Chapter Two: The Intruder
Raise your hand, stand at attention, stand properly...
Ye Hai had to admit, his movements were quick and precise.
Zombie Planet was a world where order had collapsed and resources were desperately scarce...
Without the constraints of law or morality, it was common to see people shoot one another for a filthy piece of bread or a half-rotten sausage. Ye Hai was determined not to end up with a bullet in his head for no reason.
After all, if you don't resist, people usually won't pull the trigger—on Zombie Planet, bullets were worth more than lives...
As someone switched on the lights in the hall, Ye Hai squinted and surveyed the scene.
Aside from the man who held a gun to his head, there were two others lounging on the genuine leather sofa Ye Hai had purchased from the black market, savoring expensive veal steaks.
Such steaks were unobtainable on Zombie Planet; Ye Hai had paid a steep price to procure them through black market dealers from Chaos Star.
All three intruders were dressed uniformly in tight black leather, clearly not natives of Zombie Planet.
In another corner of the hall, three grimy young women huddled together, trembling in fear. Their disheveled appearance made it impossible for Ye Hai to discern their faces, but his intuition told him they were all about twenty.
The terror in their eyes, like frightened quails, hinted at unspeakable horrors they must have endured.
Perhaps these girls had been snatched by this group, or maybe they’d been traded like livestock in the black market.
But the fate of such “merchandise” was usually grim. Besides being toyed with, they would ultimately be used to divert zombies during crises, or worse, become food when supplies ran out.
Ye Hai, having survived on Zombie Planet for ten years, was no stranger to the utter collapse of humanity on this hopeless, lawless world.
As a transmigrant, Ye Hai still clung to the basic line separating “man” from monster.
Though powerless to change the world, he refused to participate in the torment of the weak.
Because he feared... that once he cracked open the shell of humanity, he might never again call himself human.
Perhaps Ye Hai’s lingering gaze upon the girls made one of the men feel his possessions had been ogled.
A savage blow landed on the back of Ye Hai’s head.
Pain shot through him; Ye Hai clutched his head, crouching and rubbing the throbbing spot.
The attacker was surprised. His strike had not been gentle—normally, it would leave a person unconscious or at least sprawled from a concussion.
Yet Ye Hai seemed barely fazed.
“You’re the master of this house?”
Ye Hai raised his head slightly at the question.
A bald brute, shoveling food into his mouth at the dining table, spoke with muffled words.
---
Ye Hai did not respond.
The bald man lifted a corner of the tablecloth, wiping his mouth with it. Pristine white fabric was instantly smeared with ugly grease stains.
He turned his chair to face Ye Hai, flashing a smile both amiable and menacing.
“The steak’s excellent, from the Plati black market—a specialty of Chaos Star. Ordinary folks can’t afford it. Who’d have thought I’d eat it here... I must be lucky indeed.”
“My name is Zera. In the black market, some call me Blackhand. Since you managed to get veal from Chaos Star, you must have heard of me...”
Hearing Zera introduce himself, Ye Hai’s mind immediately conjured his profile.
Blackhand Zera—one of the five forbidden figures of the Plati black market.
He nearly monopolized the black market and the surrounding slave trade, serving as one of the main agents of “Undercurrent,” the largest slave organization from Chaos Star, on Zombie Planet.
Ruthless and cruel, he commanded a slave-catching squad hundreds strong. Wherever they went, nothing survived; from the elderly to infants, all became Zera’s “goods.”
Small settlements near the black market, desperate to survive, were forced to pay tribute to him.
In just a few years, he had built a vast and bloody slave trading empire. He was the fastest among the Plati black market’s forbidden figures to rise to infamy.
Ye Hai had never expected him to appear in his villa.
Ye Hai nodded, acknowledging he’d heard of Zera, and slouched to the floor, speaking without ceremony: “So it’s Mr. Zera... I’ve heard much about you. I am Ye Hai, a corpse hunter of the Raven.”
“Our ‘Corpse Hunters’ organization and ‘Undercurrent’ have always maintained good relations!”
Zera’s brow furrowed at Ye Hai’s words.
Raven—another forbidden name in the Plati black market, famed long before Zera.
The Corpse Hunters organization was larger than Zera’s slave-catching squad.
And corpse hunters were a crucial force within the organization.
One requirement for becoming a corpse hunter was to capture a Stage Three mutated zombie alive on Zombie Planet.
Such zombies could obliterate small settlements single-handedly—terrifying indeed.
Learning Ye Hai’s identity, Zera fell silent.
When Zera broke into the villa during Ye Hai’s absence, he already sensed the owner was no ordinary man. But he hadn’t expected someone so formidable—a corpse hunter.
Within the Raven’s organization, a corpse hunter was a prominent figure; there were only five among thousands.
If he killed Ye Hai and word got out, he would face relentless retaliation from the corpse hunters until one side yielded with massive compensation.
---
This, too, was an unwritten rule amidst the chaos.
Zera was in no mood for war with other forbidden figures—it would destabilize the entire black market trade.
If conflict stalled other trades, all forbidden figures would pressure the instigator.
Unless one no longer wished to survive in the Plati black market, Zera would face defeat.
And the compensation demanded of the defeated would be staggering—even Zera would struggle.
With this realization, Zera laughed heartily, warmly pulling Ye Hai from the floor.
“So you’re a powerful corpse hunter!”
“It was I who barged in rudely—my apologies...”
Once both men sat facing each other on the sofa, Zera explained his purpose.
“Since we’re all from the Plati black market, I won’t hide anything...”
“Brother Ye Hai, you’ve lived here for years—you must be familiar with the surroundings.”
“I want to hire you as our guide... to lead us to... the Radiated Zone!”
“These wild mountains are impossible to navigate. We’ve searched for nearly a month and still haven’t found the entrance to the Radiated Zone...”
“These three girls are your deposit—they’re all untouched maidens...”
“You know their worth!”
Ignoring the girls offered as bargaining chips, Ye Hai’s eyes widened, blurting out: “The Radiated Zone? Are you mad?”
“I’ve lived here ten years—never heard of anyone entering and returning...”
“I won’t go, no matter the price.”
“Money you can’t live to spend isn’t worth earning...”
Zera grinned, drew his pistol, and pressed it to Ye Hai’s forehead.
“No, you want to! I say...”