It says my soup was too bland.
The Netherworld Fire can burn away all the souls of the dead. No one in the underworld can withstand the Netherworld Fire. Even ghost messengers, once burned by it, will find it difficult to recover without external help. How was Gu Lili able to withstand it?
Before Guan Nan could cast his spell, another ball of fluorescent green floated out from Gu Lili's forehead and headed straight for the dark green ball. It fought and tore at the ball, eventually swallowing it little by little and turning it into an even larger ball of fluorescent green fire, which then slowly returned to Gu Lili's forehead.
"How did I get back?" Gu Lili rubbed her eyes and looked around.
"You're drunk," Guan Nan said coldly.
Only then did Gu Lili realize that she was lying on the other person's lap in an extremely ambiguous position, and the other person's large hand was on her shoulder.
Gu Lili jumped up from the sofa in a flash: "Ah, you, you, you... do you have one?"
Guan Nan couldn't help but sneer: "Ha, no, why don't you go to the banquet hall and ask who grabbed my hand first and wouldn't let go?"
"Huh?? This?"
"Didn't you return the Netherfire to Zhong Kui after you used it last time?"
Gu Lili was startled: "We have to send it back?"
Guan Nan's lips twitched. She was so angry that she didn't know where to begin. This ancient Netherworld Ghost Fire was a treasure of the underworld. After she borrowed it and used it, she didn't even want to return it.
"I was thinking I'd need it again next time, and it's just a small piece, so I can keep it here."
"Then you can have Zhong Kui's job too. You'll be in charge of punishing ghosts one by one."
"No, no, no, Guan Nan is joking. I'll return the Netherfire tomorrow."
"You were drunk today, which caused the source of Meng Po and the Netherfire to fight within your body, damaging your spirit. Come to Guan Nan Hall on your days off to have your spiritual energy purified and your spirit repaired."
"Can I have dinner at your place tonight?"
For thousands of years, Guan Nan has never encountered such a rogue. Transforming spiritual energy is already an immense blessing, and this guy actually wants to... freeload!
"Whatever you want." Guan Nan said helplessly, then activated the teleportation to return to Guan Nan Palace.
The next day, a sudden alarm clock woke Gu Lili from her deep sleep. After Guan Nan left the night before, she had fallen asleep on the sofa in a daze.
Gu Lili pressed the alarm clock and glanced at the time again: "I'll sleep for another ten minutes."
When the alarm clock rang again, Fangfangfang had already brought breakfast to Meng Po's residence, while Gu Lili was wrestling with her messy head against the cushions and pillows. She didn't want to get up, and she thought it was the pillows resisting her. She wanted to conquer the disobedient pillows.
"Lady Meng Po, it's time to wash up and have breakfast."
"Life is boring for ghosts..."
"Today's breakfast is jianbing guozi (Chinese crepe)."
"Coming right away..."
Gu Lili took a big bite of her jianbing guozi (Chinese crepe) before realizing something was missing. Suddenly, she exclaimed in surprise, "Where's 389?"
"Here, Lady Meng Po... I was also drunk last night." Hearing Gu Lili's call, 389's weak voice came from the second floor.
"Then come later. Fangfangfang and I will go to the Yellow Springs to make soup first."
Before reaching the Yellow Springs, the winding procession of souls still stretched out in a line before the Bridge of Helplessness. Gu Lili walked to the soup pot, activated Meng Po's essence to drip into the pot, and after swinging the ladle 20 times, she prepared to ladle the soup.
"Ding ding ding~"
Fangfangfang's phone rang; the screen read "Birth Quality Inspection Bureau".
"Ah? What? Yes, yes... I'll tell the adults right away."
After hanging up the phone, Fangfangfang looked solemn. She took a deep breath and sighed, then said to Gu Lili, "Lady Meng Po, your soup... is too diluted."
Upon hearing this, Gu Lili dropped her soup spoon in fright and shuffled over to Fangfangfang, asking, "Huh?"
“In recent days, the reception point at the end of the River of Oblivion has been found to have souls who still remember their obsessions from their past lives. This can only be caused by the soup you made. Moreover, the souls that have been reincarnated after you took them in are probably also carrying their obsessions from their past lives.”
