Resurrection

Hong Kong Island, Castle Peak Road.

On a muddy path below the coastal stretch of Qinglongtou Road, a pair of car headlights suddenly cut through the misty rain and darkness.

With the engine roaring, a second-hand black Daihatsu car wobbled its way through the muddy road and came to a stop in front of a dilapidated warehouse concealed by trees and overgrown weeds.

A burly man with a ponytail, known as "Big Mouth Wei," pushed open the car door and got out. Adjusting his pants uncomfortably after the long drive, he spat on the ground and looked at the warehouse ahead. "D*mn, this place is remote. Fei Zai Dong, is this where you're keeping the guy?"

The man called "Fei Zai Dong" was a young guy with a buzz cut and loose-fitting T-shirt. With a smug look, he replied, "Yeah, Brother Wei. It took Long Zai and me less than half a day to grab him. You told us to keep it low-key, so we brought him here. It's close to the Marine Police station—nobody would think to look here..."

"Ha! If you're that clever, why are you still playing the thug? Go start a company or something," Big Mouth Wei scoffed, waving a hand. "Take me to see him. That b*st*rd's been hiding from us for days and it's pissing me off. If this goes well, you two can start working with me officially."

"Thank you, Brother Wei..."

Fei Zai Dong let out a strange laugh and shouted to another burly young man climbing out of the back seat, "Long Zai, hurry up and open the door! After this, we'll be working with Brother Wei."

"Yeah—"

The burly young man wore a dirty tank top and seemed a bit slow-witted. He grunted, took a key from his pocket, and walked silently to the warehouse door.

Bang—

The warehouse's metal shutter lifted, and a pungent stench of decay, blood, and rust rushed out, assaulting their noses.

"Jesus, it stinks!"

Big Mouth Wei quickly covered his nose and took a few steps back. He pulled out a pack of Red Marlboros from his pocket, lit one up, took a deep drag, and noticing Fei Zai Dong staring at him, tossed the pack to him.

"Thanks, Brother Wei!"

Fei Zai Dong fanned the air in front of him, grinning as he caught the Marlboros. He lit one up and puffed away contentedly.

Only the burly young man, Long Zai, seemed unfazed by the stench in the warehouse. He walked right in and switched on the lights.

"Dong, the lights are on," Long Zai called out in a gruff voice.

"Brother Wei, he's inside," Fei Zai Dong said, holding the cigarette between his fingers and emphasizing once again, "As soon as I got your message, Long Zai and I grabbed him in half a day."

"Impressive. None of the other crews could catch him, but Fei Zai Dong managed it," Big Mouth Wei remarked, flicking his cigarette ash and patting Fei Zai Dong on the shoulder with a smile.

"A bit of luck, that's all. The guy practically ran into my hands."

They chatted as they entered the warehouse. Three hanging fluorescent lights flickered on, illuminating the cluttered space filled with wooden crates and scrap metal. It was evident the place had been abandoned for years.

There were a few other such warehouses in the vicinity, most of them relics from decades ago when small boats smuggled goods. Nobody cared about them anymore.

An old, three-blade ceiling fan creaked slowly above, spinning lazily.

Below it, on the filthy, foul-smelling concrete floor, was an iron cage designed to hold large pets. Inside the cage was a grimy, slumped figure.

Fei Zai Dong walked up to the cage and kicked it hard, shouting viciously, "Hey, Blackfish! Look who's here!"

The person inside the cage lay motionless, as if dead, without any reaction.

"Fei Zai Dong, I told you to grab the guy. Don't you dare let him die on me. My boss has questions for him," Big Mouth Wei said, pointing at Fei Zai Dong with his cigarette hand, his tone menacing.

"He's not dead, Brother Wei. He was alive when we left earlier. D*mn you, Blackfish..."

Fei Zai Dong, still holding the cigarette in his mouth, kicked the cage again. The loud clang echoed through the warehouse, but the figure inside remained still.

Suddenly, Big Mouth Wei slapped the back of Fei Zai Dong's head. "Get him out of there, now! My boss wants him alive."

"He's definitely alive, definitely alive," Fei Zai Dong mumbled, the cigarette falling from his mouth after Wei's slap. He didn't dare speak loudly and quickly turned to the burly Long Zai beside him, "Long Zai, help me get him out."

