New Times, New Hell

Chapter 31 - Underworld Energy Purifier

After the graduation ceremony, Yu Zhengdu quickly returned to his daily working life. He had no other choice; the task of program development was imminent and he also had to find the time to take care of other orders of business. He was so busy that he even had to schedule bathroom breaks into his calendar.

But the consequences of Shang Que’s Yama iron pill caused an uproar in all of Fu City and even the whole country.

The speech Hou Guangzong had given at the graduation ceremony had been filmed by several students and uploaded online. Immediately, Hou Guangzong’s uncle, Nova Technology, and Fu City University all became points of controversy.

Even though Hou Guangzong later on fervidly and resolutely denied that he had said such things, netizens didn’t care about his desperate attempts to save the situation at all. They continued their search for the truth.

In fact, his change in attitude afterwards made people think that he had been threatened by the ones in power.

An enlarged HD picture of the watch Hou Guangzong’s auntie had gifted him got uploaded too. It was examined from all 360 degrees by netizens.

It could be said that however impressive Hou Guangzong had been when he had received the gift was how tragic he was now.

How could a watch easily over ten thousand be so casually given away by the wife of a government worker?

The Fu City city council did try to delete the posts and control the comments, but there had been too many people at the graduation ceremony. They couldn’t delete all the uploads because so many people had filmed it. More importantly, Jiao Shanlan, someone who held immense influence online, had been present that day too.

After everything, he posted an update to his Weibo. The message was short and to the point.

Jiao Shanlan landry: My heart hurts.

As one of the top technology experts in the nation, Jiao Shanlan’s Weibo account had over ten thousand followers. A lot of the people who followed him were people who worked with the Internet; among them, the most common were programmers.

As soon as he posted this Weibo status, an innumerous amount of programmers started actively participating in the search for the truth behind the entire situation. These were people who possessed the actual abilities to discover hidden information. Not even a day later, Hou Guangzong’s uncle’s identity and background, along with his personnel and all the things he had done in the past, were completely unearthed. They were shared online in an easy-to-read manner.

Even though Hou Guangzong desperately denied anything, everyone was still able to quickly confirm that his uncle was a committee member of Fu City’s Municipal Party. His name was Cai Jianhao. Cai Jianhao had only been transferred to Fu City a few years ago. After arriving, he had maintained a hardworking image, giving several awe inspiring, righteous speeches in different public settings. His reputation with the citizens had always been very good.

In addition to this, Cai Jianhao only had a single daughter who was still in high school. She hadn’t reached the age where he would need to arrange things for her, so normally nobody paid special attention to what he was doing.

No one expected that this serious investigation would reveal that Cai Jianhao had completely faked his honest image. It wasn’t the right time for him to plot a path for his daughter yet, but he had set up quite a few of his relatives and friends with good jobs. Not only did he slip them into the city’s administrative department, he also snuck several people into a number of big businesses.

Like the fact that he had arranged for Hou Guangzong to enter Nova Technology. That hadn’t been the first time he had committed such an act.

At this time, the employees at companies Cai Jianhao had forcefully stuck his relatives into started making new accounts just for the purpose of exposing him. It was revealed that Cai Jianhao had planned everything out from early on. The people he added in were all arrogant and always ordering others around. What their orders were weren’t mentioned; the important thing was, these people were spies Cai Jianhao had arranged to be in these companies. It wasn’t enough that they were receiving a salary. They also helped Cai Jianhao collect data on the company. As soon as any issue occurred in the company, evidence would be presented in an attempt to stir things up. Things couldn’t be hidden unless the company promised benefits to Cai Jianhao.

Because of this, a lot of people made the connection as to why Cai Jianhao didn’t think getting Hou Guangzong into Nova was enough and was adamant about sticking him into Jiao Shanlan’s laboratory too. The most advanced departments in such tech companies were filled with the most secrets, so were also the places where accidents were most likely to occur. As long as Hou Guangzong could get some dirt on them, Nova would have to suffer immensely.

The deeper netizens dug, all the projects Cai Jianhao had previously stuck his fingers in in Fu City were revealed one by one. This resulted in their related departments getting exposed too.

In the end, it took an order from the higher ups to somewhat control this large and chaotic exposing activity. But even then, it was impossible for Cai Jianhao and his network of spies to get off scot-free. Under the attention of the entire online community, they were all taken in for investigation.

