Chapter 133: Ninjutsu!

Qin Ye closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

*Calm down, be patient, calm down, be patient. Isn't this just like having your phone call rejected? Are there really that few fair-weather friends like this in reality? Not few, not many, just one more won't hurt.*

"I just went to the design institute to ask about the blueprints," he opened his eyes and said, "The other party said—"

"With your left hand pointing at the moon and your right hand plaiting the thread, I bestow upon you and me a predestined bond of fulfillment. In the moonlight, ah-ah-ah~~~ you and me, ah-ah-ah!!!"

Qin Ye had already grown numb to the successive blows dealt by this bizarre silicone doll, remaining entirely unfazed. With a blank expression, he said, "The expansion work of the Underworld has already been scheduled, and we only lack the master layout of the Underworld to fully commence construction. As the chairman of the New Underworld Corporation, I am working like an ox and a horse, so as the CEO, shouldn't you at least shoulder your duties without complaint?"

The voice on the other side of the light screen stopped instantly. The skeptical and bewildered voice of Hela came through: "In my lifetime, I actually get to see you working diligently? Forgive me, let her ladyship gather her thoughts. The genre shifted too fast and her ladyship hasn't adapted yet. Could it be that the readers complained you were too cowardly and you're planning a comeback?"

"I'm warning you, we might be close, but if you talk nonsense, I can still sue you for defamation! Haven't you seen me go all out with Busoshoku Haki in the last dozen chapters!" Qin Ye lacked confidence in his heart, but his attitude was fully in place as he retorted.

"Oh呵呵呵 (Oh呵呵呵), little brat, it seems you have developed some inflated misconceptions. Has the fear of being dominated by Lin Han been completely erased from your mind?"

There are some people who, once you clash with them, cannot be resolved in a minute or two.

The two venomous snakes bit each other for a full half-minute until they spat out all their venom, panting as both suffered heavy losses. Qin Ye looked at the light screen like a bull confronting a matador and reached out his hand: "This official doesn't want to waste words with you. The master layout, hand it over!"

"What makes you think this official has it?" Qin Ye could already imagine Hela on the other side of the light screen smugly picking her nose, completely lacking the demeanor of a judge: *So arrogant? Even if you're arrogant, don't you still have to kowtow beneath my high heels?*

He gritted his teeth and said, "Without the master layout, how am I supposed to know what special buildings the Underworld has? The Soul-Guiding Platform, the Hall of Nether Spirits, and all those things you told me about before—are they just going to be northwest wind?!"

Hela paused, and her voice turned serious: "You don't have it?"

"How could I possibly have it!" Qin Ye also reined in his smile, staring at the light screen in astonishment: "You really don't have it?"

Hela fell silent for a few seconds. The light screen flickered and directly connected to the Po On Prowess visual feed. She stated with certainty: "Impossible, you must have it. I saw this item once when I paid homage to King Yama; every Yama's office had one hanging behind it, though her ladyship's official rank back then didn't qualify me to hang such a thing. I've heard that this item was drawn by the first-generation Yama by measuring the land inch by inch and surveying the terrain. It exists during every Underworld expansion. It is extremely important."

Qin Ye racked his brains, completely unable to recall ever receiving anything like a map. Just as he was about to speak, Hela suddenly disappeared for a few seconds. When she reappeared, she said, "It's too hard to explain to you. Wait until her ladyship comes over and tells you face to face."

The next second, Qin Ye abruptly saw the talisman bloom with a streak of crimson light. As it gradually dispersed, it transformed into a two-foot-square light screen. Immediately following that, a silicone doll with a head of long black hair slowly crawled out from the red light screen—

Crawled out—

Out—

Qin Ye couldn't help but wonder why this scene felt so familiar.

*I really want to turn off the television halfway through crawling out... I really want to kick this cosplay-style Sadako back in... How can I stop my hands from itching? Online waiting, quite urgent.*

Hela crawled out in a twisted posture. Having crawled halfway, she suddenly paused and raised a silicone hand: "Give me a hand."

