After Su Wan left, Li Cu looked around the pitch-black room and felt a chill for the first time. After all, there was a corpse in this room, a feeling he had never experienced before.
Having been best friends for so many years, Li Cu was particularly familiar with Su Wan’s room. It was well-equipped, and he probably spent more time here than at his own home. He wanted to pull back a curtain to let in some sunlight, but found that the curtains were nailed to the wall. Su Wan was a bit neurotic, and he didn’t want to remove the thumbtacks, so he turned on Su Wan’s Xbox and started playing games.
This sensation felt surreal to him—playing games at his best friend’s house with a corpse behind him and weapons stored under the bed. Life with the anti-government forces in Myanmar couldn’t be much different.
Gaming was quite effective at distracting one’s mind. As he played, he quickly forgot the eerie feeling. After hunting two or three monsters in Monster Hunter, he felt his fingers cramping and his head spinning due to Su Wan’s poor equipment, which relied heavily on skill. He paused the game and lay down on the floor to rest. Looking at the clock on the wall, he realized Su Wan had been gone for more than an hour. Where on earth could that guy have gone to buy things? He could have probably forged a shovel by now.
He closed his eyes for a moment and then sat up again, preparing to continue gaming. However, this action suddenly made him freeze. During the process of sitting up, he caught a glimpse of something behind him out of the corner of his eye. It seemed like something was standing behind him. When he recalled what was behind him, the hair on his body stood on end.
He didn’t dare turn around immediately; he only felt a chill creeping up his back. Slowly, he turned off the game console, and as the TV screen went black, he could see the situation behind him.
He saw that the corpse had somehow stood up, facing away from him, right behind him. At that moment, Li Cu managed not to faint, which he had trained himself to do in the desert, where his fear of corpses had dulled significantly. However, he didn’t know how to handle the current situation.
After a moment of standoff, Li Cu looked at the TV screen, and the corpse behind him remained completely still. He wanted to move his body but found that his legs had gone weak and were trembling uncontrollably.
He rubbed his legs vigorously, and once they regained a little strength, he immediately got up. Turning around, he saw the corpse standing there, its gold foil clothing torn, revealing the dry, cracked skin underneath.
Could it be that this person wasn’t dead, just looked ugly? It was absurd to be so ugly that it resembled a corpse.
Li Cu felt around for something and pulled out a hidden knife that Su Wan had used as decoration from the wall. The corpse showed no reaction. Li Cu carefully examined the room’s “geography” and realized that the corpse was facing the door, and he would have to pass right in front of it to exit.
Clearly, he was unwilling to take that risk. He scanned the room again, his gaze landing on the window opposite the door. He had crawled in and out of there many times. He cautiously made his way over, removing the thumbtacks holding the curtains in place one by one, and slowly pulled the curtains open.
Outside, the sky was gradually darkening. He kept an eye on the corpse in the room while also watching the situation outside, hoping that the plane tree outside hadn’t been pruned recently and that the branch stuck on the windowsill was still there.
At first glance, he was stunned. Outside the window, three or four people were climbing the sycamore tree, all crouching there with sticks in their hands. He quickly spotted Su Wan, who was the farthest away, holding a military shovel. The others were his close buddies, with whom he often hung out.
Li Cu looked at them, making a gesture that asked what they were doing, and Su Wan hurriedly urged him to climb out.
Li Cu glanced back and cautiously extended his hand. The person closest to him grabbed him and pulled him out. He climbed onto a branch and looked into the window, only to find that the curtains had been drawn back, blocking the view of what was happening inside.
The person who pulled him out was Yang Hao, a local hoodlum from the nearby street, and a former classmate of Su Wan from middle school. After graduating, he hadn’t continued his education and had been doing odd jobs ever since. He was known for being particularly ruthless in fights, which is why Su Wan would often seek him out for help. They were a notorious duo in the area—one a rich second-generation kid and the other a black-market second-generation.
The others in the tree were buddies from the internet café, and it seemed that Su Wan hadn’t returned for a long time because he was looking for help.
Once they were at the base of the tree, the group exchanged glances, remaining silent. Finally, Li Cu broke the silence, saying, “You guys are really something. I’ll treat you to a meal another day.” Su Wan replied, “I brought something back, and as soon as I opened the door, I found that thing standing behind you. I had no choice but to call for help. You really stayed calm.”
Li Cu nodded, “I’ll change, I promise I’ll change.”
Yang Hao asked, “What exactly is that thing? Is it a zombie? Is it a model? Are you guys messing with us? I can deal with it myself.”
