The air seemed to freeze solid.

  The employee dormitory courtyard—usually reeking of laundry detergent and hay—was now smothered in an oppressively expensive sandalwood fragrance. In the center of the yard sat a rosewood grand chair that had appeared from god knows where, planted incongruously on the moss-covered old tiles.

  A portly middle-aged man in a dark-patterned Tang suit lounged in the chair, rolling two walnuts in his palm.

  The click-clack of friction was jarring in the dead silence. Behind him stood a young man in his early twenties, spine bent like a shrimp, face plastered with an obsequious smile, eyes darting everywhere.

  Dax was kneeling before the man, forehead pressed to the green bricks, cold sweat streaming down his temples and splattering dark stains on the ground.

  At the sound of footsteps, he jerked his head up. The moment he saw Ling, his mud-streaked old face twisted into an expression worse than crying.

  "For God's sake! Do you… not check your messages?!" Dax's voice was barely a hiss, practically roaring through clenched teeth.

  Expressionless, Ling pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on her nose. A faint system notification popped up in the upper right corner of her vision:

  [System Notice:

  Ling's fingertip twitched, casually opening that string of angry red unread numbers.

  The window was instantly flooded with dense messages. Dax's explosive rage practically seeped through the text. The first ninety percent consisted of warm greetings to several generations of Ling's direct ancestors, plus a three-thousand-word detailed description of how, if she didn't respond soon, he would personally disassemble her expensive skin suit and sell it for scrap.

  However, all the furious ranting cut off abruptly at the very end, replaced by one headless, tailless message:

  "DON'T GO BACK!!! RUN!!! Go to the south dock, find a boatman surnamed Lin, RUN!"

  Ling frowned, gaze sweeping over the man in the grand chair.

  [Target Scan: Fourth Master]

  [Titles: Outstanding Spiritual Cultivation Representative of Guangnan Province | Top 10 Good Samaritans Who Moved the Celestial Court | Honorary Director of the Reincarnation Office ↓ 519 additional honorary titles collapsed]

  [Instantaneous Output Peak (IOP): ×3565 (Nothing Left)]

  [Minimum Defense (MD): ×7681 (Impenetrable)]

  [Collapse Risk (CR): < 0.0001% (Extremely Stable)]

  Every data point glared blindingly. Ling cursed internally: Fuck, they found me this fast… I can't be this unlucky—just dug up a gold mine and now I have to abandon it halfway?

  Even the lackey behind Fourth Master—the one with the slicked-back hair and simpering face—could easily crush this flower vase of hers.

  [Target Scan:

  [IOP:

  [MD:

  [CR:

  Strange… that face seemed familiar somehow. And that sleazy aura radiating from his soul—Ling couldn't shake the feeling she'd encountered it before.

  Playing it safe, she didn't continue forward. Instead, she immediately switched to "standby mode." Hands folded over her abdomen, gaze unfocused, breathing rate dropped to minimum—like a robot vacuum that hadn't been activated yet.

  Fourth Master seemed to casually size up Ling, then continued rolling those walnuts.

  "Since the new employee is back, she might as well listen in. Let's continue our earlier topic."

  Fourth Master's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a low-frequency resonance that could stop a heart.

  He paused the walnuts in his hand, gaze still fixed on Dax kneeling on the ground:

  "Tudi Jiang, I checked your work logs. A few days ago on Bar Street, you handled a 'body-snatching case.' The log says—suspect was taken by two Purifiers, victim's magnetic field has been cleansed. Is that correct?"

  Dax was drenched in cold sweat, stammering: "Y-yes… everything was done by the book…"

  "By the book?"

  Fourth Master chuckled softly, casually tossing one of the walnuts to the ground.

  "BANG!"

  A cloud of black smoke exploded. Two trembling figures tumbled out—the same two Purifiers who had dragged some unlucky bastard to the Hungry Ghost Realm as a "scapegoat."