"Turn off the TV?" Qin Ye asked with deeply malicious intent.

"No... Her ladyship ate too much, my stomach is bloated, and I'm stuck. Pull me out. Do you think it's because her ladyship has been eating too well that my figure has gone out of shape?"

*Damn it! You're a silicone doll and you're telling me your figure has gone out of shape?!*

Qin Ye forcibly suppressed the urge to stuff this Chinese version of Sadako back in. He pulled her out, looked at the light screen as it shrank on its own, and tested the waters: "This thing—"

"You're not qualified." Hela straightened her clothes. "Your Underworld simply cannot accommodate subordinate Yin guards opening the 'Yin-Boundary Talisman'. At the very least, build the Yin Talisman Hall and secure one hundred thousand square kilometers of land before you talk about these things."

"..."

*Are you a tapeworm in my stomach?!*

Hela ignored Qin Ye's internal complaints, sitting gracefully on Qin Ye's bed, casting a glance to the side: "Let's talk business. You said earlier that you didn't have the Underworld master layout—do you know why I said that's impossible?"

Qin Ye shook his head.

Hela said indifferently, "Because if Lady Meng didn't entrust this item to you, she wouldn't be worthy of being Lady Meng."

"Do you think Lady Meng has poor combat strength? That she's just some cook serving parting broth at the entrance of the Underworld? You're wrong. She has sat at the Naihe Bridge for three thousand years, and how many Nether spirits have walked past? There were Qi practitioners from the pre-Qin period, grand alchemists from the Tang and Song dynasties, national preceptors of the Yuan dynasty, celestial masters of the Ming dynasty—what if these people refused to drink the soup?"

Qin Ye blinked: "Forced them to drink by shoving their heads down?"

"You should be grateful they can't jump out of their coffins right now and beat you to death... Well, it's pretty much like that. Think about it: given her strength, lingering in the mortal realm for so long and leaving behind the final hope specifically for you to rebuild the Underworld, how could she not anticipate the biggest difficulties you would encounter?"

"No matter how much courage you have, no matter how much perseverance you have, without the Underworld master layout and detailed blueprints of special buildings, you'll probably have to busy yourself for another three thousand years before you even have a chance to rebuild the Underworld. And in those three thousand years, the Nether spirits would probably overflow and burst the mortal realm apart!"

A flash suddenly went off in Qin Ye's mind: "Are you talking about the notes Lady Meng left behind?"

Before his voice faded, an ancient book fluttered through the air and drifted to a halt, turning its pages without any wind. Hela gently raised her hand, and instantly, Qin Ye felt the dormitory enter a unique realm, as if it had been isolated from the entire Dai Shan City.

"A realm unto itself." Hela glanced at Qin Ye, who was full of anticipation, and once again dealt a worm-like blow to his expectations: "Normally, by the time you reached the soul-detention stage, you would already be qualified to learn some Underworld spells. However, you are a Yin guard from after the collapse of the Underworld; you lack the rule imprints of the old Underworld. Your Underworld is still only the size of a village, not even reaching the town level. After that comes the county, city, province, and regional zones—"

"When you reach the county level, and once your manpower and buildings corresponding to the county level meet the standards, you will be able to learn ghost-guard-tier spells. By the same token, if you want to master spells, the Underworld must reach the corresponding tier."

Qin Ye let out a resentful sigh.

*It seems the era of brute-forcing things with Yin Qi is still going to be very long... Wait, this isn't right! This doesn't match the protagonist's script! Shouldn't I have already acquired some heaven-defying supreme technique and started fighting the heavens and earth?*

The current scene was so crude it was simply too painful to look at.

Hela paid him no more mind, instead staring deeply at the pages, her eyes gradually turning blood-red. A few seconds later, she smiled gently: "Just as expected."

Before her voice had even faded, her silicone hands danced into almost phantom-like speed, and the Yin Qi throughout the entire room suddenly churned violently. The ancient notebook seemed to flip its pages even faster along with the fluctuations of the Yin Qi!

