Chapter 48: Corpse Ghost

Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Corpse Ghost

The last echo of Xiang Yi’s muttered question had barely faded.

When the sound of ordinary, unhurried footsteps suddenly rose from just outside the doorway.

He snapped the Laser Rifle up on instinct, aiming it at the entrance. "Who’s there?"

The door was still open. The person outside paused for a moment, then moved a little stiffly into the glow of the rekindled fire.

"You’re awake? Are you okay? I’m the one who carried you here — my name’s Ning Ye. I just finished luring away the Shuffling Monsters that were tailing you."

Xiang Yi studied her with a furrowed brow.

She looked to be in her early twenties, with short hair and a pair of black-framed glasses, her expression carrying a faint trace of nerves.

Look closely enough and you could tell she was quite pretty — the glasses just had a way of dulling the effect.

The rain outside had already stopped, yet she was still wearing a dark raincoat, clean and completely dry.

Even out here in the abandoned district, she’d kept herself remarkably put-together, as though she had standards to maintain — though her shoes and the cuffs of her pants were caked with mud and grime all the same.

Xiang Yi had already checked his belongings. Everything was accounted for, except for the black stone.

That, at least, told him that this Ning Ye hadn’t robbed him — and that she hadn’t tried to kill him either. If she’d wanted him dead, he would never have woken up.

There was also the campfire. Someone had built it, and only a person would think to do that.

He also clearly remembered what had happened before he blacked out — Shuffling Monsters had come charging down that commercial street, drawn by the noise.

And in the end, he had woken up somewhere that was, at least for now, safe.

She was probably telling the truth.

Xiang Yi lowered the rifle.

The woman who had introduced herself as Ning Ye let out a quiet breath of relief when she saw him do it.

"Can I come in?"

Xiang Yi couldn’t find a reason to say no — especially given that this Ning Ye had apparently just saved his life.

Still, letting his guard down completely wasn’t an option. Who knew what someone’s real motive was for pulling you out of a ditch.

He gestured for her to enter, his grip on the Laser Rifle never loosening.

The rifle’s battery was completely dead, but it still made for a decent deterrent.

Ning Ye stepped inside, tugging her clothes a little tighter around herself, and settled slowly beside the fire, stretching her hands out toward the warmth.

Then she pointed at the corner of the room. "Hey... do you know what that is?"

"What?"

Xiang Yi didn’t quite follow at first, but he turned his head toward where she was pointing.

There was a tall, dark shape standing in the corner.

Ning Ye reached into the fire, pulled out a burning piece of wood, and tossed it lightly in that direction.

The flames lit up the corner completely — and with them, the full shape of the towering silhouette standing within.

It was Shi Tie. The same creature that had been hunting Xiang Yi not long ago.

One of its arms was gone entirely. All that remained was a single grey-black right arm, less grotesquely deformed than the one it had lost.

It stood perfectly still, unmoving, as though nothing in the world could stir it.

Xiang Yi raised his Mining Gun warily — but beside him, Ning Ye was already on her feet, her face lit up with barely-contained excitement as she moved toward it.

Shi Tie was filthy from head to toe, caked in a mixture of dust, rubble, and rainwater.

None of that seemed to bother her. She reached out and lifted what remained of its severed left arm, examining the cross-section, studying the marks the black stone had left in the wound. She didn’t spare a second thought for the grime now smeared across her pale hands.

"I can’t believe these things actually exist... Abnormalities... Corpse Ghosts."

Xiang Yi tightened his grip on the Mining Gun. For a brief moment, he genuinely considered pointing it at her.

This woman was acting seriously weird.

Ning Ye didn’t seem to notice. She turned to Xiang Yi with the look of someone who had just figured something out. "No wonder it didn’t keep attacking after you passed out. It kept following me the whole time — but it was actually following you."

Xiang Yi blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You don’t remember? After you lost consciousness, when I was carrying you and running — it followed us the entire way..."

She was still visibly wound up, a joy in her eyes she couldn’t quite suppress. When it came to Abnormalities, she had something that went beyond simple interest — it was closer to obsession.

