New Times, New Hell

Chapter 58 - The Ghost Market’s Purchasing Platform

Gossip forum.

Title: The things CEO’s company sold at the Ghost Festival garden party are too hardcore!

Main floor: So this happened. Building owner was lucky enough to visit the garden party before they started limiting entries. I thought that since I was there, I shouldn’t leave empty-handed, but also didn’t want coffins or cinerary urns. Because I had watched hangwoman jiejie’s livestream the night before and because my grandfather likes calligraphy, I went to the 7th stall and bought a work of calligraphy for my grandfather. After receiving it, my grandfather really liked it. He kept praising that the calligraphy was exemplary.

And then the hardcore thing happened. My grandfather is a member of the local calligraphy association. A few days ago, he took that work of calligraphy to the association for discussion. When he came back, he told me that he suspected the calligraphy was the work of a famed calligrapher……

Floor 1: ??????????

Floor 2: ???? Truly, truly hardcore?

Floor 3: Pft, floor owner hurry and explain clearly

Floor owner: It was just very unbelievable. Apparently it was a calligrapher who passed away recently, only a year or two ago, named Wu Qiyi. Either way, people of our generation probably don’t really know him. But they seemed very confident, discussing how soft or hard the lines were, analyzing the feeling the work gave them, etc. In the end, they concluded that this was a genuine work by that old Mr. Wu. Another member of the association even wanted to buy it from my grandfather at a high price. This made me almost suspect that the vendor had accidentally put a real work into the mix and sold it……

Floor 89: Suddenly can’t understand this plot anymore?

Floor 90: Wait, it can’t possibly be real? Don’t scare me, floor owner!

Floor 91: Wow, floor owner has profited!

Floor 92: Now that floor owner’s mentioned it, I suddenly remember this too. Previously, I bought a mini coffin from a procurement merchant to be a backpack charm. At the time, I didn’t think too much about it, but after floor owner said this, I suddenly…………

Floor 93: Upstairs, in comparison to the material the coffin was made of, I think the you who has decided to use a coffin as a charm is more hardcore

Floor 94: So did floor owner sell it?

Floor owner: What is everyone thinking? How could it be genuine???? I watched that vendor write it, okay? And I didn’t sell it…… I explained what happened to them clearly, after which they slightly calmed down. But they still got a professional to make sure. In the end, they confirmed that that piece of calligraphy was truly fresh. The ink hadn’t even completely dried yet, how could it be the work of someone who had died several years ago? But they did say that the imitation quality was really high. That person probably imitated old Mr. Wu for several years. Now, they keep telling me to buy a few more works for them, because even though they’re not genuine, this quality level is still worth collecting……

Floor 135: …………This plot twist

Floor 136: If that’s the case, then it’s truly hardcore. Let me get this straight: hangwoman jiejie said the vendor at the seventh stall was a famous calligrapher “in life”. Then, this vendor truly was able to imitate the work of an already deceased calligrapher, and the imitation quality is really high…………emmm, the worldbuilding for this garden party is really very complete.

Floor 137: Fuck, then that’s truly an immersive experience. A garden party without a single bug, too hardcore!!!!!!

Floor 138: Am I the only one who finds it strange? It’s only a garden party. Do they need to go to this extent? You guys haven’t thought of any other possibilities?

Floor 139: Upstairs I have the same thoughts as you…… I feel a little terrified right now

Floor 140: Oh fuck, the ones before me, don’t scare me ah. Can’t it be possible that they’re simply very diligent?

Floor 141: Honestly, this technology and effect can’t be accomplished by an unprofessional team. If this company isn’t doing this for profit and purely as an event for their employees, it would be impossible to do things to this extent…………

Floor 142: How come the ones before me are making this seem more and more realistic? Don’t tell me that you guys want to say that the vendor really was the already deceased old Mr. Wu? Let me first perform “bursting into laughter” for you guys

Floor 143: Plus one with upstairs. If that vendor was old Mr. Wu, then everyone in the ghost market really was a ghost, okay

Floor 454: Those before me quit arguing. I got some inside info. Our company just notified us that for our employee event next month, they got the team from CEO’s company to do event planning. They’re going to replicate the ghost market at our company……and it’s not only our company. I heard that apparently, several large companies are all looking to collaborate with them.

Floor 455: ????? A real fucking plot twist. So, CEO and them’s technology is so amazing only because they have business in this regard, right????

Floor 456: How amusing to see all the people upstairs arguing for so long. How come there are people who are so trusting?

