Chapter 131 Tailor-Made (Bonus Chapter) Summoning the Soul, Finding the Dungeon Medium...
Zhou Fangdong was transported from Liwan Hospital to Chuyun Temple.
The Taoist priest who was shrouded in zombies was still sitting under the tree, meditating, just like before.
However, this time he was the only one in the courtyard; Zhang Qingyang and the group of children had disappeared somewhere.
Zhou Fangdong walked to the tree, but before he could speak, Zhang Zhiwu took the initiative to say, "Young friend, is there anything I can help you with this time?"
"Taoist Master, do you know how to summon souls? I have over a hundred ordinary people here, um... one hundred and nineteen people, who have lost their souls. I'd like to ask you to help me find them." Since everyone was so familiar with each other, Zhou Fangdong didn't stand on ceremony and directly stated his needs.
"One hundred and nineteen people?" Zhang Zhiwu's voice rose an octave. "How could so many people have lost their lives..."
He stood up and patted his long robe: "I can indeed summon spirits, but there are too many ghosts wandering in the mortal world now. I can only hold a summoning ceremony once a day, otherwise it may attract a large number of ghosts to the area around the summoning site, and it will be very troublesome to clean them up then."
Zhou Fangdong expressed his understanding, "It's alright, finding one person's soul is enough, I'll handle the rest... Taoist priest, what props are needed for the soul-summoning ceremony?"
Zhang Zhiwu stroked his beard. "All I need is the person's personal clothing, birth date and time, and name."
"Alright, I'll head back to the hospital now. I'll call you over later, so please don't refuse." Before leaving, Zhou Fangdong paused, unable to contain his curiosity: "Master, why are you the only one in the temple today?"
“My little apprentice took on a job, helping the Bureau of Supervision draw soul-summoning talismans and soul-soothing talismans…” At this point, Zhang Zhiwu paused, as if he had realized something, “The Bureau of Supervision is handling the case of the more than one hundred people who lost their souls?”
Zhou Fangdong nodded. "Yes."
It seems the Bureau of Supervision also considered summoning spirits. The reason they asked Zhang Qingyang to do part-time work was probably because they needed too many talismans, and the Bureau's team of Taoist priests couldn't draw them all.
While investigating clues about the cause of the person's unconsciousness, they also prepared items for summoning spirits. Criminal investigation and metaphysics were used in tandem. The hospital did not stop treatment. The supervisory bureau was as responsible and reliable as ever, and did not abandon the patients just because the hospital had become an apartment property.
"It seems my efforts to urge him to draw talismans these past few days haven't been in vain; they've come in handy." Zhang Zhiwu's voice carried a smile and a hint of relief, as if he was very happy that the talismans his little apprentice had drawn were finally working. "Although talismans aren't as quick to take effect as summoning rituals, they don't attract ghosts, so they're still a good method."
Zhou Fangdong asked curiously, "Did the children in the Taoist temple also go to the Supervision Bureau with Zhang Qingyang?"
"Well, because he had to work a day, and the Bureau of Supervision provided meals, those little kids went with him. He planned to take those kids to the Bureau of Supervision's canteen for a day of free meals."
Zhang Qingyang actually dared to take that group of kids to the Supervisory Bureau's canteen for a free meal... Zhou Fangdong remembered that the Supervisory Bureau's canteen was personally certified by their investigators as terrible.
In order to avoid eating the cafeteria food, those investigators secretly cooked hot pot in their dormitories and climbed over the wall to get takeout. Even when they wrote their self-criticisms, they did so reluctantly.
After their chat, Zhou Fangdong returned to Liwan Hospital.
When he appeared in the sixth-floor ward, the ghost nurses and ghost doctors had already adapted to their positions and were busily working in the hospital.
Apart from the occasional horrifying screams of patients, there are no major problems.
Because most of the medical staff in the hospital came from the Inspection Bureau, although the ghost nurses and ghost doctors died tragically and looked somewhat bloody, to the medical staff of Liwan Hospital, they were all comrades-in-arms who fought alongside them. Even if they had never met them in life, they had seen them in the memorial wall and were very familiar with them.
So the medical staff were only surprised for a moment when they first saw the ghost doctor and ghost nurse, and then they were quickly moved by the model workers' dedication to their work even after they died, which made them even more motivated to work.
Zhou Fangdong had just returned to the hospital when the system notification suddenly sounded:
[Please deposit the salaries of one hundred ghost doctors and ghost nurses into the system within one week.]
Zhou Fangdong paused for a moment, then suddenly had a bad feeling.
I was so engrossed in the lottery that I forgot about getting paid.
"System, how much salary do you need in total?"
Each ghost nurse and ghost doctor needs 12 sticks of incense to offer each month, for a total of 1200 sticks.
Zhou Fangdong quickly calculated it using his phone's calculator.
With 200 Ghost Coins in his health bar, he can make 88 sticks of offering incense. That means he needs to spend 2,400 Ghost Coins a month to make offering incense for the hospital. Fortunately, it's not too expensive; the rent for one room on the second floor can cover it.
