New Times, New Hell

Chapter 66 - Death Replacement

The Life Management app’s internal testing continued smoothly. Luofeng’s headquarters maintained close contact with each release candidate user and gathered several suggestions. Yu Zhengdu, Zhao Ruola, and the rest of the Amazing Future programmers also kept up a rapid pace fixing a few problems.

The internal testing quickly drew close to its end. Meanwhile, it got closer and closer to the day the Life Management app would officially be released. Zhao Ruola was busy checking for and resolving bugs, while Yu Zhengdu was using this last bit of time to communicate with the Underworld users and report progress to Shang Que.

This day, he was in the middle of a meeting with Shang Que at the Luofeng headquarters. Lu Lingxi suddenly knocked on his door and called for him, saying, “Xiao Yu, there’s a new release candidate volunteer outside. He said that there’s a serious bug in the app. We don’t really understand this stuff either. How about you take a look?”

Upon hearing this, Yu Zhengdu immediately went on high alert. The app’s release was quickly coming up. It was a big deal if a serious bug had appeared now. He turned to look at Shang Que. “We’ll end here. I’ll go check on that situation.”

Shang Que nodded.

Thus, Yu Zhengdu stood up and headed towards the reception room with Lu Lingxi. Following the steady increase in their company’s sales, in addition to the release of the app, the Luofeng headquarters’ office space was starting to become not enough. As such, they also rented the office upstairs. Finally, they had an exclusive reception room.

But, because they hadn’t rented all these spaces at the same time and because the technology park didn’t always happen to have offices next door to each other to rent to them, currently, the headquarters and subsidiary company Amazing Future’s offices were all over the place. They were spread out in different buildings of the technology park, making communication quite inconvenient.

As Yu Zhengdu walked, he thought to himself, according to the speed at which their company was currently developing, in a short period of time, they would probably have to start preparing to find a new office building.

When he reached the reception room upstairs, Yu Zhengdu immediately saw a twenty-something year old youth sitting on the couch. Next to him was their coworker who often soaked his eyeballs in water.

Only to see their eyeball-soaking coworker holding a glass cup. In the cup was a single eyeball. Meanwhile, he was in the middle of digging out the other eyeball. As he did so, he explained, “See, like this. The angle your fingers enter must be slightly tilted, about seventy five degrees or so. It can’t be perpendicular. If it’s perpendicular, it’s easy to stab your eyeballs……”

The youth nodded very seriously.

Eyeball-soaking coworker: “And then, the removal process needs to be fast. Use your fingertips, not your fingernails. Otherwise, you’ll damage your cornea.”

Following his words, the remaining eyeball fell out of its socket too. He caught it and threw it into the cup. “Got it?”

The youth started clapping with an enlightened expression. “I’ll try when I get home.”

Eyeball-soaking coworker: “Un un. You need to practice hard. Practice makes perfect.”

Yu Zhengdu’s mouth twitched. “What are you two doing?”

The eyeball-soaking coworker held the glass cup out to him. The eyes in the cup turned to look at Yu Zhengdu. He said, “Oh, I’m teaching him how to take his eyeballs out.”

The youth looked up too. He revealed a dumb smile, “I just died, so don’t really know many basics about how to be a ghost. I need to hurry and learn……”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

He wasn’t sure if he should warn the other that this wasn’t actually part of the basics for being a ghost.

Yu Zhengdu walked over. He shook hands with the youth and said, “Hello, I’m Luofeng’s director of technical operations, Yu Zhengdu.”

“Hello, hello.” The youth hurriedly held out his hand. “My name is Fan Li.”

As he spoke, he looked Yu Zhengdu up and down, then stated in admiration, “Wow, you really look like a human……”

Yu Zhengdu calmly replied, “Because I am a human.”

Fan Li: “……??”

Yu Zhengdu gave a simple explanation, causing Fan Li to exclaim in admiration once more, “Seems like the Underworld has developed really quickly too. I just died and have already received a text message notifying me to download the Life Management app. And reincarnation can be self-service. That’s truly too convenient.”