Floor 457: With that, everything can be explained. Since they’re using it to earn money, it’s necessary that they design each segment so intricately. But I still need to add on: they’re truly very diligent, worth supporting!

Floor 458: &#k2026;&#k2026; = = Reasonably suspect that the Ghost Festival garden party was only a test promotion!

Floor 459: Wow, if that’s the truth then I’m happy. Praying online that our company can also invite them to plan an event!

Floor 460: The ghost market can really be replicated? Aaah, I want to buy things!

Floor 888: Everyone, hurry and go look at Amazing Future’s official Weibo account!!!! They just released a ghost market shopping mini program called “Fengdu Ghost Market”! You can buy products from the ghost market there!!!

The Fengdu Ghost Market mini program was naturally developed by Yu Zhengdu. After the garden party, netizens had a great response to the products sold in the ghost market. The ghost market’s vendors also received many benefits.

After brief thought, Yu Zhengdu casually created a shopping mini program. The program was very simple: it only gave buyers a list of products and the option to purchase them.

Because the Internet between the mortal realm and Underworld weren’t connected, to actually operationalize transactions between the two realms, Luofeng was still needed to export the order details from one side and send it to the sellers on the other side. Thus, the backend systems for the two were actually separate. Luofeng was a necessary middleman in the whole process.

There weren’t that many products in the ghost market. The products were also strange, so sales wouldn’t actually be that great. But for the sellers in the Underworld, though they wouldn’t be earning much, they would still be earning money from the mortal realm. This money could be used to buy products from the mortal realm. Besides, the daily needs spirits had were all created from paper. After completing this currency exchange, they had surprisingly great purchasing power.

Because the program was simple, Luofeng hadn’t invested much into it. Thus, they also weren’t planning on profiting from it; they only symbolically asked for some platform fees. The main purpose of this act was to try and help the people of the Underworld achieve wealthy and comfortable lives.

Of course, the occasional issue couldn’t be avoided.

This day, Yu Zhengdu had just finished a meeting with the development department in their subsidiary company. He had his laptop in his arms and was heading over to Luofeng’s office to report to Shang Que. But as he soon as he stepped into Luofeng’s office, he saw an unfamiliar female ghost refusing to leave the side of the person in charge of the ghost market platform, Chen Yangli. She kept saying, “Please give me another chance. I will definitely be extremely, extremely careful in the future.”

Chen Yangli was quite exasperated. Helplessly, he said, “That really isn’t possible. Yours counts as a severe accident. We have rules, I can’t help you either……”

Yu Zhengdu sent Kang Jin a message asking what was going on out of curiosity.

Kang Jin replied very quickly:【This is someone who sells embroidered dresses on the Fengdu Ghost Market. Yesterday, a buyer in the mortal realm sent a complaint saying that the dresses she had received were made of paper】

Yu Zhengdu:【……………………Shipped the wrong products?】

Kang Jin:【Un, she shipped out her own clothes instead】

Kang Jin:【It’s a good thing the buyer didn’t think anything of it. Otherwise, we’d have to come up with an excuse to cover it up】

Yu Zhengdu understood. Business between the two realms was a big issue. There were several things to be cautious about and also to avoid. Thus, Luofeng was very strict towards the sellers in the Underworld. Sending things belonging to the Underworld to mortals was considered a level one error. It would be impossible for Luofeng to make exceptions in this regard.

As expected, that female ghost still wanted to plead. Only to see Shang Que walk out. He calmly scanned her. “Do you still want to reincarnate or not?”

Female ghost: “……” Resolutely gets up and leaves.

Yu Zhengdu waved at Shang Que and smiled. “Boss, what good timing. I was just about to go find you to give you a report.”

Shang Que’s expression immediately became better. He slowly strolled over, pulling up a chair along the way. Very elegantly, he took a seat. “Speak.”

Yu Zhengdu turned his laptop around so that it was facing Shang Que. He clicked open a page. “This is what Erica and I were discussing. Currently, the development of our app is progressing very smoothly. Let me first talk about my section. She’ll come find you to explain her section later……”

As he spoke, he pressed on another key, preparing to pull up his folder. But his hand slipped and he accidentally pulled up his search history.

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

With tense nerves, he quickly pressed on the “hide” button, then acted like nothing had happened and pulled up his own folder once again. He opened it and said, “These are the later plans for the backend system. We plan to collaborate with the app like this……”

As Yu Zhengdu spoke, he observed Shang Que’s expression with his peripheral vision. He saw that the other was very diligently listening, like he hadn’t been affected by the previous search history page whatsoever. He didn’t know if Shang Que hadn’t seen it at all or simply didn’t care, but either way, he subtly released the breath of air he had been holding in.

