The Terror of the Heavens Begins with Gu

Chapter 301 Carrying the Corpses of the Underworld and the Yang Energy and Lifespan Stealed by Detective Li
After a moment of contemplation, Li Zhen continued, "You rebuilt this underworld according to your own wishes? Since you have such abilities, why do you know nothing about the whereabouts of the gods of the underworld?"

"I'm not a god, you overestimate me." The man wiped his mouth, leaned back in his chair, and snapped his fingers with his right hand.

Li Zhen's gaze immediately shifted.

Everything he saw vanished. He seemed to see through the restaurant, through the entire underworld, and finally saw a dried-up corpse.

The yin energy emanating from that corpse was stronger than any ghost Li Zhen had ever encountered.

At first glance, the corpse was not large and seemed to be just an ordinary corpse. However, upon closer inspection, Li Zhen realized that the strange building in the wilderness he saw seemed to be carried on the back of the corpse.
Even though he had witnessed many strange and bizarre scenes, Li Zhen was still shocked when he saw this.

How big was that corpse?!

Or is the underworld actually quite special, just a shrunken, special region?
The terrifying aura emanating from the corpses caused Li Zhen's body to tense up more and more.

In an instant, the corpse vanished.

Li Zhen's gaze returned to normal.

The corpse gave him a strong sense of oppression, and he only breathed a sigh of relief after the corpse was out of sight.

“That is me. In fact, I am already dead. What you see is just my remnant soul,” the man said. “However, the one in front of you is just one of my… clones. I can create countless clones like this.”

As he spoke, everyone in the restaurant, including the waiters, transformed into his likeness, appearing before Li Zhen, which Li Zhen found extremely eerie.

The man sitting in front of him snapped his fingers again, and the people instantly transformed, as if they had no relation to each other.

Li Zhen felt a chill run down his spine.

This guy is even more bizarre than he thought.

If he hadn't sensed no hostility from the other party, he would definitely be thinking about how to escape by now.

“It’s too boring here, and I can’t always go to the human world, so I can only entertain myself like this,” the middle-aged man said. “When I woke up, I found that I was a corpse and had some special connection with the underworld here. After seeing many ghosts wandering in the underworld, I built this underworld. My abilities are not strong, so I can only build the underworld like this.”

Li Zhen pondered, "Are you a ghost-like being formed from that corpse? Then that corpse..."

"I should be considered a ghost, but a rather special one," the man said frankly. "I know absolutely nothing about my life before I died."

Li Zhen said, "Could it be... a deity?"

"It's hard to say, I've never seen an immortal," the man said. "You should have noticed by now that not only is there a problem in the underworld, but also with the other immortals and gods. However, I also suspect that my identity in life was unusual, because I have never seen anything more terrifying than my corpse."

"You've managed the underworld for so many years, even if you haven't discovered anything, don't you have any guesses about the situation there?"

"I do have some guesses, and I can tell you, but you can judge for yourself whether my guesses are problematic."

"Please speak up."

"Regarding my existence, I believe... I was deliberately left here to manage the underworld. Without me, the underworld would be in complete chaos."

"Without you, the underworld would indeed not be the underworld."

"Secondly, I feel that the underworld has been split apart, and what remains here is only a corner of the underworld. Not only the underworld, but the human world also seems to have undergone great changes."

Upon hearing this, Li Zhen's heart skipped a beat, but he asked calmly, "What makes you say that?"

The man shook his head: "It's just a feeling. This underworld is not only different from what you think, but also different from what I think. A large part of its operation relies on the yin energy provided by my corpse. If it weren't for my corpse, this place simply couldn't function."

He pointed downwards: "This place is more like a huge magical artifact. From the eighteen levels of hell I set up all the way to the place of reincarnation, I can only use the rules within it, but I can't change anything."

Li Zhen, deep in thought, asked, "If this is only a part of the underworld, then where did the rest of the underworld go?"

The man shook his head again: "I don't know. I've been trapped here for many years and can't even go to the human world often. How would I know these things?"

After saying that, he suddenly asked, "Do you know why I've been so open and honest with you?"

Li Zhen looked at the man curiously.

The man's eyes were fixed on Li Zhen's eyes, and he smiled slightly, saying, "I smell a very special scent on you."

"What is the taste?"

"A rotten, old, malevolent smell, filled with resentment—this odor seems to originate from me? Is it also a smell from the underworld? How strange, how can you have this smell on you?"

Upon hearing this, Li Zhen naturally knew what the other person was referring to.

He had killed ghost messengers and offended the underworld in certain places, so he carried the evil thoughts of those underworld beings on him. Generally speaking, ghost messengers in certain places would develop evil thoughts towards him as soon as they smelled this scent.

However, the manager in front of him, who called himself "Death," did not harbor any ill will towards him.

On the contrary, I developed a liking for him because of this?
This made Li Zhen even more puzzled.

Seeing that Li Zhen seemed to have thought of something, the man sniffed and continued, "You must have entered some place and come into contact with something that attracted this malice. I hate this kind of malice. If you ask me why, I can only tell you that I don't know either. This malice comes from my instinct."

"Since you are against that evil thought, I am naturally willing to help you."

Li Zhen never expected that the malice he carried would actually help him at this moment.

He thanked the man and said, "I did enter a strange place and saw a powerful ghost who claimed to be a ghost messenger. He had a very wicked personality and wanted to kill me, but I killed him instead."

The man tapped his fingers on the table, pondering, "Fake underworld officials? I hate this stale smell. I'd be much happier if you could kill a few more of those guys. I know there are some things you might not be comfortable saying, so you don't have to tell me."

The man smiled and said, "I'm in a good mood today, so let me tell you something interesting."

He pointed upwards: "You carry a heavy causal relationship; your fortune is connected to the entire human world."

