Chapter 471 Animal World (Third Update!)

The old Daoist’s laughter confused the “ghosts” in the pavilion.

They’d only ever heard of ghosts scaring people; today, it was a human scaring ghosts.

Even the powder-reeking fellow pressed against the old Daoist’s shoulder seemed hesitant.

If the occupants of the pavilion were truly ghosts, they wouldn’t be so troubled; they’d have torn the old Daoist to shreds without a second thought.

But the truth was, they were all messengers.

Holding jobs in the bureaucracy of the underworld, they considered things more carefully than those mindless imps in hell.

They liked to overthink and hesitate; even the smallest matter could be dissected into seven or eight different angles. Otherwise, sitting on the sidelines in the underworld would be boring, wouldn't it?

To the higher-ups in the underworld, ghost messengers were "expendable," with a high attrition rate.

But there were also some who lacked ambition but knew how to protect themselves. They weren't expended, nor were they promoted; they just occupied their positions, living out the lives of the previous generation, adopting that quasi-Republic era style of dress.

When the little loli accompanied a group of ghost messengers to Rong City, there were many of these older messengers among them, hoping to make a big, safe profit, maybe skim a little oil. But their ending was quite tragic.

The "ghosts" in the pavilion were representative of these older messengers. No one knew why they’d gathered here.

But the old Daoist didn’t know any of this; he just thought he’d stumbled into a nest of ghosts.

In his mind, he gave the lawyer An's ancestors a thorough cursing.

Then, without hesitation, he reached into his crotch.

Martial artists in wuxia novels practiced the art of drawing the sword,

emphasizing speed, ruthlessness, and precision!

The old Daoist practiced the art of drawing from the crotch,

pursuing the same ideals.

This time,

stimulated by the crisis of survival,

his crotch-drawing technique was faster, more ruthless, and more accurate than ever before.

His fingertips, besides the paper talisman, also held several curled black hairs.

Without a second thought,

he slapped them all onto the powdered face!

"Ah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A piercing scream rang out.

The talisman burned, and the powdered face burned with it,

turning to ashes in an instant!

The old Daoist was startled.

Damn,

after being locked up in prison for over a month, has my power increased so much?

If lawyer An were standing nearby, he'd probably roll his eyes. Power increase? Don't dream. They're all just paper clones.

If a ghost messenger could be instantly killed by a single talisman,

then you, old Daoist, would be really awesome.

The old Daoist tossed his head,

reached into his crotch again, and pulled out another talisman, staring at the many “ghosts” present.

These "ghosts" didn't rush forward.

Several of them even shouted out loud:

Their shouts were also "gibberish," as if they had a mouthful of pebbles and mud, making it hard to understand.

But in a villa suite across the pond,

an old man who had been enjoying a pear blossom pressing against a crabapple was immediately preparing to get up.

"Something's happened, I'll go take a look."

The female ghost messenger suddenly hooked her foot behind his back,

squeezed hard,

and shouted:

"A few seconds won't make a difference."

Instantly,

a torrent cascaded down,

whoosh,

it was over.

Indeed,

a few seconds didn't matter.

The old man got out of bed. One of the two suited men who had been standing by immediately stepped forward to help him dress. The old man gave the other a look, and the second suited man walked straight out.

"What's wrong?"

The female ghost messenger was also getting dressed.

She was actually a little regretful; this old man was just an appetizer, all looks and no substance. She actually wanted to taste the flavors of those two puppet suited men.

"I don't know what those old fogeys are yelling about. Fortunately, His Excellency doesn't really plan to rely on them to get things done, or else they'd really be a bunch of failures.

They're fine for waving flags on the sidelines, but when they actually encounter something, these cowards run faster than anyone!

Tidy up here, I'll go outside and take a look. There are still a few waves of guests coming. When this is all over, I'll feed you properly."

"Okay."

The female ghost messenger gave him a charming look.

As for what she was really thinking, who knew?

They didn't think they were particularly degenerate or wanton. To enjoy life while they could was their current motto.

…………

In another suite,

the three people who had been sipping wine together put down their glasses.

The shouts of those old-fashioned ghost messengers in the pavilion affected all ghosts, like sound waves transmitted by bats.

Lawyer An smashed his glass on the floor,

making a crisp sound.

At the same time, he clapped his hands,

and said:

"Hey,

the sappers have completed their mission,

let's go!"

This was just a skirmish between two small groups,

so trying to come up with some complicated battle plan would be ridiculous.

The key was just one word:

"Fight!"

Although they were all ghost messengers,

they were fighting like street thugs.

You caused trouble on my turf and almost got me arrested by the cops.

I'm seizing the opportunity to sneak up on you and smash a brick on the back of your head!

…………

"Don't come over here, don't come over here!

Immeasurable Heavenly Lord,

Amitabha Buddha!"

The old Daoist held his talismans and faced off against these "ghosts."