  "My boys here say they grabbed the wrong person." Fourth Master's tone was amused. "What they brought back wasn't the one who escaped. So how is it that your logs show absolutely no trace of the real culprit?"

  The two Purifiers knelt on the ground, not daring to look up, only able to kowtow frantically: "Fourth Master, spare us! Fourth Master, spare us! The scene was chaos, we were just meeting our quotas!"

  Fourth Master ignored them and turned to the young man behind him:

  "Zhaos, why don't you explain yourself?"

  The young man called Zhaos immediately stopped his fake shoulder-massage for Fourth Master. He stepped forward, pointing at the two Purifiers, his previously fawning face instantly turning vicious:

  "It was these two! And that bitch! They were definitely in on it together!"

  Zhaos snarled furiously:

  "That night, I was this close to succeeding, then suddenly I got kicked out! And framed! These two Purifiers knew perfectly well, but they still hauled me back as the fugitive! Hmph, if I hadn't dropped Fourth Master's name, they would've thrown me in the oil pot without even letting me speak!"

  He bowed deeply to Fourth Master.

  "That fugitive must have known in advance she was wanted and conspired with these two Purifiers to pull this switcheroo! Absolutely vicious!"

  Ling's face remained blank, but her mind was a whirlwind of a thousand thoughts.

  Oh. Now I remember.

  Isn't this the male body I snatched right after I got here? The guy inside must be that unlucky bastard… Wait, shouldn't I have been put on the wanted list after things went south? What's going on?

  The two Purifiers were so terrified they'd nearly lost their shape, sobbing: "Fourth Master, we really didn't know! We'd just started the job, we'd never even seen that wanted notice, there's no way we could've conspired with the suspect! It was our first time in the mortal realm—through a physical body, it's really hard to tell who's who…"

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  "Bullshit! Still making excuses! Just wait—once Fourth Master catches the fugitive, you're all going down together! And you, Jiang! I saw you on the rooftop while I was being dragged away! Your cigarette was down to the butt—don't tell me you weren't watching the show for a while!"

  Fourth Master silenced Ghost-Bro Zhaos's chatter and stared darkly at Dax. His head was round and fleshy, nose, ears, and mouth all round and fleshy too—every feature seemingly cute and honest—but that one large hooked nose stuck right in the middle of his round face looked bizarrely out of place.

  That hooked nose… another image that seems familiar. What's going on today…

  Ling fidgeted nearby, scratching her ears, but couldn't remember where she'd seen it.

  Dax's scalp prickled under the stare. He replied carefully: "This… this is impossible! Perhaps this brother suffered some head trauma from the soul chains and is hallucinating? I…"

  Fourth Master smiled faintly, cutting Dax off. Suddenly he waved his hand grandly, collecting the two quivering Purifiers back into the walnut. Then he stepped forward and personally helped Dax to his feet.

  "Aiya, Buddy, look how scared you are. Don't I trust you?" Fourth Master jerked his chin, and Zhaos reluctantly fetched a small stool for Dax, placing it at Fourth Master's feet.

  "Come, Brother, sit. I'm not here to interrogate you today. It's just that when something happens in Guangnan territory, I naturally have to show some concern. And it just so happens that such a dangerous fugitive escaped to your Longjiang district and—poof—vanished. And at the same time, you've just gained a "temp," heh."

  Dax kept his eyes lowered, awaiting judgment.

  Fourth Master continued: "This old man has been fortunate to live many years. That Celestial Maiden of yours—" he pointed at Ling. "Others might not know her background, but I know everything. My wife happened to be the very first cultivator to descend into this celestial vessel."

  Ling's pupils contracted sharply. Fighting back nausea, she pulled up the footage Moye had converted—yes! That hooked nose! Though the one in the footage was much thinner than now, that nose was unmistakable.

  In the footage, his spirit form was communing intimately with a pure spirit radiating holy light and draped in crimson feathers. But the other spirit's eyes were clearly vacant—Ling guessed she must have already been completely brainwashed by the Infinity Shell's mantras.