"The problem is that this happened suddenly, and no one taught me how to make soup. How about this, I'll double the dosage, and after I finish the soup, I'll ask them if they forgot."
Gu Lili walked back to the soup pot and went through the process again. When she dripped the essence into the soup pot, she hesitated for a moment. To prevent such a thing from happening again, she dripped it twice more, muttering to herself, "This time there's enough."
Instantly, the pot boiled, and the fluorescent green aroma was quite different from before.
"This time there will definitely be no problem." Gu Lili smiled and carried a large bowl of green soup toward number 150 who was in line. The soup was so green that it was unsettling.
Number 150 shakily took the soup bowl: "Drink, I'll drink it right now."
Seeing that the other person had finished drinking and put down the soup bowl, Gu Lili leaned closer and asked, "Number 150, do you still have any lingering attachments to your past life?"
After finishing the soup, Number 150 looked drowsy and did not respond to Gu Lili. Instead, he walked along the Naihe Bridge towards the Wangchuan River.
Gu Lili looked into the distance, then scratched her head: "Did I give you too much?"
"My lady, Lady Meng Po, I'm here." A figure hopped and skipped over from afar.
"389, why are you still wearing yesterday's zombie outfit..."
"I've already asked for permission. I can wear whatever clothes I like as my work uniform. Ghost life is long, so just be happy." 389 joked with Meng Po with a laugh, then pointed down and said, "Look, I altered this short skirt myself."
Gu Lili glanced down at 389's lower body and saw her long, shapely legs clad in black stockings and high heels with red soles. She also saw that her zombie official robes had been altered into a bodycon skirt, and the robes themselves had been modified to fit her waist better. The yellow talisman that had originally been on her official hat had been moved to the side to avoid obstructing her view. What an absolutely stunning ghost!
"Let's get to work, you beautiful devil." Gu Lili leaned closer and whispered in 389's ear, "They said the soup I made before was too diluted."
"Huh???" 389's pupils dilated in shock.
"Shh, this is soup with double the dosage, can you share some?"
"No problem, I guarantee I'll complete the task."
As usual, 389 stood by the table serving soup, carefully observing whether the deceased souls who drank the soup showed any unusual behavior. When 178 did not take the soup bowl, she gave Gu Lili a wink, and the other person understood that "something is coming up."
"Lady Meng Po, I don't want to drink the soup to be reincarnated."
Looking up, the speaker was a young girl who looked to be no more than 20 years old. Her head was bowed low, her arms were tightly wrapped around herself, and she was wearing a milky white dress that was stained with a large pool of blood. Dried bloodstains were all over her mouth, her once white swan neck, and her slender legs that were exposed under the dress.
"Fangfangfang, please check it out."
"Yes, Lady Meng Po."
"The deceased's name is Wang Yufei, her age at death is 24, and her cause of death is complications during childbirth at an unlicensed clinic."
After seeing the cause of death, Gu Lili felt a pang of heartache and slowly approached Zhou to ask, "Number 178, is there anything you haven't done yet?"
"Lady Meng Po, I... my boyfriend and I started dating in high school and went to the same university. He said we would get married after graduation, but... but he ended up marrying the daughter of the boss of the company where she interned."
When No. 178 got emotional, two lines of bloody tears flowed down her face. At first, she would gently wipe them away with her hand, and the bloody tears spread across her face and dried quickly. But the bloody tears flowed more and more, dripping onto her milky white dress and forming crimson polka dots.
Gu Lili sighed, extended her finger, and gathered her essence, gently touching 178's forehead. The other person stopped shedding blood and tears, but their eyes and expression remained filled with resentment.
"The child is his? He refused to marry you, but you got pregnant with his child?"
"No, he was keeping it from me until I found out about his chat history with that girl, and that's when I found out they were already engaged. He lied to me, saying he was bringing me for a medical check-up, but he was actually there to get rid of my baby. But that unscrupulous clinic made a mistake, causing me to bleed to death."
