103: Chapter 98: The Humble Underworld 103: Chapter 98: The Humble Underworld “Starting from today…..

This…..

Is this what I am supposed to look like now?”

Wei Gongcheng, who hadn’t been able to stand for a long time, suddenly looked around in a daze, but although he was standing, he didn’t feel grounded.

His feet were clearly on the ground, yet it felt as if he was far from it.

The world he saw was completely different from before.

Looking up…..

he could see the familiar mortal realm, seemingly within reach, but somehow hard to approach.

Lowering his gaze, he saw a grey and extremely narrow space before him.

The space wasn’t really that small, about a thousand square meters in size, which was not small for a residence, but compared to the afterlife’s administrative offices he had envisioned…..

it seemed to fall short by more than just a little.

“Is this Hell?” Wei Gongcheng finally couldn’t help but complain.

“Ah…..

For now, it is,” said Chen Qing, standing behind Wei Gongcheng.

He looked around and also felt it to be quite shabby…..

well, alright, very shabby.

“It’s very different from the blueprint you handed me before,” Wei Gongcheng said as he surveyed his surroundings, recalling the blueprint Chen Qing had once given him.

In the blueprint, a massive underground city overlapped Lyuzhou.

It looked both spectacular and incredulous; to him at that time, such a large-scale underground project seemed impossible to complete.

Now it seemed the blueprint was not for a mortal construction but for the Hell Palace; yet, the current state of things was far from matching it, to say the least…..

it was completely unrelated!

“Cough…..

As I said, it’s temporary,” Chen Qing said, watching Wei Gongcheng with an expression suggesting he thought he was being fooled.

He coughed lightly and added, “Come with me.”

The narrow space wasn’t completely empty; there was a large metal structure that seemed to be an unfinished building, just a framework.

“This will be your Hell Palace.”

Wei Gongcheng looked up and then asked after a moment of silence, “Is it going to collapse?”

Chen Qing rolled his eyes, “Just close your eyes and feel.”

Upon closing his eyes, Wei Gongcheng immediately felt as though he and the surrounding space were connected.

By merely using his thoughts, he could clearly sense that he seemed able to control the framework of the building!

Thinking this, he opened his eyes to see clearly that the tall structure was actually a kind of liquid.

“This is the Karma Fruit of Hell, the foundation of your Divine Skills!” Chen Qing gestured lightly, and a portion of the framework transformed into a delicate model of a house, flying towards the palm of his hand.

“With this, you can evolve anything in the underworld.

Your palace, your Xingtai, including those eighteen levels of hell described in storybooks, you can create it all.

The Hell realm can be completely based on your imagination, crafted into the most perfect underworld you envision.”

“Is it that miraculous?” Wei Gongcheng immediately tried to control it, and sure enough, the black liquid actually took on various shapes under the influence of his will.

However, he quickly felt tired after manipulating it for a bit.

“You have just become a Divine Soul Body, your state is unstable, and your spiritual power is limited.

It’s not advisable to rush it,” Chen Qing said after giving him a glance.

“We can take our time with the rest.”

“My lord…..” Wei Gongcheng frowned, “I feel like…..

there’s not enough of this stuff…..”

Although he couldn’t control much, as soon as he actually did, he could distinctly feel that the more intricate the creations from the liquid, the greater the quantity needed.

Just the three-story building before him, at most…..

could only construct a Government Office, right?

It was far from the luxurious Underground City depicted in the blueprint…..

by a wide margin.

“Nonsense, of course, it’s like this in the beginning…..” Chen Qing rolled his eyes.

“Use it sparingly, haha.

Even if the newly established Hell is simple, the basics are necessary.

You need a hall for office work and judgment, a prison to suppress Evil Spirits, some torture platforms for execution—this is very important.

You have to inflict enough suffering on Evil Ghosts to demonstrate the authority of Hell in judging good and evil.

Also, prepare some lodgings for the citizens of Hell.

When Yin Spirits arrive here, their dwellings should be allocated based on the Virtue Power they had before death; only then can rewards and punishments be clearly distinguished, and authority more effectively established!”

Wei Gongcheng: “…..”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“There are plenty of problems!” Wei Gongcheng gritted his teeth, “Are those things you mentioned going to be enough with the current amount of Karma Fruit power?”

“Eh, that’s why you have to be flexible in how you handle things…” Chen Qing avoided his gaze and looked the other way, “Many things of less importance can be a bit more rudimentary, like…

ah, your own accommodations, and like…

the back yard of the Government Office.

These things don’t need to be perfect right away.”

Wei Gongcheng: “…..”

He understood the hint; was he supposed to sleep on the streets of this Hell?

Oh…..

there weren’t even streets yet!

Suppressing the speechlessness in his heart, Wei Gongcheng patiently asked, “Please tell me, how can we acquire more of this Karma Fruit power?”

He could sense the infinite potential of the Karma Fruit power; it was likely useful for more than just constructing Hell.

“There are two ways,” Chen Qing said with a smile, “The first is through faith.

This can be obtained from the people of Lyuzhou, both the power of faith from the living can get you more Karma Fruit power, and the faith of the citizens of Hell can grant you higher spiritual power and energy.”