  Thinking this far, Ling had a pretty good idea what Fourth Master was really here for.

  Nothing more than rattling Dax's cage, or testing whether his involvement was intentional or accidental. More importantly—testing whether this "cultivator" had been properly tamed by the Shell.

  Sure enough, Fourth Master's gaze shifted from Dax and finally landed on this Maiden who had been standing motionless as a mannequin.

  The walnuts in his hand spun faster, producing continuous "click-clack, click-clack" sounds, like countless tiny bones grinding against each other.

  "Old Jiang says you're a new 'intern.' Such fine goods—not just anyone qualifies to use them."

  Fourth Master leaned back, tone lazy, but those murky old eyes locked onto Ling's micro-expressions like a viper:

  "Since you're a reserve member on the payroll, let me test you. In this Guangnan Province, what matters most when it comes to incense offerings?"

  Ling maintained her standard standby posture—hands folded, corners of her mouth curved in a carefully calculated, perfectly arced customer-service smile.

  [Loading:

  [Language Pack Loading:

  Ling opened her mouth. Her voice was ethereal, gentle, and dripping with nauseating "positive energy":

  "To answer the Exalted Immortal. The way of incense offerings lies in 'mindset alignment' and 'full-chain empowerment.'"

  "Mortal offerings are not merely material exchange, but a closed loop of underlying logic. What we must do is leverage differentiated miracle displays to address user pain points, breaking through the emotional sedimentation pool between mortals and the Court. Ultimately achieving sustainable conversion of merit traffic, contributing high-quality daily active users to the Court's spirit pool."

  When she finished, the air was dead silent.

  Dax listened with his jaw on the floor. He recognized every word, but strung together they sounded like scripture from another dimension—or the chain of farts that leadership loved to rip at Celestial Morning Meetings.

  Even Fourth Master's walnut-rolling paused for half a beat. That jargon, that flavor… absolutely authentic!

  "Good… what a 'full-chain empowerment.'"

  Half the suspicion in Fourth Master's eyes faded, replaced by a hint of approval:

  "Comrade Dax has trained her well. Very high ideological awareness."

  But his eyes shifted, and he suddenly threw out a sharper question.

  "Well said. However, these days there are some 'public intellectuals' and rogue cultivators in the mortal realm who privately criticize the Court. They say the Court has forcibly monopolized the gathered spiritual energy of heaven and earth, locking away power that originally belonged to all beings, only distributing pitiful amounts of 'Merit Burns' as exchange vouchers."

  Fourth Master's walnut-rolling hand stopped. His tone turned sinister:

  "They call this 'artificially manufactured scarcity.' Injustice. Tyranny. What do you think… of this view?"

  Dax's heart nearly stopped listening from the side. This was a death-trap question!

  However, Ling's expression changed in an instant.

  Hmph, old bastard. So you really are here to test my "conversion level." Before, I might not have seen through you, but now…

  Her gentle smile vanished instantly, replaced by extreme shock, righteous indignation—as if she'd heard the most absurd joke in existence.

  "Injustice?!"

  Ling stepped forward, voice trembling with "passion," as if gravely insulted:

  "This is simply… what shortsightedness! What ignorance! What ungrateful fallacy!"

  She raised her hand, pointing at the invisible sky above, tone impassioned:

  "When heaven and earth first opened, spiritual energy was as wild and toxic as fire! If mortals were allowed to absorb it freely, minor cases would lead to qi deviation, severe cases would trigger regional reality collapse!"

  "It was the Court! The Great Central! They expended boundless love and selflessness to establish the "Spiritual-Pressure Filtration Network," covering all Three Realms! Uniformly collecting, purifying, and packaging that polluted raw spiritual energy—only then did we have today's stable, safe 'Standard Spiritual Power' that living beings can directly interface with!"

