“Figuring out the mystery behind the case got you excited, didn’t it?” asked Xiaotao with a laugh as we were returning to Cao Da’s corpse.

“Uh, no…” I protested weakly, but in truth, I really was much more motivated now than when we first arrived here. We were literally and metaphorically completely in the dark back then, but everything had begun to make sense now.

“Don’t lie to me, silly!” replied Xiaotao. “I know you inside and out!”

“Wait!” Dali stopped me before I pushed the door to the morgue open. “Can you promise me no zombie will ambush us when we enter the room?”

“Oh, for god’s sake!” snapped Xiaotao. “Stop imagining things and scaring yourself witless!”

Xiaotao slapped Dali’s back with force, making Dali squeak and tumble forward against the door, pushing it open. Nothing that he imagined happened, of course. The middle-aged man’s corpse was still...