The Vanishing of Yangyang Village

Fine grains of sand and grit were scattered everywhere around Xianchi — rumored, over time, to soak up the death-qi permeating the land until they became sustenance for the Undead.

As the group traveled on, Mo Fan noticed that quite a few Undead were picking through white sandy grains that had absorbed the energy of moonlight and deathly marshland, turning them over like prospectors panning for gold in a churning river.

These Undead kept their distance from the outer city walls, drifting aimlessly, foraging for anything that might benefit their bodies — fine bone-dust grains, gnawed-over carcasses left behind by wild dogs...

"If we've got a ward this effective, maybe the Undead aren't quite as terrifying as everyone makes them out to be?" said one of the Woman in Black Stockings' companions — a man whose face was almost entirely swallowed by beard.

"Gray Garlic is harder to come by than gold," Shorty said with a grin. "You can't cultivate it. It grows in places thick with Undead, feeding off rotting flesh. Only the people of Weiju Village know how to harvest it, and even then there's precious little each year. If this friend of mine didn't have half Weiju Village blood in his veins, I never could have gotten any for you."

At that, Brawny — not the rough sort his build might suggest, but plain and good-natured — broke into a simple smile and stole a sidelong glance at the Woman in Black Stockings. He'd probably never seen a woman like her in his life.

"Yangyang Village isn't far ahead," Shorty said, gesturing toward the foot of the low hill in the distance. "The night's still long — we'll rest there."

"The village has rules," Brawny reminded the group. "Best follow them if you want to be let in."

Everyone nodded. No objections.

They reached the hillside without incident and started down, all of them curious to see how a human settlement could survive intact within the Land of the Undead. But at the base of the hill, between the mountain stream and the shadow of the Qin Mountains, what greeted them was nothing more than a heap of scattered, abandoned timber. There was no village.

Looking in every other direction: black earth, a few shallow pits in the ground, and silence.

"Are you playing games with us?" the bearded man snapped, anger edging into his voice.

"I... I don't know what's happened." Shorty's face had gone pale. He turned to Brawny.

Brawny's eyes were wide — the expression of a man who simply could not accept what he was seeing.

He broke into a run. He charged down the slope like a man who had lost his mind.

There wasn't even the corner of a thatched roof among that scatter of wood, let alone a village.

But Brawny ran as though something had broken loose inside him, heedless of the few Undead still wandering nearby.

"According to this map, Yangyang Village really is supposed to be right here..." Liu Ru said, head lowered as she studied the surrounding terrain.

"Yes, yes — exactly. The map isn't wrong. I haven't lied to you," Shorty said quickly.

"Then where is the village?"

"I don't know."

"Unless..."

Brawny's hollow, shattered expression said everything that needed saying: this had truly been the site of Yangyang Village.

And yet an entire village had simply vanished.

If there had been wooden palisades, collapsed ruins, scattered belongings — something, anything — it would at least prove the place had once existed. But there was only loose timber and black earth. Nothing remained.

"Could it be that even Weiju Village didn't survive the Undead uprising?" Liu Ru murmured the thought aloud.

"Perhaps," someone replied. "Whoever holds dominion over the Undead now may have little patience for local settlements."

They descended the slope together and picked their way through what had once been the village. The evidence of burning was unmistakable — charcoal blanketed the ground in thick drifts, and every gust of wind kicked up a dark, soiled haze.

"Not many bodies," the bearded man said to the Woman in Black Stockings. "Signs of fire. No telling what happened."

"Even if something did happen, there wouldn't be bodies to find." Mo Fan gestured at the Undead drifting nearby.

If the villagers had died, most would have risen as Undead. The ash smothered everything — even bloodstains would be invisible in all this char.

"So what do we do now?" asked another of the Woman in Black Stockings' companions.

"We move on to the next village," the Woman in Black Stockings said. "If that one is also..."

She left the rest unspoken. Shorty nodded quickly — that was exactly his thinking.

Mo Fan and Liu Ru had nothing to add. They fell in line.

"Come on, come on — there's nothing here for you. They may have moved on, migrated somewhere. Don't give up yet." Shorty coaxed Brawny away from the ruins.

Brawny still had enough reason left to recognize there were no signs of mass death. He steadied himself, pulled himself together, and stepped up to lead the way — guiding the group toward the next settlement: Hua Village.

"Hua Village is two days' travel from here," Shorty said, his tone serious. "I'd planned to spend the rest of the night at Yangyang Village to conserve the Gray Garlic. Now it looks like we'll run out before we're even halfway there."

The Gray Garlic shortage had become their most pressing problem.

Shorty suggested returning to the Ancient Capital while Brawny went back to his kinsmen for more. But Brawny said getting that much Gray Garlic would take months, no matter how he went about it.

"Let's just push through," the bearded companion said. "Turning back wastes too much time. All you need to do is show us the way."

Mo Fan and Liu Ru agreed. Every delay was another day for something new to go wrong.

"Don't be reckless." The Woman in Black Stockings spoke up. She glanced at Shorty, her voice smooth and unhurried. "I've noticed on the way here that not every area is thick with Undead. For the rest of the night, let's hold off on the Gray Garlic. Save it for when the numbers are genuinely too great to handle."

"That's a good plan," Shorty agreed at once.

Mo Fan nodded too, thinking privately: *Rare to find someone that stunning with a brain to match.*

True to the Woman in Black Stockings' suggestion, the group held off on the Gray Garlic for the rest of the night.

About three or four li out from Yangyang Village, the gazes of the surrounding Undead began to turn decidedly unfriendly.

The Undead in this stretch wandered in scattered pairs and small clusters — servant-class Rotting Corpses, nothing remarkable aside from the unease their appearance inspired.

"Here they come," Shorty warned.

A Rotting Corpse that had been grinding its teeth against a rock seemed to catch the scent of living flesh. Its head swiveled toward them with a grinding creak, sickly green eyes locking onto the nearest target — the Woman in Black Stockings.

Her expression didn't flicker. Not a trace of the panic or revulsion that most people would feel at the sight of something so grotesque.

Her bearded companion had already stepped forward, a Star Chart forming at his feet in shades of icy blue — crystallizing like frost creeping across winter leaves...

"Ice Lock!"

He thrust out his hand. In an instant, ice crystals transformed into a chain as thick and unyielding as iron.

The chain shot straight at the Rotting Corpse lunging for the Woman in Black Stockings, wrapping around it in a heartbeat and binding it fast.

"Bone Crush!"

The bearded man clenched his fist with savage force — and the Ice Lock contracted violently, crushing inward without mercy.