Joining Tiandao Company: Starting by mending a zombie world

The snow is still falling.

Chu Sheng walked up to the huddled figure. It was a child, who looked no more than six or seven years old, and was as thin as a stick.

His face was covered with a dense layer of freckles, large and small, light and dark, making it almost impossible to recognize his original appearance.

Chu Sheng reached out to pull him.

The boy got up from the snow by himself, didn't even brush the snow off his body, and turned to leave.

"Stop!" Chu Sheng called out to him.

The boy stopped walking, but did not turn around.

"Just left like that? Not even a thank you?"

The boy's back stiffened for a moment, then he said without turning around, "I didn't ask you to save me."

His voice was cold and harsh, unlike that of a child.

Chu Sheng paused for a moment, then smiled. This temper of his was rather interesting. He quickly caught up with the boy and walked alongside him in the snow.

"where did you go?"

"It's none of your business."

"On the way."

"How would you know it's on my way if you don't know where I'm going?"

"I guessed," Chu Sheng said. "I guessed you were going to Jingzhou City."

The boy paused for a moment, then continued walking, neither admitting nor denying it.

Chu Sheng didn't press him for details, and simply followed beside him at a leisurely pace.

Two sets of footprints were left in the snow, one set of adults' footprints and one set of children's footprints.

The boy suddenly spoke up: "That piece of silver was enough to buy a bushel of rice. You just gave it away so casually, didn't you feel bad?"

"It hurts," Chu Sheng said, "but I can't just watch you get beaten to death."

"Hmph, if I die, the entire city of Jingzhou will pay with their lives!"

Chu Sheng and the boy walked one after the other along the official road toward Jingzhou City.

Although the boy was small in stature, he walked quite fast, his slender figure moving steadily and gracefully through the wind and snow.

"What's your name?" Chu Sheng asked.

The boy did not answer.

How old are you?

The boy still didn't answer.

"Where is your home?"

The boy paused for a moment, then continued walking forward, leaving behind three words without turning his head: "Don't ask."

Chu Sheng wasn't annoyed and simply followed beside him at a leisurely pace.

The west gate of Jingzhou City was already in sight, the city walls appearing gray and hazy in the wind and snow.

The city gates were wide open, and occasionally a few pedestrians wrapped in thick cotton-padded coats would come and go in and out, walking hurriedly, and no one would give them a second glance.

When the boy reached the city gate, he suddenly stopped.

"Once we're in town, don't follow me," he said.

Chu Sheng laughed, "I just paid you a tael of silver, so you should at least offer some emotional compensation, right?"

"For example, tell me about the situation in this city."

The boy finally turned around, looked Chu Sheng up and down, and then said, "Then you have to treat me to a meal."

Chu Sheng led the boy into an alley near the city gate and found a small tavern that was still open.

The tavern was small, with only four tables. In the corner sat an old man wrapped in a tattered cotton-padded coat, dozing off. The innkeeper, slumped over the counter, lazily raised his eyelids when someone entered.

"Two bowls of noodles and a pot of wine," Chu Sheng said.

The shopkeeper responded and turned to go to the kitchen.

The boy sat down opposite Chu Sheng, tucking his hands, which were red from the cold, into his sleeves, and staring at the table without looking at Chu Sheng.

The noodles were served steaming hot. The boy didn't stand on ceremony; he grabbed his chopsticks and started shoveling food into his mouth with ferocious eating habits, as if he hadn't eaten in a long time.

Chu Sheng poured two glasses of wine and pushed one of them towards him.

The boy looked up at him.

"I won't drink it."

"Then leave it there to warm your hands."

The boy didn't touch the glass of wine, finished a bowl of noodles in a flash, put down his chopsticks, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"What do you want to ask?"

Chu Sheng picked up his wine cup and took a sip. "What's been happening in Jingzhou City lately?"

The boy stared at him for a moment, then suddenly smiled. The smile on his pockmarked face wasn't exactly handsome, but it carried a worldliness that seemed out of place for his age.

"You're not here in Jingzhou on business," the boy said. "You're here to join the fun, to find the elixir of immortality, aren't you?"

Elixir of Immortality?

Chu Sheng neither admitted nor denied it, picked up his wine glass, took another sip, and smiled. There might be an elixir of immortality in this world, but it would never appear here.

"Tell me more details," he asked.

While eating noodles, the boy said, "According to the Donghua Record, Zhang Xianzhong once found a precious medicine that could make people live forever."

"We are now in the dense forest outside Jingzhou City."

"The *Donghua Lu*? Zhang Xianzhong?"

Chu Sheng muttered to himself, "Although Zhang Xianzhong was a hero who drove out the Tartars, he harmed many people after his death."

The entire Sichuan province was almost completely wiped out by the Qing army.

As the saying goes, "When the world is in chaos, Shu is in chaos first; when the world is at peace, Shu is not at peace."

Suddenly, a gust of wind lifted the tavern's curtain, and snowflakes, carrying the chill, poured into the room.

Chu Sheng paused slightly in the hand holding the wine glass.

Outside the door, on the snow-covered ground, more than thirty figures stood silently in the alley.

They were dressed in various styles—some in Taoist robes, some in monks' robes, some in short, tight-fitting clothes, and some in long, scholarly robes. Their weapons were also diverse, including knives, spears, swords, halberds, axes, hooks, and forks, all gleaming coldly in the snow.

More than thirty people, not one of them uttered a sound.

Snowflakes fell on their shoulders, hat brims, and scabbards, accumulating in a thin layer, indicating that they had been standing there for quite some time.

The leader was a man in his fifties, tall and slender, wearing a gray-blue cotton robe with a black cloak over it.

His face was thin and frail, with three long strands of beard under his chin and slightly frosty temples, but his eyes were surprisingly bright, like two lamps that never went out in the wind and snow.

He had a sword hanging at his waist, its scabbard made of ordinary ebony wood, without any decoration, yet it was so eye-catching that one couldn't take their eyes off it at first glance.

"I've been looking for you for ages!" he said to Chu Sheng.

"Ten directions, one step." The boy put down his chopsticks and said unhappily, "You really are a persistent ghost."

Shi Fang didn't answer the boy, but instead looked at Chu Sheng: "Who is he?"

The boy spoke before Chu Sheng could: "A Taoist priest who invited me to eat noodles."

Chu Sheng put down his wine cup and cupped his hands in a respectful gesture towards Shi Fangyi: "I am Chu Sheng, a disciple of Maoshan."

"Maoshan?" Shi Fang Yibu's gaze lingered on Chu Sheng's face for a moment, a hint of surprise flashing in his surprisingly bright eyes.

"In this degenerate age, are there still worldly disciples at Maoshan?"

"It was just a coincidence," Chu Sheng said casually, but his gaze swept past Shi Fang and swept over the thirty-odd people in the snow outside the door.

Following Chu Sheng's gaze, Shi Fang glanced outside the door and said calmly, "Don't be nervous, they're all here to kill evil spirits."

The boy sneered, "Get killed."

Shi Fang ignored the boy's sarcasm and sat down opposite Chu Sheng, getting straight to the point.

"There is a group of evil spirits in the dense forest, what you Maoshan Taoists call zombies. So far, they have killed 700 people and slaughtered 13 villages."

He spoke in a low but clear voice, "I gathered this group of martial arts masters to slaughter those evil spirits and restore peace to the world."

Chu Sheng raised an eyebrow and said, "Zombies are born from resentment. I'm very curious, where did this group of zombies you're talking about come from?"

The wildly popular online novel, "Joining Tiandao Company: Starting by Mending a Zombie World," is a heartfelt work by author Ganfan Li.