The most secure job in Dajin

When you find yourself in a new environment, the safest way to protect yourself is to quickly integrate into it—adapt to local customs and follow established habits and rules.

Hua Changxi, who resides in Ghost Realm Fortress, is undoubtedly an anomaly.

To conceal herself to the greatest extent possible, her behavior must closely resemble that of the real Lady Chiyan.

She understood the principle that "a wise person knows when to yield."

In any other situation, she would definitely adapt to the situation and protect herself without hesitation.

But at this moment, he manipulated the lower-ranking demons, turning them into 'food' so that the demons who followed him could 'have a good meal'.
This blatant and self-righteous practice of depriving the weak of their lives to support the strong instinctively repulsed her!

Shaking the Nightmare Bell was indeed the safest and most reliable option for her.

But she didn't want to, and she couldn't.

She's not a true demon, so how could she possibly agree with the demon race's blatant law of survival of the fittest?
She is not the real Crimson Nightmare Goddess, and cannot kill low-level ghosts to support her ghost servants.

This is not because she is so noble, but rather—it involves her principles as a person and her bottom line in doing things.

Principles and bottom lines are things that Hua Changxi is actually unclear about, but at this moment, she is exceptionally clear-headed. There are some things that just cannot be done!
It's not that killing demons is unacceptable, but rather that this method of killing—'plundering the weak to feed others'—is unacceptable.

Today, she is facing the Ghost Clan. Killing some low-level Ghosts to feed the Ghost Servants in exchange for her own safety doesn't seem to need to be elevated to a matter of principle or bottom line; it could even be considered a 'clever' approach.

However, behavior does not change its essence simply because the object it acts upon is different.

Plunder is plunder!

Killing is killing!
What if one day, the environment changes, and she faces the same predicament but with humans instead?

Is she also going to kill and plunder the lives of others for her own safety?
Once this precedent is set, today's demons will become tomorrow's humans.

If she were to accept the 'survival of the fittest' law of the demon race today in order to protect herself, she might truly become a demon in human skin tomorrow.

It's as if she never forgot that she was a modern person in her past life. She didn't actually become an ancient person just because she was reincarnated into ancient times.

She is a human, not a ghost!
At this moment, Hua Changxi's thoughts were clearer than ever before, and the things that were vague in her heart seemed to have become more solid.

"Ring ring~"

The Nightmare Bell rang, but the sound did not spread beyond the Empress's Tower.

The ghost servants inside the building were initially delighted to hear the bell, but their joyful gazes quickly turned empty and lifeless.

The next moment, all the ghost servants inside the building collapsed to the ground, trapped in a nightmare of 'feasting'.

The Empress's Tower effectively blocked outsiders from prying into her mind. Hua Changxi ignored the sleeping ghost servant and continued to observe everything inside the tower.

The Niangniang Tower has five floors. The first floor is the residence of the ghost servants, and there's nothing to see there.

The second floor is somewhat like an office for handling affairs, containing many books recording the deeds of Jiuyou, as well as some common Jiuyou cultivation techniques.

The third floor is a storeroom, which contains many ghost artifacts, various exotic flowers and herbs from the Nine Netherworlds, and a large number of Netherworld stones.

Netherworld Stones are the common currency of the Nine Netherworlds, just like spiritual stones in the human world.

The difference between spirit stones and underworld stones is that spirit stones contain the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, while underworld stones contain the mixed and obscure turbid energy of heaven and earth, that is, the energy of the netherworld.

The aura of the underworld is not a single gas, but rather a mixture of various evil energies.

There is a chilling, bone-piercing yin energy that corrodes the soul; there is a ghostly energy that is entangled with resentment and causes obsession; there is also a violent and malevolent energy, a deathly energy that devours yang energy, and a filthy evil energy mixed in.

These intertwined energies are extremely poisonous to mortal beings, but for the various races of the Nine Netherworlds, they are an indispensable energy for cultivation. In Hua Changxi's view, the so-called Netherworld energy is a mixture of various negative energies.