Xiang Yi shook his head. "No, I mean — why didn’t it attack us."

"That’s... well, that’s a bit of a longer story."

Ning Ye seemed to genuinely think over how to explain it.

"Do you know what the military calls the source behind these Abnormalities? They call it the Black Stone."

"Black Stone? I saw someone holding a black rock — about the size of a fist. That was it?"

"That was only a fragment of the Black Stone. And you only absorbed a tiny fraction of its power."

Xiang Yi went quiet for a moment, then asked, "Were you part of the Scavenger group earlier?"

He had deliberately left out any mention of the Black Stone’s origin — only to have Ning Ye bring it up herself without any prompting.

That made him think back to before, up on the hospital rooftop.

Everyone up there had been spread out, standing apart from one another. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the ones farther away.

Besides, her style was fairly androgynous. From a distance, her features were hard to make out, let alone her gender.

"Yes, I was standing in the northeast corner of the roof." Ning Ye didn’t deny it. "After the roof collapsed, I got separated from the others. I heard the commotion coming from your direction and went to check it out. Turned out to be you."

"I saw you make contact with the Black Stone and absorb its power. That power is what’s giving you control over him — the one who became an Abnormality."

"Absorbed?" Xiang Yi looked down at his left arm. There were traces of blood-red crystals — Blood Crystals that had formed from his own blood — but no sign of any Black Stone.

Then he looked up at Shi Tie, still frozen in place. "Control?"

Ning Ye nodded toward Shi Tie. "Why not try it and see?"

Xiang Yi stared at the one-armed figure for a long moment, then said tentatively, "Come here."

The words had barely left his mouth before Shi Tie lurched into motion, shouldering Ning Ye out of its path — she let out a startled yelp — then marched forward one heavy step at a time, stopping exactly one meter in front of Xiang Yi.

Ning Ye had been knocked clean off her feet, but the excitement on her face was impossible to hide now.

Xiang Yi’s feelings were far more complicated.

The Black Stone had once controlled Shi Tie. Now that same power had taken root in him — he had genuinely merged with it. Did that make him some kind of Abnormality too?

"Sit down. Stand up. Turn around."

While Xiang Yi was still wrestling with that thought, Ning Ye started issuing commands to Shi Tie one after another. Not a single one landed. Shi Tie just stood there like a monument in front of Xiang Yi, utterly unmoved.

Xiang Yi stifled a laugh and waved her off, then pulled a knife from his pack and held it out to Shi Tie. "Take this."

He’d used it before — found it in a Scavenger’s tent.

Shi Tie obediently wrapped its remaining left hand around the handle and waited.

"Attack that wall."

The command had barely been given before Shi Tie crossed the room and started driving the blade into the wall.

Between its raw strength and the sharpness of the knife, deep gouges appeared in the surface almost immediately.

It wasn’t slashing — it was stabbing. Clean, deliberate thrusts.

The movements were practiced and ruthless. Whatever instincts had carried over from its human days were clearly still in there. Whether it could use a gun was another question entirely.

Come back.

This time, Xiang Yi didn’t speak aloud — he tried pushing the command silently, in his mind.

Shi Tie didn’t respond. It kept stabbing away at the wall.

The attempt failed, but Xiang Yi had a feeling — the kind that didn’t need confirming — that he could issue silent commands at range by spending Spiritual Power. He just wasn’t in any state to do that right now.

"Come back."

The spoken command reached Shi Tie’s ears, and it immediately abandoned the wall and returned to Xiang Yi’s side.

He had originally planned to put Shi Tie down for good today. That plan was clearly dead in the water now.

Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

He was alive, at least. And he’d gained a powerful Abnormality he could actually use.

Even if he had merged with the Black Stone, his mind was still his own. Nothing about him felt any different from before.

He was still himself.

No point losing sleep over something that hadn’t changed a thing.

He didn’t even know yet whether his Blood Crystal infection had been cured.

As long as there were no downsides, he’d keep going just as he was.