The gluttonous little boy is four and a half years old, and even the wealthy family kneels down and

Upon hearing this, Yun Ziang, who was not far away, seemed to have absorbed some kind of energy. He suddenly stood up and quickly walked closer, afraid of missing what followed.

But as soon as he stepped inside, he heard Yuan Wei's next words:

"Kill me... then bury us together."

Qiu An frowned, a hint of disdain in her eyes. "Nobody wants to hear your declarations of love."

"Say something useful."

Yuan Wei looked at Qiu An, his lips twitched twice, and then he slowly closed his eyes, looking as if he was going to his death.

Xiao Jin, who was standing nearby, became a little anxious. "Brother, don't go to sleep! You haven't answered Xiao Jin's question yet."

Yun Zi'ang pressed on, his voice trembling with anxiety, "Before you died, didn't you have anything you wanted to say?"

Who could resist listening to a heart-wrenching love story with zombies in an abandoned building?

Seeing that Yuan Wei ignored her, Xiao Jin dejectedly turned around and walked back to Qu Jia Hui, whom she had tied up. She squatted down, resting her chin on her hands:

"Sister, what exactly are you? If brother won't tell you, tell Xiaojin instead."

Qu Jiahui stared at Xiao Jin with her dark eyes, twisting her body and making only hoarse sounds.

Xiao Jin's little face was full of confusion. "Why didn't Master's talisman work?"

She reached out and poked Qu Jia Hui's cheek. "This is really tough on Xiao Jin."

Xiao Jin muttered to herself, her eyes darting around, then her expression brightened. "Xiao Jin, try it, maybe you'll know."

She leaned closer, aimed at Qu Jiahui's arm, opened her mouth wide, and was about to lean in when she found something encircling her lower abdomen.

Xiao Jin was startled and before she could react, she felt a force coming from behind her. Then, her feet left the ground and she was getting further and further away from Qu Jia Hui.

Xiao Jin flailed her arms and legs a couple of times, "Ah, I can't eat it!"

She grabbed the red fox tail wrapped around her stomach angrily, "An'an!"

Qiu An closed his eyes, feeling a throbbing pain in his temples. He said, "I can't eat it!"

He really couldn't understand why Xiao Jin would put everything in her mouth.

How can you put that dark-skinned female zombie in your mouth?

Looking at Xiao Jin who was hanging up, Yun Zi'ang said earnestly, "Little Miss, if you eat this, you'll turn into a little zombie!"

Xiao Jin puffed out her cheeks like a bloated pufferfish, and said somewhat aggrievedly, "But Xiao Jin doesn't think that sister is a zombie."

If it's a zombie, how could the master's talisman be useless?

Qiu An tucked his tail back, gently placing Xiao Jin on the ground, his brow furrowed: "Not a zombie?"

"Um!"

Xiao Jin nodded vigorously, squatted down, and examined Qu Jia Hui's arm closely. She pointed her little finger at the skin on Qu Jia Hui's wrist and said, "Look, the skin of an ordinary zombie is hard, like dried tree bark. But your skin is still a little soft, and there's still a trace of life running inside, though it's extremely weak."

"What does this mean?" Yun Ziang curiously went over and looked at Qu Jiahui, who was tied up on the ground. He looked her up and down and couldn't see any human features at all.

"You're saying she's still alive?"

Upon hearing this, Yuan Wei suddenly opened his eyes and began to struggle again.

Qiu An glanced at him, then looked thoughtfully at Qu Jiahui.

Xiao Jin looked confused, tilted her head up, and hesitantly explained:

Yes and no.

"I remember my master taught me that there is a type of zombie called a 'hanging soul zombie,' also known as a 'living zombie.'"

"Someone used evil magic to forcibly keep her soul in her body, keeping her alive but not completely dead, nor truly alive."

"Xiao Jin has never seen this before."

That's why she was wondering what it was.

Xiao Jin recalled what her master had taught her, muttering, "Master said this kind is the most troublesome. It's not purely evil, so if you put a regular exorcism talisman on it, it's like hitting a living person—it's useless."

Xiao Jin squatted down next to Qu Jia Hui, her little fingers still resting on Qu Jia Hui's wrist. Suddenly, she looked up at Yuan Wei, her eyes full of confusion:

"Brother, why are you tormenting this sister? Aren't you two lovers?"

Yuan Wei felt as if he had been stabbed in the back by those words.

He suddenly raised his head, and half of his scar twitched in the moonlight:

"What nonsense are you talking about! I'm saving her! I've done so much to bring her back to life!"

Xiao Jin looked even more puzzled, tilting her head:

"But you're trapping her soul inside her body. How can that be saving her? If this continues, she'll only grow weaker and weaker, until her soul is completely destroyed and she won't even have a chance to reincarnate. Is that what you call saving someone?"

"What do you know!" Yuan Wei roared, his anger making his face even more terrifying. "That person said that as long as she survives forty-nine years, she can truly come back to life and be just like a normal person! I did this for her! I've been saving her all along!"

Yun Ziang stood to the side, feeling a tightness in his chest after hearing the story.

To be honest, he was desperately trying to keep his lover.

It's pitiful, but corpse refining is an evil art. When Qu Jiahui was chasing them and grabbing them just now, her ten fingers were sharp and could really kill people.

"But you can't let her live like that, neither human nor ghost," Yun Zi'ang muttered softly. "Forty-nine years, she's just hanging on like that, how can she bear it?"

