The male supporting character was actually myself.

"Congratulations, host, on completing the house-buying task! The reward has been sent to your system space." The little white cat licked its paws and reminded you, "Also, the countdown for that task is still six and a half days. It seems that the time flow in the underworld and the human world is the same. Host, please make sure to manage your time wisely."

Jiang Chen, who had just received the keys to his new house, frowned slightly. He still had six and a half days to bring the protagonist from the human world to the underworld, so he needed to get to the human world as soon as possible...

Aside from reincarnation, how can one successfully sneak into the human world without being captured by the ghost messengers?

He was just thinking about asking around to see if he could use money to pave the way and quickly bring the protagonist down when he saw some familiar faces looking rather disheveled not far away—the Taoist masters he had met in the wilderness.

"Damn it, the client is a real piece of work!"

"Stop dawdling and find somewhere to hide! The Ghost King is coming!"

"Unless we get out of the ghost market quickly, we'll be found sooner or later. Hurry up and run towards the main gate!"

The burly Taoist master was probably injured; his light blue robe was stained with blood, and he was carrying a motionless fellow disciple on his shoulder. He staggered as he led the others in a desperate escape.

Along the way, many ghosts were drawn by the scent of human blood, their eyes gleaming with a greedy, scarlet light as they stared intently at them.

A black mist rolled in from afar. Jiang Chen sensed with his ghostly instincts that the newcomer was hostile. Its extremely cold aura suggested that it was likely a tough opponent in the underworld that could not be easily provoked.

"Run! Run! The Ghost King is coming!"

"So they've provoked the Ghost King; these guys are doomed!"

"Tsk tsk, I thought I was going to have a good meal, but I'd better hide..."

…………

Sensing this terrifying aura, the ghosts that had been eyeing the injured Taoist priest hurriedly covered their heads and fled, and soon the ghostly streets became deserted.

"Hey! Come this way quickly!" Jiang Chen waved across the fence of the residential area, and at the same time quickly floated ahead to lead the way, standing in front of his villa and indicating that they could jump over from the lakeside area.

The burly Taoist priest didn't stand on ceremony. He flipped over the tall fence of the villa area and rushed straight into the villa with the gate wide open.

"Dangdang!"

Jiang Chen swiftly closed the door and activated the villa's built-in magic array. A faint glow enveloped the entire courtyard, preventing other ghosts from entering without the owner's permission.

The little white cat crouched outside, keeping watch.

The thick black fog rolled in, paused briefly by the lake, then clearly lost its target. It roared at the shimmering lake surface a few times, circled around the area several times, and finally retreated reluctantly.

"Phew! They're finally gone. Host and the others are safe for now," the fluffy little dumpling hopped into the house and whispered a reminder.

The burly Taoist master, disregarding his appearance, lay sprawled on the ground, panting heavily. "Thanks, brother. If it weren't for you today, my fellow disciples and I would have perished here."

"Is this the house you bought? I didn't realize you were so rich, young man."

"Fortunately, it's a high-end villa area with its own magic array that can conceal our presence, otherwise you would have been implicated."

"Damn it! I'm definitely going to settle the score with that old bastard when I get back this time!"

Jiang Chen looked at the most seriously injured Celestial Master, frowned, and asked, "What ghosts did you offend? How come a dignified Celestial Master was beaten like this? Are there any pharmacies in the Ghost Market? Do they have any medicine to treat your injuries?"

“No need to trouble yourself. The medicines sold in the ghost market are all for ghosts, we don’t need them.” The burly man took off his black mask, revealing a rugged, bearded face. “My name is Duan Tang, and I’m a spirit medium from the Lingyin Pavilion. Thanks to your righteous help, brother, if you ever need anything, just send me a message in my dream.”

They brought a lot of medicinal herbs with them, and after a simple bandage and taking the medicine, they rested on the sofa and explained the reasons to Jiang Chen in detail.

Celestial Masters in the human realm are divided into two types: civil and military.

The Listening Wind Valley, which suppresses and expels the original owner, belongs to a faction with high combat power. Most of them are commissioned to deal with fierce ghosts and evil spirits. They would rather take action than talk.

As disciples of the Listening Pavilion, Duan Tang and his group preferred a more administrative role—as underworld travelers. They would accept commissions to go to the underworld to gather information and send it back to the human world, generally only using words and not engaging in combat.

Humans and ghosts are different. In order to avoid getting entangled in complicated karma, people who travel to the underworld usually wear masks and do not reveal their true faces or names to ghosts, so as not to provoke those they should not provoke and cause trouble for themselves.

For this pilgrimage to the underworld, Duan Tang and his team accepted a simple commission that cost a high price.

A wealthy old man spent a large sum of money to hire a spirit medium to search for his friend's prematurely deceased daughter in the underworld.