Yu Zhengdu: “You just passed away?”

Fan Li nodded. “Yes, just this morning. My body’s still in the hospital.”

Upon hearing this, Yu Zhengdu understood. To confirm the ability for all users to adjust to the app, the volunteers for the release candidate were selected from different populations. There were naturally plenty of spots for newly deceased spirits as well. The goal was to check how well new ghosts could accept and learn to use Underworld technology.

He observed Fan Li for a moment. This new spirit looked quite young, so definitely couldn’t have died from old age. Thus, he comforted, “My condolences.”

“It’s not so bad.” Fan Li scratched his head. “Actually, I felt more scared before death. Let me tell you, last night, I suddenly became gravely ill. I was truly panicked. Laying in the hospital bed and having so many doctors trying to save me was incredibly uncomfortable. I was really scared that I would die, but hadn’t thought that I would still have a spirit after death. So, I’ve already calmed down greatly now.”

His eyes were filled with curiosity regarding his transformation into a ghost. He laughed and said, “Besides, it’s quite interesting once you get used to it. Like when I came over here. I didn’t even need to pay to ride public transportation.”

Yu Zhengdu nodded, then asked a bit more about his situation. After confirming that he was adjusting to the Underworld quite well, he finally questioned, “My coworker said you’re here because there’s a serious bug in the app?”

“Oh oh, right.” Fan Li first clicked open the【Ghost-al Information】page before handing his phone over. “My time of death is wrong. Isn’t it 2018 right now? But on the page, it says it’s supposed to be 2078. That’s too far off……”

After saying this, he then clicked open the second page. “The Good and Evil Scores section is wrong too. I checked this ‘Important Life Events’ page and noticed that I haven’t done a lot of the listed events. And, I’m only twenty nine this year. Why are there events from after thirty……”

Yu Zhengdu grabbed his phone and scrolled through the【Important Life Events】module. Upon looking at it, he immediately acknowledged that there really was a bug.

This was because the page displayed several events from after 2018. After scrolling down further, the events actually continued until three years later, which was 2021.

Fan Li pointed at the last thing listed on the page. Very regretfully, he said, “Look, this even arranged a wife for me. I’ve been single for 29 years, since the womb. How wonderful it would be if this was real. Who’s Jin Yue?”

The last event listed in Fan Li’s “Important Life Events” was from July 2021. He was supposed to get married to someone named “Jin Yue”.

Yu Zhengdu felt confused. He clicked open the【Self-Service Reincarnation】page too, only to see that all subjects displayed: Not yet scheduled.

“Should be a bug,” Yu Zhengdu stated with furrowed brows. And a very serious bug at that. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many different things going wrong. He apologetically told Fan Li, “Please wait a moment. Let me look into it.”

“Okay, no problem.” Fan Li was pretty mannerly. He didn’t seem impatient at all. He rubbed his hands together and said, “Let me first practice how to remove my eyeballs.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

Yu Zhengdu took Fan Li’s phone back with him to his workspace at Luofeng. He contacted Zhao Ruola and the two of them closely combed through the system’s code once more. Then, they uploaded the question to the group chat of the development department, allowing all the programmers in the department to check too. In the blink of an eye, two hours had already passed.

When Shang Que walked over to Yu Zhengdu, he saw that the other’s eyebrows were tightly furrowed. Yu Zhengdu was staring at the screen, extremely concentrated.

“What’s wrong?” Shang Que asked. Yu Zhengdu had amazing skills and also knew many of the great masters in the field. Now, Zhao Ruola had joined them too. Whenever he had any technical problems, there were more than enough skilled people to discuss with. It was rare for him to appear so solemn.

Yu Zhengdu turned to look at him, then slowly said, “Nothing’s wrong.”

Nothing was wrong. That was what was wrong.

