That day, Priest Chong Ling returned to the cave, once again inscribing talismans for the green-eyed zombie.
A sudden, whimsical thought struck Qiao’er: *If I could learn this "Tianwen," wouldn't I be able to speak with him?*
She tilted her head, pondering for a moment, then reached out to nudge the green-eyed zombie awake as he dozed in the coffin. The zombie was already well-accustomed to her erratic whims and remained perfectly still, maintaining his posture.
After pushing for a long while without a response, Qiao’er grew suspicious. she leaned in close to inspect him, only to find that he was actually pretending to sleep!
She sprawled across his chest, shimmying upward to tug at his ear. "Will you teach me how to write that script?"
The green-eyed zombie kept his eyes shut, playing dead with absolute commitment.
Qiao’er yanked on his ear. "Did you hear me?!"
After a long silence, hearing no further movement, he cautiously opened his eyes—only to be met with Qiao’er’s wide, staring gaze.
He reached up to pry her hand off his ear, but she leaned in even closer. "Teach me."
He didn't quite understand her words. Qiao’er climbed out of the coffin, lit a torch on the cave wall, and picked up a scrap of talisman paper Priest Chong Ling had left behind. She gestured with it in front of him. He took the paper and mimicked her gestures, waving it back and forth.
Qiao’er broke into a sweat. "I’m not playing a game! Teach me how to write this, okay?"
The zombie watched her for a while, still confused. Qiao’er took the strange characters from the talisman and began to trace them stroke by stroke into the dirt on the cave floor, her handwriting crooked and shaky. "Writing. Do you know writing? Teach me!"
This time, the zombie seemed to understand. He took the talisman, tilted his head, and squinted in thought for a moment. Finally, using his finger as a pen, he wrote a character in the loose soil near the cave entrance. Once he finished, Qiao’er copied it twice. He looked quite pleased, but Qiao’er was stumped. "What does this word mean?"
The zombie seemed to realize she didn't understand. He paced back and forth at the cave entrance twice, then suddenly let out an "Ah!" and collapsed to the ground, dead.
Qiao’er grew excited. "Is this the word for 'Death'?"
She mimicked him, letting out an "Ah!" and collapsing to the ground, playing dead. The green-eyed zombie poked her suspiciously with a finger, and the human and the corpse spent the rest of the time playing around in the cave.
From then on, Qiao’er had something to pass the time during the long winter: practicing her writing.
The loose soil on the cave walls became covered in her handwriting. At first, it was incredibly crude, but she practiced with great sincerity. As for the meaning of the words, they usually played a game of charades—he would gesture and she would guess. It might not have been perfectly accurate, but she could usually grasp the general idea.
During the day, it was dreadfully boring inside the coffin, so he was happy to teach her to relieve his own tedium. Tianwen—the Script of the Dead—was not widely known among the living. Most of the time, it was only used for short phrases. After all, it was the mother tongue of supernatural and evil beings. Even though humans were clever, only five or six thousand characters had ever been passed down to them; how could they possibly know as much as he did?
In this regard, the tutor Qiao’er had found was truly exceptional.
Having grown up in poverty and spent her life doing heavy labor at the Liu estate, this was Qiao’er’s first time learning to write. Consequently, she struggled to memorize the characters at first. Whenever the green-eyed zombie lost his patience, he would squint his eyes and play dead, refusing to move.
He treated this as a game to play with her, and only when he was in a particularly good mood would he teach her patiently. Qiao’er had to resort to all sorts of flattery, often clinging to his neck and praising him. "Get up, please? I know you’re the best, the most manly of all. Don't be angry, I'll be very serious this time. Please get up..."
He liked it when she pressed close to his ear and spoke softly. Thus, every time she provoked his temper, she would coax him back and forth until he rose to teach her again.
As time passed, Qiao’er learned that he responded to the carrot, not the stick. She would often offer him a piece of fruit or something similar as a peace offering. Naturally, he didn't eat fruit, but the fact that she offered him food first clearly made him very happy. Consequently, he became more diligent in his teaching.
As for the fruit given to him, every single piece eventually ended up in Qiao’er’s mouth. Qiao’er thought that perhaps this was why people liked to worship gods—once the offering was presented, the god would at most just look at it to gain a sense of superiority, while the human ended up eating it anyway.
Therefore, there was truly no better bargain in this world than worshipping a deity.
One night, the green-eyed zombie carried Qiao’er on his back to cause trouble in Xiangyang City, forty miles away. On the way back, he sensed a place rich in spiritual energy and stopped to breathe in the essence of heaven and earth. Qiao’er played nearby.
Suddenly, the sound of human voices came from the thick grass and tangled trees behind them, faintly mixed with a low, beast-like growl. Qiao’er poked her head out to look, but the green-eyed zombie was far faster than her. Before she could even lean out, she was already perched on his neck again.
From her high vantage point, she saw two Taoists fighting a zombie. That zombie was dodging talisman fire with remarkable agility; it clearly possessed a fair amount of cultivation.
The green-eyed zombie had naturally seen this as well. He stood behind them for a moment. Seeing that the wild zombie was about to be defeated, Qiao’er felt a pang of pity.
She had heard legends of these malevolent things—how zombies and ghosts were always bloodthirsty monsters who killed without blinking. But outside of legends, they were also quite pitiful. Humans were not nearly as weak as the stories portrayed them; those tales of "blessing the world" and "saving all living beings" were actually quite ridiculous. How many years of painstaking cultivation did it take for a spirit or demon to reach the intelligence of a ten-year-old human child?