Overnight, the Fu City city council went through a large change in blood. Those enterprises that had been blackmailed by Cai Jianhao all sighed in relief, too. They fired all of Cai Jianhao’s relatives and friends the very next day.

Nova wasn’t an exception. Even if Cai Jianhao hadn’t been arrested, they would’ve had to get rid of Hou Guangzong based on what he had admitted during his graduation ceremony about stealing Yu Zhengdu’s projects to get into the company. They needed to give the public and all their employees a fair explanation.

Not to mention, Hou Guangzong had intended on polluting Nova’s new laboratory project that they intended on relying heavily upon in the future.

The day the video came out, a call from Nova’s HR rescinded Hou Guangzong’s offer. Even the employee who had connections to Cai Jianhao and who had helped admit Hou Guangzong got fired too.

It could be said that because of this incident, Nova Technology completed a round of self-purification. This was something Jiao Shanlan hadn’t expected would happen.

The other party that got thoroughly examined because of the video was the administrative department of Fu City University’s College of Information Technology. The dean, who was extremely hated upon normally by the students, was directly forced to quit his role. All of a sudden, the entire school was filled with the sounds of celebration. Everyone immediately posted online, giving thanks to Hou Guangzong.

But compared to all the national headlines regarding Cai Jianhao, the situation at Fu City University seemed irrelevant. In the larger pandemonium of anti-corruption that swept up the whole city, it could only be considered a small blip.

Yet, this didn’t stop the students of Fu City University from adding Hou Guangzong’s WeChat through several different means. Though he didn’t accept any of their requests, his previous posts and what messages he had sent in the group chat had long since been screenshotted and spread relentlessly over the Internet.

***

The incident at Fu City University’s graduation ceremony had very important and enduring consequences, but for Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que, it could only be considered a tiny interference in their busy lives.

At the moment, they were in a rush to head to Chuandong and help Yang Xin take a look at the problematic piece of land Excellent Jade Corporation had bought.

Excellent Jade Corporation was one of the largest comprehensive entertainment companies in the country. In its early years, it had mainly focused on property management for entertainment-related industries. The earliest branded amusement park in the nation, “Feiyu Amusement Park”, was owned by them.

As of now, Excellent Jade Corporation already owned two large-scale amusement parks. As the quality of consumption increased, citizens also became more passionate about leisurely trips. Their company had bought this piece of land in Chuandong in preparation for creating a third amusement park.

In the past decade, Chuandong’s economy had advanced rapidly. More importantly, the Internet had completely taken over the entirety of southeast Huaxia. Because of this, all of Excellent Jade Corporation’s executives had placed a lot of trust in this third amusement park. The plan was to transform this park into the largest headquarters for comprehensive entertainment in the nation. The Chuandong government was also extremely supportive of this project and were doing their best to try and get it to monopolize all of the tourism in the east.

Because of these factors, Yang Xin couldn’t afford to be careless with this project at all. He didn’t mind spending a small fortune inviting Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que over to take a look, even if it was only for a miniscule problem.

The land Excellent Jade had acquired was in the suburbs of Chuandong. There wasn’t even a hotel nearby. Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que got there a day early, so were arranged to stay in the city overnight. The next morning, a driver from Excellent Jade Corporation brought them to the construction site.

The entirety of the site was enormous. The surroundings had previously been an area of urban and rural integration, but were now being demolished. There were ditches and holes all around, and dust billowed in the wind.

When Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que arrived, Yang Xin and the religious master he had invited were already there. As soon as they got out of the car, Yang Xin hurriedly rushed over and received them, saying, “Boss Shang, little Mr. Yu, you’re finally here.”

Yu Zhengdu smiled and greeted him. He turned his head to the side and saw that there was an incense table set up in the middle of the empty construction area. Sacrifices, yellow talisman paper, and incense were all present. The most ridiculous offering was the entire roasted suckling pig placed on the center of the table; its skin glistened with oil and an apple was placed in its mouth. The scene seemed extremely formal.

It was easy to tell how importantly Yang Xin viewed this spell-casting ceremony.

In front of the incense table, two Daoists clothed in robes were preparing something. One was old and one was young. The fabric of their robes flitted in the wind, making them look quite holy.

But for some reason, the figures looked a little bit familiar.

