Xu Le talked to me about the mode of transportation and continued, "The five great immortal families are relatively loosely organized, and there are no strict requirements for this kind of competition. We only have one rule, which is that when we encounter other teams, we cannot kill them! Others can use any means necessary to achieve their goals."

After listening to Xu Le's words, I took out my phone: "I'll have someone prepare right now, and try to leave as soon as possible tomorrow."

"Before that, we have something even more important to do."

Xu Le looked up at the moon and said to the old man, "Uncle Kang, it's about time, what do you think?"

Let's go!

The old man nodded, picked up a travel bag from the side, and stood up: "We still have a lot to do tonight, let's finish it as soon as possible."

Upon hearing the old man speak, Xu Le stood up from the campfire and said to the young man and woman, "You two stay behind to guard the camp. I'll take the rest of you away."

When I saw Xu Le telling us to come along, I casually asked, "What are we going to do there?"

"Grave robbing."

The old man glanced at him and said, “Since we are going to make a zombie, we should naturally find a corpse to bring back! I started as a shaman when I was eighteen years old, telling fortunes for people and working part-time as a feng shui master. I also dabbled in some feng shui knowledge, but it wasn’t until I was sixty-eight years old that I truly formed a connection with the immortals.”

Xu Lejian, after the old man revealed our purpose, glanced at us and said, "Aren't you afraid to do this kind of thing?"

"Scared? Are you kidding me!"

The monkey was immediately amused by Xu Le's question: "Do you know what we are...?"

"Don't talk nonsense."

I interrupted the monkey and asked Xu Le, "What do we need to do?"

"My two companions who stayed behind need to prepare for making zombies, so you two have to come with me to raid tombs! Judging from what you've said, it seems you've been involved in related matters before."

Xu Le didn't say much, but continued, "Uncle Kang will lead us to find the tomb. You just need to follow his instructions. Don't worry, it's just a matter of exerting your strength. I will guarantee your safety."

Upon hearing Xu Le's words, he picked up his travel bag and led his men to follow him and the elderly man surnamed Kang.

My cooperation with the Hu family this time is only to find the Source Stone Sculpture to cure Wei Shengnan's illness. I don't care about whether Xu Le and his team win or lose.

Moreover, Xu Le just said that all I have to do is listen to her and cooperate with their actions.

In this situation, I don't want to reveal my identity, mainly because I'm afraid of offending people and suffering undeserved trouble in the future.

The old man led us through the mountains and forests, and soon we were heading towards a low earthen hill.

I followed behind Xu Le and saw that she and the old man were both silent, so I took the initiative to start a conversation: "You just said that those two friends stayed behind only to prepare for making zombies. Can zombies really be created by humans?"

"To be precise, it's not about creating, but about awakening! Zombies must be buried in places with extremely heavy yin energy and be exposed to plenty of moonlight. There are extremely high requirements for the deceased's birth date, place of death, and birth chart. Only those born on a red sand day, dying on a black sand day, and buried in a sandy area have the opportunity to become zombies."

Xu Le didn't hide this from me: "So-called flying sand land is a place where not a blade of grass grows and it's not suitable for plants to grow."

I disagree with Xu Le's statement because the ancients valued feng shui and would never choose a barren place for burial.

Therefore, the sandy land she mentioned should be saline-alkali land.

The formation of such saline-alkali land is mostly due to the use of materials such as rammed earth and blue clay when building tombs, which leads to an imbalance in the soil's pH level, making it impossible for plants to grow.

As for whether zombies actually exist, I don't know.

At least according to the records of the judges, the strange events encountered by my ancestors were all caused by various traps, parasites, and human alteration of corpses.

Xu Le, unaware of my thoughts, continued, "The formation of zombies requires two conditions: one is the mutation of a new corpse, and the other is that the body has not decayed after being buried for a long time. Moreover, the corpse must be revived at midnight, which is between 11 pm and 1 am."

After listening to Xu Le's words, I was still a little unsure: "Grandma Ma told me that all of you who came to participate in the competition are newcomers who haven't been in the game for long. I'm curious, have you ever seen a zombie before?"

"The 'Chuma Xian' is a continuation of the primitive religion of Shamanism. 'Chuma' refers to some animals, such as foxes, snakes, and weasels, that have cultivated for hundreds of years to avoid lightning tribulations and cultivate faster. They possess human bodies and choose humans as their spirit mediums to help people and accumulate merit, thus avoiding heavenly tribulations through good deeds."

Xu Le followed behind the old man and slowly explained: "Just like the immortals of Buddhism and Taoism can build temples and monasteries and widely accept incense offerings, shamans can also have many incense attendants! But once a shaman becomes a guardian spirit, it's different. He will only stay in one person's home, and unless that family sends him back to the mountains, the guardian spirit will no longer accept merits from outside."

Our Xu family has been worshipping a guardian spirit surnamed Hu for generations! That's why I followed in my father's footsteps and became a shaman at such a young age!

I have never seen a zombie, but my grandfather and my great-grandfather have! The Book of Strange Things records: In the south there is a person who is two or three feet tall, naked, with eyes on the top of his head, and walks like the wind. His name is Ba. Wherever he appears, there will be a great drought, and the land will be barren for thousands of miles.

The zombies that transform into demons can fly, kill dragons, and devour clouds, causing droughts. Therefore, whenever a drought occurs, people search everywhere for zombies and burn them to ashes. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period, whenever there was a severe drought in my hometown, the government would send special officials to my home and ask the elders in my family to search for zombies, capture them, and burn them to ashes to alleviate the drought.

So please rest assured, although I've never seen a zombie before, my grandfather and father gave me a lot of experience before I left, so I'm quite confident in dealing with those kinds of guys.

Hearing that Xu Le had a family tradition of succession, I felt relieved.

After walking a while longer, the old man led us up a small hill ahead, observed the surrounding terrain, and then, holding a compass, began to compare it with the stars in the sky.

He muttered to himself as he wandered around the hilltop for about twenty minutes, finally determining the direction. He pointed to a mountain peak to the side and said, "There's a tomb on this mountain. We can go over there and exhume the body."

I originally only thought about following Xu Le and the others, and doing manual labor was fine.

Seeing the direction the old man was pointing, he sighed helplessly: "We can't go there, otherwise your entire plan will be ruined."