3 Light Screen

Beneath the earth, one cannot sense the passage of time. Qin Zhen did not know how long she had lived in the tomb, but from the moment she could remember, that skeleton had always kept her company.

Now there was a human too.

Her hands must never be stained with human blood. After all, no one knew whether, in the future, some powerful Daoist might detect the blood debts upon her and use that as an excuse to destroy her.

Qin Zhen could only accept this hypocritical human roommate.

Her new roommate was the sort of ruthless man who could even kick over a coffin lid for the dead. If he could be this unscrupulous, what else would he not dare do?

For this reason, Qin Zhen specially moved all her precious belongings into the coffin to keep them close at hand. As for the burial goods outside, he could do as he pleased with them; she had no use for them anyway.

She lay in the coffin, a luminous pearl for lighting on her left and a pale skull on her right, thinking that before long she would have one more.

It was a pity, though. A human had finally come, and she had even hoped he might be able to take her out someday... She had no idea what the world outside had become.

Zombies did not hold grudges. After lying there for a while, her anger faded. Hearing no movement in the tomb, Qin Zhen’s curiosity stirred again.

What was the new roommate doing?

Humans were cunning. Could he have found a way out and planned to slip away without her?

Qin Zhen immediately sat up and threw open the coffin lid.

The oil lamps on the stone walls were still lit, but Fu Qi was nowhere to be seen. She gripped the edge of the coffin, about to crawl out, when someone rapped on the coffin.

“Morning.” Fu Qi’s voice was as gentle as ever.

Qin Zhen poked her head out and saw Fu Qi sitting on the ground with his back against the coffin, looking up to greet her with a faint smile.

At that single glance, Qin Zhen could not look away.

Fu Qi was tall and powerfully built, with healthy wheat-colored skin. Having been trapped in the tomb for so long, he looked rough at first glance, but on closer inspection his nose was straight, his brows thick and dark, his eyes bright. His lips were somewhat dry, though their fullness was still faintly visible. At the moment he wore a simple white short-sleeved T-shirt, and when he smiled he had the fresh, harmless warmth of a clearing sky after rain. He was striking indeed.

But none of that was enough to hold Qin Zhen’s gaze.

What truly froze her in place was the semi-transparent display screen that had appeared out of thin air before Fu Qi!

The screen came from the silver watch Fu Qi had used for lighting. It had been removed and placed on his knee. From the crown of the watch, a faint beam of light projected upward, condensing into a small luminous panel that clearly displayed a vast map marked with all manner of colors.

The zombie was stunned.

After greeting her, Fu Qi no longer looked at her, but kept sliding the screen with his fingers. The map moved with his touch, revealing mountains and terrain in full view. Only when a strand of dry black hair dangled down from above and passed through the virtual screen did he look up.

Directly before him was a deathly pale face tinged with green, hanging upside down.

He remained very calm. “Good thing I have the nerve, or you’d have scared me to death before I ever starved or died of thirst.”

That display screen seemed to possess some enormous magic. Qin Zhen was nearly being drawn into it; half her body had drooped out of the coffin, her hair hanging in a tangle, making her look like a female ghost.

At Fu Qi’s words, she immediately withdrew at once, quickly tied up her disheveled hair, and then nimbly climbed out of the coffin.

After finishing it in one smooth breath, she squatted in front of Fu Qi, craning her neck to ask ingratiatingly, “W-what?”

Fu Qi looked at her with an apologetic expression. “Sorry, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

Qin Zhen had no choice but to gather her thoughts, point at the virtual screen before him, and try again: “What are you d-doing?”

“Checking our current position and sending a distress signal.”

“Signal...” Qin Zhen could only say the key word. Afraid Fu Qi would not understand, she hastily tried to modify her wording after speaking. “Signal, received?”

“It can’t be sent out.” Fu Qi skipped over her awkward phrasing and said, “But we have to try. What if I’m lucky?”

“Mm, mm.” Qin Zhen nodded furiously.

Human progress was astonishingly fast!

The watch could not only tell time and provide light, but also serve as a multimedia projection and function like a computer!

Too amazing!

She wanted one!

Qin Zhen was very excited and wanted to ask more, but seeing Fu Qi’s brow tightly furrowed and all his attention fixed on the virtual screen, she held herself back. After watching for a while, she quietly edged closer to Fu Qi, tilting her body to peer at the ever-changing screen, so excited that her hands and feet trembled.

Meanwhile, Fu Qi entered a line of code on the virtual screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the head that had unconsciously drawn near and gave an imperceptible smile.

Ferocious undead were not easy to deal with, but it was simple to handle a rational modern zombie who knew about mannequins, zippers, and mobile phones.

No one could resist the lure of high-tech electronic devices, even if she had once been human.

As expected, after he put away the electronic light screen, the zombie girl’s expression immediately turned dim.

“High-h-high tech!” the girl who called herself a zombie exclaimed haltingly.

“What counts as high tech? Just an ordinary multifunction watch. Everyone had one over a decade ago.” Fu Qi smiled at the zombie girl and said, “Technology advances by the day. Some cutting-edge products no longer even require a physical medium. For example, written exams and papers... Do you know about those?”

Qin Zhen nodded hard.

“There’s already consciousness extraction technology now. Written content only needs to pass through your mind once, and it can be generated automatically. Cheating in exams is completely a thing of the past.”

Qin Zhen was astonished. “Then—then little... little... stories?”

