“Come, everyone, come! Watch the Funny Bone, the one and only undead circus of the Three Kingdoms!”

  Jerry stood on a crate and called out to the crowd, inviting them all to the performance. This random village they’d chanced upon was a medium-sized one, housing at least a hundred people, which meant decent potential profit.

  Jerry liked profit. Over the last month, he’d come to understand the power of bribes and realized that profit could convert to larger bribes, so more freedom for him and his undead. Moreover, if they wanted to get past the Damn Wall and reach the Dead Lands, where Jerry could work on lifting the Curse, they would need a hell of a bribe.

  Or so Derek had said. When they’d dropped off the hunter and Holly in Milaris, the two had helped them acquire many supplies—undead were forbidden in the city—and also inquired about several matters. Jerry planned to visit them again. He liked Derek, and Holly, too.

  However, fixing the Curse came first.

  Apparently, the only way past the Wall was through Edge Town, a recently-built town by the Wall whose Count was rumored to enjoy hefty bribes—bribes that villages also accepted, be they in coins or wooden horses. Jerry found this whole system pretty straight-forward, and it fueled his enthusiasm for attracting customers.

  “Hey, you!” He pointed at a random woman in the crowd, who looked around and pointed at herself in question.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Don’t you want to witness the one and only undead circus? Don’t you want your funny bone tickled? Don’t you want to laugh and gawk as skeletons perform feats beyond your wildest imagination?”

  The woman crossed her arms in front of her chest. “As if,” she said. “What can they do, eat a ball and rattle it in their chests?”

  “That, too, I guess, but they can also juggle! They can raise an entire bench of people! They can walk on a tightrope way above our heads and jump on each other’s shoulders! They can even walk the tightrope while juggling and lifting an entire tree! This last one might be a lie, but if you don’t come, how will you know?”

  The woman narrowed her eyes and glared.

  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!” Jerry pushed. “Your friends will discuss it for years! Just imagine; they’ll talk about this to their grandchildren! Don’t you want to be a part of that, too? The Funny Bone’s performance is a life-changing experience at best and three lost taels at worst. You tell me, is it worth it or not?”

  She roller her saliva, considering it.

  “You guys caused the Red Week,” she said.

  “That was one person a long time ago. I’m better than that; and, if you come to the show, you’ll see it for yourself! It’s just starting now, by the way. If you want to be in time, you’ll need to hurry.”

  The woman smacked her lips. “I don’t have taels,” she said. “Do you accept a jug of milk?”

  “Sure.” Jerry smiled widely. For some reason, his skeletons all liked milk.

  At this, the woman loosened up. “Can I bring my children, too?” she asked.

  “Of course! Children are the ones who should see this the most! In fact, I will let you and all your children in for a single jug of milk.”

  “Deal!” she shouted quickly.

  “Then hurry up and fetch them. The show is starting!”

  The woman took off, and more people approached Jerry for offers. He smiled. The show wasn’t really starting yet; they had time.

  Not five minutes later, the panting woman reappeared with five children and a suspiciously small jug of milk—Jerry had clearly gotten the short end of the deal, but whatever. At least now he knew why the next few people had tried to lowball his prices.

  “Hurry, everyone, hurry!” He ushered them in, quickly accepting taels—they were small, bronze coins—valuables, and all sorts of commodities from people. The forest behind him was gradually beginning to ring with excited voices. Jerry smiled.

  That’s how it always went. Everyone was skeptical at first, but once the ball got rolling, they were eager to join the fun. And why wouldn’t they? It was an undead circus. It didn’t get much better than that.

  A trumpet call came from behind Jerry, and he quickly turned around. “Oh, it’s starting! Come on, everyone, quick, quick! Buy your tickets so I can go watch, too!”

  A few last people rushed to pay up, and when it was clear that the rest wouldn’t follow, Jerry stepped off his crate, took in under his armpit, and walked to the circus.

  Around a spacious forest clearing, the undead had set up benches and chairs. People took their seats, smiled, and talked animatedly as a lone skeleton played a triumphant trumpet call in the middle of the clearing. Meanwhile, Billy One wandered between the spectators and offered cheap snacks for a tael.

