The red spider lily blooms on the roadside of the underworld, exuding a special fragrance. It is the companion of the dead on their way home and one of the few colorful embellishments in the underworld.
It is a unique product of the underworld. Unlike the saying “Oranges grown in the south of the Huai River are oranges, while oranges grown in the north of the Huai River are tangerines”, this thing cannot grow at all in the world of the living.
Now, it has been transplanted here. Although this is a special space and a special environment, it is still in the world of the living after all.
Of course, compared to the "wild flowers" on the roadside, Boss Zhou is more interested in the "performance" of the group of people in front of him.
However, when Zhou Ze walked over to check on the condition of those ghosts, he found that their bodies were very thin and their eyes were dull, as if they had hysteria.
The souls of the dead have a shelf life, and this shelf life is not time. For example, even if the soul of a dead ghost finally fulfills its obsession, it can only dissipate with the wind and lose the chance to enter hell and gain reincarnation.
Although the dead souls here have not become evil ghosts, they have long lost their conscious thinking, and only simple soul energy balls remain, which can no longer be considered dead souls at all.
Such "ghosts" would rather go to hell. Even if Zhou Ze forced them to go there, he would not get any results at all.
This made Boss Zhou feel a little upset, as his excellent performance was ruined.
The little girl stood by, bent down, observed it carefully, and said:
"This is normal. The red spider lily is a special species that absorbs the energy of the dead and grows nourished. Of course it can grow on the side of the Yellow Springs Road. After all, there are so many dead people walking on the Yellow Springs Road every moment. Even if a hair falls from each person, it is enough to nourish those red spider lilies.
It's different here. The few red spider lilies that grow here all rely on the offerings of dozens of dead souls day and night. It's like a human juicer, and they have been squeezed dry long ago.
If it weren't for this special space, they would have been reduced to ashes in an instant if they had returned to the sunlight."
"Who is doing this?" Zhou Ze asked.
"I don't know, but we can't touch a person or organization that can do this. The only thing we can do is report this to the higher-ups."
The little girl stretched out her hand and wanted to pat Zhou Ze's shoulder, but she was too short to do so. It was not like before when Zhou Ze was just a toy in her hand and she could let Zhou Ze hold him up and pat him, so she seemed a little uncomfortable.
Zhou Ze reached out and touched the little girl's head.
After a head-touching kill,
The little girl bit her lip.
This stingy man always wanted to take revenge on her for what she had done to him, and repeatedly reminded her that their status had changed a long time ago.
"It's not a good habit to leave half of what you say." Zhou Ze said.
"If we report this to the higher-ups, we can get a certain amount of reward. This reward will be converted into our performance. Generally speaking, the performance should be no less than sending these dozens of souls to hell."
"Why didn't you say it earlier?" Zhou Ze's mood suddenly improved.
However, Zhou Ze soon remembered something else and asked, "Didn't you report the incident in Rongcheng last time?"
The guy in Chengdu is still alive and well. Last time, he took a nap in his bookstore and dropped ghost certificates all over the floor in front of him. Is there nothing going on now
"His case is a bit special. At the time, there were differences of opinion on how to deal with it, and no specific operational instructions were given. It was the instructions we received privately that were linked together. So, if the mission failed, it failed. As long as he doesn't continue to cause trouble, this matter may be dealt with coldly."
The little Loli said.
"Oh, I see."
Zhou Ze reached out and touched the little Lolita's head again. Regardless of her pouting mouth, he even scratched her mouth with his fingers, as if he was teasing his own niece.
However, to be honest, the little Loli is indeed Zhou Ze's niece.
"There are also struggles for power in the underworld. They are not a monolithic entity, right?"
Zhou Ze originally thought that the underworld was like a computer.
The little girl took a deep breath, she looked at Zhou Ze, and suddenly felt like laughing, because she knew whose ghost messenger certificate Zhou Ze was holding. The original owner of that ghost messenger certificate was deceived by Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, and even lost his own Taishan government office, and finally ended up with a very miserable end.
"How different do you think humans and ghosts are?"
The little Loli did not mention the matter of Lord Taishan specifically. Some things and some arrangements were the work of great figures. Even though Lord Taishan had fallen long ago, the arrangements he left behind were not something that a little ghost like herself could interfere with.
"Then let's go. What should we do with these red spider lilies? Collect them?" Zhou Ze asked.
"Send them to hell. They are ornamental flowers in hell, but if they are spread to the human world, they will become something more terrible than poppies, and their impact on the living will be even more terrifying."
Zhou Ze nodded, walked back to his original position, pointed at the hedgehog under his feet and said:
"Is this considered a monster?"
This was the first time Zhou Ze had seen a monster. In the past year, Zhou Ze had mostly seen ghosts and had hardly seen any monsters. However, this monster looked quite low-level in appearance, similar to the monster soldiers he saw in the "Calabash Brothers" when he was a child, with little combat power.