“The same. Consciousness extraction generates text, and the same goes for paintings. So long as your imagination is rich enough, anyone can be a writer or an artist.”

Qin Zhen: “!”

Fu Qi fiddled with the watch and, glancing sideways at the zombie again, continued slowly, “Besides massive text production, there’s also virtual character simulation technology. It’s just like creating a face in a game, custom characters...”

This touched on an area outside the zombie’s knowledge, and Qin Zhen’s expression turned blank.

Fu Qi lowered his voice and explained more carefully, “You know robots? They’re called bio-androids now. Their appearance and functions are almost identical to a human’s, with housekeeping, financial management, and companion functions all included. As long as you input the appearance and functional requirements into the program, it can automatically generate the character you want. If you have enough energy, you can do whatever you like with it. The male celebrity named Ling Xi a few years ago was generated in the mind of a ten-year-old girl. She also wrote and shot the script and series in her head, and made him a sensation... Are you interested in these things?”

Qin Zhen was extremely interested!

She no longer thought Fu Qi was detestable at all. Nodding eagerly, she said, “I-I-I, computer, internet cable, in the tomb!”

“You need to speak in complete sentences before I can understand you.” Fu Qi pretended not to understand, patiently persuading her, “Take your time. Say a bit more, and it’ll be fine.”

So Qin Zhen suppressed her excitement and stammered out again, “I want to g-go out, buy c-computers and p-phones for the tomb, run n-network cables.”

It was very slow, but at least it formed a sentence.

Fu Qi looked surprised and naturally pressed on. “A computer? That thing is too old-fashioned; it’s already been phased out. What do you want it for?”

Qin Zhen answered honestly, “It’s boring d-down here. I want to watch m-movies, listen to m-music, and play g-games.”

She was a good zombie, and she valued her life.

Even if arrows from a trap pierced her throat, she would not die. Ordinary people could not kill her, but she knew Daoists certainly could.

So Qin Zhen kept to herself and had never once thought of provoking humans. She also knew she should not appear in human society. The reason she wanted to go out was only because the tomb was too dull; she wanted to get a computer to add some entertainment to her underground life.

Of course, if possible, she would also like to have a multimedia chamber especially for watching movies, stockpile some books and clothes in the tomb, install electric lights, and bring back things like calendars and clocks for keeping time...

All of that depended on being able to get out first.

“...I just w-want to get some h-human high tech.” After stammering to the end, she looked longingly at the plain silver watch on Fu Qi’s wrist, then at Fu Qi himself.

The fervent gaze forced Fu Qi to open the watch again and take another look. “It’s too deep underground. The signal still can’t get out.”

The zombie sighed in disappointment.

“I can still live another five or six days without issue, so there’s still a chance.” Fu Qi was quite optimistic. After comforting her, he added, “But if you’re willing to tell me more about this tomb and show me around, maybe we can find another breakthrough.”

Qin Zhen was just about to nod in agreement when she met Fu Qi’s eyes, clear as spring water, and instantly snapped out of her fascination with high technology.

Her eyes widened, and she put on a stern face. “Trying to p-p-probe me again!”

Fu Qi laughed softly. “Now our goals are the same. We should work together, shouldn’t we?”

That was true enough, but this man was far too devious. Qin Zhen now suspected that revealing the watch’s functions had been done precisely to lure her into taking the bait and coming to speak with him on her own. She had asked him before whether he had a mobile phone.

She had been fooled. It really made the zombie unhappy.

But she could not blame Qin Zhen. She had been muffled up underground alone for so many years, never speaking to anyone, never needing to think, and it was already impressive that her brain had not shriveled and dried up. How could she possibly be a match for a crafty tomb robber?

Now Fu Qi was looking for a way out, and she wanted to get out too, so of course she had to help. It was just a little hard to swallow.

Qin Zhen wanted to scare the human to get back at him, so she held her expression coldly and said, “No need. You die, the watch is mine, and I can s-send the signal myself.”

“You can’t send it.” Fu Qi lifted his wrist to show her. “This watch uses biometric technology. No one can operate it except the owner, unless you understand advanced biological tech.”

The zombie did not understand. She was hearing about bio-tech for the first time, and she seemed not even to count as biological...

Fu Qi went on, “And besides, this watch runs on solar power. Even if you could operate it, without sunlight it won’t last more than a few days... maybe not even as long as I will.”

Qin Zhen: “...”

So infuriating!

She held it in, then said, “Then when you die, the trousers are m-mine!”

At those words, Fu Qi’s expression became complicated, and the way he looked at her was like he was looking at a pervert.

Qin Zhen was a zombie with principles. She immediately clarified loudly, “I’ll leave you a pair of u-underpants. I’m not a p-pervert!”

Fu Qi stood up and looked her over from head to toe, then concluded, “You look completely perverted.”

What normal girl would think about someone else’s trousers all day long?

Qin Zhen grew even angrier.

When they first met, this man had been quite polite, not mocking her disheveled state but asking whether she was a model. The second time they met, he dared to kick her coffin lid. And now he was calling her a pervert.

Human beings really were like this: the longer one spent with them, the more their ugly true nature would be revealed.

Fu Qi was still putting on that hypocritically gentle act of consolation. “It’s fine. You’ve lived alone underground for so long; being a little perverted is understandable.”

“...”

Qin Zhen said nothing.

Qin Zhen wanted to eat a person.