Shang Que finished listening to Yu Zhengdu’s report calmly. As soon as he got back to his own office, he immediately looked outside the door. After confirming that no one was going to barge in to interrupt him, he finally turned on his own laptop slightly nervously and posted on a forum: I discovered that someone I know was looking me up online? After I caught him in the act he immediately hid the evidence, then sneakily observed my reaction! What does he mean?

Though Yu Zhengdu had switched pages extremely quickly just now, he had still seen it all. Yu Zhengdu’s entire search history was filled with: Ghost King of Luofeng Mountain!

Shang Que nervously refreshed. Netizens didn’t seem to be that interested in his question. There were only a few replies:

Floor 1: Is the floor owner coming here to show off his love life?

Floor 2: What else could he mean? He has a crush on you bei, next question

Floor 3: Hehe, burn this post

Shang Que: !!!

Diyang’s Qinglian Temple.

As one of the most famous Daoist temples in the country, Qinglian Temple had always had an abundance of incense fire. But today, the number of people present was exceptionally high. Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que didn’t arrive very late, but the ticket office had already stopped selling tickets. They only entered because the little Daoist Yuan Qing came out and personally walked them inside.

Yu Zhengdu observed the mass of people. His entire being was shocked. “Your incense fire is so plentiful?”

“No, no,” Yuan Qing explained. “Today is coincidentally also the day that my master is giving lessons. Several worshippers have especially rushed over from out of the town to listen.”

“Oh oh.” Yu Zhengdu understood now that he said that. Daoist priest Mu was an extremely famous enlightened Daoist. He probably rarely appeared in public normally. If he was giving lessons, it wouldn’t be strange no matter how many people attended. No wonder Qinglian Temple had already started limiting visitors from so early in the morning.

Yu Zhengdu smiled, “How rare for Daoist priest Mu to be giving lessons. Should we go support him?”

“Ay, there’s no need,” Yuan Qing said. “The contents of today’s lesson are all the knowledge my master has gained from basic Marxist principles in connection to the field of scientific cultivation. Didn’t you get a full score in your Marxist philosophy class? You’re probably even more educated in this regard than my master.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

Off to the side, Shang Que nodded in agreement. “Zhengdu is very talented in the study of Daoism.”

Yu Zhengdu couldn’t help asking, “Is there a direct relationship between getting 100% in my Marxist philosophy class and talent in Daoism?”

Before Shang Que could answer, Yuan Qing had already butted in. “Of course. These two both need a certain amount of philosophical thinking and an immense amount of mental energy. So, people who received 100% in Marxist philosophy shouldn’t be that bad at Daoism.”

And I think boys who like to smile shouldn’t have that much misfortune!

Yu Zhengdu almost asked: Daoist priest, do you still remember you’re a Daoist priest?

But in the end, only the corners of his mouth twitched. He barely managed, “Daoist priest, let us hurry and see the products.”

“Oh oh, right. This way, please.” Yuan Qing finally remembered their formal business. He hurriedly led them to the back of the temple where guests weren’t allowed. As they walked, he introduced to them, “Right now, I usually still run my experiments in the factory in town. I only return to the temple when I need to practice Daoism. This used to be a storage room for our temple, but my master was worried that I wouldn’t have anywhere to work in the temple. Thus, he specially assigned an area to be my laboratory……”

Laboratory……

Amidst a bunch of Qinglian Temple’s decorated archways, gates, and various classic architectural designs, Yu Zhengdu suddenly heard a modern location of “laboratory”. He couldn’t help feeling like this was all surreal.

“It’s right here.” Yuan Qing stopped outside a large room. He reached a hand out and pulled out a keychain. As he did so, he spoke, “Ey, these keys are too troublesome. I’m in the middle of recommending my master to switch all the locks in the temple to password locks or fingerprint scanners.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……Oh.” Little Daoist priest who had gotten a taste of the convenience of modern technology probably would never be able to return to the pains of traditional life.

Yuan Qing opened the door. The group entered, only to see that the interior had already been redecorated. It contained several modern pieces of equipment and truly did look like a laboratory.

There were several cardboard boxes lined up neatly in a corner. The same large words were printed on them: Qinglian Temple x Amazing Future.

On a large table off to the side, there were also a few already opened boxes. Yuan Qing excitedly pulled out a square, white machine and handed it to Yu Zhengdu. “This is the Underworld energy purifier we developed.”

