CHAPTER 411: CHAPTER 173: PAPER MONEY, TEAM ANNIHILATION (5K)_3

...

Guanzhong County. Lin Jue’s body was lying in the hospital, in a lost-soul state, basically like a vegetable, but just a tiny bit better than that.

The Scorching Sun Department gave them the result, but they still couldn’t let it go. They hired someone to summon his soul—didn’t work. In the end, worried that Lin Jue was used to living large and might suffer losses in the Netherworld, they burned a pile of stuff they thought might help him out over there.

What they didn’t know was, the only thing that could actually reach Lin Jue would be the one thing they thought was most useless—paper money.

Though even that paper money, they’d paid way more than what you’d normally pay for the cheap stuff at a funeral shop.

They just got someone to take a look, and everyone said Lin Jue was only in a lost-soul state—not dead yet, so there was hope. They didn’t mind the expense.

The Guanzhong County chief hadn’t slept in over a day—his head felt like it was about to explode.

Because they’d found even more people who’d played the Netherworld game, crossed over, and just never came back. The very first person to literally die from it showed up here in Guanzhong County.

This one was a professional who’d officially registered at the Scorching Sun Department—no threat at all, nothing shady about him.

His profession? Chef—well, more accurately, pastry chef. The stuff he made looked, smelled, and tasted amazing, with this special flavor nobody else had.

Whenever the Guanzhong County Scorching Sun Department had guests from other counties, they’d always invite this pastry chef to whip something up.

No one knew why, but the pastry chef somehow decided to try this obviously-wrong game—and then, bam, sudden cardiac arrest. Couldn’t save him.

The Guanzhong County chief dragged Lord Zhu over to check, and once they were completely certain the guy was dead, the news went up the chain—barely five minutes later, word came back that Scorching Sun Departments in several other counties had confirmed the same thing. All at about the same time: people dead.

An hour later, the numbers came in.

During that short period, give or take less than three minutes, all the counties plus a couple of autonomous prefectures recorded seventeen confirmed "Netherworld players" who died, all from sudden cardiac arrest.

So far, nine of them were definitely professionals. Of the other eight, about half very likely were too, just hadn’t registered with the Scorching Sun Department.

And so, the Scorching Sun Department chiefs of every county jumped on an online meeting.

After the meeting, Nanwu County’s Cai Qidong looked worried as hell.

Nanwu County actually had it relatively easy. Yeah, you could say they ran into the most dangerous situation in the last day or so, but it was also the quietest.

As of now, no one had died in Nanwu County.

Every "Netherworld player" they’d tracked down so far had made it back alive.

But there was still bad news: so far, nobody had found where Wen Yan’s manor was. Only that Little Thief had seen Wen Yan.

The Netherworld was just too dangerous—sending a student in to risk their neck? Cai Qidong really wasn’t a fan of that idea.

Worse still, nobody knew what the real danger in the Netherworld even was, or how it managed to wipe out over a dozen professionals in just a few minutes.

Even if those professionals weren’t exactly the beefiest of the bunch.

Now Cai Qidong had even less hope for the people who hadn’t lasted long in the Netherworld game. In comparison, Wen Yan—who’d been inside the whole time—might be their biggest source of intel.

More importantly, he needed to find a way to reach Wen Yan, see how to get Wen Yan back out.

If Wen Yan didn’t return—well, just thinking about that Demon King living at the Wenyan Family home, not to mention that Great Killer Star who even the Demon King is polite to—neither of them really gives a crap about him as the minister...

Cai Qidong was losing sleep over it.

Especially when he thought about the ever-increasing number of "ornaments" hanging from the lamp posts in North Virtue City—it was getting to be too much.

In the end, Cai Qidong personally went to see Little Thief, Fu Guangfei, and met his parents.

He gave his word, prepared the best gear he had, then organized all the intel they wanted to exchange into a list for Little Thief to memorize and relay.

Little Thief wasn’t too worried—when he learned this so-called game was actually ultimate hardcore mode, he got even more fired up.

Especially when it came to passing messages—perfect fit for his profession. He’d been thinking about how Wen Yan mocked him last time for just picking locks—he’d been down about that for quite a while.

He even agreed Wen Yan had a point—if a thief just picks locks and steals stuff, that really is kind of lame.

The Scorching Sun Minister himself coming to talk, giving him a mission, passing info into the Netherworld—now that was something.

From what they figured out the next night, when he went in again, it should be the same place as where he came out last time—at most, no more than a little ways off.

So Little Thief lay down on a bed in the Scorching Sun Department, poked his phone, and promptly crashed out.

...

In the Netherworld, Wen Yan gazed northward.

A few hours earlier, he’d occasionally felt faint tremors in the ground—very slight, almost unnoticeable. The first few times he barely noticed, but then he lay down with his eyes closed, and when the tremors came, he could sense them.

Right now, he was sure something was going on in the darkness to the north—he could only feel the tiny tremors now and then, and there wasn’t a single sound.

Given how empty and dead everything was here, just endless flat ground, nothing to block sight or sound, combined with his superhuman senses (being alive made him even more sensitive here), whatever was at the epicenter of those tremors had to be at least a hundred kilometers away.

And that fiery cloud he’d seen yesterday—the light had torn through the fog in the sky. Just eyeballing it, he estimated that place was several hundred kilometers away at least.

Thinking about it, Wen Yan glanced to the side, sitting at the gate in a chair, fiddling with Brother Fu’s crossbow. He loaded the string, concentrated a little Yang Energy at his fingertip to spark a flame, lit a candle mounted to the bow, then lit a stick of incense, and aimed into the darkness.

When the Grave Walker stepped out of the darkness and into the pool of dim light, Wen Yan casually asked,

"Damn, you scared me. Did you find anything over there?"

"Didn’t find a thing..."

But just then, the incense stick shot out with a whoosh; as it passed through the flame at the front of the crossbow, the whole stick burst into flame.

With a sizzle, glowing red like an incense stick at its hottest, it slammed right into the Grave Walker’s chest.

Wen Yan hefted the crossbow with a cruel grin, strolling towards him.

"I’m bored out of my damn mind here—I’m about to lose it. You come here looking for fun, huh, you bastard?"

Yang Energy started flaring up around him. As Wen Yan got close to the Grave Walker, he saw the other’s form, threatened by the Yang Energy, start shifting shape—becoming a pointy-faced, monkey-cheeked stranger ghost.

Wen Yan stepped up, planted one foot on the guy’s chest, crossbow aimed right at his forehead.

"You better spill, tell me everything I want to know, or else—I am so bored, I might start counting my leg hairs."

The ghost was being crushed, nearly unable to breathe, his whole body almost set on fire. The incense stick in his chest burned up entirely, basically igniting the guy.

He had no idea how Wen Yan could tell he wasn’t legit.

Wen Yan snorted. "Did I even need to look?"

The Grave Walker—he never showed up in person, Wen Yan always saw that line of text above his head first. No need to bother identifying him.