This kind of technique has long since been lost, and now it’s impossible to even find four people who have awakened the Four Women’s Occupation, not to mention with specific professional abilities, and can take the technique itself to the peak.
Zhang Laoxi clearly hadn’t recognized it—this was once a treasure that could be crafted at Fuyu Mountain.
Feng Yao didn’t say a word; he was afraid that if he spoke carelessly, he’d offend someone.
Honestly, offending people was one thing, but offending these zombies—forget it.
Anyway, Little Zombie was brought down the mountain by Zhang Laoxi, and anyone could see with their eyes that Little Zombie was so affectionate toward Wen Yan—that wasn’t an act.
"That stone cliff, have you been to that location yet?"
"Yeah, I’ve been there. That stone cliff is still dozens of miles away from the Water Ghost Domain. Below is just a stretch of forest—not even a small creek.
I’m guessing there was once a short-lived, unformed Domain that appeared at the stone cliff.
You can think of it as a spatial distortion—so people ended up falling dozens of miles away.
But that’s just speculation. As for the Water Ghost Domain, nobody can get inside; that restricts our research right from the start."
"Forget it, I’ll go myself. By the way, has that short video been figured out?" Wen Yan asked again. He really didn’t want to be scrolling on his phone, having fun, and then blink—suddenly the surrounding environment totally changed.
"We got to the bottom of it. That video’s not even on the server. The video is actually part of the Domain’s rules, basically big data auto-recommending it to people who might like it."
"..." Wen Yan was speechless. Who would ?
"If you want to know anything, your clearance has already been bumped up. You can check your phone yourself. Some top-secret stuff you can see too. Just treat it as material to shoot the breeze the next time you have to deal with those different races."
Feng Yao came as quickly as he left, disappearing in no time.
Wen Yan browsed info on his phone—some were recommendations from Feng Yao, already sorted out.
Some of the details were things outsiders didn’t know. For some incidents he’d heard about from Zhang Laoxi, the real inside story was different from the rumors going around.
By the next night, Wen Yan felt pretty much ready. He had dinner, rested two hours, then headed to the basement, pulled out his personal phone, opened the short video app, scrolled a few times—and sure enough, Wang Xueqi’s video popped up again.
The environment around him shifted in total silence. He was back at that stone beach.
He looked back. That reliable Uncle stood behind him with eyes closed, instantly making Wen Yan feel much safer.
Looking down, he saw Little Zombie tilting his head up, cradling the sullen Sparrow Cat in one arm, tugging Wen Yan’s shirt with the other, staring at him with a worried look.
Wen Yan heaved a long sigh, said nothing, bent down, and immediately Little Zombie broke into a grin, hopped onto Wen Yan’s back, and wrapped his arms around Wen Yan’s neck.
Sparrow Cat also let out a sigh. Honestly, it really didn’t want to be here. Why not just snack on freeze-dried food at home, stretched out on the rug, comfortably watching Tom and Jerry?
Just a blink, and Little Zombie had dragged it over to Wen Yan’s side.
It figured, if it dared say no, there was a good chance Little Zombie’s "slippery hands" would accidentally snap its neck.
Wen Yan really is a good guy—too trusting, and doesn’t understand cat language. That Little Zombie is sharp, otherwise why else is it that Wen Yan is off at work every day, and Little Zombie never clings to him?
Forget it, life’s tough enough. See through, don’t speak through.
Wen Yan carried Little Zombie on his back, and the little guy quickly fell asleep, snoring away.
A few minutes later, Sparrow Cat’s ears twitched.
"Something’s getting closer..."
About a minute passed before Wen Yan felt an uncomfortable presence approaching. He peered over toward the dense woods by the river and saw wisps of black mist rising amid human-high weeds wilting at an alarming rate.
The next instant, a black arm stretched out along the ground, shooting straight out.
This time, Wen Yan didn’t end up stuck in that same old "I sense it, am aware of it, but my body can’t keep up" awkwardness as last time.
His leg muscles tensed in an instant, and he leapt forward, taking up position behind Uncle.
That reaching hand grabbed Uncle’s ankle and tried to drag Uncle’s body toward the woods.
With a low call from Wen Yan, Uncle—who had shown no sign of resistance or reaction—snapped his eyes open. Instead of breaking free, he stepped forward, launching a direct attack into the dense forest.
The next instant, beneath Wen Yan’s feet, two ghastly white hands silently snaked out and seized his ankles.
The familiar icy, bone-chilling power surged up; that cold was at least ten times worse than the dried corpse’s phantom.
After days of intense boxing practice—dozens of times a day—Wen Yan had already worked the moves deep into muscle memory.
His brain hadn’t even caught up, but his body gave a slight twitch, and his legs automatically assumed the basic Scorching Sun Fist stance.
In that moment, yang energy inside his legs flowed and spun on its own, in one leg forming a small cycle.
The suddenly erupting yang energy blasted away those two hands. Then, raising his foot, Wen Yan activated the yang energy, blessing his foot and stomping fiercely onto one of the hands.
The frigid yin energy clashed with blazing yang, sizzling loudly as a wild-haired, red-eyed, single-horned ghost object screeched and clawed up from underground.
Seeing the thing’s appearance, Wen Yan’s face immediately darkened.
Single-horned, red-eyed, wild-haired—a textbook Evil Ghost.
And it must have harmed people before, devoured living humans’ blood and flesh, yang energy—maybe even their souls.