“Here please. Let me introduce you to the religious master in charge of today’s spell-casting……” Yang Xin said as he led Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que in that direction,. In actuality, though, he was a bit worried in his heart.

The master he had invited was one of the best in the nation. In the past, every time he needed anything, Yang Xin would always find this master first. It could be said that he was a very faithful and dedicated follower. But today, he was suddenly bringing two other people here. It was very likely the master would be displeased.

Another thing was, he had been in contact with a lot of masters previously. According to his experience, most of them didn’t like companies like Yu Zhengdu’s.

The business of high-tech luck-changing……In a master’s eyes, that would be the equivalent of scamming.

But they really couldn’t afford to be careless in the slightest regarding this project. Yang Xin didn’t have the energy to care about the master’s feelings.

In the blink of an eye, they reached the incense table. Yang Xin said, “Let me introduce you guys to each other. These are two masters I specially invited over from Diyang, the temple master of Qinglian Temple, Daoist priest Mu, and his disciple. You guys might not know, but Daoist priest Mu is extremely famous in our country. He’s even the committee head of the Daoist Reputation Committee. It’s very difficult for normal people to even meet him once……”

Following his introduction, the two Daoists turned around to look. They were just about to bow to Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que, when both sides froze. All of a sudden: “……”

Yu Zhengdu thought to himself, no wonder they looked so familiar. Wasn’t this Daoist priest Mu and his apprentice Yuan Qing that they had met at Chen Siyu’s house? He had even added Yuan Qing on WeChat. But the other was a bit chatty: he spammed his Moments with new knowledge he gained from cultivation daily. Yu Zhengdu had blocked him.

Yu Zhengdu immediately burst out into laughter. He said, “Daoist priest Mu, Daoist Yuan, what a coincidence. We meet again.”

Daoist priest Mu’s expression was respectful. He bowed at them and said, “These two householders, it’s been a while.”

His disciple Yuan Qing wasn’t so reserved. Unrepressed joy flitted across his face as he exclaimed, “To be able to run into you guys at a place like this! How wonderful! I’ve spent a lot of time recently combining modern technology and the path of cultivation and been extremely inspired. I was just thinking about asking you guys to discuss with me!”

Yu Zhengdu’s smile froze. He was scared just looking at Yuan Qing’s status updates these days; he didn’t want to discuss anything with him at all.

He very seriously answered, “Actually, our company works with Internet technology. We don’t really know much about Daoist cultivation……”

Yuan Qing immediately became disappointed. “Ah, is that so?”

Off to the side, Yang Xin was dazed by the scene unfolding in front of him. He blinked and couldn’t help butting in to ask, “Ey, you guys know each other?”

“Yes. Though these two householders are not Daoists, they are creative in thought. They have combined modern technology with spell-casting, inventing the most advanced form of evil removal. I admire them greatly,” Daoist priest Mu sincerely praised.

Yang Xin: “……??”

Wait, what was this situation?

Master, shouldn’t you get angry first, yell that they’re from a scamming company, then persuade me not to believe in scammers?

How come you’ve started complimenting them?

What modern technology, advanced evil removal……Don’t you religious masters normally love to refer to ancient texts? How come you’ve suddenly become so with the times?

What Yang Xin didn’t know was, the scenario he had thought up in his head between Daoist priest Mu and the other two had already happened. In the end, they had admitted their defeat under the absolute prowess of technology.

Yang Xin was suddenly lost. His gaze was blank as he stared at Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que exchange conversation with Daoist priest Mu and his disciple. Daoist priest Mu even politely asked, “Since these two householders are also here today, how about you guys perform this spell-casting?”

Yu Zhengdu hurriedly waved his hands. “No no no, I’m a programmer. I don’t know how to cast spells.”

Daoist priest Mu actually revealed a regretful expression before saying, “Then I guess I will do it.”

Yang Xin: “……”

Daoist priest Mu, the famous temple master of Qinglian Temple, the committee head of the Daoist Reputation Committee, had just invited a programmer to perform a spell-casting……

……

The evil elimination ceremony wasn’t very tedious. This piece of land owned by Excellent Jade also didn’t contain much evil. It was only that some residual underworld energy remained from historic events. Daoist priest Mu didn’t use a lot of energy before he had already finished the spell-casting.