Though human lifespans were short, their rate of reproduction was far faster than that of gods or demons. If one considered the survival of a species, then many years from now, the gods might fall and the demons might be extinguished, but humanity would surely pass from generation to generation, endless and thriving.
As Qiao’er watched the zombie about to be hunted by humans, her heart held the sympathy of the strong for the weak. You see, humans never actually needed anyone to redeem them. Wild beasts ate men, so there were hunters; zombies drank blood, so there were Taoists.
Countless pious men and women made ridiculous pleas for divine protection, never realizing that the greatest power actually resided within humanity itself. "Man's will conquers Heaven" might not be entirely true, but for Heaven to conquer Man—was that not even harder?
The green-eyed zombie remained in the shadows. The two Taoists quickly dealt with the other zombie. The crescent moon hid behind layered clouds, and the green-eyed zombie suddenly leaped out. The two Taoists were startled, and when they saw him clearly, their faces paled in terror. This... this zombie’s eyes glowed green; it was clearly a Flying Zombie! Even more terrifying was that it was carrying a woman on its back!
The two Taoists exchanged a look, both utterly horrified. Although ancient texts recorded that some demons could be tamed as mounts, what kind of sacred being could possibly ride a Flying Zombie?
Neither dared to linger; they fled in a pathetic scramble.
The green-eyed zombie stood before the wild zombie on the ground for a moment. The creature wasn't dead; it was still twitching slightly. Qiao’er thought he was going to save it, but to her surprise, he pressed his hand against the wild zombie’s Lingtai. A green light surged from the creature's crown and flowed into his own body.
After a long moment, Qiao’er finally understood—he was absorbing the wild zombie’s spiritual power.
The wild zombie eventually lost the strength to resist. By the time the green-eyed zombie pulled his hand away, it was motionless. Qiao’er didn't know if it was dead, but she felt a chill in her heart. "You... how could you do that?!"
She spoke up, heedless of the fact that he couldn't understand her. "You’re taking advantage of another zombie’s peril, don't you understand? Besides, it’s one of your own kind! It’s bad enough that you didn't help, but how could you kick it while it's down?! You’ve gone too far!"
The green-eyed zombie naturally didn't understand her words. He carried her back into the mountains as usual, but Qiao’er remained resentful. "I never thought you were this kind of person! No, I never thought you were this kind of zombie!!"
The green-eyed zombie seemed to find her noisy, so he growled at her in a low voice. Qiao’er grew even angrier. "You dare growl at me? Am I wrong?! You despicable little man! No, you despicable little zombie!"
Even if he didn't understand what she was saying, he could tell they weren't good words, so he was also very angry, letting out low roars.
The human and the corpse rushed back like a chicken and a duck arguing, both fuming with rage. By the time they returned to the cave, Qiao’er was still sulking, wrapping herself in four cotton-padded jackets. The green-eyed zombie reached out to pull at them, but Qiao’er wrapped them tight and ignored him.
He knew this "toy" was easily injured, so when he played with her, he never extended his claws or used excessive force. Consequently, after pulling for a long time, he still hadn't managed to strip them off.
He was quite perplexed, staring at Qiao’er with wide eyes. Qiao’er turned her head away and pretended to sleep. He pulled for a while longer, finally grabbing her hand and writing in her palm. It was Tianwen, and translated, Qiao’er could understand it: *What’s wrong?*
Qiao’er replied on his chest: *I’m angry!*
He reached out, wanting to write on Qiao’er’s chest as well. Shamed and indignant, Qiao’er slapped his hand away.
That day, he learned an emotion from Qiao’er called "sulking." It turned out that even after an event was over, one could continue to be angry.
Qiao’er hadn't learned much Tianwen, so he could only reply to her briefly: *All zombies, if they can, will do this.*
This was the difference between species. In truth, the gap between higher and lower animals was never about ability or intelligence. The so-called "leaders of all spirits" were only such because they were bound by morality and understood etiquette and shame, whereas these creatures did not.
Qiao’er felt that communication was truly difficult; she couldn't find the words to express herself, so she gave up. Seeing her stop moving, the green-eyed zombie reached out again to pull at her cotton clothes.
Qiao’er ignored him, so he pulled them off one by one. Later, when he even tried to pull off her innermost layer, Qiao’er was outraged. She gripped her collar tightly and began to wrestle with him again.
Seeing that she was reacting again, he looked quite happy and began to pull even more playfully.
The next morning, Priest Chong Ling entered the cave. When his torch was lit, he saw the crooked characters written in the dust on the cave walls. After looking for a moment, his expression changed drastically.
The young disciple was also looking. "Master, what is written here?"
Priest Chong Ling, looking heavy-hearted, replaced Qiao’er’s food and water. Some of the characters on the wall were becoming difficult even for him to recognize, but he naturally knew what they were.
Inside the coffin, Qiao’er was still sprawled over the green-eyed zombie. She was somewhat afraid of Priest Chong Ling and stayed pressed tightly against the zombie without making a sound. The scent of pine resin from the torch spread with the light, though the cave remained dim.
Qiao’er accidentally met the priest's gaze. In his eyes, there was actually a hint of killing intent. Qiao’er shuddered and quickly closed her eyes to pretend she was asleep.
***
