"So now you understand what I mean by imprisonment, right?" Lu Ziming shrugged helplessly.
"To survive in the burial ground, one must desperately earn ghost money without the slightest slack. White Stone Town relies on ghost money to imprison everyone."
People here may seem free, but in reality, it's worse than being in prison.
In prison, at least you don't have to work yourself to the bone every day. But in a burial ground, without money, you can't move an inch. Every day you wake up, you're desperately trying to earn money, yet even then, you can't save much at the end of the year.
"Isn't this just thirty-three taels of silver?" Xiao Chuxia suddenly realized.
"What is thirty-three taels of silver?" Yang Ming asked curiously.
"The so-called 'thirty-three taels of silver' was a means by which ancient rulers controlled the people. The people's annual income was thirty-three taels of silver, while their basic annual expenses required 36 taels of silver. This shortfall of three taels of silver made the people exhausted every day."
Working day and night to make money, they have no time to think, let alone the energy to resist.
That 100 million ghost money can buy a way to leave is just empty promises, giving you a vague hope, something to strive for, so you don't end up exhausted to the point of despair and suicide.
“Yes, you’re right, that’s what thirty-three taels of silver means.” Li Xiaoru nodded repeatedly, pretending to be an expert.
Fang Xiu glanced thoughtfully at the Yuelai Inn, and he roughly understood Zhou Qingfeng's purpose in building it.
Before meeting the Ghost God, Zhou Qingfeng was the savior of mankind, and he must have hated ghosts. He wanted to lead mankind to victory and was willing to fight on the front line, but not all spirit masters were willing.
Many people surely hold the belief that if the sky falls, someone tall will hold it up.
They finally became Spirit Masters, and before they could even enjoy life, they're being sent to the front lines? What gives them the right?
It's not like nobody goes.
But Zhou Qingfeng clearly disagreed, so he designed White Stone Town, a town that was not a prison, but was even better than a prison.
All spirit masters who enter the burial ground must kill monsters here day after day, year after year, in order to survive.
The more strange creatures you kill, the fewer strange creatures will enter the real world.
The group continued walking and soon passed a pawnshop.
The pawnshop was very old, with half of the sign missing and severely faded, and the overall tone was very dark, resembling a black and white photograph.
Lu Ziming pointed to the pawnshop.
"This is where you exchange ghost money. The pawnshop has a detailed record of how many strange creatures you've killed, which can be used to exchange for money. Also, the way to leave the burial ground is here. Once you've collected 100 million ghost money, you can exchange it for the method to leave from the pawnshop."
“Brother Lu, I have a question,” Xiong Tianguang suddenly asked. “What if you come to Baishi Town on your first day and haven’t earned 100,000 ghost coins yet? Wouldn’t you be doomed?”
Moreover, to get here, you need to take a ferryman's boat. At the time, none of us had any ghost money. If it weren't for Brother Hugh earning some ghost money from Wei Xin, we wouldn't have made it this far.
Lu Ziming replied, "You can ride the ferryman's boat even without ghost money, but you will need to give up your spiritual energy."
"Spirituality?" Everyone was slightly taken aback.
"That's right, it's spirituality. There are two currencies in White Stone Town: one is ghost money, and the other is spirituality."
Because White Stone Town needs energy to function, when you hunt down the supernatural beings, those that die will be absorbed by White Stone Town and transformed into the energy needed for its operation.
The same principle applies to spirituality; even without ghost money, one can still use spirituality for transactions.
If you did not use ghost money to ride the ferryman's boat, then each of you will be forced to have one percent of your spiritual energy extracted.
However, I urge you never to use your spirituality as currency unless absolutely necessary, because the spirituality that is extracted is a permanent loss.
"What!? Permanent loss?" Everyone was immediately shocked.
"Brother Lu, do you mean that if my spirituality is 61% and I'm at the early stage of the fourth tier, once one percent of my spirituality is extracted, I will drop to the peak of the third tier?"
Lu Ziming nodded solemnly: "That's right. I stayed in the burial ground for three years, risking my life for three years, and in the end I only reached the early stage of the fifth rank."
The reason my promotion was so slow is because I once made a deal with spirituality.
Because you're hunting monsters outside Whitestone Town, you might encounter some powerful monsters at any time and get injured.
Once, I was seriously injured for three days. For three whole days, I could only lie in the Yuelai Inn and was unable to go out to earn money. I had already spent all the ghost money I had.
But I cannot leave the inn; to leave is to die. In my severely injured state, I am utterly incapable of resisting the gray mist. If I were to continue staying here, my spiritual energy would be drained, one percent of it each day.
Upon hearing this, Fang Xiu finally understood why the zombie Wei Xin, despite having stayed in the burial ground for so many years, still possessed the strength of a fourth-tier cultivator.
So there's such a thing as extracting spiritual energy.
When you can't make money, you can only live by selling your spirituality.
Zhou Qingfeng truly has a ruthless mind. Not only does he make the people of Baishi Town work themselves to the bone every day, but he also uses this method to limit their strength in order to prevent the emergence of too powerful spirit masters who could break the rules of Baishi Town.
Day after day, year after year, the battles never end. No one can guarantee they won't get hurt. Once injured, without a source of ghost money, they can only wait to be harvested.
In this situation, everyone is already struggling to survive, let alone trying to improve themselves; they can only be laborers killing monsters for the rest of their lives.
"Brother Lu, what are we doing in Baishi Town now? We should be out hunting monsters as soon as possible. The rest of us can't even scrape together 100,000 Netherworld Coins, which isn't enough to stay at an inn," Xiong Tianguang said solemnly.
Xiao Chuxia panicked upon hearing this. She had the least spiritual power among them, and if she couldn't gather 100,000 ghost coins, she would definitely be the first to be killed by the gray mist.
"Yeah, yeah, Hugh, let's go kill some ghosts and make some money!"
Unexpectedly, Lu Ziming smiled slightly and said, "You don't need to worry. You can stay at my house tonight. My house can withstand the fog just the same."
"Your home?" Yang Ming was immediately stunned. "You bought a house in Baishi Town? That's amazing! You're a role model for working people!"
Lu Ziming gave a wry smile: "I wish I could afford a house in Baishi Town. I'm renting."
"Does Baishi Town still offer rental services?"
"Well, these dead people can be traded, so I found a dead person and rented his woodshed."
The buildings in Whitestone Town can withstand the gray fog, but of course, the inns are the safest.
"Rented a woodshed? How much is the rent per day?"
"Three hundred thousand ghost money a day."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
