Salted Fish Zombie

Chapter 51.2: Game Base (2)

July 02, 2023 by Wyrd

His body couldn’t see a doctor either.

If it were in the human world, it would probably take a medical practitioner with over a hundred years of experience to not be frightened when they saw the inside of his body.

Shi Tianzhu seemed to sense what he was worried about and said, “Even someone like Ning Changfeng with that kind of bloodline has appeared, so what are you worried about?”

Ning Su blinked.

He followed Shi Tianzhu and the head manager to see the official doctor of the Yinhua Guild.

Being a doctor on the game base was a profession and a skill. Some players who hadn’t fully recovered from injuries after leaving the instance could seek out doctors who mostly possessed healing skills.

Shi Tianzhu said, “Give him a thorough examination, ignore his bloodline and vital signs, check for any poisoning, and then prescribe medicine.”

After the doctor finished the examination, his expression became quite strange.

The head manager cleared his throat, thinking the doctor’s strange expression was due to them discovering that the poison in the young man was the one he had researched.

However, to their surprise, the doctor said, “Well, he hasn’t been poisoned.”

This young man was the greatest poison himself. Any poison entering his body would be a path to self-destruction.

The doctor added, “Instead, he seemed to have been cursed.”

He asked Ning Su, “Don’t you feel anything?”

Ning Su pondered for a moment and extended his right arm.

Indeed, something was not right. His arm had been slightly itchy these past two days.

For a normal person, a little itch might not mean much, but he was a zombie. Since becoming a zombie, his body had long departed from the realm of humanity, and itching shouldn’t exist.

However, it was just an extremely subtle itch, and coupled with the critical moment in the instance these past two days, he hadn’t paid much attention to it.

The doctor found a very small red dot on his arm and said, “The gu insect is right here. It moves when you feel itchy.”

Ning Su suddenly remembered that in the instance, when a player died on the first night after leaving the castle, both he and the Gu Witch went to take a look.

In Dai Jiuming’s room, they saw him, and the little girl with a tattered jacket died. At the same time, they stepped out of the room and collided with each other.

A layer of silver light flashed in Shi Tianzhu’s eyes as she looked at the gu insect in Ning Su’s arm. Her expression was very unpleasant. Without hesitation, she immediately left to find the Gu Witch.

The time of the gu insect’s attack was unpredictable, and there was no time to waste.

In the darkness of the night, she pushed open the Gu Witch’s door and looked at him coldly, saying, “I warned you to stay away from him.”

The Gu Witch, with white hair and white clothes, caught a glimpse of the weapon in her hand. He chuckled softly and hoarsely said, “I advise you to be careful with me, not only now.”

“What kind of insect did you use on him?” Shi Tianzhu asked directly.

The Gu Witch didn’t answer but instead asked, “Why do you care about him so much? President Shi, I don’t think you care this much about your subordinates or your male pets?”

“What kind of insect did you use on him?” Shi Tianzhu asked again, her voice becoming much deeper.

The Gu Witch seemed quite pleased and, in a chatty mood, said, “Do you know what my most powerful insect is? It’s not the death insect, not the madness insect, but the love insect.”

“You must also know that the insects I refine in different instances will inherit the characteristics of the instance, right?”

“The love insect is originally a type of insect that links two lives together. It’s like the companion relationship between a player and a ghost friend, don’t you think?” Gu Witch’s voice was low and hoarse, carrying a strange gentleness. “If I die, he will die. If he dies, I will die. We are bound for life. Love brings life, hate brings death.”

This was the craziest thing he had ever done in his life.

He used to think that the most useless insect in this world was the love insect, something he would never use.

Until he met the young boy.

In a person’s life, there would always exist the most beautiful memory. It might change for others, but he was certain that it would never change for him.

Inside the castle, in a dark room, where the dim light only came from the moonlight.

A boy sat cross-legged on the carpet, while he himself remained in darkness.

The other lifted the giant stone that had weighed on his head, allowing him to see a broader and brighter world, enabling him to escape the chaotic hell that had trapped him for over twenty years.

He told him about the [xy family], letting him know that besides normal xy and xx chromosomes, people with x, y, xxy, and xyy chromosomes could also live warmly and brightly in this world.

The witch would always remember the moonlight casting shadows on the boy’s eyelashes when he spoke those words.

The scene was very tranquil, but his heart had become increasingly restless.

He desperately wanted to catch that butterfly. Even if it meant being repulsed and cursed, he still wanted to be entangled with it.

***

When Shi Tianzhu returned, her face was clouded.

All three of them were still there. The doctor noticed the situation and hurriedly said, “You don’t need to worry, I just checked, this gu insect, it...”

The doctor could tell that Shi Tianzhu had become like this because of the boy, and he wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know how to say it.

This boy was truly extraordinary.

Not only did he have a highly toxic constitution, but he also had something similar to the Tang Monk’s flesh, which could drive certain things crazy. (T/N: In Chinese folklore, the “Tang Monk’s meat” or “Tang Monk’s flesh” (唐僧肉) is a metaphorical term derived from the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West” (《西游记》). In the story, the Tang Monk (also known as Tripitaka) is a Buddhist monk who embarks on a pilgrimage to obtain sacred Buddhist scriptures. The term “Tang Monk’s meat” is used metaphorically to represent something rare, precious, or possessing special qualities.)

He cautiously said, “The gu insect inside his body has mutated.”

Shi Tianzhu asked, “What do you mean?”

The doctor hesitated and said, “You can think of it this way: the gu insect has switched sides and now listens more to Ning Su.”

Ning Su: “...”

Why did that sound somewhat familiar?

Shi Tianzhu turned to look at Ning Su, furrowing her brows slightly before asking, “Do you have any feelings of wanting to fall in love?”