Hearing this, 389 stomped his feet in anger, put down his soup spoon, walked up to 178, put his hands on the other's shoulders, stared straight ahead and said, "Number 178, you're so pitiful! You're making my liver hurt! You scumbag, you should be torn to shreds!!"
Number 178's eyes were bloodshot, his gaze fixed on the soup bowl on the table: "I hate it too, I hate it so much, for myself, and for my unborn child, so I don't want to drink the soup to be reincarnated."
Seeing that the situation was about to get out of control, Fangfangfang quickly stepped forward and said to No. 178, "If you drink the soup and are reincarnated now, you will have enough points to live a happy life. But if you insist on not drinking the soup and being reincarnated, then we can only send you to the special soul disposal center."
"Special Soul Processing Center? What kind of place is that?" Gu Lili asked, puzzled.
“Some souls are too attached to reincarnation, but we cannot let them wreak havoc on the human world. So we imprison them in a special soul treatment facility, and wait until they are eventually moved and sent to the underworld to drink soup and be reincarnated.”
"What if they can't be moved? Do they have to stay there forever?"
"If they cannot be reformed, or if they are deemed unsuitable for reincarnation after evaluation, they will be imprisoned in the next level, which is the bottom of the Sea of No Return. They will remain there until they are refined by the seawater and never be reborn."
Seeing that the other person was still as cold and aloof as ever, Gu Lili's eyes lit up, and she changed her tune, sneering as she approached and said, "Sister Fangfang..."
"No... Lady Meng Po, Number 178 wants revenge, it's not as simple as just being reborn and seeing a living person." This time, Fangfangfang anticipated Gu Lili's thoughts and firmly rejected the sweet talk she was offered.
"How about we go dream? The one opposite Sweet Dream Baby last time..." 389 held up a finger and tilted his head, looking like he was trying his best to think.
"Brother Nightmare?" Gu Lili exclaimed.
Gu Lili turned her head and put on that fawning face again, gently shaking the other person's arm: "Sister Fangfang... it's okay to make dreams come true, right?"
"If you have enough points, that's fine, but 178's resentment runs so deep, can it be dispelled by a dream?" Fangfangfang looked at 178 with a worried expression.
"How many points does she have now? How many points does Nightmare require?"
"Nightmare points doubled to 2 million." Fangfangfang took out her phone and operated it, then looked at Gu Lili: "178 ancestral points remain, now you have 2.2 million points."
"Huh~" Upon hearing this, 389 eagerly came over and said, "Sister Fangfang, number 178 has so many points. The old lady who participated in the Tangshan earthquake relief only had 700,000 points."
Fangfangfang made a series of operations on her phone, then turned the screen up to 389 and said, "This girl must have accumulated a lot of merit in her past life. She has a lot of points left over from her past life, but our public relations department does not have the authority to pry into the past lives of the deceased."
The phone screen kept flashing a red X, with the words "No query permission" clearly written below.
389 was somewhat discouraged and went to the side to mutter softly, "This girl is pitiful. She did so much good in her past life, how come she's still not very happy in this one..."
"Cause and effect is a law of nature, which even Lord Guan Nan cannot fathom," Fang Fangfang said calmly.
"389, the usual rule, you go ahead and serve the soup to the back of the line. I'll go talk to number 178." Gu Lili stood on tiptoe and looked towards the back of the line, where the souls of the dead waited quietly in line for their soup.
"Okay~" 389 was already very familiar with her work process and Gu Lili's strategic deployment, but she felt a little regretful that she could not participate in every "Dream Realization Operation".
After Gu Lili finished explaining, she turned around, took No. 178's hand, and led her to sit on the stone pier by the bridge, saying, "Now you only have two choices. Either you will be arrested and locked up for refusing to be reborn, or we will help you create a nightmare for that scumbag to scare him. Although there will be no real harm, at least it will make his conscience uneasy, and he may not be able to sleep well in the future."
Number 178 lowered her head and listened quietly as the other person described this final choice in her life. In her heart, she hoped to seek revenge on the scumbag man like a demon, but she didn't even have the chance to become a demon. Thinking of this, Number 178 couldn't help but sneer: "Heh, I choose to create dreams."
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