Swish, swish, swish—nine complex hand seals were formed before Hela. Qin Ye took a deep breath and stepped back a few paces. The heavy Yin Qi in the air felt as solid as substance, and the intense pressure forced him to lean against the wall just to feel a bit more comfortable.

He suddenly remembered that the other party had disappeared for two seconds earlier—she must have gone to fetch this very item!

"Seal—" Hela spat out three words with a solemn expression, her hands abruptly flipping outward: "Ninjutsu: Reaper Death Seal!!!"

The moment the words fell, Qin Ye completely lost the ability to suppress his impulse, grabbing whatever was at hand and hurling it straight at Hela.

"Eh? Brat? What's the reason for you being so hot-tempered?"

"I—dammit, I shouldn't have trusted you, this meat-lightbulb trapped in an electronic reincarnation loop!!"

Hela waved her hand, and the empty pillows, pens, notebooks, and everything else froze suspended in mid-air. She pointed at the notebook: "Don't you think this has a lot of momentum? Alright, alright, don't use that kind of affectionate paternal gaze to look at her ladyship. Anyway, what do you call it? At least the seal is undone, isn't it?"

Qin Ye just wanted to *heh heh heh*. *Was that supposed to be an affectionate gaze? Come over here and take a good look, this is clearly the gaze of someone caring for a mentally disabled person!*

*Why do I always feel like my golden finger's IQ plummeted drastically after entering the internet world? How can I fix this?*

Too lazy to waste words with Hela, he looked at the notebook hanging in mid-air. It was currently radiating a majestic aura of Yin Qi, one that was not much weaker than the Underworld Records!

Swish, swish, swish, swish—if Hela hadn't sealed off the room, the ground nearby would probably be trembling right now. Countless streams of Yin Qi converged like rivers into the sea, forming a pitch-black vortex before him. A few seconds later, the center of the vortex abruptly cracked open, and a crimson eye suddenly snapped wide open!

*Thud.*

At the exact same time, Qin Ye's legs went weak and he dropped to his knees. Hela was also momentarily stunned; her entire set of clothes billowed wildly into the air, and even the wig on her head was blown away. Staring in disbelief at the eye darting around within the Yin Qi, she said, "The Mirror of Insight... She actually brought this thing out..."

"You still have time to look at it?!" The muscles on Qin Ye's face were distorting like ripples on water, and he gritted his teeth, "If you keep staring at it, the last Yin guard in the world is going to report to the Underworld ahead of schedule!"

Hela snapped back to her senses abruptly. Her hands moved like phantoms, forming over a dozen motions in barely a second before lightly tapping toward the eye.

With a soft *ding* sound, like striking the surface of a mirror, countless pitch-black water-纹 (ripple-like) waves of Yin Qi diffused outward. The eye instantly vanished. The Yin Qi spun frantically, transforming into a palm-sized ancient mirror that dropped with a *thud* straight into Qin Ye's hand.

"What the hell is this damn thing?" Qin Ye panted, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead as he asked.

Hela looked with a complex expression at the ancient mirror in his hand, speaking only after a long pause: "The Mirror of Insight... This is a lethal weapon used to supervise Yin guards, and also an all-seeing eye that reaches the heavens and penetrates the earth."

"Neither the mortal realm nor the nether realm can escape its single glance... Her ladyship even thought it had been shattered during the might of Ksitigarbha achieving Buddhahood. It is neither a supreme treasure of the Underworld nor a divine artifact like the Underworld Records, but one could well call it an immortal treasure."

"Speak normally." Qin Ye sat down on the bed, somewhat exhausted. The sensation from just now remained vivid, leaving lingering fear in his heart.

It felt as though an eye had suddenly appeared out of nowhere within the ghostly Underworld, staring fixedly at him!

The moment he did anything out of line, his name would be immediately struck from the Underworld registers!

"Stop talking like it's a fantasy novel. Come on, tell me what on earth this thing actually is. Express it in human language."