He explained Fan Li’s situation, expression grim. “I looked over the entire code from the development department again but didn’t find a single thing wrong. Yet, the information displayed on Fan Li’s app is without a doubt incorrect……”

“Let me see.” Shang Que reached a hand out and grabbed Fan Li’s phone. After only taking a glance, his gaze became cold. “He hasn’t reached his time to die yet.”

Yu Zhengdu was lost. “What does that mean?”

Shang Que handed the phone back. When he looked at Yu Zhengdu, his eyes became softer. “There’s nothing wrong with your skills or code. It’s just that this person hasn’t reached his time of death yet. He should be able to live to 2078 and die of old age when he’s 89.”

“And for his ‘Important Life Events’ section, one of the Life and Death Accounts’ functions is to make predictions based on past events. According to a person’s past and present lives, it can predict someone’s fate for their next life, then assign them to a reincarnation path and luck classification. In concept, the Life and Death Accounts can calculate the consequences of someone’s past decisions. Only, the world is ever changing and humanity is complex. From the moment they are born, each person’s fate leaves the parameters of the Life and Death Accounts’ calculations……”

“But in actuality, he should still be alive. Thus, in his ‘Important Life Events’ section, the events of the next three years are still visible. This is the extent of the Life and Death Accounts’ calculation capacity.”

Of course, these were only predictions under the most ideal conditions. In real life, the things about to occur to a person were often completely unpredictable, prone to changing in the blink of an eye.

Yu Zhengdu remembered that the Life and Death Accounts computer system did include a model for the prediction of human fate. He couldn’t help exclaiming, “Wow, does this count as big data fortune telling?”

Shang Que: “……” He’s creating scientific summaries again……

After being reminded of this, though, Yu Zhengdu became even more confused. “But Fan Li already died this morning……”

Shang Que calmly answered, “His fate got switched by someone.”

Yu Zhengdu instantly widened his eyes. “Switching fate?”

“Un,” Shang Que nodded. He reached his palm out and gently hovered above the phone screen. A dim glow passed over it. “This was just a cover-up.”

Yu Zhengdu looked down and immediately noticed that the information on the page had already changed.

【Ghost-al Information】

Name: Fan Li

Sex: Male

ID number: *****************x

Time of Death: x Hour, x Month, x Day, 2018

Cause of Death: Illness

Residence in Life: 6 Third Factory Road, Egret District, Fu City

Grave Location: Yet to be buried

Then looking at his【Good and Evil Scores】page, the events listed in the “Important Life Events” section had all completely transformed. Upon closer inspection, Yu Zhengdu inhaled sharply.

This person whose name was also Fan Li had truly done a lot of bad things.

He opened the backend server on his computer and pulled up Fan Li’s Good and Evil Scores for further examination. The app’s client server couldn’t show details for the Good and Evil Scores, but the backend server could.

As soon as he did so, he found, as expected, that this Fan Li’s Evil Scores were shockingly high.

“Tsk tsk tsk, a beast!” Yu Zhengdu cussed while clicking open the【Self-Service Reincarnation】module. The page displayed an already scheduled time and place; he would be reincarnating into the bestial path.

“As expected, a beast!” Yu Zhengdu hummed coldly.

After re-confirming this phone’s phone number and the text message that had been sent by Luofeng’s headquarters, they found that they were all in accordance with this new ID number and not the original Fan Li’s ID number.

Yu Zhengdu couldn’t help being surprised. “I hadn’t expected that there would be such evil spells in the world.”

“There are. They were very plentiful in the past,” Shang Que calmly explained.

Since historic times, the cultivators of the mortal world were cultivating to be gods and to extend their lifetimes. Put in plain words, these were all just methods to avoid death. Only, most cultivators depended on the energy of the world and their own abilities to comprehend the Dao. However, there were still quite a few who had ultimately followed a wrong path, using evil spells to steal extended years of life.

Switching fate was one of these spells.