"Okay." The burly Long Zai glanced at Big Mouth Wei and then clumsily moved over to help Fei Zai Dong open the cage and drag the man out.

As soon as they pulled him out, the stench intensified. Fei Zai Dong took one look and his face turned pale. He staggered back a few steps, muttering, "He's... he's really dead?!"

Lying on the ground was a young man in his twenties, with matted, dirty blond hair stuck to his scalp. His face was ashen, lips black and purple, lying there like a heap of rotting flesh, completely still.

Big Mouth Wei tossed away his half-smoked cigarette and quickly approached the young man on the ground. First, he checked for breathing, then pressed on the carotid artery.

"He's dead! He's really dead! Brother Wei, we've got a corpse on our hands!" Fei Zai Dong, standing a few meters away, watched Wei check the pulse and was now completely panicked.

He glanced at the burly Long Zai beside him, then suddenly lashed out, punching and kicking him, "You idiot, I told you not to hit him so hard! You've killed him!"

"I didn't!"

Long Zai, with his large frame, hugged his head and didn't fight back, only responding in his slow, gruff voice.

"Enough!"

Big Mouth Wei shouted in fury, standing up from the ground with a dark expression. He shot a fierce glare at Fei Zai Dong, who immediately fell silent, his voice trembling, "Brother Wei... he's dead. What do we do?"

"This is on you two, not me!"

Big Mouth Wei snapped, glaring at the panic-stricken Fei Zai Dong and the dumbfounded Long Zai. His frustration mounted. "My boss wanted him alive to get information from this piece of trash... D*mn it! Why are you standing around? If you don't want to run, start getting rid of the body! Do I have to teach you everything?"

"Right, right, dispose of the body."

Fei Zai Dong, jolted by Wei's outburst, quickly suggested, "We could sink it in the ocean..."

"No." Big Mouth Wei interrupted before he could finish. "We're too close to the Marine Police station. Sinking it isn't safe. It could float up anytime. And if we head to the shore now and the Marine Police catch us, we're done for."

Fei Zai Dong forced a smile, his face still pale. "Right, right, you're always thinking ahead, Brother Wei."

Big Mouth Wei's eyes scanned the warehouse and landed on a few shovels and hoes tossed in a corner. "Go find a patch of ground. We'll dig a hole and bury him. This stays between us..."

Creak, creak—

Suddenly, a sharp, unexpected sound broke the tense silence.

"Ah?! Blackfish moved! Brother Wei, he's moving!"

Fei Zai Dong, standing near the cage, jumped three feet high like a startled cat and pointed exaggeratedly at the body on the ground, shouting in terror.

"Shut up, you idiot..."

Big Mouth Wei, startled by Fei Zai Dong's reaction, was about to start cursing when he suddenly felt something brush against his leg. A chill ran from his tailbone to the back of his head, and he instinctively leapt several meters back.

Creak, creak—

Creak, creak—

There were two more faint, crisp sounds.

The corpse of "Blackfish" on the ground began twitching in an incredibly eerie manner.

Then, its joints moved in a twisted yet rigid fashion, like a puppet on strings, swaying as it slowly stood up.

"A... a zombie..." Fei Zai Dong's teeth chattered, his face filled with terror. He turned to flee but, in his panic, tripped over a broken stool and crashed heavily to the ground.

"Dong, you fell," Long Zai, ever slow-witted, saw Fei Zai Dong fall and hurried over to help him up.

It seemed that throughout this ordeal, he hadn't reacted much to the suddenly standing corpse.

"Long Zai, you're such an idiot!"

Fei Zai Dong saw Long Zai's blank expression and urgently tugged on his arm. "We've got to run!"

"No running," Big Mouth Wei barked loudly, stopping the fleeing Fei Zai Dong in his tracks. He then turned to stare at the swaying "Blackfishbody," his expression shifting between confusion and fear. "Blackfish, are you a man or a ghost?"

In recent years, major film companies have been churning out ghost and zombie movies. Big Mouth Wei had downed drinks with many stuntmen playing zombies, so he didn't believe in such things.

But the "Blackfish" who had just stood up didn't respond to Big Mouth Wei's shout. His head drooped, eyes closed beneath his messy hair, and his limbs and body moved like a puppet, lifted by invisible strings, shuffling forward step by step.

The scene was unbelievably eerie.

