the 'Martial Arts Zombie' mission: 23:41 on the 6th"

Seven days is neither a long nor a short time.

First, you need to recover from your injury.

Although the aftereffects of the 996 Blessing Pill have mostly subsided, there are still some hidden injuries in my body that haven't been treated yet.

I'll go see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor tomorrow to get some medicine, and with meditation and breath control, I should recover about 80-90% in three days.

Secondly, we need to prepare inventory.

To deal with zombies, especially zombie kings, the Dragon Pattern Sword and the Northern Emperor Sword Formation alone are not enough.

You should draw more corpse-suppressing talismans and five-thunder talismans, and prepare some glutinous rice, cinnabar, realgar and other exorcising items.

Finally, I have to go back to the branch and sell a few Ginseng Elixir pills for some cash.

Although Dark Field obtained the Darkwood Heart, they still hadn't found the Shattered Moon Iron.

As for Mr. Wu, Duan Henian agreed to help make the connection, and there should be news by tomorrow at the latest.

He mentally went over his schedule for the coming week, then sat cross-legged on the bed, closed his eyes, and began to circulate the true qi within his body.

The old wound on his chest, which Duanmu Ying had stitched up with her double-handed technique, had completely healed, and his true qi flowed to the wound without any stagnation.

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The meridians in my left arm, which had been eroded by the Yin energy, were recovering quite well, with only a very slight chill remaining, which was fading more and more under the cleansing of the true Qi.

In the middle of the night, Chu Sheng opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath.

The internal injuries have lessened somewhat. At this rate, he should be fully recovered in two days, not three.

He glanced out the window; it was still dark.

The shadows of the sycamore trees swayed under the streetlights, and the music of a sprinkler truck could be faintly heard in the distance.

There was a new unread message on my phone, sent by Dai Ran, timed 2 AM.

"Your light is still on. Go to sleep early, your health is important."

Chu Sheng's lips curled slightly He replied with a single word: "Okay."

Then I turned off the light and lay back down on the bed.

In the darkness, he closed his eyes, but his mind was still racing—the trip to Qingsong Ridge seven days later, the senior Zhang Xuanqing who died in the snow three hundred years ago, the elite soldiers who were buried alive in the book, and the corpse king that had been suppressed for three hundred years but was not quite dead yet.

One by one, they unfolded in my mind.

Regardless, this trip is a must.

It wasn't for the mission, not for merit points, and not even for the Mystic Ice Marrow and the Northern Emperor Sword Pill.

It was because three hundred years ago, a Taoist priest named Zhang Xuanqing sacrificed his life to bring a hundred years of peace to Jingzhou.

Then a hundred years passed, and another Maoshan Taoist priest stepped forward, continuing for another hundred years.

Another hundred years passed, and yet another person stepped forward.

The torch is passed down from generation to generation.

Now it's his turn.

The next morning, Chu Sheng was awakened by a knock on the door.

"Get up! Grandpa Duan said Mr. Wu replied and we'll meet at his teahouse at 10 a.m. today." Dai Ran's voice came through the door, full of energy.

Chu Sheng propped himself up on the bed, moved his shoulders, and felt that the hidden injuries in his body had lessened a bit.

Last night's breathing exercise was quite effective; the chill in my left arm has completely disappeared, and my Qi flows smoothly, like a mountain spring flowing through a crevice in the rocks.

After he finished washing up and came downstairs, Dai Ran was already sitting at the dining table with a bowl of wontons and two pan-fried buns in front of her.

Duan Henian sat opposite him, drinking tea from a purple clay teapot, with a copy of the Xinmin Evening News spread out in front of him.

"You're up?" Duan Henian peeked out from above the newspaper, half his face visible. "The wontons are in the pot, help yourself."

Chu Sheng didn't stand on ceremony. He went to the kitchen, filled a large bowl with wontons, and brought out the remaining four pan-fried buns. He then sat down next to Dai Ran.

"What did Mr. Wu say?" he asked while eating.

"He's willing to sell that piece of broken moon iron." Duan Henian closed the newspaper, took off his reading glasses, "but he doesn't want money."

"What do you want?"

"I need the kind of pill you take out in the dark."

Chu Sheng paused, his chopsticks still on the table. "Ginseng Elixir?"

"Yes." Duan Henian nodded. "That's exactly what he said—he remembered the fragrance of the medicine that day; he had never smelled such pure medicinal aroma in his life."

The piece of broken moon iron in his hand was passed down from his ancestors, and he originally intended to keep it to forge a short sword to pass down to the family.

But if you're willing to trade him the elixir, he's willing to part with it.

"How many?"

"One."

Chu Sheng breathed a sigh of relief.

He still had three Ginseng Spirit Pills left. He could exchange one for another and keep two for himself, which was enough.

"Okay." He finished his wontons in a few bites, stood up, and said, "See you at the teahouse at ten o'clock?"

"What's the rush? It's only eight o'clock." Dai Ran stuffed the last pan-fried bun into her mouth, her cheeks bulging.

"It's only a 20-minute drive from here to Mr. Wu's tea shop. Sit down and finish your buns, don't waste them."

Chu Sheng sat down again and ate all four pan-fried buns one by one. Dai Ran nodded in satisfaction and handed him a tissue.

Duan Henian watched this scene with a meaningful smile on his lips, but said nothing and continued reading his newspaper.

At 9:30, the three of them went out. It was still that old, dark green Mercedes, and the driver was still that lean man in a gray cotton shirt.

The car drove east along Wutong Avenue for about twenty minutes before stopping in front of a small gray brick building.