However, upon entering the city, they ran into the morning rush hour, and the Pajero's speed couldn't pick up. The ghosts then realigned themselves into neat ranks, following behind.
After more than half an hour, they arrived at Chen Lu's family's factory, a redwood furniture workshop. The narrator hadn't expected them to be involved in this kind of business.
It was a workday, but the factory workers had already been sent home on leave. The vast factory grounds were populated only by Chen Lu's family, along with Assistant Liu, the housekeeper, and other attendants.
Of course, there were also Yaoyao and the Seven Demons.
Yaoyao was quite surprised to "see" the large entourage of ghosts I had brought with me. I briefly explained the situation to her.
After listening, Yaoyao chuckled, "You really are something, convincing them in just a few words!"
"Let's put that aside for now, Yaoyao. I'm not sure how to effectively use these ghosts. Do you know?" I asked.
"They don't have any particularly strong combat capabilities, they can only serve to make a show of force," Yaoyao replied, shaking her head.
"...Did Xie Bi'an and Ma Jiaojiao fool me?" I frowned.
"It's possible, but having these helpers is still better than us fighting alone. How about you use your cleverness to figure out how to arm them up?" Yaoyao said with a playful smile, as if teasing.
I followed the external ladder of the factory building up to the second floor. Through the window, I watched the ghosts filling the workshop, lost in thought...
The problem was, I didn't know if Mohe and his people were afraid of ghosts!
"Brother, phone!" Zheng Bingbing called from below, tossing the phone up to me. It had fallen under the car seat earlier and she had only managed to retrieve it with her little hands after stopping.
It was Shen Xingyue. I answered. She asked about the situation. I didn't hide anything and told her the truth, then asked, "What do you think of the combat effectiveness of these ghosts?"
"They don't even have a trace of qi. How can they have any combat effectiveness? You were fooled by 'Seventh Master' and the others. They just tricked you into recruiting these ghosts!" Shen Xingyue's opinion was the same as Yaoyao's, so it had to be the truth. Although neither of them were ghosts, they were both mages and experts in this field.
"Xingyue, then do you think the experts from Mohe are afraid of ghosts?"
"Who the hell isn't afraid of ghosts!" Shen Xingyue exclaimed. "They don't know qi manipulation techniques, so they don't know the quality of these ghosts. But once they start fighting, they'll reveal themselves!"
"So, what kind of ghosts would make them 'fear at first sight'?" I asked again.
"That would definitely be Yin soldiers."
"What are Yin soldiers?" I asked again.
"They are the standing army of the underworld. However, they rarely come to the mortal realm, unless the mortal realm experiences a large-scale disaster, creating too many ghosts for the underworld officials to handle. Only then would the Kings of Hell send Yin soldiers to help collect newly deceased spirits. The Yin soldiers of the underworld are all uniformly purple qi."
"That powerful! How many Yin soldiers are there in the underworld?" I was purely curious.
"Ahem, you shouldn't ask about that. I'll tell you, I'm a high-ranking official within Shakespeare's organization, so I have access to this classified information. Now that I consider you one of our own, I'm telling you this. You mustn't leak it!"
As I was on the phone, I had already come downstairs. Now, I was not only accompanied by Zheng Bingbing, but also by Yaoyao, the Seven Demons, and Chen Lu.
Moreover, I had put the phone on speaker.
"Don't worry, you trust me so much! I absolutely won't let a third person know!" I said with conviction.
Yaoyao and the others covered their mouths and giggled.
Suddenly, an idea flashed through my mind!
"Xingyue, have you ever seen the Yin soldiers of the underworld? What do they look like?"
"I have images of them on my phone that I can show you, but once you've seen them, I'll immediately withdraw them. You are not allowed to screenshot or forward them. I can monitor your phone!" Shen Xingyue warned.
"Alright, let me take a look." I signaled Zheng Bingbing with my eyes.
Bingbing nodded, took out her own phone, and opened the camera, pointing it at my phone screen to record.
A few seconds later, Shen Xingyue sent three pictures via WeChat. They were three-view drawings of the Yin soldiers of the underworld: front, back, and side. They looked like they were computer-generated. I guessed that someone within Shakespeare's organization had seen Yin soldiers but couldn't take photos, so they had to recreate them this way.
She only showed me the images for five seconds before withdrawing them. I looked up at Zheng Bingbing, who nodded heavily, indicating that she had recorded it...