It is said that a friend had a daughter late in life, but she died suddenly at the age of twenty-two. Her parents were heartbroken and fell ill from missing their daughter. The old man felt pity for her and asked the people of Lingyin Pavilion to invite the spirit of the young girl who died young to meet her family one last time.

Originally, when Duan Tang and the others accepted the commission, they had asked about the whole story clearly. The girl's birth date and time of death also matched up. So they accepted the commission and went all the way to the ghost market of the Dujiang Yinjie branch.

Unexpectedly, the little girl was quite lucky. She was just wandering in the wilderness, being harassed and bullied by other ghosts, when she was hiding. She was accidentally spotted by the Ghost King, who bought her a pass, brought her into the Ghost Market, and took her as a concubine, raising her in luxury.

When Duan Tang and his group arrived, the girl was in the spotlight.

Upon hearing that her parents were ill with longing, she tearfully begged the Ghost King to allow her to see her family one last time. The Ghost King, moved by her plight, agreed and personally oversaw Duan Tang and the others as they performed the ritual to send the girl's soul to her new home.

Everything was normal at first, but unexpectedly, after the girl's soul was attached to the spirit medium and she had only said a few words, a stranger suddenly appeared and extracted most of the energy from the girl's soul, transferring it to a sickly living person!

Duan Tang and the others had limited views from below and didn't react immediately.

However, after the other party extracted the ghost's energy, they unilaterally severed the connection. Duan Tang hurriedly pulled the girl's soul back, but she only had a sliver of life left, and her soul was about to dissipate and she was about to die.

Seeing this, the Ghost King felt he had been tricked and was furious. The two sides started fighting. Duan Tang and his group suffered a loss and ran away from the Ghost King's mansion. Fortunately, they met Jiang Chen and temporarily escaped a disaster.

Chapter Six: Isn't this a coincidence?

"Damn it, that old bastard! He dared to lie to us, we'll definitely settle the score with him when we get back!"

"The Ghost King will definitely try every means to hunt us down. Let's think about how to leave."

"We can't stay in the underworld for long. Senior Brother Duan and Xiao Su are both injured, so we can't delay any longer and must find a way back to the human world."

"Hopefully, Senior Brother Wang from Old B's side can escape safely, so he can send someone to the underworld to find us..."

…………

After briefly explaining the situation, Duan Tang and the others discussed countermeasures in hushed tones.

Jiang Chen looked completely bewildered. "I still don't understand. What happened in the middle? Why would this guy who suddenly appeared want to steal a ghost's soul energy? And then transfer that energy to a human? Isn't he afraid of offending your Listening Pavilion by doing this?"

"I've thought about it carefully, and that should be the case."

Duan Tangbian rubbed his injured right leg and explained, "The concubine favored by the Ghost King was born in a yin year, yin month, and yin hour. People with this characteristic have extremely yin soul energy, which is an excellent tonic for ghost cultivators. That's why the Ghost King favored her so much."

Although humans and ghosts are said to be on different paths, there are always exceptions.

For example, people born in the same Yin year, Yin month, and Yin hour; or cultivators practicing a special technique—they can all absorb the energy of extremely Yin ghosts. That old cunning bastard definitely wasn't doing this for the first time, otherwise he wouldn't have been so adept at it!

"Our Listening Pavilion is just a small sect barely able to make a living, and we don't have much martial power. Even if we offend him, there's nothing we can do about it."

Another celestial master said in a deep voice, "There are many heretical and evil sects in the human world that specialize in eating ghosts and cultivating. In addition, the underworld is overrun with ghosts and cannot be managed, so they are basically left to their own devices. Those guys are even more unscrupulous."

The old man probably never expected that the female ghost with the most yin constitution he had finally found would have a connection with the Ghost King.

They usually have dedicated partners for these kinds of shady dealings. They might be trying to scam us this time to make a quick buck. Senior Brother Wang has probably already…”

The rest of the sentence was left unsaid, and the others fell silent.

"If that's really the case, even if we hadn't provoked the Ghost King this time, we probably still wouldn't be able to leave smoothly." Duan Tang looked at Jiang Chen, whom he had just met, and sighed, "Young brother, you'll be living in the underworld from now on, we can't hold you back."

"We'll leave after we rest and recover from our injuries. If the Ghost King can explain the situation, there might still be a glimmer of hope."

Jiang Chen needed to gather more information about the underworld, so he took the opportunity to ask, "Is the Ghost King an official, on the payroll of the underworld? Assuming the client is a repeat offender and is trying to swindle the underworld people, are they really that confident they can kill so many of you without anyone noticing?"

Duan Tang pondered for a moment and replied, "It's also possible that he knew he had offended the Ghost King's concubine, so he took the risk by coming to a small gang like ours with no one to back him up."

Furthermore, those who travel to the underworld cannot linger in the realm of the dead for too long, otherwise their yang energy will be cut off, and they will die like fish starving for too long. So, killing us is very simple: temporarily block the passage between the realms of the living and the dead, and after three days, we will naturally be unable to return.

