Strange News About Living Corpses in the Late Ming Dynasty

Yellow River epidemic In the first month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the Yellow River Basin suffered a severe drought that had never happened in a century. The riverbed bottomed out, and people were starving all over the place. Refugees fleeing the famine were like migrating ant colonies, swarming westward along the parched land. In a dilapidated temple outside Kaifeng, Henan, fifteen-year-old Li Gou'er huddled in the corner, holding half a piece of moldy wotou tightly in his arms - this was the last memory his parents left for her before they starved to death.​ Outside the ruined temple, shrill cries could be heard one after another. A woman in ragged clothes suddenly threw herself down among the refugees, biting the necks of the people around her frantically. Black-red blood splashed on the cracked ground, and was instantly sucked dry by the dust. "Monster! It's a monster!" Someone shouted, and the refugees fled in all directions. Li Gou'er saw with his own eyes that the woman's eyes were rolled white, saliva was dripping from the corners of her mouth, her movements were stiff but powerful, and the person bitten by her soon got up twitching and joined the biting procession.​ This is the beginning of the plague of living corpses. No one knows the source of the virus, only that it spreads through wounds. The infected person will lose consciousness within twelve hours and become a bloodthirsty monster. At that time, Li Zicheng's rebel army was marching north, Emperor Chongzhen was trapped in Beijing, and the court had no time to take care of itself. This sudden epidemic was like the last straw in the troubled times, completely plunging the Central Plains into purgatory.