bullyxtreme Chapter 43: My head fell off from laughing.
Chapter 43: My head fell off from laughing.
Wang Wu swung the bench at Xia Changfeng with both hands.
Clearly, he was too simple-minded and too physically strong. He never considered the disparity in strength between himself and his enemy before taking action; if he disagreed, he would just fight.
Li Tingyun then understood why he was the first to log off in the original text.
Because he's way ahead of everyone else on the path of courting death, rushing headlong to his doom!
As expected, Wang Wu's actions resulted in him not even touching a hair on the other person's head. A gust of wind shattered the bench he had used as a weapon into pieces, with wood chips flying everywhere and falling down like steel nails into the ground.
Xia Changfeng smiled coldly, wanting to teach him a lesson, but seeing Li Tingyun shake his head slightly, he gave up.
Wang Wu looked down and was dumbfounded to see that his instep was covered with splinters of wood.
The pain may be late, but it arrives eventually.
He let out a howl, then picked up both legs and hopped on one foot at a time, enduring the pain to pull out the thorns.
This comical scene caused the little girl to tug at the red thread around her neck and giggle.
I laughed so hard I almost fell over... I laughed so hard my head almost fell off.
Wang Wu was stunned. He heard a "thud" and the girl's head fell to the ground and rolled to his feet.
Just then, her face was turned upwards, her dark, jet-black eyes staring at him, her mouth still open, laughing incessantly.
Wang Wu was petrified on the spot.
A pair of withered, emaciated old hands reached out, calmly picked up the girl's head, and placed it back on the cleanly severed neck. After turning it left and right, it was restored to its original state.
"Hey, how many times have I told you not to make such big movements? When Grandpa's teahouse business improves and he earns lots and lots of merit, then he can ask someone to fix your death face to look better... At that time, you can turn your neck however you want, and you can laugh loudly, and Grandpa won't stop you."
"My goodness, this little devil is terrifying!"
Wang Wu, enduring the stinging pain in his feet and rubbing his frightened heart, bounced back to Li Tingyun and said, "I've heard that after a person dies, their spirit retains the expression and appearance of the moment they died. The uglier the death, the uglier the soul. I never thought this rumor was true."
"Everyone knows that the border market is a well-known black market in the area, but they have forgotten its original name."
Mei Shiyu said slowly, "This place was originally called the City of the Wrongfully Dead."
"The City of the Wrongfully Dead..."
His words evoked Li Tingyun's memories of the original book's plot.
It is said that after a person dies, their soul returns to the underworld, but they may not be able to be reincarnated immediately and enter the cycle of reincarnation. This is especially true for those who die violently, unjustly, by suicide, or have heavy karmic burdens. These spirits are all somewhat flawed. They may have died tragically or in strange shapes, or their three souls and seven spirits may not be complete. In any case, they are all defective products.
These flawed spirits are not allowed to continue westward to the underworld after entering the gates of hell. The underworld officials will drive them to the "City of the Wrongfully Dead". Here, they need to find ways to earn merit and repair their souls. Only when their souls are fully repaired will the underworld officials at the entrance to the underworld let them pass.
In the beginning, they didn't have many ways to earn merit. They usually did hard labor for the ghost realm, such as responding to the Ghost King's call to repair the eighteen levels of hell, or mining magic stone mines, building Ghost King temples... They were like bricks, moved wherever needed, and they had no workers' compensation. If they fell into hell and couldn't be retrieved, or if the magic stone mine collapsed and their souls were scattered, no one would care.
Later, the number of spirits in the City of the Wrongfully Dead increased. The main reason was that too many people came down from above, and everyone had to queue for reincarnation. The queue grew longer and longer, and the Road to the Underworld was so congested that it couldn't accommodate so many souls. So the Ghost Kings decided to expand the City of the Wrongfully Dead by building more cities. Anyone who came later, even if their soul was intact, would have to stay there for a period of time.
In this way, the City of the Wrongfully Dead evolved into a transitional zone where souls temporarily lingered, and the rules of reincarnation changed accordingly. All the dead, regardless of whether their souls were intact or not, had to accumulate merit before they could be reincarnated. Whoever accumulated merit quickly and in large quantities had the opportunity to travel the road to the underworld first.
People work their whole lives in the mortal world, and they have to continue working for others in the underworld. Moreover, even though they work so hard to accumulate merit to be reincarnated, they will most likely still be forced to be beasts of burden in their next life.
At this point, some troublemakers quit. Why should they, who were either already serving as beasts of burden or on their way to becoming beasts of burden, also want to ride on the necks of beasts of burden and be the master for once? These daring and enterprising individuals voluntarily gave up the opportunity for reincarnation and chose to cultivate demonic arts.
