Chapter 100: Tail Ship 18
"Here?" Jiang Yuelu looked around. It was remote, quiet and very desolate.
There is no grass growing and not even a bird can fly over.
Drake asked mysteriously, "Have you ever seen a black market with a big sign and full of people welcoming people in? This is a high-end place where only a few people can come and spend money."
"Come with me first."
He turned around and walked back, and after a few steps, half of his body sank into the ground. It turned out that the abandoned warehouse at the end of the alley was a hidden entrance that led directly underground.
The door was very narrow and the ceiling was not high. Jiang Yuelu could only bend over to enter. But the further he went in, the more spacious the room became.
At the same time, he smelled a sweet fragrance.
Matthew was surprised, "Oh my god, I live in the basement on the east side and it smells terrible!"
“Same thing in the basement here,” Drake said.
"But..." There is an underground passage in front of me that smells sweet.
"I'm not lying, boy. The walls here are painted with precious spices, and the expensive incense balls circulated in the ghost market are burned here all night. Only here."
"If you're so surprised by a mere entrance, I'll have to keep a close eye on you after you open that door so you don't suffocate."
A noble golden door is inlaid at the end of the road, surrounded by beautiful flowers. From a distance, it looks like an oil painting leading to another world.
Matthew was shocked to see the flowers that were sold at high prices in the ghost market being thrown casually on the ground. Some of them near the door had been crushed into powder and were covered with dirty footprints.
Someone treated these expensive flowers carelessly.
"Just one of them will make Theresa happy for the whole winter..." He thought of his daughter standing outside the window reluctant to leave, and felt his heart was crushed in two.
"No, this can't be a real flower." Matthew shook his head and strode forward.
As soon as he stretched out his hand, he was pricked by the sharp thorns on the rhizome. The pain was so real that when he got closer, he could see the dewdrops flowing on the petals - everything told their true value.
Even such an expensive flower is only worthy of standing outside with a precious gate.
So what kind of world is on the other side of the door?
Is it incomparable glory or complete depravity?
The group was speechless, even Drake, who was the most talkative, stopped talking, and quickly passed through the underground passage and arrived in front of the golden gate.
As they got closer, they could see the details of the door. Jiang Yuelu noticed that there was a narrow opening where the handle used to be, which was roughly big enough to fit a thin card.
Derek pulled out a card and shoved it in, explaining to them, "A pass. We can't get in without it."
He explained to Jiang Yuelu and the others that these cards also have different levels of authority, depending on the cardholder's position, identity and assets on the ship. Of course, their assets are calculated in units of happiness.
"Different cards allow you to visit different places. My card is considered lower-middle grade, so there are some special places I can't visit." Drake didn't care, "But it's definitely enough to broaden your horizons."
With a creak, the door opened.
"Welcome, Ms. Phil."
Miss……
Drake muttered, "Oh, don't look at me like that. I can't control this. The card was sent by that guy Gurian!"
After passing the golden door, we came to a noble circular hall. The spiral staircase went down to the depths, and each floor was full of people. However, here, they should all be ghosts in human skin.
A roar came from the bottom, and Matthew was shocked. "What...what happened?"
"Oh, don't be afraid." Drake pointed down and said, "Have you heard of the Death Fighting Arena? It's a one-on-one duel. Only when one side dies can the final winner be determined. The winner can take all the happiness of the loser, and the organizer will also provide double happiness rewards."
"Because it is a very cost-effective business, the fighting arena is considered one of the evergreens in the black market, with hundreds of rounds held every day."
Matthew was shocked. "Double reward?"
He had never seen so much happiness!
Drake said meaningfully: "The organizer is not a philanthropist and will not do unprofitable business. If we can pay double, we can naturally win more happiness than double."
Jiang Yuelu probably guessed it: "Bet?"
“That’s right!”
The whistle blew, and the fighting field ushered in the twelfth round of life and death competition of the day. On the left was a two-meter-tall, muscular man entering the field, and on the right was a skinny little boy who was no more than fifteen years old.
Jiang Yuelu couldn't see the contestants' expressions because they were too far away, but he felt that the child's walking posture was very strange.
Derek: "Poor boy. They must have injected him with drugs."
"Medicine?"
"Yes. A drug that can excite ghosts. Don't humans have it too? Stimulants and the like... I'm getting off topic."
"After injecting this drug, cowardice and fear will be like a snowball thrown out, moving further and further away from your body. Your soul will be invaded by another kind of madness until all your remaining energy is burned out."
Drake looked at the staggering child and said, "He looks like he is about to collapse. This game will be the end of his life and the final destination after his death."
Matthew couldn't bear it. He couldn't help but think of Theresa when he saw the child.
"Why... do this? This is not fair..."
"Because the effect is very good." Drake said quietly: "Have you ever calculated how much happiness the organizer can earn from such a competition?"
"What is fairness in the face of such huge numbers?"
"No one wants to watch a game where the outcome is already decided. Everyone likes to see a reversal, to see the weaker side fight with all their might to defeat the stronger side that is sure to win."
"There are many little brats in the fighting arena who come in for the first time. They will simply think that the big guy will definitely win, so they will throw everything they have at him, but the result will definitely make them lose everything. Don't think that the big guy will have a much better experience than the little boy."