Su Wan said, “It’s definitely a zombie. Da Li, who did you offend? Sending a zombie your way.”
Li Cu shook his head, “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I believe they could do something like this, but what’s the point of sending me these things?”
Yang Hao said to Su Wan, “Stop talking nonsense. I don’t believe this. What’s the plan now? Didn’t you say you’d give me some real guns to help? If not, I’m going back.”
“Don’t, man! That thing is in my room. If I go back, my family might be wiped out. Besides, the guns are in my room too. It’s not easy for us to work together like this; you have to help me. Either way, if the zombie doesn’t kill my dad, my dad will definitely kill me. Especially you, Li Cu, since all this is your fault, you need to move it quickly, or I’ll have to call the police,” Su Wan said, feeling frustrated.
“If you call the police, I’ll just insist I have nothing to do with it, since the stuff is in your house.”
“Wow, Li Cu, I can’t believe you’re like this. I’m cutting ties with you! I’m done!”
“Shut up!” Yang Hao shouted, getting annoyed. “You need to confirm that you really have real guns in your room!”
Su Wan replied, “Come on, would I lie to you at a time like this? If you come into my room, you’ll find out in no time.”
Li Cu added, “I can vouch for that.”
Yang Hao looked at Li Cu, thought for a moment, and said, “I believe Da Li. He’s serious and wouldn’t lie.” He then turned to the others and said, “Hey, find a sack. Let’s drag that thing out of the room and deal with it.” Turning back to the two of them, he added, “If you’re playing me, I’m going to be really hurt. If I get hurt, you guys won’t be better off either, got it?”
After Yang Hao finished speaking, he waved his hand, and a few thugs pulled out their weapons and sneaked toward Su Wan’s house. As they entered, Su Wan’s parents were in the room watching TV, and the door was slightly ajar. The group stealthily made their way upstairs. When Li Cu saw Su Wan’s door, he started to feel anxious. Just as he wanted to stop and regroup with the others, Yang Hao snatched the bag from the person behind him and turned around to push the door open.
The others were caught off guard. Hearing a series of crashing sounds from inside the room, they rushed in to help, only to see Yang Hao kicking something, with the bag already over its head.
A few people rushed up and started to beat it up in a frenzy, not stopping until they were exhausted. When they finally stepped back, they saw the bag completely deflated, and whatever was inside had lost its human shape.
The group exchanged glances, and Yang Hao stepped forward to rip the bag open, revealing a dismembered corpse that had been beaten into pieces.
“What’s going on upstairs? Su Wan, are you itching for a fight?” Su Wan’s father shouted from downstairs. Su Wan looked at the corpse and yelled back, “Sorry, Dad! We’ll be quieter; you guys go back to sleep.”
“If you keep making noise, I’ll call your parents! No manners!” Dad continued to shout.
Li Cu also shouted, “Uncle, we’re sorry! We’ll definitely be quieter!”
With a loud bang, Dad slammed the door shut. Su Wan squatted down and murmured, “Wow, we just took down a zombie. Yang Hao, you’re not just the king of the neighborhood now; you could rule the three realms!”
“This thing was weaker than you; it just fell over with one kick, no resistance at all.”
“Yeah, no resistance.” Li Cu seemed to notice something and leaned closer, pulling something out from the fragments of the corpse. It was a lever connected to the bottom of the coffin.
“There’s a mechanism here that can make the corpse stand up from the coffin. This isn’t a zombie.”
“Huh? Why do that?” Su Wan asked, “A prank?”
“No, it’s for this.” Li Cu pointed to the bottom of the coffin, and they saw that beneath the body, there was a panel that could be flipped open.
“Whoa, there’s more to this.” Su Wan took a pair of gloves from a drawer and put them on, then opened the panel to reveal a space the size of a lunch box, with something wrapped in yellow silk inside. When he picked it up and unwrapped it, Su Wan immediately threw the contents out.
Yang Hao caught it with one hand, frowning.
It was a hand, frozen in a solid that looked like mutton fat. The solid was pale blue, and it was easy to distinguish that the hand had seven fingers, and remarkably long fingers, unlike a human hand.
“The father of the six-fingered lute demon! The seven-fingered one-armed god!” Yang Hao exclaimed.
Li Cu covered his face and collapsed onto the floor. He recognized what it was; it was a vine from the Hydra Cypress. The guy in the black glasses had once cut down a piece just like it.
Li Cu felt helpless and thought: What the hell is going on? I don’t even like this stuff. Even if they sent me a gun, that would be fine, but who would want this kind of thing? I couldn’t even sell it as scrap.