In the end, he held a bell in his left hand as his right hand formed a gesture and rested on his waist. He drank a large mouthful of water and spat it out while turning in a circle before chanting loudly, “I lower upon this Earth one of the three lights, holy water. There is no dust between the Heavens and Earth. I burn the true essence of lilies to form auspicious clouds. Turn this mortal realm into a Heavenly one. Sincerity can move even a Heavenly heart. We hope to achieve such sincerity. To reach it, I first greet you three times and praise your sacred name.”

Then, he burned the paper with the incense and the entire ceremony was over.

Yu Zhengdu reflexively started clapping. Watching the professionals truly was different. The entire ceremony even looked impressive. Super formal!

Yang Xin saw that Daoist priest Mu had finished his spell-casting, so was just about to ask Shang Que and them to take another look. But he also didn’t want to do this in front of Daoist priest Mu, because it would appear as if he didn’t trust the other. He was in the middle of debating with himself about whether or not to ask them after sending Daoist priest Mu off.

Only to see Daoist priest Mu walk over to Yu Zhengdu and very sincerely say, “Little householder Yu, may I please ask you to use your company’s Underworld Energy Detector to double check and see if I have completely cleared the underworld energy from here?”

Yang Xin: “……”

Yu Zhengdu naturally agreed. After all, they had already accepted the other’s money. Thus, he took out the Underworld Energy Detector and scanned the construction site in its entirety. In the end, he gave Daoist priest Mu a thumbs up and praised, “Master’s spells were cast extremely well. It’s super clean!”

Shang Que gave a rare nod of acknowledgement too. “The old Daoist’s cultivation level is not bad.”

Yang Xin watched as both parties started politely complimenting each other. He once again went: “……”

……

After the spell-casting and confirming that this construction site was quite safe and didn’t contain any hidden evils, Yang Xin’s mood was exceptionally great. He invited them to eat at a famous hotel in the city.

At the table, Yuan Qing refused to give up. He scooted close to Yu Zhengdu and was adamant about sharing what he had learned about Daoism. Yu Zhengdu’s head felt big listening to him talk. In the nick of time, his mom called him. He hurriedly used this excuse to avoid the other.

Mother Yu didn’t really need anything. It was just that they were about to buy an air purifier for home, so wanted him to help choose a brand.

After Yu Zhengdu hung up and returned to his seat, Yuan Qing still hadn’t finished sharing his revelations.

Yu Zhengdu: “……” Mom hit me again……fuck, hit my phone again!

Only to see a solemn expression on Yuan Qing’s face. He said, “In this time, I’ve very studiously learned the entire history of the development of science and technology. I’ve become extremely inspired and have once again realized how closed off and behind the times the current Daoist community is.”

“Especially the history of both industrial revolutions, which was exceptionally memorable. Back then, workshops with handmade crafts all closed down under the pressure of machinery. This has caused me to fear greatly about the future of Daoism. My master’s cultivation level is extremely high, but he can still only perform one ceremony at once. For example, the evil elimination ceremony today. If any other place needed it at the same time, they could only wait in line……”

“Recently, I have been thinking about how we could effectively push for a Daoist revolution. Like the industrial revolution. This way, the cultivation results of Daoism could more conveniently, rapidly, and productively enter thousands, even millions, of households.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

Yang Xin: “……”

Yang Xin looked at Daoist priest Mu, bewildered. His lips trembled. He really wanted to say Daoist priest Mu, hurry and tell your apprentice to stop talking!

Only to see Daoist priest Mu nod and say, “Yuan Qing’s idea isn’t bad, but technology is the result of generations of thought and experimentation. To transfer it for Daoism’s use would be a long and arduous process.”

Yang Xin: “……” Nevermind Daoist priest Mu. You should stop talking too.

Only to hear Shang Que slowly say with his chin on his hand, “Don’t you just mean the replication of cultivation results……”

Upon hearing this, Yuan Qing was a bit dazed. “Householder Shang’s summary is right. But how can we replicate it?”

Daoist priest Mu added, “Exactly. Just like today’s evil elimination ceremony. How would we replicate that? It’s not like we can do what they did during the industrial revolution and start producing machines, right?”

Originally, Yu Zhengdu’s mouth had started twitching listening to their conversation. But somehow he instinctively responded, “Why wouldn’t it be possible? In the end, all we did today was remove some underworld energy. We can develop an underworld energy purifier.”

Everyone immediately turned to look at him: “……”

Yang Xin: “……”

Who was he? Where was he? What was he doing?