"So what if I feel terrible?" Yuan Wei suddenly looked up, his voice cracking with emotion. "At least she's still here! At least I can still see her! It's better than her being buried in the ground and rotting into bones!"

"No, that's not true."

Xiao Jin suddenly spoke. She looked at him, her eyes showing no fear or mockery, only a clean and earnest expression.

She pointed at Qu Jiahui and said, word by word, "You've been fooled! There's no way you can become a normal person."

"Moreover, having your soul forcibly kept inside your body is like being roasted in fire every moment. My sister can't speak or laugh now, but she knows everything, she just can't move. She can see you every day, and she's in so much pain every day, but she can't speak."

She paused, her voice softening, "Before the forty-nine years are up, her soul will be worn away. At that time, she won't be able to come back to life, let alone be reincarnated. She can only become a mindless demon, harming people everywhere."

"If you really love your sister, you shouldn't let her suffer like this."

Yuan Wei felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over his head.

He froze on the spot, his eyes darting around. After a long while, he suddenly let out a heart-wrenching roar: "You lied to me! You've all lied to me! She's fine! She'll get better! That person... that person wouldn't lie to me! He wouldn't lie to me!"

He struggled, crying and cursing.

Yun Zi'ang felt a chill run down his spine and couldn't help but say, "To be honest... how can she possibly recover in this state? Look at her hands, look at her face. She doesn't look alive at all!"

As he spoke, he shrank closer to Xiao Jin.

Qiu An added coldly:

"Her body has been contaminated by human flesh and blood; it's no longer clean. Even if she wakes up, she won't be alive anymore."

Yuan Wei shuddered, as if that last sentence had pierced through something.

He opened his mouth, but could no longer shout; only a whimpering sound escaped his throat.

Qiu An coldly observed Yuan Wei's appearance, feeling no sympathy whatsoever.

There are many lovesick men and women in the world. They torment their lovers to this state because of their own obsessions, and then feel sorry for themselves. It's the most boring thing ever.

He turned to look at Xiao Jin: "Xiao Jin, what do you want to do?"

Xiao Jin slowly stood up and looked at Qiu An: "An'an, we need to release my sister's soul and send it away. She's been trapped for too long; if we don't perform a ritual to help her pass on, it will really be too late."

Qiu An didn't look at Yuan Wei, but only asked, "What do you need me to do for your ritual?"

"Hold Xiao Jin down. When the seal is broken, the yin energy will rush out, and her body will become very violent," Xiao Jin said.

Yuan Wei seemed to finally understand what they were saying. He suddenly burst forth with strength, broke free, and scrambled forward to shield Qu Jiahui.

"You can't touch her! You want to kill her! I won't allow you to touch her!"

With a slight lift of his chin, Qiu An's tail wrapped around Yuan Wei's waist, lifting him off the ground and tossing him several meters away.

He fell to the ground and struggled to crawl over, but this time, Xiao Jin didn't look at him.

She walked up to Qu Jiahui, squatted down, and took out a small piece of white candle and an extremely thin silver needle from her cloth bag.

She stuck the candle in the ground, gently touched the wick with her fingertip, and the candle lit itself.

The firelight was faint, yet it stood straight in the cold corridor, like a small moon rising from the ground.

Xiao Jin closed her eyes, put her hands together, and began to chant a spell softly.

Her voice was very soft, like she was singing a tuneless children's song.

As the incantation was chanted, Qu Jiahui's body began to tremble violently, and the copper coin veil rustled loudly.

The bound hands and feet seemed to be trying to break free, digging the red rope into their flesh.

A thick black aura surged from her mouth and nose, circled her body, and then, as if driven by something, slowly dissipated upwards.

Xiao Jin opened her eyes, pulled out the silver needles, and pressed them on her forehead, chest, and lower abdomen.

With each needle, Qu Jiahui twitched, as if something was being peeled away from her body.

Yuan Wei was left a few meters away, watching all of this unfold.

He stopped crawling forward. He saw Qu Jiahui's body slowly go limp, as if all the yin energy had been drained away. The grayish-black layer on her skin was fading away little by little, revealing the pale skin underneath that had already lost its warmth.

Meanwhile, another extremely faint light and shadow slowly rose from above that body.

It was the silhouette of a woman, very thin and frail, as if she had been pressed down by something for a very long time and was finally able to stand up straight.

Qu Jiahui's spirit has emerged.

She floated in mid-air, looking down at the body on the ground that could no longer be called alive, and then slowly turned to Yuan Wei.

Yuan Wei completely broke down.

He lay on the ground, his hands digging into the floor tiles, letting out a cry that sounded inhuman.

He wanted to call her, but his throat felt like it was filled with shards of glass, stinging and tearing, and he could only make hoarse, breathy sounds.

He remembered what Xiao Jin had said... she knew everything.

She had seen everything he had done, every word he had said, and every bite he had fed her over the years.

She was trapped in this body, watching helplessly as he gradually turned her into a monster.

Qu Jiahui's soul moved gently toward him, as if it wanted to say something, but in the end, no sound came out.

She simply raised her hand slowly and held it in the air for a moment.

The gesture was very light, as if he were gently touching his face from a distance.

Then, her figure gradually faded away, turning into specks of starlight that drifted in the air.

Yuan Wei stopped shouting.

He lay there on the ground, half his face pressed against the cold cement, the other half bathed in moonlight.

His eyes were still open, but there was no light left in them, as if his soul and life had vanished along with Qu Jiahui.