"Let's deal with the incense offerings after we've resolved this God incident. System, please remind me."
【OK】
Zhou Fangdong entered a ward occupied by a comatose patient, randomly selected a patient, stripped off his short-sleeved shirt, and then found his birth date and name in the medical record.
After confirming with the doctor that the patient's name and birth date were correct, Zhou Fangdong took out the [Remembrance Letter] from his inventory.
This supernatural item was obtained when he unlocked the Ghost Postman encyclopedia. Its effect is to tear off a piece of letter paper, write the name of any ghost tenant on it, and burn it. There is a high probability that it will summon that ghost tenant. The higher the ghost tenant's favorability, the higher the success rate.
The zombie Taoist priest Zhang Zhiwu has a 100% favorability rating towards him, and he had just given him a heads-up, so there's no need to worry about the props malfunctioning.
After writing his name on the letter, Zhou Fangdong searched for a lighter for a long time... This letter of longing wouldn't burn on its own. There were no lighters at the hospital, and the medical staff and investigators from the supervisory bureau didn't smoke or drink. He was so anxious that he was about to take out a kerosene lamp.
The system couldn't stand it anymore, so it somehow managed to get a lighter and put it in the system shop. In the end, Zhou Fangdong spent 1 ghost coin to successfully obtain the ignition item.
...The supernatural props actually need to be lit with a lighter, that's ridiculous.
As the paper burned, Zhang Zhiwu's figure slowly appeared in the ward.
This old Taoist priest was very professional. After arriving at the hospital, he didn't chat. He asked for the patient's personal clothing and birth date and time, and then immediately began the soul-summoning ritual.
He pulled out a bright green bell from the wide sleeve of his Taoist robe and gently shook it in a rhythm of three slow and three fast movements.
Every time the bell is jingled, the emerald green seedling above the bell handle also sways its leaves.
The penetrating sound of the bell echoed throughout the ward, continuous and ethereal. Although only one bell was ringing, it created the effect of many bells ringing simultaneously at different frequencies.
While shaking the Three Pure Ones Bell, Zhang Zhiwu's other hand was also busy, drawing talismans in the air while chanting in a deep voice: "Wandering souls, where do you linger? Descend the three souls, let the seven spirits come. Zhang Dapeng, soul, return quickly! Soul, return quickly!"
The bell rang louder and louder. Finally, Zhang Zhiwu's hand, which was ringing the bell, paused, as if it had caught something. Then he pulled hard and put the bell directly on the patient's chest, while his other hand, which was drawing a talisman, touched the patient's forehead.
The next moment, the patient, who had been fast asleep, suddenly opened his eyes.
The patient named Zhang Dapeng seemed to have just woken up from a nightmare. He was breathing rapidly, his chest heaving violently, and large patches of cold sweat seeped from his forehead and neck, quickly soaking his pillowcase.
Zhang Zhiwu let go of his hand and moved the bell away.
Although the soul-summoning ceremony was successful, his voice became even more serious: "Young friend, this is not an ordinary loss of soul. It cannot be resolved by soul-summoning and soul-soothing talismans alone. Only a Taoist master of similar strength to mine can personally perform the soul-summoning ceremony to bring the living soul back."
Zhou Fangdong sighed inwardly. Sure enough, the main god's methods of abduction couldn't be easily countered with talismans.
"I understand, Daoist Master. Don't worry, leave the rest to me."
Now that one of the patients has woken up, things are much easier. Just ask him if he has been in contact with any strange people or things recently.
However, after patiently questioning him, Zhou Fangdong was surprised to find that Zhang Dapeng not only couldn't remember what he saw when he lost his soul, but also didn't feel that he had come into contact with anything strange recently.
He owns a car repair shop. His job is to repair cars. When he's off work, he plays on his phone. He's unmarried and doesn't have many friends.
Besides Zhang Dapeng, there were only two other employees in the repair shop. The two employees also came into contact with the customers he dealt with, but he was the only one who got into trouble.
Zhou Fangdong frowned.
Even asking the person directly yielded no useful information. How could this be? Was there something wrong with the way he asked the questions?
Seeing this, he simply asked a ghost doctor to summon the investigators stationed at the hospital.
When the investigators arrived, they also brought the results of the investigation from the supervisory bureau—the supervisory bureau had also found no useful clues.
The supervisory bureau first investigated everyone these patients had been in contact with over the past two days, then checked their communication records and emails, even their social media chat logs and posts, but found nothing unusual. The patients' social circles didn't overlap at all, and they couldn't find any reason why they all fell into a coma at the same time.
To prevent any omissions, the supervisory bureau even collected and checked all their mobile phones. Apart from some common software that everyone uses, there was nothing in common among the software on their phones that could be used as a copy medium.
That's strange, how exactly does the main god pull people into the dungeon?
When the car repair shop owner named Zhang Dapeng heard Zhou Fangdong and the investigator talking about cell phones, he said somewhat embarrassedly, "Um, could I have my cell phone for a moment?"
