New Times, New Hell

Chapter 18 - The Ghost King’s Seal

Not all of Li Tiantian’s friends believed what Chen Siyu said. There were a few here and there that thought she had made up the story or had been scammed, but most of them were willing to believe that it was true. But another factor was that they were all from fairly well off families, so buying a stone really wouldn’t make much of a dent.

It was the Underworld energy detection technology that everyone was actually more interested in. They thought that whether or not the program was real could be seen in an instant, unlike the chance factors involved in stones changing one’s luck. Thus they all hoped that if they bought the stones, they could also get a check-up along the way.

After hearing their order requirements, Yu Zhengdu felt a little surprised. He never imagined that a little program he made for fun would cause people to want to pay to try it……

Due to this being the company’s first time receiving a mass order for magnets, Yu Zhengdu counted the numbers and prepared to discuss with Boss. Except Shang Que called him into his office first.

Shang Que placed his own phone in front of Yu Zhengdu. On it was his WeChat chat history with Wei Xiao.

Shang Que said, “He wants to buy rocks……”

He paused for a moment then added, “Mass order.”

Yu Zhengdu glanced at Shang Que’s WeChat. Wei Xiao’s nickname was: Really rich.

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

He quickly read through their chat history and finally understood what was going on.

It turned out that ever since Wei Xiao bought the stone from Luofeng, his daughter Wei Mo hadn’t lost her soul again. Her health even got quite a bit better, and she became livelier.

Because of Wei Mo’s special condition, Wei Xiao and his wife hadn’t dared to let her attend preschool before. They were both busy with work originally, and having to take care of a child on top of that had caused them a lot of stress across the years. But recently, Wei Xiao had started contacting schools for Wei Mo. This would not only allow him and his wife to relax a little, it would also allow their daughter the opportunity to lead the same kind of life as her peers.

His child’s situation had always been a sore point for him. Now that the sore point was relieved, he and his wife both became revitalized; this change naturally caught their friends’ attentions. When they asked him, he didn’t hide the truth.

People at Wei Xiao’s level had a social circle comprised of other rich people. What these people had in common was the fact that after they finally became successful after working hard, they also became older. As they were able to enjoy the fruits of their labor, they became more worried about their health and life too, more than the average person. Many naturally started turning to superstitions. Because they had an abundance of money, they were also more willing to invest in these matters than the average person.

Because Wei Xiao often had to personally care for his daughter, Wei Mo’s situation was quite well known in his social circle. This, in addition to Wei Xiao being a rather honest person, caused people to generally believe what he said. Either way, they wouldn’t lose much, so quite a few people asked Wei Xiao to help them order stones. Some who were especially careless with their wealth asked for over ten at once.

In the WeChat conversation, Wei Xiao’s attitude was extremely sincere.

Yu Zhengdu momentarily paused, then slowly told Shang Que, “I just received a purchase order too……”

He explained the situation with Li Tiantian’s friends, then the both of them simultaneously became silent.

Shang Que propped his chin up, a confused expression on his face. “Why are humans so scared of dying? Dying isn’t scary at all……”

Yu Zhengdu: “……That’s what you ghosts think!”

Shang Que remained unbothered; he had just said that casually. At the moment, the most important thing was how to deal with the mass order.

In the past, they had only used selling stones as an excuse. In actuality, they worked in capturing ghosts and removing evil. This was their first time receiving an official order for buying stones, and the quantity was quite large. Beyond that, the customers were all of somewhat important backgrounds. Yu Zhengdu thought for a moment, then decided that they couldn’t keep selling stones using the same method as in the past.

He spent a fair amount of time explaining to Shang Que the importance of establishing a brand awareness. The most important thing was, the Life and Death Accounts system that he was developing now could not be used to make profit, but would still need an untold amount of maintenance and upgrading later on. Basically, it was the equivalent of a black hole. The company needed the ability to make long-term profits to ensure that the system could continue running forever.