As soon as Hua Changxi picked up a piece of Nether Stone, she immediately felt the chilling and violent aura surging within it, which instantly made her feel agitated.

Hua Changxi quickly put down the Nether Stone and continued to go upstairs to investigate.

The fourth floor is where Lady Chiyan cultivates. The furnishings are gloomy and eerie, exuding a sense of killing intent and evil. There are also magic arrays carved on the ground to condense ghost energy and refine souls.

An evil aura rushed towards her, but Hua Changxi didn't hesitate and continued upwards.

The fifth floor is where Lady Chiyan lives.

In the living room of Lady Chiyan, Hua Changxi discovered two good things.

One was a skull-shaped storage artifact with an extremely large internal space. Hua Changxi used this skull to sweep away everything stored on the second and third floors.

The other item was a foot-long black bone flute.

The bone used to make this bone flute is no ordinary bone; it was made from the throat bone of a ghost.

The Ghost Chariot is a ferocious bird from the Nine Netherworlds, inherently cruel and fond of devouring souls. Its cry is shrill and eerie, easily causing the listener's soul to tremble, or even directly shattering the soul.

The moment Hua Changxi saw the bone flute, he thought of one of the techniques in "Twelve Styles of Soul Control" called "Soul-Capturing Melody".

This technique requires a specific soul artifact or musical instrument as a medium to transform soul power into an invisible sonic blade.

This bone flute, crafted from the throat bone of the ghost chariot, is inherently imbued with a ferocious power to intimidate the soul, making it an ideal instrument for playing the "Soul-Capturing Melody".

Hua Changxi caressed the cool bone flute, unable to put it down. Without hesitation, she forced out a drop of her essence blood and merged it into the bone flute, refining it completely in the first instant.

With the bone flute, she could play the "Soul-Capturing Melody" and travel through the Nine Netherworlds, gaining an extra edge in self-protection.

Having acquired the treasure, Hua Changxi was in a very good mood. She walked to the window and pushed open the carved window frame.

Looking out from the fifth floor, you can't get a panoramic view of the entire Ghost Realm Fortress, but you can see most of the street scenes in the North Gate area.

Below, shadowy figures flitted about under the eerie green lights on the street. Low-rise buildings stood side by side, and occasionally a few sharp howls could be heard, outlining the chaos and commotion in the lower level of Ghost Realm Fortress.

Hua Changxi's gaze did not linger on the scene downstairs, but instead looked up at the floating islands in the sky, her eyes flashing.

Through the memories of Lady Chiyan, she learned many things she didn't know before.

The Four Spirit Realms consist of the Nine Heavens above, the Nine Netherworlds below, and the Human Realm in the middle, forming a vast world with a complete operational order of the Three Realms.

In the beginning, when heaven and earth were first created and the world was first formed, the pure air rose and the turbid air sank, which respectively formed the Nine Heavens and the Nine Netherworlds.

The heavens have nine layers of palaces, and the netherworld has nine layers of abysses.

If the Nine Heavens symbolize order and light, like a nine-tiered upright pyramid rising upwards, then the Nine Netherworlds represent chaos and disorder, like an inverted nine-tiered pyramid falling downwards and overturning.

At this moment, she was in the first layer of the Nine Netherworld, which was also the largest and most vast territory.

As one of the largest main races in the Nine Netherworlds, the Ghost Clan's central city, Ghost Realm Fortress, is directly connected to the Ninefold Abyss of the Nine Netherworlds.

Here, one can fall from the first level of the Nine Netherworld into the second and third levels of the abyss.
At this moment, the islands she saw suspended high in the sky appeared to be floating in the air, but in reality, they were inverted images.

Those islands, like mirages, are 'small ghost domains' (dojos) created by powerful ghost clans in the second and third levels of the Nine Netherworld. (End of Chapter)