Batch after batch of demonic cultivators gradually appeared in the City of the Wrongfully Dead. The Ghost Kings scoffed at this, letting them be, for they would soon discover that cultivating the demonic path was even more damn agonizing than being a beast of burden! Everything is difficult at the beginning, difficult in the middle, and even more difficult at the end. These demonic cultivators appeared in spring and died in autumn, and in the end, they all had to obediently go and reincarnate.
As the number of undead in the land surged, more and more cities of the dead were built. These undead were all newly deceased souls, and their gathering in groups was quite a spectacle. In addition, with the continuous appearance of demon cultivators, the city of the dead became a mixed bag, with all sorts of people mixed together. The cities of the dead became more and more like the world of martial arts, from bartering to the circulation of demon stones, from earning merit to opening up trade... one market after another was born.
In the end, the origin of "City of the Wrongfully Dead" was gradually forgotten, and the name "Quechang" took its place, becoming a famous black market in the Three Realms.
The original meaning of "border market" is a place for trade and exchange. The ruler of the territory tacitly approves all transactions and autonomous behavior that occur within the border market. The dead can also hand over the magic stones they earn from doing business, which will be recorded in the merit book.
Nowadays, there are also some "intruders" who are not creatures of this land, sneaking into the market to conduct "underground transactions." The ghost guards turn a blind eye to this, ignoring it when they are in a good mood, and making fun of it when they are in a bad mood, and they don't dare to resist.
"The border market...you can earn merit points here too..."
Li Tingyun muttered to himself.
Speaking of this, he remembered that he still owed the system 600 merit points.
I couldn't help but have a wild idea: since they're both called "merit," wouldn't it be wonderful if the merits earned in the underworld could be exchanged with the system?
Just when he thought he was just having a "wishful thinking" moment, a clear and pleasant system notification sound suddenly rang in his mind.
[001 Congratulations, host, on activating the "Merit Exchange" green channel! This opportunity was secured for you by customer service mortgaging their own sleep privileges in the "black room"!]
From now on, our customer service team will be available around the clock! You can light up the screen and give us a five-star review as encouragement.
Whatever you think of will come true.
Li Tingyun exclaimed excitedly, "Wang Laoliu, you are truly my good brother!"
Now, I finally don't need to eat, drink, poop, or sleep anymore, haha!
[Hahaha, I'm finally not human anymore! I'm finally becoming a cold machine! I'll never have to experience the agony of waking up in the morning like having my coffin lid ripped open again! Yay, screw sleeping, let's party! We'll be forever young, forever going crazy in the middle of the night!]
[Host, let's stay up all night together and cultivate immortality together!]
"..."
Li Tingyun knew that he had probably really gone mad.
"Sixth Brother, considering how much you've sacrificed for me, if there's anything I can do to help..."
【Yes, yes, yes! Of course! Host, I need you to earn another 10,000 merit points as soon as possible to help me activate free Wi-Fi! I want to go online, I want to connect with the outside world, I want to overcome hunger and be myself again!】
"Ten thousand merits?!"
Li Tingyun wanted to curse when he heard this, but after thinking for a while, he said, "However, it's not entirely impossible... I have a grand plan to make a fortune. If it works, I can revitalize the business in the market and earn magic stones to exchange for merits without even lifting a finger... But it's definitely not possible right now. This is a long-term plan."
[Host, are you sure you're not targeting me with your CPU?!]
"What, you think I'm lying to you? But what other way do you have but to rely on me to make money for you? Remember, right now, I'm your sugar daddy. Don't even mention CPUs, even if it's the ICU, you'll have to endure it!"
[Host, I advise you to be kind...]
Li Tingyun suddenly sensed something amiss and turned to intercept a thief's hand reaching towards his waist.
Wang Laoliu was engrossed in his conversation with him and didn't even notice the surrounding movements displayed on the control panel monitor, which showed a panoramic view of the eight camera positions.
Li Tingyun suddenly made a move, snapping the thief's wrist with a "snap." Only then did Wang Laoliu belatedly realize what was happening, lifting his body off the back of his chair and staring intently at the screen.
"Little friend, it's bad to touch other people's things without permission. You need to change that habit."
The mischievous little girl popped her head out from under the table, her outstretched fingertips just touching the Qiankun bag hanging at Li Tingyun's waist.
The little girl couldn't speak; she just pointed at the swaying bag, clapped her hands, and giggled.
At the same time, Li Tingyun sensed something unusual moving in the Qiankun Bag, as if something was eager to break free and escape.
He reached out and pulled out a pagoda that was constantly causing trouble.
Locked inside is that fox spirit.