And constant profits required an endless flow of customers. Creating a product brand was an essential part of the process.

Shang Que had previously only been too lazy to work with others, and he also thought there was no need. But he understood the concept as soon as he heard it, so immediately said, “I can give them rocks that can provide disaster relief and remove evil.”

Yu Zhengdu nodded. “Not only that, but the stones need to look good, and all the same. This way, as soon as people see them, they’ll know our company made them.”

The two brainstormed together and very quickly came up with a plan of action…… Since they were seriously selling luck-changing stones, they might as well do it more professionally.

Shang Que gave this task to Lu Lingxi and told her to buy a batch of jade rocks from Ledu City.

Ledu and Fu City were neighbors. There was an Impasse Mountain on the border between the two. The mountain produced a type of jade that was ugly and full of impurities as well as black rock bits. They couldn’t be sold in the fine jades market, so were used by local craftsmen to create some souvenirs. If you visited Impasse Mountain for vacation, you could buy two of these jade bracelets for 10 RMB; they were very cheap.

But what they wanted to buy wasn’t the raw jade. After ordering the jade, Shang Que gave Lu Lingxi a paper with a strange charm drawn onto it, and told her to hire some local craftsmen at Impasse Mountain to engrave this charm onto the jade rocks.

Yu Zhengdu stared at the charm for a while but still couldn’t understand what it was, so asked Shang Que. He then learned that this charm came from the same source as the Daoist “Fengdu Ghost Summoning Magical Seal”.

The magical seals cultivators used were for borrowing power. The immense power generated was actually because they borrowed the power of the heavenly gods. Thus, when the heavens and earth fell apart and all the gods were destroyed, the power that could be borrowed by magical seals could only come from the remnants of energy remaining between the earth and sky. The effects were obviously not as good as before; the magical seals used by Daoists suffered in the same way.

In regards to Shang Que’s seal, saying it came from the same source as the “Fengdu Ghost Summoning Magical Seal” was being polite. To be more accurate, the “Fengdu Ghost Summoning Magical Seal”was adapted from his seal. It borrowed the collective power of the Luofeng ghosts and could remove evil spirits and demons.

Yu Zhengdu thought about it before realizing, Shang Que’s title of “Ghost King” had a prefix——Luofeng Mountain.

“A thousand years ago, many Daoists in the mortal realm borrowed the power of Luofeng Mountain. Thus, my magical seal became known to the world,” Shang Que said. “But as time passed, the mortal realm slowly started engraving my seal wrong. That’s how it eventually evolved to become the Fengdu Ghost Summoning Magical Seal.”

Yu Zhengdu had an epiphany. “Then that means yours is the mother copy!”

Shang Que: “……” Even though the meaning is right, why does it sound so strange when he says it like that.

Shang Que very smartly decided not to argue with Yu Zhengdu over the adjective he used, and instead put up a sincere front. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and said, “Since they are spending a lot of money buying jade, I can lend them some of Luofeng Mountain’s collective ghost power for protection.”

Yu Zhengdu summarized, “Isn’t that the same as accepting a protection fee!” The so-called doing work for money, borrowing ghosts to hit other ghosts.

Shang Que hrmph’d. “We do it legally.”

Yu Zhengdu ignored Shang Que and turned to examine the magical seal instead.

Shang Que’s magical seal was definitely the mother copy; it seemed to be completely written in an ancient language that Yu Zhengdu couldn’t read, and there were also some symbols with unclear meanings. Yu Zhengdu inspected it for a long time but still didn’t understand anything.

When it was almost the end of the work day, Shang Que walked out of his office, only to see that Yu Zhengdu was still examining the magical seal. He asked, “Are you very interested in this?”

“Of course,” Yu Zhengdu nodded sagely. “Didn’t you say this seal could borrow the power of ghosts? I run into ghosts all the time now, so it’s crucial I learn some skills to protect myself. If I can memorize this magical seal, maybe it’ll be of use during a decisive moment.”

