New Times, New Hell

Chapter 5 - Life and Death Account

This meal was finished even faster than yesterday’s. Li Tiantian looked a bit wilted, and Jiang Hong didn’t speak much, while Yu Zhengdu was anxious to return to the company to see the result of their ghost-catching operation.

After this arduous lunch was over, Yu Zhengdu tried his best to suppress his gossipy urges and watched the two girls leave in a gentlemanly manner. Only then did he take his boss’s hand in a hurry as he wanted to run back to the company, “Let’s go let’s go, time to eat some watermelon.”

But just as his hand touched Shang Que’s wrist, it bounced back. He subconsciously said, “Ah, your hand is so cold.”

Shang Que looked at him, and Yu Zhengdu snapped out of his daze. He scratched his head and said, “I’m sorry, but I’ll forget you’re not a human being sometimes.”

Shang Que: “…”

Yu Zhengdu realised that he sounded too much like he was scolding his boss. He pondered for a moment and tried to make up for it, “Boss, if I say you look a lot like a human now, would you feel a little better?”

Shang Que looked like he was left speechless with a bunch of ellipses above his head. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to mind it much, and after a moment of silence, he said, “That’s all right. I forgot to adjust the temperature too.”

Yu Zhengdu: “…”

Yu Zhengdu felt like he just opened the door to a new world, “This kind of temperature can be adjusted?”

Shang Que smiled proudly, “Of course.”

After he spoke, he silently stretched out his left hand. “Try again.”

Yu Zhengdu, “…” I don’t know if it’s a misperception or not, but I feel like my boss always has a rather strong desire to show off?

He muttered to himself, but still touched his hands. The skin he touched this time was indeed warm. Shang Que’s skin differed from that of a normal man; his resembled a white jade with an unhealthy pallid tone, but it was warm and smooth to the touch.

It was a unique sensation that couldn’t be found on anyone else.

Yu Zhengdu was amazed. “Wow, it’s like a real human’s.”

As soon as he spoke, he realised that the wrist he was holding got warmer, and its temperature seemed to still be on the rise.

He paused, “Boss, stop before going too far ba. You’ll burn me if you continue raising your temperature.”

Shang Que smiled slightly, “It’s still okay.”

Yu Zhengdu sighed, “Since you have this kind of skill, you should use it to control the office’s temperature ah. It’ll even save on air conditioning fees.”

Shang Que, “…”

When they returned to the company, Yu Zhengdu pushed the door open and asked, “Where’s the ghost? Where is it?”

One of his colleagues involved in the arrest pointed at a corner. “There.”

“How did you guys catch it?” Yu Zhengdu asked curiously while turning his head to look at it, “Is it the same as in TV series? Like using hooks? Or tying them up with a rope…”

While he was mid-sentence, he couldn’t go on anymore. In the corner of the company, a ghost was squatting there with her long hair in a dishevelled mess. Both her hands were placed in front of her knees, and they were currently shackled in a pair of handcuffs.

Yu Zhengdu, “&#k2026;”

The anti-pornography operation scene has appeared once again.

Yu Zhengdu looked back at Shang Que and said with heartfelt admiration, “I didn’t expect ghost-catching to be so advanced now too.”

The female ghost also saw him at this time. She was in a listless state, but immediately became agitated upon seeing him. She abruptly burst up and stormed forward, “You can see me! You can see me!! You actually pretended that you couldn’t see me——”

As soon as the female ghost got agitated, her eyes began rolling up again. Her seven orifices started bleeding at the same time, and her appearance was as terrifying as it could get.

Yu Zhengdu took two steps back in horror. He even tripped over his right foot with his left and nearly fell down. Fortunately, Shang Que stood next to him and supported him just in time.

But the female ghost couldn’t lunge over in the end. Lu Lingxi sprung out of nowhere, seized the female ghost and pushed her back into the corner. She said, “Behave yourself. Why is a criminal suspect like you talking so much?”

Blood was flowing even faster from her seven orifices now, and her face was on the verge of being submerged in her own blood. At the same time, she was still struggling as she refused to give in. “I didn’t commit any crimes, I didn’t harm anyone, it was that man who wronged me——”

Yu Zhengdu didn’t even dare to look straight at her anymore. He covered his eyes and said, “Just speak normally, could you stop bleeding all over the place?”

