New Times, New Hell

Chapter 137 - Extra: Retirement Plan (Beginning)

“Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to Yangli~”

There was an enormous, two-layer, cream cake in the office of Luofeng’s headquarters. In chocolate sauce atop the cake was written: Wishing Chen Yangli Happy Birthday!

A group of Luofeng employees surrounded the cake in a circle. They were in the midst of singing happy birthday to Chen Yangli from Fengdu Ghost Market’s operation department. At the end of the song, Chen Yangli, who was in the middle of the circle, reached a hand out and squeezed out the flames on the candles one by one. His expression was one of both excitement and reluctance. He embraced his coworkers and bid farewell, “Thank you everyone. I had a great time working with you.”

Everyone all gave their blessings:

“Congratulations, congratulations. Happy reincarnation!”

“Wishing you smooth travels and a great life!”

“Be a good person. A hundred years later, see you again at Luofeng!”

“May you have a good life.”

Exactly right. As one of Luofeng’s earliest employees, Chen Yangli had finally reached his turn for reincarnation. Today was his reincarnation day, which was the day he was to be born into the mortal realm.

A real·birthday.

These days, Luofeng, too, had become a company that valued corporate culture building greatly. Naturally, they placed a great emphasis on the retirement of an old employee like Chen Yangli. Early on, when Chen Yangli’s birthday had been confirmed, the administrative department had prepared a grand farewell party for him. They had also followed the traditions of birthday celebrations in the mortal realm and ordered an enormous birthday cake for him.

However, unlike when employees in the mortal realm left their positions or retired – wherein they would receive gifts from their coworkers – Chen Yangli would be heading straight to reincarnation after retirement. People were born with nothing and couldn’t take anything with them when they died. Thus, obviously nobody would give him presents. Instead, it was he who was handing his possessions in the Underworld away to his coworkers.

Now, with the Life Management app, the Underworld spirits could all know their reincarnation date in advance. They could naturally take care of their Underworld possessions properly ahead of time. For example, Chen Yangli had spent most of his savings already. He had also donated some money to the Hungry Ghost Path’s charity lunch fund that was still in progress. Now, he only had things that he couldn’t spend or take with him left.

“I’ll leave my car to you.” Chen Yangli handed a ring of car keys to Kang Jin. “Scissor doors, high engine displacement, imitation Ferrari, very impressive.”

Cars in the Underworld were all burned over. Thus, this car could naturally only be an imitation Ferrari and not a real Ferrari.

“Okay. I’ll take proper care of it.” Kang Jin accepted the car keys.

“I’ll leave my account to you.” Chen Yangli solemnly gave the new coworker who was taking over his work a card that had the account username and password for “Customer Service Representative Little Tiantian.” “This is currently the most valuable customer service representative account in the company. It has the most good reviews across the entire platform. You absolutely have to maintain that.”

The coworker sweatdropped. He was under immense pressure. “I’ll do my best, I’ll do my best.”

This coworker had already scanned over Chen Yangli’s work records and believed himself incapable of being as flexible and cute as the other.

After Chen Yangli gave away most of his stuff, Qu Guangzhao walked over and asked, “Oh right. After you reincarnate, your grave will be empty. By then, it might be taken over by wild or wandering ghosts. Do you need us to help you watch over it?”

Certain circumstances in the Underworld were a bit similar to those in the mortal realm. For example, the graves everyone lived in were basically like houses in the mortal realm. If ghosts reincarnated, these graves would become ownerless graves. After enough time, they would be taken over by wandering ghosts. More dauntless wild ghosts would even secretly eat the original grave owner’s burial offerings. Normally, they needed to wait two or three more generations for the grave owner’s relatives to completely pass away too and the grave owner to be gradually forgotten by all living people. Then, the grave would become completely deserted and covered over by new graves. Or, the land would be used for other purposes.

However, in certain regards, ghosts and humans shared the same mindsets. Though they were reincarnating, this was still ultimately the grave they had previously occupied: their bones were buried there. They naturally weren’t willing to have it randomly occupied by wild or wandering ghosts.

“Oh oh, don’t worry. I already filled out the grave ownership transfer forms a while ago at the company and transferred ownership of my grave to my nephew,” Chen Yangli said. Underworld spirits had friends and relatives in the Underworld too. They could obviously leave their graves for their friends and relatives to live in.

However, in the past, there had been no centralized management for this matter. These transactions all happened among the people. Thus, sometimes, they would encounter aggressive wild ghosts who didn’t care about anything and would forcefully take over the grave. As of now, Luofeng offered a grave ownership transfer service. As long as one paid a certain amount in handling fees, they would be able to apply for transfer of ownership in Luofeng’s system. The results of the transaction would be protected by Luofeng. The protection period would last until the grave got taken in again by the relevant department in the mortal realm and reused for other purposes.

Qu Guangzhao sighed in relief. “That’s good then.”

“Ey, it’s quite troublesome sometimes when cemeteries aren’t properly managed.” Chen Yangli complained, “Before I die in my next life, I’m definitely going to tell my children and grandchildren to just directly arrange for me to live in a residential district. It’s both inexpensive and convenient.”

A residential district was an Underworld analogy referring to cemeteries, small Buddha halls for worship, funeral parlors, etc. where cinerary urns were kept in large quantities together. Because they were all taken care of by professionals, wild and wandering ghosts couldn’t enter. However, the living spaces for the Underworld spirits here were a bit cramped; as such, they were called residential districts.

Qu Guangzhao: “Who knows what things will be like at that time.”

Chen Yangli pondered for a moment. “You’re right too. Perhaps they’ll even have started sending ashes into outer space by then.”

Just as he was speaking, Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que walked over together.

