Page 105

By the morning of the third day, Murong Yunji and Gu Bei from Beipo had returned, bringing even more survivors.

Including those brought back by Second Master Shen, there were now just over twenty thousand survivors who had entered the city.

Zhou Haitao, who was responsible for registration, was so overwhelmed he wished he could sprout eight hands.

To make matters worse, Wei Gongcheng, who usually helped share the load, had suddenly disappeared, leaving him in utter desperation.

In fact, Zhou Haitao wasn’t the only one complaining.

Wei Gongcheng, who was currently presiding over the netherworld, was also feeling the pressure.

All the rescued were from counties and villages close to the river that had suffered zombie attacks, which meant that a large number of refugees entailed even more lost souls entering the city with them.

Newly born spirits were often confused and would only do one of two things, either subconsciously follow their relatives or, if overwhelmed by resentment, latch onto the beings responsible for their deaths.

However, since the killers this time were zombies, the spirits still retaining memories from their lives were instinctively afraid and thus more likely to stick with their families.

An initial estimate put the number of spirits that had come into the city at over thirty thousand!

Wei Gongcheng, who had just become the City God, had limited power in his Karma Fruit and would struggle to construct even a hundred decent houses for the deceased, let alone two hundred unrefined ones. How could he possibly accommodate tens of thousands of spirits?

Additionally, without enough karmic power to bestow divine positions, the only beings in the nether administration besides him were a Day Traveling God and a Night Traveling God.

They didn’t even have a Judge to help determine the karma of the spirits’ past lives, let alone Ghost Generals tasked with executing and suppressing evil ghosts.

The workload was enough to make anyone’s head spin!

"My lord, you need to think of a solution!"

When Chen Qing got up in the morning, Wei Gongcheng had already stationed himself at the bedside.

Chen Qing felt it was necessary to properly educate this fellow on boundaries, as even in death, one should not casually invade someone’s room. If it were a woman, it might be fine, but as a big man, showing up like this early in the morning would easily startle people, right?

"Take it easy..." Chen Qing got up with resignation, but feeling something wet below, he didn’t dare to lift the quilt and simply sat half-reclining on the bed and asked.

Seeing Chen Qing’s leisurely demeanor, Wei Gongcheng’s frustration made his teeth itch, "My lord, even as a hands-off manager, you should come up with some ideas, right? The netherworld administration’s Karma Fruit power is far from sufficient.

Considering the number of spirits in Lyuzhou, we can’t even guarantee basic accommodation.

How are we supposed to maintain the authority of the administration? "

"Oh, go earn some Karma Fruit power then..." Chen Qing said, exasperated, "What are you hurrying me for? With the situation out there, can’t you earn some?"

"How shall we earn it?" Wei Gongcheng asked, barely containing his laughter, "The new refugees are still in shock, their emotions unsettled.

Do you want to frighten them to death by rushing to communicate with them in their dreams?

Besides, granting such favors lightly will compromise our authority, no? "

Chen Qing nodded inwardly, admitting that the other party had thought this through.

Most people were still reeling, caught between immense joy and sorrow following their narrow escape.

Dream communication at this point could probably scare half of them to death, and indeed, it should not be granted lightly.

With the scarce Karma Fruit power the City God had at the start, any available resources were limited.

Dream communication allowed spirits to see their living relatives and consumed very little Karma Fruit power—making it an extremely cost-effective method of pacifying the spirits—it couldn’t be handed out casually.

"Then I suppose we can only take it slow," Chen Qing said, also feeling helpless, "There’s nothing I can do."

"But there are just too many spirits coming in!" Wei Gongcheng frowned, "We can’t guarantee anything else, but we must at least provide enough housing, right? Most of them are good souls; without a place to stay, what’s even the point of coming to the netherworld?"

"Indeed..." Chen Qing nodded and then had an idea, "Bring me some paper and a pen!"

A quarter of an hour later, Chen Qing handed over his finished design. Wei Gongcheng took one look and was momentarily stunned, "Is this..."

"Temporary housing for the dead!"

"This..." Wei Gongcheng furrowed his brow. The design was indeed intricate and practical. It discarded unnecessary backyard space, turned the entire house into rooms, piled them on top of one another, and divided the space very sensibly. However, the rooms seemed too small.

"Isn’t this too small? It feels like... it looks like a coffin?" Wei Gongcheng expressed his thoughts.

Chen Qing grimaced—capsule apartments, right, weren’t they just like coffins?

"We don’t have a choice right now, do we?

" Chen Qing said with a smile, "You can temporarily arrange the spirits like this.

Then, judge each one carefully, select those with deep virtue, offer them better homes and the privilege of dream communication.

Take it slow, deliberately leaving them hanging, which will actually enhance authority. "

"I see!" Grasping the design and the idea behind it, Wei Gongcheng understood.

First, they would roughly accommodate everyone using these crude coffin-like rooms without distinction, and later publicly judge their past lives.

This method would not only buy them time, it would also command respect from the new inhabitants of the netherworld administration.

The long wait would make them more anxious. Seeing others attain better houses and longer afterlives would intensify their desire for such privileges, rapidly spreading the importance of these offerings.

Sure enough, the scholar had a shrewd heart!

"Thank you for your advice, my lord. I will get on this immediately!" Wei Gongcheng was just about to leave after saluting when something suddenly occurred to him, "My lord, we need to choose the Martial Judge quickly!"

Chen Qing felt another headache coming on.

The Martial Judge was mainly responsible for overseeing the sentencing of evil ghosts and timely assessment to see if their malignancy has been removed—a vital role for Wei Gongcheng at present.

Since they couldn’t draw on the faith from the living just yet, Chen Qing’s method was more about conserving resources.

