Embroidered Corrosion Between Two Worlds: Raising a Zombie King in an Ancient Painting

In the third year of Yong'an, Shen Zhaoxue, the greatest embroiderer in the land, was forced to enter the palace and embroider the “Rivers and Mountains of the Realm” to atone for the crime of her family’s slaughter. The peonies she embroidered with blood-stained thread could bring dead trees back to life, but she had no idea that with every stitch, another crack appeared in the spine of a zombie king in another world. On the night she finished embroidering “A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix,” a zombie outbreak struck the imperial city. Bloodied threads wrapped around the necks of every official, civil and military alike, while on the dragon throne sat a rotting corpse bride with a face identical to hers.