These paper clone ghost messengers really didn't dare to step forward. Even if they were just clones, being destroyed would still damage the original. None of them wanted to suffer that loss.

Perhaps this was their nature,

in any case,

it seemed that there were fewer and fewer of these old ghost messengers. The ones who were still alive were all wily veterans.

The newly promoted ghost messengers of recent years had become the mainstream. It was said that the underworld seemed to be planning a reform, recalling all these old ghost messengers to hell to make room for the younger generation.

It was just a pity that the underworld didn't have a retirement system, nor did it have any concept of lifespan, making it more difficult to replace the old with the new.

Just then,

a dark shadow appeared behind the old Daoist.

Before the old Daoist could even turn around, he felt a kick in his back. The next moment, he was flying backwards, crashing into a pillar of the pavilion, causing him to bleed from the nose and almost fall into the pond.

The nearby ghost messenger clones revealed gloating smiles.

"Squeak squeak squeak!!!!"

A shrill grinding sound came.

The suited man who had arrived first turned around,

and saw a hairy face and a thunderous mouth in front of him.

In an instant, the little monkey had grown in size, becoming a black ape, slapping the suited man's handsome, model-like face!

"Bang!"

Like the old Daoist, the suited man was sent flying, crashing into a wooden pillar. Even more ridiculously, he broke the pillar, causing the lakeside pavilion to collapse.

The little monkey roared, ignored the ghost messenger paper clones, bent down and carried the old Daoist on his shoulder, then leaped out of the pavilion's area, quickly pedaling his legs on the lake surface, like skipping stones, bringing the old Daoist to the shore.

The sunglasses old man had now arrived.

When he saw the ape,

he was stunned for a moment.

"Where did this demon monkey come from?"

In this day and age, demons were becoming rarer and rarer. Besides a few who might still wander the human world, most were hibernating in their old homes.

"Take it down, capture it alive! I want to use monkey brains to entertain guests!"

A shadow emerged from the water,

and another shadow rushed out from the shore.

The two shadows sandwiched the monkey and the old Daoist between them,

and shouted in unison:

"The underworld has order, the laws of death are merciless, bind!"

Black vines grew out of the ground, wrapping around the monkey's limbs.

The monkey struggled non-stop,

but felt like it was sinking deeper and deeper,

unable to do anything about the black vines.

The old Daoist beside the monkey immediately rummaged through the monkey's satchel,

and took out a stack of talismans.

Some were his own, but after those few big expenditures, he didn't have many left. Most of them he had gotten from Xu Qinglang.

Xu Qinglang had been painstakingly drawing talismans at home these days.

The old Daoist wasn't picky.

He just gathered up whatever he could find.

At that moment,

the old Daoist threw out the stack of talismans in his hand,

and shouted:

"Eat my exploding talismans!"

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh…………"

The talismans fluttered,

and in the wind, they turned into flames.

The shadow on the shore retreated two steps, avoiding the flames, but the flames were very weak, like sparklers, looking dazzling but useless.

The old Daoist took out a few more talismans from the monkey's satchel.

If the talismans weren't effective, then he'd use quantity to make up for it!

"Eat my poor Daoist's exploding talismans!"

The talismans scattered out,

and faintly visible were electric snakes flowing within them, but the wind direction suddenly changed. The talismans that had been scattered far away were blown back by the wind.

"…………" The old Daoist.

"…………" The little monkey.

For a moment, electric snakes danced wildly, like a large-scale electrical leakage.

"Ah ah ah!!!!"

"Squeak squeak squeak!!!"

The old Daoist and the monkey were both screaming from the electricity,

but unintentionally,

the black vines that had trapped the monkey were also broken.

Without hesitation, the monkey reached into his satchel,

and took out the *Yinyang Cauldron* (yin-yang book),

"Squeak squeak!"

Two black and one yellow rays of light instantly appeared.

Not only Grandma Ba and Brother Huang, but even the black cat, the guardian spirit in the *Yinyang Cauldron*, appeared.

No one knew when the monkey had actually managed to win over even the black cat, being able to summon it to help in the battle.

"Roar!!!"

The monkey pounded his chest,

like beating a war drum.

In an instant,

Brother Huang and Grandma Ba charged towards the shadow on the shore,

the black cat charged towards the shadow on the surface of the pond,

while the monkey strode forward,

roaring towards the sunglasses old man who was standing there in nothing but his underpants!

Not far away,

Zhou Ze and lawyer An were standing there, watching this scene in disbelief.

It wasn't that they didn't want to take action,

but it seemed that they didn't need to take action at all.

Monkey had directly called out his little buddies,

and they had already begun to counterattack.

"That *Yinyang Cauldron*, is that yours, boss?" lawyer An asked.

Zhou Ze nodded.

Lawyer An asked with some envy:

"Boss, I really admire you. How did you think of creating an 'Animal World' back then?"