  Luckily, Jerry’s zombies didn’t rot, and so didn’t smell either. With a few cloth patches on what wounds weren’t covered by their clothes, they seemed as human as possible, albeit very dead.

  Jerry rushed through the benches, stepped over the ribbon which demarcated the stage, and walked to stand beside Boney. On cue, the skeleton’s melody intensified. Axehand’s drums accompanied it from behind the stage in an increasingly frantic rhythm. The audience clapped and tapped their feet, staring wide-eyed in anticipation.

  The music reached a crescendo, and suddenly, it was gone. Jerry took a deep breath.

  “Welcome, everyone, to the Funny Bone circus!”

  The audience erupted in cheers.

  “We have the best show in the world! From all over the Three Kingdoms, the most talented undead are here for your entertainment!”

  They cheered again as the undead entered the stage.

  Boboar walked at the front, little bells hanging from his tusks and various bone appendages. Foxy was beside him, clad in colorful ribbons and moving playfully, while Headless walked behind them, juggling two round stones and a shut-eyed head. The Billies followed; one walked on the ground, two more were perched on the first’s shoulders, while the final Billy stood on the shoulders of the previous two. Last in line was Axehand, balancing a rock-filled barrel on each hand.

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  “In the Funny Bone, everyone is special!” Jerry shouted, the undead parading around him. “We embrace our gifts and our personalities! We accept ourselves, support each other, and bravely face the world as one big family!”

  The audience gawked in awe. As the sight captivated them, colorful specks of fabric rained from above as if the sky itself was participating in this wondrous spectacle—it was Birb, holding a bag of confetti and flying circles above the clearing.

  “Enjoy, my friends!” Jerry said, stepping back until he was outside the stage. The undead followed until Headless was the only one left, still juggling, and he slowly walked to the very center. He’d stopped juggling, and silence followed as the audience waited. What would he do?

  Headless took a deep, fake breath and threw both stones in the air, followed by his head. Everyone watched.

  Boney ran back into the stage carrying three round stone balls. He stepped in front of Headless, holding one of the stones before him. Amidst his juggling, Headless reached out, grabbed the stone, and threw it up high.

  He was juggling four items—one being his own head! The audience was impressed!

  But it wasn’t over! Five items! Six!

  Headless was on a roll! The audience cheered in surprise, expecting him to drop something, but he did not. After he’d kept it up for a solid minute, he grabbed them all in midair, stopped juggling, and bowed.

  The audience clapped, positively impressed.

  However, Headless’s act wasn’t over.

  Boney ran back into the stage, taking away the five stones and handing Headless a set of four short, flaming torches. The audience held their breath. Headless held his head in one hand and four torches in the other, raised them in front of him, concentrated…and threw them into the air.

  One torch turned into two, then three, then four, and the shut-eyed head was flying between them like a bird dancing in the flames. The audience went crazy, a new, louder round of cheers rising to flood the clearing. Was he going to miss a torch? How could he even see?

  But Headless wasn’t going to miss. In the middle of juggling five items, he threw his head really high up, and when the spectators followed it with their sight, at the apex of its trajectory, the head opened its eyes and winked.

  They went bananas.

  Headless caught his head as it was falling, having already caught all torches while the audience wasn’t looking. Amidst frenzied cheering and shouting, amidst hollering and screams and a grand ruckus, he bowed once again, ending his act and leaving the audience clapping for a solid half-minute.

  “More!” they shouted. “More!”

  Headless’s head smiled as he backed off the stage. His part was done, but it was only the opening act.

  Boboar and Foxy were next, with Boney helping them.

  Foxy ran in with the grace of a feline—or an agile canine—jumping and turning in the air while letting the ribbons fly around her body. She was a trained dancer, and a fox, and a skeleton, and had ribbons, and the audience didn’t know what to cheer for first.

  Boboar accompanied her like a gentle bull, carrying his lumbering body through the stage as lightly as he possibly could. Boney held large and increasingly tall rings for Boboar to leap through, which he did! The bells jingled all the while, complementing Foxy’s ribbons and lending the spectacle an amalgamation of silly, impressive chaos.

