Chapter 1 What It Feels Like

What kind of feeling is it to live in a daze for a year?

Zhou Ze didn’t want to recall it.

If he had to describe it,

it was like being held down by a ghost for a whole year.

Being held down by a ghost for a few minutes is already enough to make people uncomfortable.

This lasted for a year, which was really no less than a form of torture, even beyond the common understanding of torture.

Fortunately, Boss Zhou was resilient and survived. If it had been anyone else, they might have collapsed long ago. Whether they could wake up was another matter, and even if they did, they might have become mentally impaired.

After waking up,

Zhou Ze lay in bed for an entire afternoon,

doing nothing.

Of course,

he was holding Yingying.

Yingying was much warmer than she had been a year ago. After holding her body for a long time, his palms could even sweat slightly.

It might also be because Zhou Ze had been lying down for a year and his body was a little weak.

He didn't disturb anyone else. Unlike ordinary people who had just come out of surgery or woken up from a vegetative state, who would frantically call their relatives and friends to report the news, it was very quiet here.

A year

is a long time,

but a year is a short time for the bookstore.

In this year,

besides the old Daoist balding,

nothing else had changed much.

If he had to find something else,

it would be:

Xu Qinglang's skin was better,

Yingying's cooking skills had improved,

the little monkey's fur was longer,

and Lawyer An didn't sleep at the bookstore as often.

At dusk,

Zhou Ze tried to get out of bed slowly.

After lying down for a whole day, his joints would crack when he moved.

But Zhou Ze had been lying down for too long. When he got up and made big movements, the muscles and bones inside his body ached unbearably. He had to adjust several times before he could stand up successfully.

This body seemed to have exhausted its vitality. Although he had woken up, it would take a long time to recover.

No wonder that when Ying Gou had just awakened, every time Zhou Ze borrowed Ying Gou's power, the wounds on Zhou Ze's body were so terrible that he was carried back for treatment like a bloody man.

Although Zhou Ze's strength had increased, making the burden on his body when Ying Gou appeared was not as great as before, this time, after all, he had played too hard, taking a tour of hell. Even with the sacrifices of the Dragon Vein Old Monkey Enforcement Team leader and others, it was obviously impossible to not spend any money yourself and still have a surplus.

Yingying supported her boss like this, slowly walking out of the room, and then step by step, she accompanied him down the stairs.

On the first floor, behind the bar, Lawyer An had his feet on the bar, his hands under his head, and was leisurely shaking his body gently.

In front of him was a liquid crystal TV hanging on the wall, playing an old TV series.

"I want to become an immortal, and be as happy as the heavens..."

When Zhou Ze came down, Lawyer An didn't react. He just opened his eyes, reached into his pocket and took out a card,

and said:

"Yingying, please get me some more of that coffee. I'm going to take it to the operating room next week, in case I don't have enough to drink while I'm hospitalized."

Actually, there's no need to mock Lawyer An for continuing to drink coffee while having kidney stone surgery.

Don't think it's stupid,

Go ask on the street, which of those who smoke doesn't know that smoking is harmful to their health?

Zhou Ze reached out and took the bank card.

Lawyer An yawned,

and then suddenly felt something was wrong.

He turned his head to look at his side,

his eyes widened immediately,

"Boss, you're awake!"

…………

Needless to say, he was cared for and warmed up. Zhou Ze was settled by Yingying in his favorite spot by the window.

On the coffee table,

Zhou Ze's civet coffee and Lawyer An's super cup were soon placed again.

After learning that Lawyer An was going to have kidney stone surgery next week, Boss Zhou suddenly felt a little unbearable when he saw Lawyer An "glugging" coffee.

But sensing the hardness of the bank card in his pocket,

Boss Zhou felt a little more at ease.

While drinking coffee,

Zhou Ze briefly told him about what happened in hell.

Actually,

there wasn't much to say.

First, he smashed a Yama to death,

then he gave the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva three punches,

and then he chatted with the first generation for a while.

If you leave out the year-long process of jumping out of the well and returning to the world, the real story only took two days.

But every one of these things was exciting enough for Lawyer An.

He was very dissatisfied with his boss's understated account.

For example,

he was going to do something,

and he ran into a Bodhisattva on the way,

so he just punched him.

Then he was going to do something else,

and he ran into a Bodhisattva again,

so he went up and punched him again.

The plot was obviously very exciting, very passionate, and made one's blood swell, but in his boss's narration, it gave people a faint feeling of buying a bunch of leeks on the way home from work.

Also,

it made the Bodhisattva look like he was deliberately blocking your way,

begging you to hit him.

Was it because he used to stand too low, so he didn't know that Bodhisattvas had this hobby?