Wei Gongcheng frowned upon hearing this, “The underworld’s is easy to understand; after all, if you say that people’s souls can be summoned here upon death, various methods could be employed to make them revere and believe.

But the living in the mortal world can’t see me, so how can they believe in me?

Is it through your propaganda in the mortal world?”

“There are many ways, but the main one is through dreams,” Chen Qing explained.

“By expending a bit of spiritual power, you can occasionally make the citizens of Hell appear in their direct relatives’ dreams.

This will naturally lead the living to slowly put their faith in Hell.”

Wei Gongcheng was silent again upon hearing this.

To win the faith of the living for the realm of the dead, one must first properly manage the underworld.

Only after the souls there are convinced can they slowly begin to influence the living.

This process…

evidently takes quite a long time.

Five years…..

Wei Gongcheng felt that he might truly have been duped.

“What about the second option?”

“The second option is to capture Evil Spirits!”

“Evil Spirits?”

“Yes, Evil Spirits!” Chen Qing said earnestly, “Evil Spirits are those filled with immense resentment, unwilling to enter the cycle of reincarnation.

If left unchecked, they will devour other spirits to become stronger and even transform into malevolent ghosts that harm the living…..”

“Is that so?

How come I’ve never heard of this?” Wei Gongcheng was somewhat incredulous.

He had seen many people cursing others before they died, vowing to return as fierce ghosts to exact revenge, but he had never actually heard of someone being retaliated against by such a ghost.

“It didn’t exist before, but now it does.” Chen Qing sighed and pointed to the liquid framework, “Listen carefully.”

Although Wei Gongcheng was full of doubt, he obediently concentrated and listened.

He soon heard it; beneath that framework, there seemed to be groans, and there were quite a lot of them!

Driven by curiosity, he approached and peered inside carefully, taking a sharp breath when he saw what was there.

At the very bottom of the framework, a dense swarm of Evil Ghosts was suppressed.

Why was it clear they were Evil Ghosts at a glance?

Their obviously hideous and malevolent appearances sparked an immediate revulsion deep in the heart of Wei Gongcheng, a righteous deity of the underworld.

Some of these Evil Ghosts still retained human shapes, though with grotesque and ferocious appearances, but at least they bore some semblance to humans.

However, a large number of them had degenerated into completely deformed monstrosities, just a glance at which could send chills to one’s soul.

These creatures were pinned down at the bottom, squeezed by the framework like a juicer, with a meager stream of viscous and foul-smelling liquid incessantly emanating from them.

Yet, at first glance, it looked quite similar to the Karma Fruit Power on the framework above.

Unable to help himself, he asked, “Is that…

Karma Fruit Power?”

“Yes,” Chen Qing nodded, “However, it is the unpurified Karma Fruit Power, which can’t be used directly, or else you will also become corrupted.”

“How can it be purified?”

“There are two methods.

First, use the Virtue Power of benevolent spirits.

People who accrue good deeds in life carry Virtue Power after death.

If they believe in you, you can exchange items from here with them for Virtue Power—for instance, longevity in the underworld or better residences, or something else.

You can then use the Virtue Power to purify the malign Karma Fruit Power.”

Um…

may I ask, my lord, aren’t such things as underworld longevity, residences, and those better items formed by Karma Fruit Power?”

“Yes…”

“So, doesn’t that mean I have nothing after all?”

“How can you have nothing?” Chen Qing looked at him as if he were a fool, “There’s profit to be made in the price difference.

How much Virtue Power you trade for how much of those things is up to you.

Surely you are not so honest as to make an equal trade?”

“I….”

Wei Gongcheng’s face twitched fiercely as he listened.

So this righteous underworld deity turns out to be nothing more than a street-hustler?

“And the second method?” Wei Gongcheng asked through gritted teeth.

“The second one involves reform!” Chen Qing said with a grin, “Either through torture or enlightenment with scriptures.

Whatever the method, as long as you can make an Evil Ghost repent or domesticate it, the malign Karma Fruit on them can be purified.”

“I see…” Wei Gongcheng suddenly understood.

No wonder the design included a variety of torturous devices that looked utterly hair-raising—into boiling oil baths, flaying the skin, the Cold Ice Purgatory—all for tormenting and taming Evil Ghosts.

Chen Qing gazed down pensively, “Once these Evil Ghosts are tamed, they can be put to good use.

There are plenty of places where they could come in handy.”

At this moment…

among the dense swarm of Evil Ghosts, a few figures were constantly hiding further inside, evidently avoiding Chen Qing.

Chen Qing had been watching all along, sneering in his heart.

Most of these Evil Ghosts came from the Path of Yin and Yang—many were already monstrous beyond recognition within it, yet he hadn’t expected those few individuals to be among them.

Indeed, the ones dodging view were none other than the members of the Chen Family whom Chen Qing had recently tormented to death.

Previously, with the afterlife bureaucracy not yet established, the souls of the newly dead were uniformly drawn into the Path of Yin and Yang.

Now that the Government Office had been founded, all Evil Spirits that managed to escape into its barrier before being sealed off could be considered as belonging to the Lyuzhou Hell Ruler.

These individuals…

had actually managed to make it inside as well.

But that was also good.

They dared to act against the boss; getting off with an easy death was letting them off too lightly!