"It's not a monster. You'll know when we dig up this grave." The little girl shook her head.
Afterwards, the three of them left the brothel together and returned the same way. After Zhou Ze walked out, he still bent over and closed his eyes, adjusting himself to calm down. When he opened his eyes again, the archway with lanterns hanging around it that he had entered before had completely disappeared, leaving only a grave.
Xu Qinglang also took off the talisman paper on his forehead and patted his head. Apparently, the talisman paper had quite a lot of effects, a bit like relieving a cold or fever.
"Old Xu, thank you for your hard work." Zhou Ze reached out and patted Xu Qinglang on the shoulder. "You seem to have tools in your car, start digging."
"Why digging up human graves..."
Xu Qinglang instinctively wanted to refuse, but when he saw that Zhou Ze was a patient and the little girl took out her homework book again, Xu Qinglang didn't say any more nonsense, took a multi-functional engineer shovel from the car and started digging.
The reason why this is placed in the car is actually for self-defense. If the knife is placed there, it will be confiscated during security check, so this is placed there. It comes in handy at this time.
In fact, it didn't take long to dig because it was hollow inside. Xu Qinglang only dug for a short while before the bottom collapsed, revealing a pit with more than 20 bungalows.
"This is the area we entered before. In fact, in that town, only the brothel is accessible. The rest of the shops on the street are fake. You can only look at them but cannot enter them. Even for the brothel, there is only an open space on the first floor where people can stand. The rooms above are also painted on."
The little Lolita explained beside her.
There are a lot of talisman papers hanging on the walls of the pit, and there are also shadow puppets pasted there, with different images, but also very lifelike. These are the people who perform and shout on the street, of course, including those young ladies and the bald monk.
Zhou Ze jumped into the pit, bent down and picked up the shovel to start digging according to his memory. After a while, several red things emerged from it, like pomegranates, and there was even red juice flowing out of them.
This smells very fragrant.
"Is this the red spider lily?" Zhou Ze asked.
"Yes, red spider lily." The little girl nodded, "But in a normal environment in the mortal world, it looks like this."
Xu Qinglang also wanted to come over to take a look, but as soon as he smelled a little bit of the smell, his face suddenly changed. He immediately sat cross-legged and began to chant something in his mouth, as if he had to meditate.
His face turned red instantly, so red that it seemed like water could be squeezed out of it, which proves how terrible the effect of the red spider lily is on ordinary people.
Even if poppies are planted on the ground, they still have to be processed before they can become D-products, and they will go through a series of transformations and operations. But this is not the case with red spider lilies. They are just left here, and ordinary people can't stand the smell.
Xu Qinglang was well prepared and had to exercise restraint.
Zhou Ze dug around again and found a few more, and also found the body of a dead hedgehog. This hedgehog should be the one he had killed before, but it should have been dead a long time ago, and it had been dried into bacon.
There was a piece of talisman paper stuck on the hedgehog's body, and Zhou Ze reached out and tore it off.
"You just asked me if this is a monster. I said no, it's just a spirit. The effect is produced by sticking a ghost charm on the corpse of an animal. It's much lower level than a corpse spirit."
Zhou Ze nodded. He did not choose to burn all the red spider lilies. Instead, he took off his shirt and wrapped all these things in it.
"What are you going to do?" The little girl frowned.
"How about this, I'll take these things and find a deserted place to wait, and you guys go back and find me some bottles with better sealing properties. These things will be useful to me." Zhou Ze said.
"Don't play with fire and get burned." The little girl reminded with a serious face.
"You know, I just smelled this stuff and suddenly I felt hungry. I want to eat something. It's much better than sour plum juice or blueberry juice. It's a pity to burn it. I'll make it myself and use it as a condiment before dinner."
For someone who has long been living a lazy life, the problem of sleeping can be solved by hugging Bai Yingying, but the problem of eating, even sour plum juice, is really hard to drink.
With this thing, he should be able to taste delicious food. Zhou Ze felt that no matter how dangerous it was, he had to stay.
“You… you…”
Xu Qinglang on the side seemed unable to resist the hallucinogenic effect of the smell with his Heart Purification Mantra.
She stood up slowly, pointed at Zhou Ze, her face flushed, her expression bright red, as if she was scolding him, and said coquettishly:
"You don't want... my... juice... water... anymore..."
It seems that Lao Xu is really deeply poisoned.
"Wake him up, this makes me sick. I want to throw up."
Zhou Ze pointed at the little Loli.
The little Loli stepped forward, stuck out her tongue, and slapped Xu Qinglang on the neck. Xu Qinglang was like being electrocuted and passed out immediately. But even though he was unconscious, his body was still twitching, as if he was doing something in a dream.
After dealing with Xu Qinglang, the little Loli continued to look at Zhou Ze with a sullen face.
"Don't remind or warn me anymore, it's useless. Food is the most important thing for people." Zhou Ze seemed very domineering.
Little Loli shook her head.
road:
"When you're done, can you give me some?"