Because he had just taken those phones to be tested, the investigator was carrying a large bag containing all the patients' phones.
No supernatural energy fluctuations were detected on the phone. Seeing that Zhang Dapeng wanted the phone, the investigators found it in the bag and returned it to him.
As a result, after Zhang Dapeng got the phone, he fiddled with it for a couple of minutes, then suddenly his head lolled to the side and he passed out.
Zhou Fangdong and the investigator were both taken aback.
It turns out the phone was faulty after all!
Zhou Fangdong immediately took the bag containing the cell phone from the investigator, then picked up Zhang Dapeng's cell phone as well and threw it directly into the inventory.
Because all one hundred-plus phones were neatly stored in the bag, it only took up one inventory slot.
"System, please check what's wrong with these phones."
Since the monitoring bureau's instruments can't detect any paranormal fluctuations, let the system check it.
[Beep... 119 entrances to the God Points System detected... System erosion in progress...]
[The points system cannot be removed at this time. The host needs to enter the instance for the system to continue operating.]
Zhou Fangdong took out the bag and pulled out a mobile phone.
"System, what exactly did the Supreme God do?"
[Host, the phone you are holding right now belongs to a freelancer. Please open the food delivery app and find the red envelope page.]
The "speed-based grabbing of free large-amount red envelopes" activity on the food delivery red envelope page hides a dungeon medium created by the main god. The process of grabbing red envelopes is equivalent to touching the dungeon medium.
"ah?"
[Another housewife's phone had a shopping app where a merchant's discount coupons also contained a hidden coupon created by the God of War. Clicking to claim it might grant her a copy of the God of War's content.]
[What Zhang Dapeng just checked on his phone was the live stream he watched before falling asleep. He won a red envelope (a digital gift of money) while watching the live stream; the prize was a free display car given away by a 4S dealership as part of a promotion. Suspecting he was mistaken, he wanted to verify the prize draw, so he opened the red envelope page on the video account, and was then pulled into the dungeon.]
The supermarket owner, being a merchant himself, knew that payment platforms would launch "scan for red envelopes" promotions to stimulate offline consumption and proactively subsidize users. Therefore, although he didn't know how to use them, he habitually searched for "earn red envelopes" in the payment app to claim today's red envelope, and then…
"Then I also received the main god's dungeon medium."
Yes, and energy fluctuations only occur the moment a red envelope is clicked. Unclaimed or claimed red envelopes do not produce any supernatural fluctuations, so human instruments cannot detect them.
[Once you touch the medium of the main god's instance, you can be transferred into the instance by the main god at any time. The time when all those humans fell into a deep sleep yesterday was the time when the instance opened.]
Zhou Fangdong sighed helplessly.
The main god's operation is brilliant. No wonder the supervisory bureau couldn't find out. It's like they tailored a medium for everyone.
Because the process of actively claiming the red envelope is required, the selection of recipients is quite random.
In addition, since everyone opens a different software page, and the red envelopes disappear after being claimed, the supervisory bureau did not consider this possibility.
"System, this customized dungeon entrance medium can only be used by those who have received the red envelope to enter the dungeon. Others can't use the medium, right?"
【Yes】
To enter the dungeon, I guess I'll need to find another God's Red Envelope.
Given the erratic nature of the "God's" red envelope distribution across various apps, even if Zhou Fangdong were to swipe his fingers until they were worn out, he probably still wouldn't be able to get a single red envelope from it.
Furthermore, now that the dungeon has already started, it's unlikely there will be any new mediums.
"System, I've put these phones back in my inventory. Can you use these media to locate the copy?"
[Yes, it's been found. The medium is pointing the way to the Ghost Market.]
Zhou Fangdong was stunned for a moment.
The moment he heard the system mention the Ghost Market, his first thought was that his house had been robbed.
The main god controlled a ghost in the ghost market to create a dungeon. This ghost collected the souls of all those who were in a deep sleep and was the main body of the entire dungeon.
Luckily, it was just a ghost, which scared him so much that he thought his paper craft shop was in danger.
"System, do you know roughly where that ghost is?"
Ghost Market Auction
Wow, they even found the exact location.
"Tongzi, you're the most reliable one. Thank goodness for you."
【Host, don't worry. Leave the search for the Supreme God to me. As long as you give me a clue, even if the Supreme God has turned to ashes and been scattered in the sea, I can still find it】
The moment anything related to the Supreme God was mentioned, the system's emotionless electronic voice rose to a fever pitch, revealing no concealment but a burning desire to reduce the Supreme God to ashes.
Zhou Fangdong searched through his inventory but couldn't find what he wanted.
"I think I had some kind of VIP ticket to the Ghost Market Auction..."
[The reward for main quest 3, you claimed it but found it useless, so you just threw it on the table in your room.]
"Then I'll go back and look for it. I need to go back to my apartment anyway when I go to the Ghost Market."
It seems we still have to go through all this trouble to snatch up the auction, but instead of the auction items, we're snatching up ghosts.
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