  Ling turned to Fourth Master, eyes blazing with fervent light:

  "How is this monopoly? This is macro-regulation! This is the greatest compassion for all beings!"

  "As for those who complain that 'merit vouchers' are hard to earn…"

  Ling gave a cold laugh, lips curving into ultimate mockery:

  "Why don't they reflect on themselves? Why hasn't their cultivation improved after hundreds of years? Have they worked hard? Have they contributed value to the Court?"

  "What is Merit? It's proof of how much great love you've contributed to this world! Those rogue cultivators, thinking only of 'freeloading' heaven-and-earth spiritual energy all day, refusing to take responsibility for maintaining order, then blaming the platform for taking too big a cut?"

  "These people are parasites of the cultivation world! Evil cultivators destabilizing the system! In my view, these heretics who hold 'spiritual energy sharing theory' don't even deserve an explanation—just drag them to the Immortal Execution Platform to recycle their spiritual energy, and that's already letting them off easy!"

  Dead silence.

  Then—

  "Clap, clap, clap."

  Fourth Master began applauding.

  "Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."

  Fourth Master's face crinkled into a beaming smile. He pointed at Ling and said to the dumbfounded Dax beside him:

  "Old Jiang, you really know how to recruit!"

  Dax's eyeballs nearly popped out, internally alarmed: This… did she get body-snatched again while she was out?

  Ling bowed slightly, returning to humble standby mode. The instant she lowered her head, behind those gold-rimmed glasses, she rolled her eyes so hard they nearly fell out.

  Ugh… about to vomit up last year's wine. "Filtration network" my ass—it's just to lock the profits from all those "mining rigs" in your hands. Just wait, old bastard. Maybe one day I'll drain your Spirit Pool bone-dry! Mye-hahaha!

  "Since your ideological awareness is so high…"

  Fourth Master was in excellent spirits, but couldn't quite shake his last trace of wariness. He turned to his lackey:

  "Zhaos, go give this enlightened goddess a 'welcome gift.'"

  Zhaos blinked: "Fourth Master, you mean…?"

  "I'm in a good mood today. Donating some Merit Burns to your temple." Fourth Master pulled three sticks of incense from his sleeve, glowing with faint golden light. A casual flick and the tips ignited without fire. He whispered something to Zhaos, who nodded gravely.

  "This is Celestial Premium Burn-incense."

  Zhaos took the incense and approached Ling step by step.

  He raised the three burning sticks above his head. Through the swirling smoke, he slowly prostrated himself in worship, rapidly murmuring:

  "All beings are but straw dogs, only the Ancestor reigns above. Ancestor Wei's divine might illuminates the Nine Hells. The mystic gate opens wide to welcome the holy presence; soul laid bare, receiving ancestral grace."

  Ling suddenly seized up.

  The instant the worship incantation ended, an invisible force seemed to bypass her consciousness entirely, forcibly activating "Celestial Maiden's Prayer" and issuing a spiritual audience invitation.

  Fuck, that old pervert Wei actually left a backdoor?… Ling cursed internally, but could only watch helplessly as that smoke wrapped around Zhaos's soul and swaggered straight through her forehead.

  Simultaneously, a deduction notice popped up:

  [Merit Treasure Received: 100 Burns]

  [Commission Agreement: Celestial Court 50% (includes transfer fees, maintenance fees, vessel usage fees, prepaid personal tax, etc.); Longjiang Earth God Temple: 30%]

  [Estimated Real-Time Receipt: 20 Burns]

  Ling's rage meter instantly maxed out. This piece of junk took an 80% cut?!

  …

  Zhaos's soul descended onto the Platform through the prayer channel, utterly arrogant.

  "Hahahaha! Bitch! Didn't see this coming, did you! I fucking knew it was you! Caught red-handed—what do you have to say now!"

  Zhaos spun around, about to rush out and report to Fourth Master: "Fourth Master! Found her! Inside is—"