APP: Chapter 108

Xie Chi pursed his lips.

It obviously wasn’t his style to conclude that Paradise didn’t exist just based on a single painting. After all, art was too subjective and different people had different opinions on how to interpret paintings. He could understand that the painter destroyed herself for an unrealistic fantasy. A painter who thought that art was greater than life sacrificed herself in order to keep her masterpieces forever. These things made sense but the praise and criticism were different.

It was just that his passing thought was really terrifying.

The condition for completing the instance given by the app was to escape from hell. One of the methods was obvious. Don’t commit any crimes during their sentence and they would be released back to the world after serving their sentence. However, this was extremely difficult. Even if he was unwilling to kill, the harsh environment would force him to kill. After all, the premise of escaping was to live. It was meaningless if he wasn’t alive.

In addition, others would try to kill him. In order to protect himself, he was doomed to commit a crime. Both him and his brother had killed people. He thought it would be over once he entered Paradise but now this painting…

Xie Chi stared up at Xie Xinglan and pointed out, “The requirement to complete this dungeon is to escape from hell.”

Xie Xinglan’s expression was stunned. This request was very abstract and didn’t tell them how to escape. The specific escape method was deduced by them based on the information obtained but in fact, the app only told them to escape. It was they who artificially narrowed their thinking to ‘entering Paradise’.

They unknowingly focused on this concept. They only noticed it now that Xie Chi looked back.

“However, the stone tablet does say there is a world of Paradise above the first layer of the hot hells and this Paradise can be entered.” Xie Xinglan paused. “In addition, there is the movie poster. The poster shows a lotus pond wonderland above the hot hells.”

Xie Chi looked down. “I am also thinking about this. In fact, there was the jellyfish-shaped mirage. The current clues are clearly saying that Paradise exists and we can escape from hell by entering Paradise. Yet there is this painting and the meaning is a bit subtle…”

Xie Chi spread out the painting and examined it again. Even if there was a one in ten thousand possibility that something was wrong with Paradise, he had to start thinking about other ways. However, for now, they must proceed with the original plan. It was because opening the spider silk ladder was essential.

Xie Xinglan also didn’t like to keep worrying. “Then we will wait until the spider silk ladder is open before taking another look.”

Xie Chi nodded. It was fine. They just had to keep the painting in mind.

“By the way Brother Xie, I want to understand the accurate definition of ‘death’ in hell.”

He couldn’t call this person ‘Brother’ arbitrarily so the name ‘Brother Xie’ fell on Xie Xinglan’s head.

“Huh?”

Xie Chi spoke as he walked. “In fact, everything that happens here can basically be found in the real world. Energy obviously corresponds to money. A person who is penniless won’t die immediately. It is only when objective conditions such as hunger, water shortage or disease comes into play that they will die.”

“It is just like before. I only had a bit of energy left in my body but I was fine. I fell into the blood pool and didn’t feel the pain of corrosion. You gave me energy again. What I got was ‘money’, not life.”

“So a prisoner can actually live without energy as long as they are lucky enough to be born on the top layer.”

“A person who falls won’t die immediately. It requires the harsh environment to finish off their energy and life before they die completely. So the killing we committed isn’t actually killing, it is…”

“Robbery.” Xie Xinglan’s mouth twitched slightly as he spoke the more appropriate word.

“Yes.” Xie Chi smiled. “Energy is actually money. In order to make ourselves comfortable, we stole money from others. They won’t die unless we choose to kill them again. First kill for money and then kill for life.”

Xie Xinglan’s mind became clear and he spoke after a moment of silence. “Xiao Chi, I think all of this is suggesting something.”

Xie Chi stared up at the sky. “Perhaps we will have the answer after opening the silk ladder.”

After coming out of the blood pool, Xie Xinglan killed Xie Chi again but this time, Xie Chi didn’t fall.

Xie Chi sighed when he woke up. They weren’t very lucky. The blood pool hell was the lowest level and the knife mountain hell wasn’t below it. It was randomly above the first layer of the hot hells. Therefore, their sales plan had to be implemented.

“So disappointing. It will take a long time.”

Xie Xinglan glanced at him. “Your expression doesn’t say that.”

“……”

[Hahahaha Son Chi clearly looks excited to build an empire.]

[I can’t understand the plot. I can finally talk at this time.]

***

In the next two days, Xie Xinglan was forced to open business. Since Xie Chi was already at the bottom and those who fell there were the weakest, Xie Xinglan wasn’t worried they would pose a threat to Xie Chi.

No one wanted to go to the eighth layer of the cold hell so Xie Chi was extremely safe. Besides Ren Ze, no one knew that Xie Xinglan had come all the way down to find Xie Chi. They just thought he had found a clue and wanted to go to a certain layer to find it. Therefore, no one would grab Xie Chi and threaten him to make Xie Xinglan surrender energy.

***

Therefore, a strange scene occurred in the horror movie where fights were constantly occurring.

In the most difficult to overcome eighth layer of the hot hells, Xie Xinglan looked up. “I will give you one-eighth of my energy if you pull me up. I promise I won’t kill you.”

The two men who were from the eighth layer of the hot hells stared down the hole and shook their heads. “One-eighth is too small. We are risking our lives to trade with you.”

Xie Xinglan’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “One-seventh.”

“One-fifth. You killed us before. Why should we believe you?”

Xie Xinglan gripped his sword tightly. Xie Chi felt that Xie Xinglan might be thinking about the possibility of throwing his sword to kill the two of them. He hurriedly grabbed Xie Xinglan’s hand and started to bargain.