Shang Que snorted. “You aren’t planning on drawing it when you run into a situation, right?”

Yu Zhengdu looked up at him. “What? That’s not okay?”

Shang Que shook his head. “You don’t use magical seals like that.”

Yu Zhengdu immediately wilted. “You could’ve told me earlier. What a waste of half my day.”

Shang Que looked at him, quite exasperated. “If you’re scared, I can teach you a heart seal.”

Yu Zhengdu didn’t understand half of what he said. “What’s a heart seal?”

“The Daoists of the mortal realm believe in learning with the heart. All magical equipment in the world must be controlled by the magic in the heart. After I teach you the heart seal, all you need to do is read it to yourself, and you’ll be able to borrow the power of ghosts to protect yourself,” Shang Que briefly explained to him before continuing, “But you must use your heart to activate the heart seal. So even if I teach it to you, if your ability to understand is poor, you still won’t be able to use it.”

Yu Zhengdu clapped. “That doesn’t matter, just teach me first. It’s a win-win situation for me either way.”

Shang Que: “……”

The heart seal Shang Que spoke of actually involved borrowing his own power to Yu Zhengdu. Aside from this, he also taught Yu Zhengdu an incantation, and told him to memorize and understand it.

The incantation was long and a mouthful. Worse yet, it wasn’t easy to understand at all. Yu Zhengdu complained while he looked at it, “I should never have been greedy about getting the 5 insurances and housing fund. I’ve ended up having to work on program development, learn how to catch ghosts, and now I have to memorize an incantation. If this continues on, I’ll be on my way to immortal cultivation……”

Shang Que directly ignored his complaints and patted his shoulder. “The heart seal is the most difficult magical seal to use. In the past, many Daoists used their whole lives to try and still couldn’t understand the secret behind the heart seal. Take it slow, if you really run into a ghost, it’ll probably be faster to just call me.”

Yu Zhengdu placed a hand over his fist in a salute and said, “Thank you so much.”

***

Yu Zhengdu wrote the incantation down in the Notes app of his phone. He kept memorizing it on his walk back to school, strongly feeling that work was difficult.

There was still a bit of time before graduation, so the majority of students still lived in the school dorms. Yu Zhengdu had just turned into the dorm aisle when he heard loud laughter coming out of his dormroom. Someone yelled, “Hurry hurry hurry, it’s my turn.”

Yu Zhengdu felt hesitant. He walked into his room, only to see that it was filled with his male classmates. Everyone was in a circle, a bed desk on the empty ground in the middle. There was a piece of paper on the desk, and his roommate Zhu Yan, along with two other male students from another room, were all holding onto the same pen, hands on top of each other.

Yu Zhengdu furrowed his brows and grabbed a male classmate next to him to ask, “What’s going on?”

The student said, “We’re playing Pen Spirit. Fuck, their acting skills have gotten so much better. They just finished answering a bunch of questions.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

Male students with nothing to do prior to graduation can really come up with anything when they’re bored.

Yu Zhengdu was tired after working the whole day, so wasn’t in the mood to play around with everyone else. He pushed his way through the crowd to his own bed, saying, “Excuse me, excuse me.”

To the side, Zhu Yan discovered that he was back, so lifted his head to shout, “Zhengdu, you’re back just in time. We’re playing Pen Spirit, come join us.”

The other spoke too, “Yeah, we successfully invited a pen spirit so if you want to ask any questions, now’s your chance.”

“Okay.” Yu Zhengdu popped his head out from above his bed, looking down at everyone. He smiled, “Then I’ll ask, is this pen spirit a boy or a girl?”

Everyone started laughing after hearing this. Someone else said, “That’s a good question!”

Another person added, “If you ask that won’t the pen spirit get angry!”

Zhu Yan puffed out his chest. “Don’t worry, let us bravely ask.”

Yu Zhengdu: = = There was no doubt about it, these were his stupid classmates.