Shang Que chuckled. He looked at the ghost and said, “Did you hear that?”

Female Ghost, “…”

The bloodstains on the ghost’s face quickly dried up and vanished. Not only did she stop bleeding, but even her tears dared not come out, and she shut up while feeling very aggrieved.

When Lu Lingxi saw that she dared not howl any more, she escorted her to Kang Jin, the ghost who wore a wig, and said, “Record her testimony.”

Yu Zhengdu felt that the picture in front of him was somewhat incredible. He asked Shang Que, “Can I go over to take a look?”

Shang Que nodded.

Yu Zhengdu cheered and skipped over to Kang Jin. Kang Jin sat upright in front of the computer, skillfully clicked on a folder, and retrieved an excel sheet.

Yu Zhengdu looked at the name of the excel sheet and felt his eyes hurting again. “Wait a minute, why is this document called the Life and Death Account?”

Kang Jin said as a matter of course, “Because this is the Life and Death Account ah.”

Shang Que walked over slowly with both hands crossed in front of his chest. “We have always been devoting our efforts to modernizing Hell’s office and improving our work efficiency. Changing the Life and Death Account into such a format is one of our most significant achievements.”

Kang Jin also added while sounding pleased, “Moreover, we have set up various calculation formulas in this excel sheet to calculate each person’s merits and demerits in a scientific, rapid, and rigorous manner. Ever since we advocated using computers for our work, our error rate on matters related to the reincarnation of ghosts has greatly decreased, thereby effectively maintaining the order of the six paths of reincarnation.”

Finally, he didn’t forget to flatter his boss, “Of course, this was all thanks to our boss’s foresight for abandoning the old way of doing things in Hell so early…”

Yu Zhengdu was on the verge of vomiting blood after listening to him. He turned to look at Shang Que, but he saw Shang Que smiling at him with a dubious smile. “But I don’t think that’s enough. I hope we can have an even more advanced and independent working system in the future.”

“You recruited me in order to develop a program for handling the Life and Death Account?”

Shang Que nodded. “Yes. I hope that by 2020, we will be able to fully automate the process of reincarnation.”

Yu Zhengdu, “…?!”

This beautiful, young boss of his could really shock him a great deal from time to time!

Over on the other side, Kang Jin had already begun to interrogate the female ghost. “Hey you, what’s your name?”

Knowing that she had no chance of escape, the ghost could only look at Yu Zhengdu with bitter resentment and reluctantly said, “Xu Jiangjiang.”

Kang Jin entered her name on the excel, which brought up a long list of records. He asked again, “ID number.”

The female ghost reported a number. Kang Jin checked it out, and there was only one option left on the excel list.

Yu Zhengdu took a look, only to see that the basic information and the female ghost’s entire life was recorded on the list, and finally there was a remark at the end which says: lived to the ripe age of 25, committed suicide by leaving the gas on in a rental house.

Kang Jin asked, “Why did you want to possess Li Tiantian’s body?”

Xu Jiangjiang denied the accusation three times, “I didn’t want to, I wasn’t trying to, I was just passing by.”

Kang Jin, “There’s no use trying to come up with excuses for yourself. We’re a company from the netherworld, we work differently from the human world. We have all sorts of ways to make you tell the truth.”

Yu Zhengdu asked curiously, “How? Through torture?”

Xu Jiangjiang glared at Yu Zhengdu, then Kang Jin continued, “We have already extracted the ghost Qi you left on Li Tiantian, which proves that you have been pestering her for at least 20 days…”

Yu Zhengdu, “…” Do you ghosts have to be so scientific in handling cases?

Kang Jin continued, “Moreover, Li Tiantian’s ophryon is now black (means her luck is crap) and her seven pos are unstable. These are all precursors of being possessed. If you weren’t preparing to possess her, then what did you do all that for?”

Seeing that she could not deny her charges, Xu Jiangjiang reluctantly said, “Yes, I wanted to possess her.”

