Is this what a zombie is?

1. A letter from before the New Year

"It is said that after a person turns into a zombie, they will prioritize attacking their own blood relatives."

What does that mean?

We were on a date, and you suddenly said all this.

Before he could speak, the other party spoke again, uttering four light, casual words.

Let's break up!

"Jiang Chen, do you know what you're saying?"

"I know," Jiang Chen said calmly, without a trace of emotion. "So let's break up."

"Then what about that night?"

Jiang Chen hesitated for a moment, but finally uttered hurtful words.

"We slept side by side and were completely honest with each other. Although we had some in-depth conversations, we were at least not friends who would risk their lives for each other."

Snapped!

A crisp, pleasant, and loud slap.

"You're so shameless, my hand hurts from hitting you, you scumbag."

Watching his girlfriend's departing figure, Jiang Chen touched his cheek, a bitter taste in his mouth.

I'm sorry, I can't give you a future.

Physiologically speaking, he was already a dead man, a walking corpse.

As a medical student, Jiang Chen was well aware of this.

He's turning into a zombie, or something worse.

Back in his dorm room, Jiang Chen began packing his things. He was leaving the campus and the city.

Before the body completely loses control, it rots and dies alone.

As he bent over, his knees and spine bones made a series of teeth-grinding "crackling" sounds.

The stiffness in my joints is worse than yesterday.

Besides his body gradually stiffening, there was also a very faint but undeniable odor emanating from him.

Having worked with cadavers before, Jiang Chen was naturally familiar with this smell; it was the stench of spoiled, rotten meat.

Commonly known as, the stench of a corpse!

The shadow of death completely enveloped him, turning his pale face ashen.

Just then, the dormitory door was suddenly pushed open.

"Jiang Chen, you're trending on the campus forum! You've just gotten dumped by a scumbag..."

My roommate Ai walked in carrying a bunch of cardboard boxes from a delivery company, but stopped abruptly halfway through her sentence.

He suddenly took a big step back, as if he had seen a ghost.

"Holy crap, why is your face as pale as a corpse? Didn't you dump her?"

"We just broke up amicably."

"You broke up peacefully and people still posted about it on Tieba. You haven't shaken off the 'scumbag' label. Do you even want to find a girlfriend now?"

"I don't care about that kind of thing anymore."

Ai Yi suddenly frowned and twitched her nose a few times.

"Can you smell something...?"

"You didn't throw away the trash, did you?"

Ai Yi didn't delve into it. He took out a letter from his pocket and handed it over.

"Look, your letter. What era are we living in? People still send regular letters. Even text messages are faster."

Jiang Chen nodded in agreement. He remembered that the last time he wrote a letter was as an elementary school assignment, to have a pen pal.

"Now I don't even know where to buy stamps."

As he spoke, he took the envelope, still feeling a little curious about who had sent him the letter.

It's quite a strange feeling to receive a letter at the end of your life.

But the moment he took the letter, he was completely stunned.

What... what kind of letter is this?

The envelope material and the letter format were exactly as he knew them.

In the recipient field, four words were written in a flamboyant style—

To Jiang Chen personally.

Even more strangely, the stamp in the upper right corner of the envelope had faded and turned yellow, and the black postmark on it could only be vaguely discerned as a few traditional Chinese characters.

--Republic of China!

How many years have passed since the Republic of China era?

Conservatively speaking, it seems to be more than a hundred years ago.

Is it possible for a letter to come from over a hundred years ago?

It's unlikely, but it's not entirely impossible either. From a probability standpoint, it's even more likely than becoming a living dead.

But why now, at this particular juncture?

Jiang Chen felt that this letter might be related to his current situation.

Upon realizing this, my heart, which had been nearly still, involuntarily pounded a few times, as if in a final frenzy.

Jiang Chen took a deep breath, if he was still breathing.

With stiff fingers, he carefully tore open the fragile envelope and unfolded the equally yellowed letter inside.

He froze the moment he unfolded the letter and saw the first sentence; his blood seemed to freeze instantly.

The sharp, bold strokes of the brush, the penetrating power... were not exactly the same as my own handwriting; they were completely unrelated.

As a medical student, his handwriting naturally follows the same pattern of flamboyant and unrestrained style, making it incomprehensible to those who don't study medicine.

The words inside the envelope were completely different from what was written there.

Because the words on the envelope were written with a brush, it was clearly the work of an expert, someone who had immersed themselves in the art of calligraphy for decades.

Even so, Jiang Chen still felt that he himself was the one who wrote this letter.

It was an inexplicable intuition.

The letter began with only one line, yet it struck him like a thunderbolt, shattering his composure and rationality completely.

"When you see this letter, you should feel like you're starting to turn into a zombie."

Jiang Chen's pupils trembled violently as he stared intently at the line of text, as if trying to see through the paper.

His breathing had long since stopped, yet he still had a suffocating sensation.

This letter...it really was written to him by "him".

He continued reading, and the letter stated the facts simply and clearly in an unquestionable tone.

The letter precisely describes his current state, his mental journey over the past few days, and the circumstances of his unexpected death that night.

Even the things he searched on Baidu on his phone were described clearly and without any errors.

Only he himself knew the torment and suffering he endured; he hadn't even told his girlfriend.

As long as it's him!!!

Whether that "self" from a hundred years ago is truly himself is not Jiang Chen's top priority right now.

What he wanted to know most was how to survive.

The letter ended with this statement.

"...The reason you remain in a state of being a living dead is because the Resurrection Incense brought you back to life, but the piece of Resurrection Incense on your body is not potent enough, so you are in a state of being half-dead. As time goes by, the effect will gradually disappear, and your body will truly rot and die."

"To survive, to truly rise from the dead, we must find the other Resurrection Incense. The second one is here..."

The Resurrection Incense is a magical substance; its fragrance can be smelled for hundreds of miles, and even corpses on the ground will come back to life upon smelling its aroma.

The earliest legend comes from the time of Emperor Wu of Han in ancient China, when the Yuezhi Kingdom in the Western Regions presented three pieces of "Resurrection Incense" as tribute. These incense pieces were as large as swallow eggs and as black as mulberries. It was said that if the sick smelled this incense, they would rise from the dead, and if they were dead for less than three days, they would be revived by fumigating with it.

I see. That explains my current state.

Jiang Chen grabbed the pendant around his neck as if it were his last lifeline.

Of course he wants to live.

Therefore, he must find the second Resurrection Incense within three days.