Chapter 302: A New Start of Life?

Under the yellow light of the ever-dusk sky, a middle-aged man slowly opened his eyes as he lay beneath the soft and warm quilt of his bed.

He slowly sat up and looked around.

He found himself alone on the bed, but beside him was a clear trace that someone else had been sleeping there.

The warmth of her body was still there, along with a strand of long black hair that had fallen onto the bed.

The middle-aged man couldn’t help but smile.

Even after living here for a week, he still couldn’t believe that he had been able to meet his wife and daughter once again.

Even though...

It was a bit different from what he had expected. No, It wasn’t just a bit different. It was the complete opposite of what he had expected.

As a former human, he had been led to believe that after death, people would face judgment and the reckoning of their sins.

Then, they would suffer through thousands of punishments, such as being cast into seas of fire or rivers of lava.

But...

He never imagined that the afterlife would be like this.

People were queuing for registration as though they were trying to join a guild, clan, or sect that had just opened for recruitment.

Hundreds of thousands of people queuing and waiting for their turn to register was truly a sight to behold.

Fortunately, he had received preferential treatment from Lord Wei, the agent of the Underworld, who had brought him through another channel and allowed him to quickly reunite with his wife and daughter.

The people, or rather, the denizens of the Underworld, were all just like they had been when they were still alive in the mortal realm.

They still had to eat and breathe air, or... if the air in the Underworld could even be called air.

The Underworld also had nearly everything that resembled life in the mortal realm.

The difference was that they would lose all of their cultivation and have to start from zero once again.

Of course, during this week, he had also learned from his wife that there were some exceptions.

Truly powerful cultivators could retain their cultivation after entering the Underworld.

There were also some niche cultivation techniques that focused on cultivating the soul, allowing their practitioners to maintain their strength even after death.

These exceptions often caused trouble in the Underworld.

Whenever that happened, the enforcers would be dispatched to maintain order. They would beat the troublemakers up before destroying all of their cultivation and making them queue like everyone else who came before them.

While he was reminiscing about the new beginning he had been given, a feminine voice shouted from the first floor.

"Brother Yuan! Please come down and eat! Isn’t today the day you need to go to a job interview?"

"Yes! I’m coming!"

He was Official Ke, or Ke Yuan, the man who had once served that hypocritical demon in human skin, Ximen Ren, and lost everything because of a single wrong decision.

Ke Yuan quickly got up from his bed and came down from the second floor.

On the first floor, he saw the two people most precious to him, his daughter and his wife. His daughter was working at the main plaza of the Underworld Palace as a lobby attendant, and today she was dressed in the uniform of an Underworld Palace employee.

In Ke Yuan’s eyes, the uniform was strange and unfamiliar. Yet strangely, it looked attractive, streamlined, and sleek. His daughter moved with surprising agility in the uniform.

As a father, he felt uncomfortable with how the uniform was very... tight-fitting around her body. Still, there were enough layers of cloth and proper coverage to make it look strangely professional and attractive at the same time.

Besides... this was a uniform regulated by the Underworld Palace, so he could not do anything about it.

"Xiaoting, this is your first day on the job, right? Don’t be late like your father," Ke Yuan’s wife admonished her daughter as she prepared the food on the table.

"Yes! Mom, I’ll be quick! Give me some youtiao or anything that can be eaten on the way, and I’ll be off!" Xiaoting said hurriedly as she quickly adjusted her hair and face in front of the mirror.

"Yes, yes, it’s all here. Take a few meat buns with you." Ke Yuan’s wife said as she slid a paper box toward her daughter.

"Hey, I wasn’t late. The interview was in the afternoon," Ke Yuan protested.

At this moment, his daughter came over and took the paper box with her.

"Father! Mother! I’m going first!"

"Take care of yourself!" Ke Yuan shouted after his daughter as she rushed out of the door.

"Husband, no one dares to cause trouble in the Underworld, especially toward normal people like us. We don’t have anything that would interest them. You don’t need to worry too much," Ke Yuan’s wife said with a smile.

"It’s... a habit. I’m still worried about her anyway," Ke Yuan said as he sat down and ate the food his wife had prepared for him.

"Husband, Lord Wei seems to value you very much. Don’t do anything that would trouble him. We were able to move here, and our Xiaoting was able to get this job because of his recommendation," Ke Yuan’s wife said as she picked up a few pieces of pork and put them into her husband’s bowl.

"I know, honey. I can meet both of you again because of him, after all," Ke Yuan replied with a smile.

That was right. In this Underworld, a job at the Underworld Palace plaza was something many yearned for, but few could actually obtain. That was because the pay, convenience, and working environment were better than almost anywhere else.

At first, their family had been living in one of the satellite areas, and both his wife and daughter had worked as simple couriers, delivering various packages to different places in the satellite area.

Whether it was food or cultivation resources, they delivered all kinds of things.

The thing that surprised him the most about this place was that many of these foods were actually Underworld Qi manifested into various forms of food that people were familiar with.

The denizens here called this food artificial food, since it was formed from Underworld Qi to help the denizens cultivate while simulating life in the mortal realm.

Of course, there was genuine meat as well, but those belonged to powerful beasts that resided in the Underworld, such as Underworld Dragons or certain serpents and monsters that lived in the River of Souls or the desolate areas that the Lord of Death forbade ordinary people from entering.

"It’s like a dream, isn’t it?" Ke Yuan’s wife suddenly spoke.

"Huh?"

"I mean... after XiaoTing and I were captured by that demon, Ximen Ren, and died in the secret room down in the basement, I never thought I would receive a second chance like this, along with XiaoTing," Ke Yuan’s wife said wistfully.

"You know that we won’t live here forever, right? Sooner or later, we will need to enter the cycle of samsara once we gather enough Underworld Qi and cultivate enough for us to get a good life in the mortal realm," Ke Yuan said.

"I know." She nodded. "But I’d rather it be later than sooner. I still haven’t talked with our daughter enough, and I still haven’t spent enough time with you," his wife said.

"I know..." Ke Yuan muttered before continuing. "I’d rather it be later than sooner too, but you should know that even if this place seems perfect, there is one joy that we can’t experience here."

Ke Yuan paused.

"Huh? What kind of joy?"

"The joy of birth. I want to hold my grandchildren, but as you know, this place is the Underworld. No one can be born here. Especially us, since we will eventually need to continue along the cycle of samsara when our time comes," Ke Yuan said as he looked at his wife.

"I know... That’s the only thing I regret too." His wife agreed with a nod.

The two then continued talking about various topics concerning life in the Underworld. Life here took some time to get used to, but once they finally settled down, everything was nice.

Yes, this new beginning he had just been given was something he wanted to preserve for as long as he could.

After the meal, Ke Yuan quickly got dressed and went out for his interview.

The interview was not what Ke Yuan had expected. He thought the officer interviewing him would make things a little difficult for him or ask some clever questions, but no... there was nothing like that.

To put it bluntly, he had already been accepted to work under Lord Wei in his division as the Director of Resources and Finance, the one responsible for taking care of Lord Wei’s wallet.

He felt honored, but when he came to see the state of Lord Wei’s finances, where he was barely managing to stay above the red line, Ke Yuan felt like this would be another grueling endeavor for him to improve the situation.