"When he loses, he will become a discarded pawn, and those ghosts who lost all their wealth because of him will blame him for it, and he will be on his way to despair."
Matthew: "But—it's not his fault..."
"No one is wrong. It's the rules that are wrong, and it's the devil who made the rules." Drake glanced at Jiang Yuelu without leaving a trace, "Okay, let's keep going."
Next, we passed by an empty and quiet cemetery, but all the coffins in this cemetery were parked on the ground and not buried in the soil. The lids of the coffins were not closed, and a gray-faced ghost lay inside. His expression was extremely calm and peaceful, with a satisfied smile.
Jiang Yuelu looked back and saw the ghosts in the other coffins had the same expression.
They seemed to be having a sweet dream.
"The Cemetery of Nightmares." Drake said, "Here, you can spend a small amount of happiness to lie in a coffin and have a sweet dream. In that dream, you can experience greed, jealousy, resentment... and other sins, which are undoubtedly the best nutrients for ghosts. If possible, I would also like to come here every day to lie down and rest."
Matthew: “That sounds great.”
The fighting arena dealt a heavy blow to Matthew, and the cemetery slightly restored the image of the commercial district.
Drake curled his lips, "The black market is called the black market for a reason. Although this place is good, it has a bad side. And if I don't tell you, you won't be able to tell."
Matthew really couldn't tell.
Jiang Yuelu: "Will you gradually become addicted?"
Derek was surprised: "Why are you again-Okay...it's true."
"The target customers here are the poor and middle-class people who often don't dare to bet in the fighting arena because the risks there are too great."
"They would rather choose something that will pay off if they invest, so they come here and see the advertisement that they can get their dreams by paying a little happiness. They try it with a half-believing attitude, but they don't expect it to be true."
"How wonderful it is in dreams. In dreams, they have everything. They can become the richest family in the ship, and can easily spend 10 million happiness. They will become high and mighty tycoon leaders, and the ghosts who drive them away with whips on the streets during the day will bow humbly to them when they see them."
"They do whatever they want in their dreams, to seek revenge, to vent their anger. There are all kinds of dreams here."
"There will be no more troubling practical problems, no more worries about where to sleep today... In other words, the coffin even solves their rest problem."
Drake shook his head: "How can such a good thing happen?"
"The boss here has already made plans. After you become addicted, he will slowly raise the price, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand at a time, until you can no longer afford it."
"But by then, you had already gotten used to lying in the coffin. After you lay here all day, your relatives and friends gradually left you, and you slowly lost touch with everything in reality. Therefore, after wandering around in the empty space outside, you still came back here."
Matthew said angrily: "In the final analysis, these guys' willpower is too weak. If it were me, I would never abandon reality - how could I abandon Theresa?"
Drake: "I admire your courage, Matthew. Maybe the cemetery has no use for you, but can you say you can't find an ad you like here?"
"What if it's related to your daughter Theresa? There are some fantasy amusement parks built specifically for children in the back..."
"Or perhaps a magic potion that brings the dead back to life? Or a magic mirror that allows you to meet the departed ghosts again... Don't you want poor Theresa to meet her mother?"
Matthew remained silent, but he had to admit that he was really moved.
Drake knew that he would give in, so he brought Matthew in to let Jiang Yuelu see that human hearts are as fragile as ghosts. Even a ghost like Matthew who was "forced" to walk into the business district would be squeezed out of everything by the rules.
Drake turned to Jiang Yuelu, "What about you, Yan? What will you do?"
Jiang Yuelu: "Me?"
The chance to get rich, the fantasy dreamland, and the mirror to see the dead... It sounds very irresistible. But he cares about something else.
From a modern perspective, the commercial area of the stern ship is too close to reality. The fighting field and the nightmare cemetery can be found in reality.
Which gambling house in real life is not a den of money?
Like a cemetery, flowers that provide a place for people to indulge in intoxication and debauchery bloom quietly in the dark corners of the city.
When faced with money and interests, people will fight with each other and be left with only their bad natures like evil spirits. They abandon their conscience and touch the red line of morality without any scruples.
Now, it is nothing more than replacing the human world with a tail ship, replacing money and silver with happiness points, and replacing people with... no, it cannot be said that they are replaced with ghosts. After death, people become ghosts, and ghosts are still the extension of people. Therefore, these bad behaviors not only did not disappear with the death of people, but became more corrupt because ghosts were unrestrained.
……etc.
He seemed to understand why Drake had brought him here.
Derek looked at him: "You finally know."
"That damn rule not only divides despair and happiness into two places, two groups of ghosts leading completely different lives. It also allows all the filth to continue to circulate and ferment in the darkness. Do you know how much happiness and how many sad wails can be born in this commercial district in one night?"
He shook his head repeatedly, "Matthew, Matthew, poor Matthew."
"When you were so excited that you cried over a paper money cake, how could you know that the children in Happiness Village could get ten free small cakes every day?"
"Some people are crying and some are laughing."
Drake took a few steps forward and stood on the edge of the high platform, opening his arms towards them. "Come on, let's go meet the friendliest and most hypocritical jackal."
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