What Lawyer An didn't know was that

Zhou Ze was indeed very excited the first time he beat a Bodhisattva.

But the excitement waned after the second and third times.

No matter how great something is, it becomes ordinary after doing it many times.

Lawyer An regretted that he hadn't been able to witness this scene with his own eyes,

but,

this might also be a fortunate thing,

otherwise, Lawyer An might not have been able to come back at all.

It was also from Lawyer An that Zhou Ze learned that the entrance to hell had suddenly been closed a few days after the trip to the Northeast.

The passage for yin and yang to enter and exit was blocked. In the past, the ghost messengers in the yang world could also go to hell, but now they can't.

Moreover,

after "Qing" woke up,

Lawyer An had communicated with Qing,

and confirmed one thing,

that even existences of Qing's level,

couldn't go to hell anymore.

It was like a high wall,

already erected in the middle of yin and yang.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to jump over the wall, and you couldn't even find a ladder.

"Then what about the bookstore's business this year?"

Boss Zhou wasn't really concerned about the ghost money, although, of course, the more the better. But what Zhou Ze was more concerned about was how those ghosts went to hell during the year that the yin and yang were blocked.

The order of yin and yang is like a Tai Chi symbol, not purely static, but relatively static.

Now that this side is closed, it means that the original balance has been broken, which will definitely trigger a chain reaction.

And Lawyer An's answer surprised Boss Zhou even more.

"They can't go down."

"They can't go down?"

"Yes, Boss, they can't go down at all. Even the higher-ups in the enforcement team can't go down, let alone other dead souls.

Most people's souls dissipate after death because they can't enter hell.

However, this has also led to a situation where there are more fierce ghosts."

After death, many people don't have such deep obsessions. Even if they do, it's a matter of luck whether they can become fierce ghosts and continue to stay in the yang world.

Therefore,

most people's souls can't go to hell after death, so they can only wander in the yang world. After a few days, they may evaporate.

This is what is commonly known as: the soul flies away and scatters.

As for the fact that the number of fierce ghosts and vengeful ghosts has increased, it is also a very normal thing.

"A few months ago, a group of dead souls came to the entrance of our bookstore, begging us to send them to hell, but we couldn't send them.

At first, we just thought that there was something wrong with hell. It wasn't the first time that the road to the Yellow Springs had been temporarily closed. We thought it would be fine in a while.

But who knew that this time, the closure would last so long. We were still raising dozens of dead souls in the bookstore at that time. They were like stranded passengers.

Later, there was really no way. We couldn't turn the bookstore into a haunted house, right?

So we let them leave. I guess they've all dissipated by now."

The "dissipation" here definitely doesn't mean scattering.

"Is there no news coming from hell?" Zhou Ze asked as he took a sip of coffee.

"No, the news has also been cut off. The entire hell is like it's completely closed. The ghost messengers and constables in the yang world have indeed been much busier than before this year. Although fierce ghost incidents occasionally occur in various places, the problems aren't that big, and most of them can be resolved in time.

But this is only a year. No one knows what will happen if it continues.

The scariest thing is that,

because of the separation of yin and yang,

there are no new ghost messengers to replenish, and ghost messengers are a very consumable profession. One or two years is still bearable, but what if it's three or five years, or even ten years?

Hehe,

this yang world will probably change."

It's like a city where the number of criminals far exceeds the number of police. You can imagine what the outcome of this city will be.

Zhou Ze took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled.

Things seemed to be very serious.

At least,

although the Ten Yama Kings were a little passive and lazy in the past, the basic yin and yang operations of the underworld were still guaranteed, but now, after those eunuchs came to power, they seemed to be really unscrupulous.

As for the reason for the closure of yin and yang, Zhou Ze could guess some of it.

The Ten Attendants had just come to power, so they naturally needed to reorganize the power of the underworld.

The Ten Yama Kings had almost voluntarily abdicated. With the Ten Attendants' own strength and the support of the Bodhisattvas, it was really not difficult for them to control the underworld.

But if they really wanted to get this rusty old car running again,

a major purge was inevitable.

Therefore, during this period, closing the yin and yang channels to facilitate the major purge was also a normal thing. This kind of thing had happened more than once in history.

But to break the order of yin and yang in this way, which means that in the past year, the dead have lost the opportunity to be reborn...

This matter

is really cruel.

"Boss, things are really serious,"

Lawyer An pursed his lips, cooperating with the boss to lay the foundation for the conversation.

Although he hadn't spoken to the boss for a year, when the boss woke up, Lawyer An found that his instincts, which had been dormant for a year, had reappeared!

Zhou Ze nodded,

his brows furrowed,

falling into deep thought and twitching,

then

he said very seriously:

"Yingying, get me some more candy."