As for the Ghost King...

It's nothing compared to the established officials in the underworld. But as you can see, this is just a branch of the underworld in Dujiang City, yet it's so vast and teeming with countless ghosts. How many people are there in the entire underworld?

They can't handle it all!

As the saying goes, wherever there are people, there is a world of its own; even ghosts were once people.

Besides, how many years can a human live? A hundred or eighty years is considered a long life, while ghosts are waiting for their reincarnation numbers to be issued thousands of years in advance. As long as they have food and drink to replenish their energy, ghosts can live indefinitely.

The Ghost Market has existed and developed for so many years, and it's a complex web of various gangs and factions—it's a very murky place!

The Ghost King is at best a local tyrant who has lived a long time and possesses powerful soul energy, but even such a tyrant is someone we can't afford to offend.

"Then, how can ghosts cultivate? Are there any secret manuals or anything like that?"

"There are secret manuals, but they only teach you how to use energy. Some of the moves aren't very useful." Duan Tang explained patiently and without reservation: "The most important thing is how to gather energy."

Ghosts have no physical form; they are simply a source of energy.

If one can eat a full meal every now and then to maintain one's energy levels, one can live indefinitely.

If you can eat your fill every day, you'll have enough energy to accumulate and overflow. This overflowing energy is what you can use at will. So, if you can eat your fill every day for a while, you can naturally become the lowest level ghost cultivator.

Becoming a ghost cultivator isn't difficult; the challenge lies in leveling up.

The ways I know are: either you're super rich enough to eat graded ghost food, or you're ruthless enough to capture other ghosts and devour them without being detected by the ghost officials, or you go to the underworld to kill evil spirits and devour their inner cores.

"The Underworld?" The little white cat suddenly heard a familiar term and immediately perked up its ears. "Host, you should quickly ask him how the Underworld is set up in this mission world? Maybe we can even meet the Spirit King!"

A red figure suddenly appeared in Jiang Chen's mind, and he felt that the terms "Netherworld Prison" and "Spirit King" were very familiar.

Before he could ask further, Duan Tang explained, "The Underworld is no good place. As I just said, the time spent as a human is short, but the time spent as a ghost is long. With so many ghosts, it's inevitable that they will commit many evil deeds and fall into becoming evil spirits. They will be squeezed out by the laws of the Underworld and exiled to the Underworld."

It was a dark and gloomy place, teeming with all sorts of ferocious and evil spirits. No Taoist priest or ghost cultivator without some skill would dare to set foot there lightly.

But if you go in, slaughter evil spirits, and obtain their inner cores, they're priceless!

Ghost food of grade three and below can be made using spiritual herbs and fruits, but to make ghost food of grade three or above or to refine pills, one must have the corresponding level of evil spirit inner core.

It used to be a little better, but in recent years, with the reforms in the Underworld, no one is managing it, and no one dares to enter the Netherworld Prison easily. At most, they form groups to kill some low-level evil spirits in the surrounding area. Even so, a single Rank 3 Inner Core is worth tens of thousands of gold coins at the auction house!

The fluffy dumpling's deep blue eyes suddenly sparkled with countless golden stars. Wiping the drool from its mouth, it chuckled and said, "We've struck it rich! Host, we stuffed so many spirit cores into the food maker's space back then. They must be the inner cores he was talking about, right?"

With so many good things, we're guaranteed to win in the underworld this time!

Seeing his curiosity, another celestial master reminded him, "In the underworld, the inner core of an evil spirit is one of the most precious items. If you are interested, you can go to a bookstore and buy a book about it."

"If you could obtain the inner core and make it into ghost food or refine it into a pill to consume, you could quickly advance from a low-level ghost cultivator to a high-level ghost cultivator. With good luck, you might even become a Ghost King."

"Thank you all for your answers. I just bought a house and haven't settled in yet, so I'm going out to do some shopping and check things out for you while I'm at it." Jiang Chen stood up and smiled slightly. "I still have quite a bit of money in my account, maybe I'll get lucky and manage to get an evil spirit core."

Everyone, please rest and recover here with me. We'll make further plans later when I bring back some news.

After leaving the villa, he quickly made his way to a bustling street and found a bookstore where he bought a few books.

"Illustrated Guide to Evil Spirit Inner Elixir Appraisal", "Complete Guide to Inner Elixir", "Introduction to Inner Elixir Identification", "How to Identify Inner Elixirs in Five Minutes"...

Jiang Chen casually flipped through a book, quickly scanning it and beaming with delight—sure enough, the settings of the two mission worlds were completely identical!

The fluffy dumpling was overjoyed and excitedly pulled out a picture from the food-making machine's storage space. It had found the same picture in a book and meowed excitedly. "It's exactly the same! Hey hey, we're going to make a fortune this time!"

Chapter Six: Isn't this a coincidence?