He tucked his head back onto his bed and took out his phone, only to see Shang Que had sent him two more lines of the incantation, saying: I forgot two lines from the incantation I gave you today.

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

He read it over, then read the part he already memorized with the two new lines together silently to himself. But as soon as he finished reading, a gust of cold wind suddenly blew into the room. The students squeezed together all trembled, then said, “Fuck, where’s that wind coming from!”

Zhu Yan looked in the direction of the balcony door. “Probably from the corridors. Can someone go close the back door, I’m freezing to death.”

But Yu Zhengdu thought something was wrong. He very keenly discovered that after the gust of cold wind, the temperature in the room had also dropped. He felt suspicious, so stuck his head out again to look.

This look scared him half to death. He saw that an extra person was standing on Zhu Yan’s side, starting from an unknown time.

It was a slightly chubby boy. He was dressed a bit sloppily, with flip-flops on his feet. He shifted his gaze down to ask lowly, “Who? Who called me over?”

He looked around, but saw that no one had noticed him. He thus slowly scanned his surroundings, until his sight landed on the pen on the table. He laughed darkly, “Oh, have you called me to be the pen spirit?”

“Then let me guide you down a clear path.” As he spoke, he sat next to Zhu Yan and stuck his hand out too, holding onto the pen in Zhu Yan’s hand.

At this time, Zhu Yan very bravely repeated Yu Zhengdu’s question. “Pen spirit pen spirit, are you a boy or girl?”

The classmates to the side started making a commotion. “A girl! Definitely a girl!”

Simultaneously, the pen started slowly moving again. But unlike the past few times, it took a lot of effort for Zhu Yan to hold it. He glared at the other two students in dissatisfaction: Listen to me!

Coincidentally, the other two students were looking at him too. Their gazes read the same: It’s your turn to listen to me!

It was unclear who the pen was listening to, but it ultimately crookedly wrote out: Boy.

The classmates: “Yu——”

Zhu Yan was extremely disappointed. He smacked his lips. “I wanted to invite a female pen spirit.”

The other two also complained, “Yeah, invite a girl ah. Why did you write boy……”

Zhu Yan suddenly thought something was a bit off. But at this time, another person popped up and yelled at them. “It’s my turn. Hurry and help me ask, when will I get a girlfriend?”

Everyone else laughed upon hearing this. Someone asked, “Can you ask something a little more meaningful?”

That classmate was unimpressed. “How is this not meaningful? This is the most important meaning to my life!”

Zhu Yan was just about to tell them to stop for the day, only to hear his accomplices say, “Fine fine fine. Tonight everyone gets a turn, ask anything you want……”

Before he finished talking, the pen in their hands slowly started moving. Zhu Yan’s heart trembled. He glared at the other two, trying to convey his words through his gaze, but saw that those two were also peering over at him. The look in their eyes was the same: You’ve broken the rules!

But the pen not only didn’t stop, but wobbled and wrote a few large characters as everyone watched. They looked: Single dog.

Thus everybody broke out into laughter. The classmate who asked the question immediately became red. He pointed and them, agitated. “You must be faking it! You didn’t successfully invite the pen spirit at all!”

The person next to him nudged him. “That’s not what you said earlier.”

Yu Zhengdu witnessed the whole scene. The fat ghost had on an expression of satisfaction and was making faces at the student. “I don’t even have a girlfriend, so you can’t have one either.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

Yu Zhengdu calmly withdrew his head back onto the bed, and messaged his boss:【Boss, are you there? Help me remove a ghost.】

Shang Que’s response was quick.

My broke-ass Boss:【……You ran into a ghost again?】

Yu Zhengdu:【It’s all your incantation’s fault. I read it and a ghost appeared】

Yu Zhengdu:【There’s something wrong with your heart seal!】

This time Shang Que was quiet for a while. About three minutes later, he finally replied, somewhat speechless:

【Those Daoists spend their lifetime learning and can only borrow the power of ghosts】

【How did you directly borrow a ghost?】