If they wanted to kick-start operations, they had to open up new sources of power.

If they couldn’t rely on the living, the best way to acquire faith would be from the evil ghosts in the netherworld.

Putting mildly evil ghosts through punitive trials to extract some of their malevolent karmic energy, and then purifying it with the virtuous souls among the nether inhabitants, would likely be the main way to acquire Karma Fruit power for a long while.

Therefore, the candidate for Martial Judge was crucial.

Since Wei Gongcheng had no Karma Fruit power to spare for appointing a second Martial Judge, there was no room for error. A wrong choice could disrupt the entire operation of the nether administration.

The Martial Judge must possess a deterrent force, and the best candidates are fierce generals who have experienced the battlefield. Although many have died in Lyuzhou, there are few suitable candidates, after all, true warlords would not be easily killed by the living dead. Actually, there is one.

Chen Qing knew that when the other party was asking him, they actually wanted that person, who was now arranged behind the Government Office, barely breathing and close to death—Xu Hu.

That man had no extraordinary bloodline, yet he could take on a hundred enemies with his mortal strength, killing so many zombies and fiercely protecting his wife and child, as well as the group of County Magistrates including Gu Beiquan.

Indeed, he was a rare general, who would at least be on the same level as Xiang Yu or Li Yuanba in the historical legends of Huaxia.

Chen Qing, of course, wanted to keep such a person to join the War God system. Having him become a Martial Judge... seemed a bit of a waste of his talents.

But by the looks of it, Wei Gongcheng had set his sights on him long ago.

Chen Qing rubbed his head, "Let me think about it; I’ll give you an answer tonight."

"Good, I’ll come to find you tonight!" Wei Gongcheng said with a satisfied smile.

He had been eyeing Xu Hu for some time, hearing from Gu Bei and the others upon entering the city how the man was incredibly brave and strong, single-handedly battling against a hundred zombies and killing more than a dozen with his bare hands.

Such ferocity, if he had any special bloodline, would undoubtedly rank him among the top-tier warriors in the world.

The underworld would naturally compete for such a powerhouse to catch evil ghosts; he had even heard that the White Wolf at the South Gate had circled around Xu Hu’s place a few times, clearly coveting his strength!

After sending Wei Gongcheng off, Chen Qing quickly got out of bed and changed his pants, feeling that perhaps age was catching up with him as he had recently experienced nocturnal emissions.

But then again, at over twenty years old, in the prime of his life, keeping such urges suppressed wasn’t exactly ideal.

As soon as he stepped out the door, he saw a fat man with a resentful expression, causing him to shrink down below again.

"What’s wrong with you now?"

"What do you mean ’again’?" Zhou Haitao immediately got anxious. "Your Excellency, your words must have conscience. You make it sound like I frequently bother you. If I wasn’t really overwhelmed, why would I dare to disturb your good sleep?"

"Ahem..." Chen Qing coughed lightly, feeling that he had been slacking off recently, sleeping in late when in the past, during his study days, he would wake up before the rooster crowed, full of vigor.

"Speak, what is it?"

"Your Excellency, a rough registration of the population has been done.

There are a total of 23,461 people rescued this time, with very few elderly, weak women, and children; most are able-bodied youth.

Among them, there are about two to three hundred merchants who ran away with their goods, over a hundred scholars who had studied, plus three to four thousand elderly, weak, women, children, and the rest are from farmer households. "

"Although most of the able-bodied are farmers, they’re now congregated in the city, unable to trade or farm. You need to give some thought to their arrangement, or else if these men remain idle, there will be major public safety issues."

"Then there are the positions you promised: the accounting office, the punishment department, and the Government Officials. Now that we have more people, we really can’t leave these vacant!"

"I understand..." Chen Qing held his head, feeling a headache coming on.

This was only a few tens of thousands of people, and it was already so troublesome.

Based on the estimates, there will probably be over a million people crammed into Lyuzhou in the future, which is going to be an even bigger headache.

For the past two nights, no new waves of zombies have appeared by the river, clearly because the increase of zombies in Lyuzhou has led the Array to deem Lyuzhou a weak city with limited capacity, and no second wave of zombies has been sent over.

Chen Qing felt that at this moment, most of the pressure should be on Nanming Prefecture, which has heavy troops, and Nanyang City, which has the Shen Family. It’s unlikely that Lyuzhou will have new zombies or that high-level corpse insects will be released.

But this does not mean that Lyuzhou is safe. The scattered zombies would slaughter the common folks to create more living dead. If they are not rescued in time, the increasing numbers of local zombies will also evolve into higher species, making the situation even more troublesome.

They must make use of this lull to train enough fighting forces to face the more severe situations ahead.

The surrounding villages and towns need to be recovered, or else there will be a lack of food in the future.

The city must expand to accommodate enough population, and defensive posts must be established to protect the counties, towns, and villages.

More deity systems need to be enshrined. All of this requires proper planning.

"Let’s discuss it in the main hall," a sighing Chen Qing said, fearing that the situation in the mortal realm would be no better than that of Wei Gongcheng in the underworld.

"Oh, okay, Your Excellency!" Zhou Haitao, seeing that his lord was finally ready to work, suddenly became so excited that tears filled his eyes.

"By the way, Your Excellency..." Zhou Haitao also suddenly remembered something and spoke up, "The Gate God has been looking for me."

Chen Qing was taken aback, "What for?"

It looked like the White Wolf was in good shape recently. But that made sense—more and more people believed in the Gate Deity and the Gatekeeper Soldiers were expanding. He guessed that the Deity was not far from ascending in rank.

"It dragged me over to ask if that man called Xu Hu could be given to it."

Chen Qing: "....."

Great, another contender looking to snatch him up!