***

After that…

[Hahahaha Xing Xing, calm down. Put down the sword! You can’t sell using strength. You need to build credit. You are a businessman, not a killer!]

[Shivering buyers. The seller might cut my throat at any time.]

[Hahahah the wife is forced to show up.]

[If a seller talked to me like this, I would be scared to death.]

[What a loss. You can only earn so much from selling information but it costs so much to be pulled up by others.]

***

[My god, Xing Xing is actually sitting on the ground and haggling over the price quoted by others.]

[This isn’t normal. After fighting, the upper layer basically has more energy than the lower layer. Thus, the upper layer is more expensive.]

***

Once he arrived on the floor where Ren Ze was located, Xie Xinglan told Ren Ze about the spider silk ladder. Ren Ze was originally killed and separated from his original cellmate. However, his cellmate was weak and was killed. Thus, the two of them ended up on the same floor again by fate.

Ren Ze heard his words and only hesitated for a moment. Then he went to find his cellmate and they both completed the mutual looking at each other’s mark. The opening of the spider silk ladder quickly reached 2/3 on the app.

“Did you find Xie Chi?” Ren Ze stepped aside and asked.

“Yes. By the way, don’t tell anyone about Xie Chi.”

“Of course.”

“By the way, what is the information?” Ren Ze was curious and asked casually.

Xie Xinglan reflexively stretched out his hand.

Ren Ze looked blank. “What?”

Xie Xinglan glanced at him. “Give energy and I will tell you. This information isn’t expensive. You just need to give me one-twentieth of your energy. You are an acquaintance so I will give you a 20% discount, no more.”

“2… 20%?” Ren Ze was full of disbelief. Was this really the previously generous Xie Xinglan?

“Didn’t you come here to find me?”

“Not exactly. Getting you and your cellmate to look at each other’s marks is just one part of it.”

“Then you…”

Xie Xinglan watched here. “Is there more information you want to buy? A single purchase is more expensive. I will give you a 10% discount if you buy two, 20% off for three pieces of information and 30% off for more than three. Since you have less energy, you can buy a gift pack for half your energy. This is more cost-effective and I recommend buying it.”

“???” Ren Ze looked incredulous.

“But—” Ren Ze’s face was purple. “Isn’t all of my energy given by you previously? You…”

“I regret it.” Xie Xinglan spoke without any psychological pressure.

Ren Ze, “……” He suddenly realized how good Xie Chi was.

***

[Hahahahaha oh my god.]

[Ren Ze doubting life series.]

[I regret it because my wife thinks I’m a failure.]

[This stinginess hahahahahaha]

***

As he kept going up, everything became easier. The prisoners had a lot of information and found that there were overlapping parts when they compared it with Xie Xinglan. Therefore, they immediately used energy generously. The more powerful they were, the more proactive and generous they would be. For them, earning energy was simple and easy. It wasn’t a big problem to steal more. Meanwhile, information was hard to come by.

Among them, the most generous was the powerful group of actors. Xie Xinglan had previously suppressed them violently so they basically stopped thinking of doing anything to him.

Everything went according to plan.

[Have you noticed that he is more substantial than before… he seems to be making money.]

[The top is too rich, right?]

[Is this information worth so much energy?]

[Fu*k, after Xie Xinglan left, they learned from him to jump down and kill people to gain energy.]

[The original accumulation of capital! They got inspiration from Xie Xinglan!]

[Gathering information, gathering energy, fu*k…]

Subtle things started happening in hell. Xie Xinglan wasn’t surprised. Before he went out to do business, Xie Chi and him had deduced the possible changes. Everything at the moment was expected. People’s ability to learn and imitate was very powerful. Once a method was proven effective, there would be countless people who thought they could do it and wanted to benefit from it.

Xie Chi said that once these people started to kill he had to go back. It was because disputes between the upper class would lead to a sharp increase in the number of lower class people. After all, for the upper class people, killing was effortless.

This situation wouldn’t ease. It would only get worse. The exploitation would begin sooner or later. As the first person, Xie Xinglan profited the most from it.

Xie Xinglan went up to the top at the fastest speed before starting to go down again.

***

A day and a half later, Xie Chi was sleeping in the cave when he heard the familiar footsteps.

Xie Xinglan spoke lazily, “I came back from the Silk Road.”

Xie Chi smiled and glanced at this person. The energy of his body was more than twice as high as before.

Going upward was more troublesome since he needed to spend money to buy passage. Due to his job change, he could no longer use the previous brutal method of killing to go down. However, in fact, there was no change in nature.

Xie Xinglan previously killed all the way down. Now he still killed but he just repaid the energy he stole to the killed, giving them part of it in payment. Xie Xinglan discovered that as long as there was sufficient energy, no one cared about what layer they were on. Most people were more afraid of a lack of energy than an ordinary quality of life.

Xie Xinglan was going to distribute most of his energy when Xie Chi shook his head. “The floor change is coming soon and it is too ostentatious. It will be a loss if I am killed. The amount I have now is enough.”

Xie Xinglan nodded before adding, “Ren Ze and his cellmate have finished looking at each other’s marks. The others have a bad relationship so I didn’t even mention it. Regarding Su Qing, unfortunately, he has no cellmate so we still need one pair to open the spider silk ladder. We need to wait for the next cycle of reincarnation.”

Xie Chi understood.

It was completely bright when Xie Chi and Xie Xinglan’s phones rang. The app told them that the next cycle was coming in one minute. Xie Chi stood up and walked to Xie Xinglan. He looked up at this person slightly before leaning toward his ear, stating, “I will use the kappa to go to the knife mountain hell. I will wait for you for an hour.”

---

Proofreader: Purichan