Yu Zhengdu said, “Yangli, Boss has a gift for you.”

“Ah, aren’t you being t-too polite?” Chen Yangli felt slightly surprised and flattered.

Because Shang Que was the Ghost King, it had always been Underworld spirits giving him gift offerings. When did ghosts dare to ask for anything from him? As such, upon hearing that Shang Que had a gift for him, Chen Yangli instinctively jumped in fright. After, he scratched his head. “Also, I won’t be able to take it with me.”

Shang Que waved his hands around. “Just accept it first.”

He pulled out his own phone, then opened it up to a certain page before handing it to Chen Yangli. “Tap on it.”

Chen Yangli glanced at the phone. He instantly sputtered, “This is……a raffle program?”

“Yes, a raffle,” Shang Que revealed a pleased smile.

Only to see that there was a wheel on the phone screen. The arrow on the wheel could point at several different prizes. These were: exemption from serious illness (1x), exemption from plastic surgery risk (3x), exemption from accidents (1x), opportunity to win the lottery (1x), etc.

Chen Yangli had even started stuttering. “This can’t be what I’m thinking?”

Yu Zhengdu answered from off to the side in amusement, “It’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

Chen Yangli made a noise of disbelief. “These can be raffled off?”

“Yes,” Yu Zhengdu said with a smile. “However, the result of the raffle won’t be granted by the Life and Death Accounts system. Boss will personally grant it for you.”

Chen Yangli blinked. For a moment, he wasn’t able to wrap his mind around this.

The computational logic of the Life and Death Accounts system was designated by Heavenly will. Not even Luofeng could disrupt or control it. As such, even Luofeng’s headquarters couldn’t change anything about their employees’ reincarnation destinations. However, as Luofeng’s employees, they had technically contributed to maintaining order in the Underworld after death. Their Good and Evil Scores were much better than those of normal spirits.

For example, in his previous life, Chen Yangli had only been an ordinary citizen. Because he had worked at Luofeng for a long time, had done great service, and had received great reviews, though, he had made contributions to Luofeng’s sales and the financial management of the Underworld. His Good Scores had added up to become much greater than what they had been when he had just passed away. In his next life, he was reincarnating into a rather well-off family. They had a house close to a good school in a tier 1 city. From birth, he would be spared a dozen or so years of work that others needed to do.

Soon after Yu Zhengdu had joined Luofeng, Shang Que had started frequently suggesting a few features that caused Yu Zhengdu to go crazy. For example, offering a raffle prize to the Underworld spirits about to reincarnate. This prize had options that could allow spirits to change their appearances during reincarnation, possess a healthy body that would never fall ill, etc. These were all impossible to achieve given a Heavenly system like the Life and Death Accounts.

However, as the Ghost King, Shang Que could also use his own powers to give his own employees a few flexible choices after reincarnation.

For example, if they were displeased with their appearances, though they couldn’t choose their own faces during reincarnation, the mortal realm’s field of plastic surgery was very advanced. Shang Que could use his own powers to exempt them from the possible risks of plastic surgery.

Or, though the system couldn’t give anyone a body that wouldn’t fall ill over their entire lifetime, Shang Que could still help his former employees avoid a serious illness that could possibly occur. Avoiding accidents worked to the same concept.

Of course, he couldn’t do too much of this, so the prizes were of limited quantities.

The lives of mortals were very frail. One serious illness or accident could be a catastrophe capable of destroying a person and family. Thus, even though Shang Que could only help avoid these once, for mortals, this was still an extremely major prize.

After understanding that this was a raffle prize being offered personally by Shang Que, Chen Yangli instantly became excited. “Is it really okay?”

Upon noticing the commotion over here, the surrounding coworkers all surrounded this area. They started causing a ruckus too upon seeing the raffle page.

“Holy shit, the company gives us these kinds of benefits too!”

“That’s great. My face can be saved. In the past, I didn’t dare to get plastic surgery for fear of something happening. In the next life, I’m going to get surgery to look like Audrey Hepburn!”

“Wake up. First of all, you’d have to win the exemption from plastic surgery risk.”

“Ah, I hope that I’ll be able to win the exemption from serious illness when I retire. It’s a lot more useful than the serious illness insurance from companies in the mortal realm.” After all, the serious illness insurance in the mortal realm could only compensate you after you got sick. This, however, could really and truly prevent you from getting sick. It was solving the problem at its root.

Shang Que faintly smiled. “Don’t get excited. The raffle options will be updated in the future.”

Yu Zhengdu side-eyed him. Boss had been secretly designing this raffle for quite some time already. This raffle couldn’t be opened to the entire Underworld, but was rather great as a benefit for their own company. Because it was expending Shang Que’s magic, and because the exemptions for mortals were within controllable bounds, the raffle wasn’t breaking the laws of computational logic of the Life and Death Accounts system.

The most important thing, though, was that Shang Que was happy.

“Hurry, start the raffle.” A coworker couldn’t stop himself from urging Chen Yangli.

Chen Yangli rubbed his hands together. As everyone watched, he pressed the raffle button. His coworkers started loudly yelling; they all had their own preferences:

“Serious illness! Serious illness!”

“Accident! Accident!”

“Plastic surgery! Plastic surgery!”

“Lottery ticket! I choose lottery ticket!”

Chen Yangli was extremely exasperated upon hearing this. “Can you guys not use nicknames? Why do the nicknames sound so unlucky?”

Under everyone’s anticipatory gazes, the arrow slowly stopped on the “exemption from serious illness (1x)” slice.

Chen Yangli leaned back and roared with laughter. “Hahaha, I can now stay up late in my next lifetime with no worries!”

Yu Zhengdu: = =