"Fei Zai Dong, go check him out," Big Mouth Wei ordered, though he didn't quite believe that "Blackfish" had turned into a zombie. Still, there was a knot of anxiety in his stomach.

Earlier, he had checked Blackfish's body himself. There hadn't been any pulse or breathing, and the skin was cold as ice.

"Brother Wei, my... my legs are weak..." Fei Zai Dong, half-leaning on Long Zai, turned pale at the thought of getting closer to the zombie-like figure and frantically shook his head in refusal.

"What's there to be scared of? Zombies aren't that easy to come by. At most, this is just a corpse twitching," Big Mouth Wei scoffed. Seeing Fei Zai Dong was useless, he turned his gaze back to the "Blackfish" in front of him.

He didn't believe Blackfish had become a zombie, but a "corpse twitch" seemed possible.

Big Mouth Wei had mingled with directors and stuntmen making ghost movies, and he remembered one screenwriter, Ah Wah, explaining that zombies were corpses reanimated by resentment, improper burial, or after being infected by a corpse toxin. They would become rigid, grow blackened, sharp nails, and have canine fangs.

But Blackfish hadn't been poisoned or buried, so he wasn't a zombie. A simple "corpse twitch," however, was plausible.

Sometimes, when someone dies, a bit of air remains trapped in their chest. If something disturbs the body, this trapped air can cause a momentary reanimation—what is known as a "corpse twitch."

This "reanimation" wouldn't last; once the remaining air was expelled, the body would go still again.

"Fine, let's see what you really are."

Big Mouth Wei gritted his teeth, scanned the surroundings, and grabbed a two-meter-long wooden stick, typically used for supporting cargo on shelves. He cautiously approached the swaying "Blackfish," who stood there like a scarecrow.

"Yah!"

With a fierce shout, Big Mouth Wei raised the wooden stick high and brought it crashing down on Blackfish's head.

Crack!

The stick broke in two over Blackfish's forehead, but he didn't flinch. No cry of pain, no blood flowed from his forehead—he simply stood there, unmoving.

Big Mouth Wei stared at the bizarre scene before him, swallowing hard.

And then, suddenly—

Without moving his upper body, "Blackfish" lifted his left leg and kicked straight up with lightning speed, smashing his foot under Big Mouth Wei's chin.

The kick was incredibly swift, with no warning, and packed immense force.

With a sickening crack, Big Mouth Wei's head twisted back grotesquely, and his body flew several meters before crashing to the ground.

"Brother Wei?!!"

Fei Zai Dong's eyes nearly popped out of his head at the sight, and he let out a horrified scream.

But Big Mouth Wei, lying on the ground, had his chin shattered, blood pouring from his mouth and nose. His neck was broken, and after a few convulsions, he fell silent.

"Ah!!! Long Zai, run! Run!"

Fei Zai Dong cast a quick glance at the standing "Blackfish" before turning to grab Long Zai's arm, trying to flee from the warehouse.

Although he'd never officially joined a triad, Fei Zai Dong had made a name for himself in Tuen Mun by learning some martial arts at a White Crane Kung Fu school in his youth.

Typically, if someone were to kick like that from a stationary position, with their body still and leg extending upward, it would be challenging to kick above shoulder height unless they were highly trained or had stretched ligaments. Even then, the kick wouldn't carry much force.

They had kept Blackfish locked up for days, torturing and beating him; they knew his physical limits well. There was no way he could be this strong.

But the power in Blackfish's kick was terrifying—not only did it crush Big Mouth Wei's jaw, but it also snapped his neck.

A head that didn't bleed when hit, eyes closed, delivering a single kick that killed Big Mouth Wei...

This... this Blackfish couldn't be human anymore!

The dazed Long Zai looked from the frantic Fei Zai Dong to the figure of the supposedly dead man now standing, then nodded, grabbed Fei Zai Dong, and ran out.

Outside the warehouse, the engine of the Daihatsu roared to life and gradually faded into the distance.

Meanwhile, the "living corpse" standing there remained motionless.

Slowly, however, a hint of redness began to color his pale, ghostly face, and thin streaks of blood seeped from his forehead and hairline.

"Whoo—"

After a long moment, a deep exhalation escaped from the "living corpse," and a dry, raspy voice echoed in the foul, abandoned warehouse:

"Finally... I've come back to life."