  The audience cheered, already ramped up by Headless’s performance.

  Axehand was the next to appear, and when the audience saw him empty-handed, they were at first disappointed. But when Boney asked for volunteers and a bunch of young boys rushed to climb a bench in the middle of the stage, they were expectant. Then, when Axehand stuck his axeblade hands into that human-packed and easily raised it above his head, they were overawed, because this feat of strength was clearly superhuman!

  Axehand didn’t stop there. He lifted rock-filled barrels, a large log, even the circus wagon itself with all its cargo—and just when people thought that was all, the double-skeleton reached inside the bag he was carrying. He removed a block of wood and sat on the log, then slowly used his axe hands to carve a delicate wooden horse on the spot, live, right in front of the audience. A series of oohs accompanied the strongman’s tender side, and a few women even found themselves mysteriously attracted to this clearly unsuitable skeletal mate.

  After Axehand came the last act, the Billies, and they were saved for last on purpose.

  “Look up!” Boney shouted, and only then did the audience notice a taut rope stretched between two thick, distant branches, easily thirty feet above their heads. A zombie appeared on one branch and stepped on the rope, and the audience gasped, for they had never seen an acrobat before.

  Away from everyone’s gazes, Jerry clenched his fists. This was the act he always worried about, because it was the only dangerous one. Thankfully, the undeads’ simple-mindedness helped with repetitive tasks, and the Billies’ innate, excellent balance made them really good at what they did. Moreover, undead were generally more consistent in their performance than humans, in part due to their cold nature.

  They had practiced this a thousand times. They wouldn’t fall, right?

  Billy One stepped on the tightrope and took one trembling, hesitant step after another. The audience held their breath, one voice even calling out a warning.

  Then, suddenly, the Billy’s trembling body straightened, and the rope stilled as the zombie stopped pretending and started walking for real. He made it look easy. People cheered.

  Billy One reached the other side and Billy Two appeared back on the first branch. The two zombies, each exceptionally hillbilly, stepped on the rope at the same time…and it held. Despite the swaying, the two Billies rotated their arms in sync, using them to find their balance, moving one up and the other down gracefully, like dancers.

  They reached the center of the rope, right where it swayed the most. They shared a glance, then slowly began passing by each other, somehow balancing on the same length of rope as their feet intertwined. The Billies made it!

  Amidst cheers and cries, they stepped away from each other, reaching the ends of the rope before two more Billies took their place, repeating the previous feat—they didn’t have a four-person airborne act yet but were working on it.

  Meanwhile, the audience cheered and cheered, surprised at seeing people walk on ropes. Who even did that!?

  Soon, the Billy act was done, and with that, the metaphorical curtain fell on the circus performance. Everyone was standing now, clapping before they knew it, and all undead gathered on the stage to bow and accept their rightful cheers.

  “What will you do tomorrow?” a man asked.

  “Something similar, but different!” Jerry replied, full of pride, and everyone kept clapping and reassuring their friends and families that, indeed, they could return tomorrow to watch the spectacle again.

  Eventually, however, everything comes to an end, and the crowd dissipated. A few people even invited Jerry for a drink, but he politely refused as he had to help his undead clean everything—it wouldn’t be right to let them handle all the work.

  However, a particular person arrived to mess with Jerry’s plans for the night.

  It was a man seemingly in his early forties, with a wide brown hat and deep olive eyes which were both friendly and hard. The cheekbones that showed under his brown stubble were sharp, making him quite handsome, while his confident gaze and easy smile spoke of a man exceptionally friendly, as well as very used to getting his way. Under that wide smile, white teeth appeared—a rarity—while the leather vest he wore seemed old and sturdy.

  However, what drew Jerry’s attention most were the man’s boots, a pair made with outstanding craftsmanship. The moment he laid eyes on them, the necromancer knew he was dealing with someone important, or at least rich.

  “Hello, Jerry necromancer,” the man said, extending a hand. “Excellent performance. My name is Marcus Copperfield, professional treasure hunter, and I have an offer for you.”