“I didn’t feel that way at first, but after you asked, I really do feel a bit like it now,” Ning Su said.

It was a very strange feeling. Within the dead body of a zombie, it seemed like something was stirring, needing dopamine stimulation.

“Who do you want to fall in love with?”

“Definitely not a person.”

“...”

The medical office fell into a strange silence.

It seemed like everything was fine.

Ning Su scratched his arm. “Actually, I don’t have strong preferences.”

“Hmm.”

He responded that way, but he didn’t know if the other three people in the room believed him.

At this moment, two little heads were pressed against the windowpane.

Two children were leaning there, looking inside.

The glass was soundproof, but for these two non-human children, it was as if it didn’t exist.

“Gui Sheng little brother, Mom wants to fall in love.”

“Hmm.”

When Ning Su returned to his room, the two children were sitting at the door waiting for him. As soon as he opened the door, their big eyes stared straight at him.

Manman said, “Mom, you can’t fall in love with someone else. You should be with Dad.”

Gui Sheng: “Hmm?”

Ning Su: “...”

He sat down on the spot, facing the two children, and asked Manman, “Isn’t your dad dead?”

“Of course, not that man,” the little girl pouted and said, “He’s not worthy.”

Ning Su became curious. “Then who is it?”

From his understanding, the little girl had lived in that villa since birth. Apart from her parents and the Gu Man Tong in the house, she didn’t know any outsiders. She could count on one hand the number of times she had been outside before turning four.

On her fourth birthday, she died.

If there was another figure similar to her father, it could only exist after her death.

The little girl couldn’t express it, unsure if she couldn’t say it or if she herself didn’t quite understand. She furrowed her brows and said, “It’s like being equivalent to the existence of a divine father. Anyway, Mom can only be with Dad.”

Ning Su made a sound of agreement. “So, I brought you out, and along with it, a contractual marriage?”

That little insect crawled inside him, reviving his paralyzed nerves, and his brain started to turn strangely and stiffly. “Does this count as leaving with the baby? ‘The Pharaoh’s Contracted Bride’? ‘The Evil God’s Runaway Little Wife’?”

The two children: “?”

***

In another room, Shi Tianzhu wasn’t as relaxed as he was.

Even though the doctor said so, she still wasn’t reassured.

After dealing with the Yongming Guild for so many years, she knew how powerful the Witch’s insects could be.

If they were ordinary insects, she could let it slide, but the one he used was one of his most formidable emotion insects, as claimed by the Witch.

Their bonded relationship made it difficult for Shi Tianzhu to let go.

She knew that Ning Su’s body was outside the realm of normal humans—a body with dark energy and a mysterious insect. What exactly would happen?

What kind of mutation did the doctor say would occur?

The head manager stood behind Shi Tianzhu, reviewing his mistakes for a long time, but he didn’t see any response from her.

He didn’t know what this meant.

Was she telling him that she would let it go?

Or did he want him to leave immediately?

The head manager stood in melancholy for a while, then went to Shi Tianzhu’s desk and arranged the most important matters that required her decision in order of importance and urgency for the next ten days.

Before leaving, he approached Shi Tianzhu with a paper airplane in his hand and said, “I found this at the window. It seems to be a copy of a map instance.”

After the manager left, Shi Tianzhu opened the paper airplane.

It was a copy of the “Ghos Animal” map.

When she came out of “Manman”, a group of Yinhua Guild members had already come out of “Ghost Animal” instance.

She hadn’t had a chance to ask yet, but she was certain that the map they brought couldn’t compare to the one she had in her hand.

It was a hand-drawn map, not very detailed but precise.

The most precious part was the walkthrough method, which was handwritten.

The handwriting was vigorous and elegant, completely unlike that of a teenager who appeared to be only sixteen or seventeen.

Shi Tianzhu recalled that on the night at the castle, all the players on the fifth floor shouted at her, blaming her for the death of Qian Dongfang.

The young man silently followed her and told her that he had severed the soul-locking rope of the black-robed man.

Shi Tianzhu looked at the room of the young man in the opposite building, and the gloom in her heart was easily brushed away by this map.

At that moment, in the room Shi Tianzhu was looking at, two people and two ghosts were sitting facing the window.

The window was half-open, and the night breeze blew gently.

Ning Changfeng tied his hair into a high ponytail at the back and wore a loose white shirt. The shirt fluttered in the night breeze along with his long hair, giving him a somewhat ethereal and noble appearance.

If it weren’t for Ning Su seeing his snake-like tail resembling a dragon earlier today, it would be hard to associate him with that enchanting male snake.

The other took a sip of hot water and said, “Little brother, today Shi Tianzhu issued another bounty. She wants to cut off my tongue for a billion points.”

He didn’t understand why.

Ning Su replied, “Oh.”

Ning Changfeng was dissatisfied with his simple response of “Oh” and asked, “Do you have something to say?”

Ning Su: “I feel a slight flutter in my heart.”

Ning Changfeng: “...”

Ning Changfeng: “Change the subject.”

Ning Su: “Then I advise you not to provoke the President Shi in the future. Otherwise, you’ll regret it.”

Ning Changfeng became even more dissatisfied. “Regret? Are you going to kick me and send me flying a hundred meters with one kick again?”

“Are you trying to pick a fight?”

Ning Su’s face became paralyzed.

Ning Changfeng: “...”

Half an hour later, “What are you thinking with that paralyzed face for so long?”

Ning Su: “I’m thinking about how you two became mortal enemies.”

Ning Changfeng: “It’s a long story.”

He seemed to be engulfed in a long memory. “In the end, it’s probably because my handsomeness is too disastrous for the country and the people.”

Ning Su: “...”