Kang Jin knocked on the table. “After you died, we should have sent you a text message informing you of various matters you needed to pay attention to as a ghost. Amongst these matters, harming the living and looking for a scapegoat are strictly forbidden. I shouldn’t have to tell you again what the consequences are for violating the relevant taboos ba.”

Xu Jiangjiang hung her head and got agitated again when she heard this. “I didn’t want to do that either, but you guys said that reincarnation for suicide victims would be delayed. Now that the birth rate is so low, coupled with the delay in reincarnation, I would have to be a wandering soul in the human world for at least 50 years. I couldn’t wait any longer…”

Kang Jin was going to continue talking about the laws with her, but he was actually stunned for a moment after hearing her say this, and he didn’t know how to refute her. Instead, it was Yu Zhengdu who was a bit puzzled and asked, “Aren’t you a rather contradictory ghost?”

Xu Jiangjiang and Kang Jin turned their heads to look at him at the same time.

Yu Zhengdu said, “Since you committed suicide, it means that you don’t want to be a human being anymore. In that case, why complain about not being able to reincarnate sooner?”

Kang Jin’s logic came back all of a sudden, and he immediately smacked the table. “Yes, that’s precisely it.”

Xu Jiangjiang looked at Yu Zhengdu indignantly and said, “I committed suicide because I my previous life was really rough. My parents divorced, nobody cared about me since I was a child, I had a bad job, a low salary, and I had no friends. There was no meaning to me in living at all, but Li Tiantian was different. She has such a good life. Her parents love her, her friends like her, she had a good job, and everything about her life was great. I’ve always dreamt of having a life like hers…”

She spilled the beans as she described her train of thought, and in the end, her eyes were almost completely covered in a greedy glint.

Yet Yu Zhengdu only felt an indescribable chill suffuse throughout his body. He said in earnest, “That’s no reason for your suicide, nor is it a reason for you to harm others.”

Xu Jiangjiang refused to give in. “Why can she live such a good life, while I had to have such a miserable one!”

Yu Zhengdu looked at her. “You didn’t cherish your own life, yet you want to pick up other people’s ready-made one. For someone like you, even if you possess Li Tiantian, will you really be satisfied? You’ll always meet people who are living a better life than you, will you think it’s unfair then and hurt other people again?

Kang Jin nodded forcefully. “Yes, that’s precisely it.”

Yu Zhengdu cast a sidelong glance at him, is this ghost a repeater?

Xu Jiangjiang said, “You-you-you’re just spouting nonsense…”

Shang Que, who has just been spectating for a long time, spoke slowly at this time, “You really have a lot of rubbish to say.”

After he spoke, his forefinger hooked the air slightly, and Xu Jiangjiang uttered a surprised cry. Her entire ghost being was being pinched by Shang Que.

Xu Jiangjiang was particularly fierce in front of Yu Zhengdu, but she could not even budge an inch in Shang Que’s hand. Her eyes were bulging out as if they could fall out of their sockets at any time. The upper and lower rows of her teeth kept chittering, and she was so stunned she couldn’t even utter a word.

Yu Zhengdu got a huge fright. “Boss, are you going to eat this ghost on the spot? Give me a moment, I’ll leave for a while.”

Kang Jin, “…shut up, don’t remind Boss.”

But Shang Que didn’t say anything and just glanced around, then raised his free hand and a bottle flew through the air before he caught it.

Yu Zhengdu looked at it. Isn’t that the mineral water bottle that he had drunk half of?

Immediately afterward, he saw Shang Que grab Xu Jiangjiang and stuff her straight into the bottle. Then he said lightly, “Keep it closed for twenty years.”

Yu Zhengdu, “……………………………………………”

He suddenly knew what the bottles on the bookshelf in Boss’ office — which were a complete mismatch with everything else — were.

Yu Zhengdu didn’t know what he was thinking either, but at this moment, he actually said while feeling stunned, “Boss, I haven’t finished drinking from it yet.”

Shang Que looked at him, handed the bottle over and said, “It’s all right. Continue drinking from it ba, the taste won’t beaffected.”

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Zhengdu: My major has been challenged 0.0