Li Zhen frowned.

The man explained, “Everyone born into this world will have karmic connections with others, and their own fortune will be intertwined with that of the human world. But you are different.” “You had almost no connection with the human world before, but in a short period of time, you suddenly have karmic and fortune-related connections with it.”

His deep-set eyes swept over Li Zhen's entire body.

Li Zhen suddenly felt a tightness in his body, as if the corpse buried somewhere in the underworld was also looking at him.

After observing Li Zhen for a while, the man shook his head in confusion: "It's really strange. Why do you have so many messy entanglements of cause and effect and destiny on you? Strange, really strange..."

Li Zhen asked, "How will this affect me?"

He guessed that the chaotic cause and effect and luck the other party mentioned were probably the result of his relationships with people in those mission worlds after he had experienced many mission worlds.

In the world of "Out of the Cage," Li Zhen experiences for the first time the backlash caused by changing the fate of the characters in the mission world and the overall development trajectory of the mission world.

After absorbing the "Destiny Demon" and making progress in the path of destiny, he came into contact with the backup plan left by Wu Qiyuan. After gaining a deeper understanding of cause and effect and fortune, Li Zhen also vaguely sensed many traces of cause and effect and fortune entanglement on himself.

After completing his mission in the mission world, he did not completely sever his connection with it.

The rune only took him away from the mission world; it didn't sever his causal ties with it.

On the contrary, the main reason the runes brought him to the mission world, besides completing the missions and eliminating evil spirits and ghosts, was to create some causal and fortune-related connections.

After sensing this connection, Li Zhen became even more convinced that the mission worlds he visited were real worlds in some sense, rather than illusory worlds created by someone.

"As for the impact, I can't see it, but these entanglements of cause and effect and fortune are indeed strange. I have never seen such special entanglements of cause and effect in a person."

The man observed Li Zhen for a while, opened his mouth as if to say something, but froze in place as if he had forgotten his words.

Finally, he closed his mouth, and when he opened it again, his words had little to do with what he had just said: "You've killed quite a few evil spirits here, leaving behind a lot of trouble that I'll have to deal with, which will take a lot of my time. If you have nothing else to do, you can return to the human world."

This is clearly an attempt to get rid of them.

Without mincing words, Li Zhen quickly asked, "If a ghost uses special methods to extend the life of someone who was supposed to die by sacrificing its own lifespan in its next life, allowing that person to live for many more years, is there any way to make up for the ghost's lifespan in its next life?"

After hearing this, the man fell into thought: "Since she uses her next life's lifespan to make up for someone else's lifespan, then she should naturally pay the price in her next life. That's the way of heaven."

"But it's not entirely hopeless. If the person who was granted a lifespan has accumulated enough merit, they can use that merit to make the ghost's next life a little better."

"I can't influence this matter too much, but if I pull some strings, I can probably make that person's next life a little easier."

“According to the original trajectory of her fate, the female ghost might have died painfully after regaining consciousness, but I can bring that process forward, making her die unconsciously, thus minimizing the impact of her death.”

"In that case, her reincarnation in the next life will depend entirely on luck."

"Is there no other way to let her live a peaceful life like a normal person in her next life?" Li Zhen said. "Although that female ghost is a ghost, she did a lot of good deeds during the decades she stayed in the human world, and she has accumulated a lot of merit."

After pondering for a moment, the man sitting opposite Li Zhen said, "If you accumulate enough merit, I can think of some solutions, but... are you willing to pay a price for it? Such as your lifespan."

The man's eyes returned to Li Zhen, his tone surprised: "You should have died, but you didn't. Someone changed your fate..."

As he said this, his figure swayed and almost vanished from the spot.

After finally regaining his footing, he said with lingering fear, "It can't be said, it can't be said..."

Li Zhen was somewhat shocked to see this.

The problems he has can't even be talked about?

Li Zhen glanced subconsciously at the rune on his right hand and fell into deep thought.

It wasn't actually a person, but rather this rune that completely changed his fate?
Did this manager see certain causes and effects, and thus a backlash occurred?

The man shook his head and said to Li Zhen, "You are different. If you are willing to give up a year of your lifespan, you can naturally help that female ghost."

Li Zhen asked, "How much longer can I live?"

The man said, "Can't you steal other people's yang energy and lifespan? Actually, losing a little lifespan won't have much of an impact on you."

Li Zhen was startled again: "I can steal yang energy and lifespan? What do you mean by that?"

The man pointed at Li Zhen's body: "Although the yang energy in your body has merged with you, it is still slightly different from your true self. I can smell it."

"However, after a while, this difference will definitely disappear. Your method of stealing yang energy, though wicked, is ingenious."

The yang energy stimulated by the "nine deaths and resurrection" method is not his own yang energy, but yang energy stolen from somewhere.
Although similar speculations had arisen before, Li Zhen was still somewhat shocked to hear someone explicitly state this speculation.

Many thoughts flashed through his mind, but Li Zhen forcibly suppressed them all.

Finally, he calmly said, "If it doesn't affect me much, I can help them this once."

He paused, then changed the subject, saying, "I want to find a female ghost in the underworld..."

Before he could finish speaking, the man interrupted, "If you know your birth date and time, find it yourself. I'll help you. If there's nothing else, you should hurry back to the human world."

Li Zhen, shameless as ever, made his final request: "Could you take some pieces of flesh from that corpse for me?"

The man stared intently at Li Zhen with his deep-set eyes.

Li Zhen asked somewhat embarrassedly, "Can't the items on that corpse be sent out?"

After a long pause, he said, "No, it's just that this is the first time I've seen someone ask me about my remains as soon as we meet. I feel a little...surprised."

"What do you want my remains for? My remains are somewhat strange. If you take them, it might have some negative effects on you."

(End of this chapter)