Switching fate was also called replacing fate. As the name suggested, it involved switching one’s own fate with someone else’s. There were several different types of this: the most common were switching health, switching wealth, and even switching intelligence.

In folklore, many similar legends existed. Supposedly, people departed from their houses and picked up a packet of medicine or something of the like on the way. After returning home, they would fall ill. Upon being cured, their previously healthy body would never return to full health, rendering them incredibly weak. In such a story, the main character most likely had had their health fate switched. The medicine packet they had picked up was probably thrown there by someone with a terminal illness after they had cast a spell on it.

And there were intelligent people who would have distant relatives visit their homes. After, that intelligent person would suddenly become impossibly dumb and muddleheaded, while the relatives’ initially slow-witted child would become strangely cured and capable of testing into a good school. The endings of such stories often involved the originally intelligent person’s family finding the evil object that their distant relatives had secretly hidden in their house.

There were often mortals who believed they could get lucky. Switching fate wasn’t rare, but this was Yu Zhengdu’s first time encountering someone who had directly caused a death because of switching fate.

“This is a death replacement,” Shang Que said.

Actually, in history, death replacements were fairly common. Many cultivators relied on the fact that they could cast strong spells to steal and kill. Upon breaking the Heavenly Laws, their extended life would be taken away. But that wasn’t all. Their true punishment would only start after they reached Hell. However, such cultivators were often also capable of seeing Heavenly intent. Thus, they would do everything in their power to avoid divine punishment.

Finding a death replacement was one of the most common methods of doing so. In the Hell of the past, checking for death replacements was a frequent part of work. This was also why there were so many folk stories about people coming back to life after ghosts took the wrong spirits or ordered the wrong people to die.

Yu Zhengdu fell into deep thought. “So all those stories in the past about ghost envoys capturing the wrong spirit aren’t because of mindless error?”

“Some are, some aren’t,” Shang Que explained. “Have you noticed that in the stories of the ghost envoys catching the wrong spirit, most of the time the spirit has the same name and is from the same village as the deceased?”

Yu Zhengdu’s eyebrows shot up. He looked at the app again, where the information from someone else named “Fan Li” was displayed. He asked, “It can’t be that he specially changed his name?”

“It’s a possibility,” Shang Que answered. “If one is lucky enough, they’ll be able to find someone who has the same name and surname as them and whose birthdate is also close enough to theirs to be their death replacement. But most of the time, the spellcaster is the one who first changes their own name, then tries to fool the Heavens and Hell.”

Finding a death replacement meant lying to the gods of the Heavens and ghosts of Hell. This was an incredibly difficult spell that required an extremely high cultivation level. Since the collapse of the Heavens and Earth and the decline of energy in the world, practically no cultivators had been able to reach such a level. The Luofeng of present times obviously no longer designated people to specifically check for death replacements.

Speaking of, this was also because the person who had found Fan Li to be their death replacement had bad luck. When Luofeng had still been using text messages to notify Underworld spirits about reincarnation, the youth who had been forced to become a death replacement, Fan Li, would probably not realize that his time of death and important life events didn’t match up. It was very likely that he would’ve confusedly replaced the Fan Li that should’ve died and reincarnated into the bestial path.

But coincidentally, this was during Luofeng’s internal testing for their app. Spirits could check the details of their important life events through the app, allowing the young Fan Li to immediately realize something was wrong.

And also coincidentally, Shang Que was currently in charge of Hell. The Ghost King of Luofeng could easily see through this cover-up.

“Then what about death replacement Fan Li?” Yu zhengdu asked angrily. “He has to die just like that? He’s so innocent though?”

“How long has he been dead?” Shang Que asked.

Yu Zhengdu answered, “He just died this morning.”

Shang Que pondered for a moment. “He has yet to reach the end of his predestined life. After the spirit leaves the body, within twenty four hours, the area over the heart is still warm. He can still come back to life.”

Yu Zhengdu clenched his hand into a fist. “Then let’s hurry up. We need to be quick and save him.”