This was it. Yu Zhengu and Shang Que had specially come to Diyang this time because the Underworld energy purifier co-created by Qinglian Temple and Amazing Future had finally been successfully developed and was now officially being produced.

Back then, after deciding to develop the Underworld energy purifier, Luofeng had specifically gone to register their subsidiary company. They hired professional engineers to begin the development process with Yuan Qing. The engineers were in charge of solving the machine’s mechanical issues while Yuan Qing was in charge of solving the Daoism related issues.

This collaboration was only a test run. Neither Qinglian Temple nor Luofeng had their own factories. They also couldn’t possibly fund a factory together. Thus, the two of them came up with a solution. In the end, they rented out a laboratory from an OEM and after successfully creating the product, directly outsourced the production to that OEM. This was also the fairly popular asset-light model that several technological companies were using these days. It was very suitable for small start-ups.

Amazing Future’s engineers were all sent to work here as well. They only needed to periodically report what was going on to Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que.

The machine component of the Underworld energy purifier mainly used the principles in a traditional air purifier. The contents weren’t complex at all. The true difficulty during the development process was the Underworld energy filter element inside. After Yuan Qing solved this problem, they had pretty much successfully developed the product.

“We completed over a hundred trials in the wilderness, empty graves, occupied cemeteries, haunted buildings, and places with bad fengshui. From these, we received an abundance of experimental data.” As Yuan Qing spoke, he turned on a laptop next to him and pulled up a spreadsheet for Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que to look at. “Right now, we have already successfully managed to maintain purifying effects in a stable and ideal range. Under normal circumstances, total purification can be completed within a 100 meter radius, which is definitely enough to satisfy the needs of a middle-class family.”

Yu Zhengdu looked over his experiment records. They were truly very detailed and scientific.

Shang Que excitedly connected one of the machines to power. He turned it on to experience it, then gave the product a high degree of affirmation.

Yu Zhengdu offhandedly asked, “How are sales now?”

Because the purifier had been produced in a factory in Diyang, Qinglian Temple’s worshippers were the main target audience for this product. Thus, after production, the first shipment had been directly shipped to Qinglian Temple for an initial sales test. The quantity of purifiers in the second shipment would be decided based on the response in sales to the first.

Only to see Yuan Qing’s originally excited face collapse. “We produced five hundred in the first shipment. From the beginning of sales till now, it’s been almost a week. In total, we’ve sold……two”

Yu Zhengdu: “……Two?”

Though he had predicted poor sales from early on – after all, this product sounded a bit out of this world – because the average person probably wouldn’t be so willing to accept it…

But only selling two among all of Qinglian Temple’s worshippers was a bit too tragic.

Yuan Qing sighed and said, “Everyone feels that the price for the purifier is too expensive. They’re more willing to buy a few more Daoist charms to bring home.”

Upon hearing this, Yu Zhengdu understood. With the production cost of the purifiers, the ultimate price obviously wouldn’t be in the same range as charms. Under the circumstances where nobody understood the effects of the product, it was normal for a majority of people to be disbelieving.

He comforted, “Don’t worry. Take things slowly. If it’s a good product, people will be bound to appreciate it.”

“I understand that.” Yuan Qing glanced at the small mountain of cardboard boxes before him. He couldn’t keep the defeat out of his voice, “But all the stock is still here right now. If we aren’t able to earn back the developmental fees and production costs we invested in the beginning, I won’t be able to start developing the second generation.”

Yu Zhengdu sputtered, “……You’re already starting to think about the second generation?”

“Yes,” Yuan Qing nodded. The light instantly returned to his eyes. “The developmental process this time has inspired me greatly. I think that for our second generation, I can add in even more functions. For example, the levels of Underworld energy normally surpass normal bounds when one encounters something from the Underworld. If we can calculate the density of Underworld energy that different Underworld creatures bring along at different distances, we can add a notification function to the purifier that tells the consumer what they could’ve possibly run into……”

Yu Zhengdu didn’t know how to start responding. “……I think that consumers might not want such a specific function.”

Yuan Qing was confused. “Really?”

The corners of Yu Zhengdu’s mouth twitched. He teased, “You’d be better off adding a ‘button-to-call-the-cops’ function. When the Underworld energy levels reach the level where one has possibly encountered an evil object, they can press a button and immediately call the cops. We can also provide post-sales services for evil removal and ghost catching as well……”

Yuan Qing’s eyes lit up. “Makes sense.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

He had been making stuff up just now.

The author has something to say:

Yu Zhengdu: When Daoists become scientific, they are truly amazing!