167: Chapter 167 The Changing Room

Morning on Taiping Old Street brought a touch of warmth that dispersed the haze.

The "East-West Asura Field" in the Funeral Shop's main hall came to an end with Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan's departure.

Bai Yu and Fatty Wang received their orders and headed off arm-in-arm to get to work at the Jiangzhou Underground Black Market.

Lin Ye shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, turned around, and walked toward the backyard.

"Clack, clack, clack."

Behind him came the faint, deliberately restrained rhythm of high heels.

Lin Ye stopped and turned his head.

He saw Helena, the Western Chief Adjudicator Nun, lower her head and follow three meters behind him step by step like an elementary student who had done something wrong.

Her black-and-white maid outfit was truly struggling under the strain.

After a button on her chest popped off earlier, she could now only pinch her collar tightly with one hand to barely prevent herself from being exposed.

Even so, the deep, snowy white bulging against the fabric tantalizingly teased the edges with her nervous breaths.

"Why are you following me? Go do what you're supposed to do."

Lin Ye raised an eyebrow.

"Boss."

Helena shuddered, speaking in stiff Great Xia language with a voice as quiet as a mosquito's hum.

"My... my clothes are ruined. If I go to work in the backyard now, I will... be seen. It would dishonor your dignity."

She was telling the truth.

With this outrageously skimpy maid outfit, even a slight bend would leave her plump, perky rear and insanely long legs completely exposed to view.

Though her faith had collapsed and she had fallen into a servant, her sense of shame wasn't entirely dead yet.

Lin Ye sized her up from head to toe and unmercifully launched into roasting mode:

"Whose fault is this? Blaming the clothes because they can't fit your ridiculous proportions?"

Helena blushed deeply at these words, wishing she could bury her head into the abyss of her chest.

Lin Ye sighed.

While exploiting labor was a capitalist's duty, she was at least his "personal bodyguard" representing the face of his Funeral Shop. He couldn't have her walking around every day looking like a compromised woman who had just escaped an anti-vice raid.

"Follow me."

Leaving those words behind, Lin Ye walked straight toward the storage room in the backyard.

Relieved, Helena hurriedly followed right behind him.

Entering the storage room, Lin Ye shifted his thoughts and rummaged through the system's storage space.

He remembered that when he wiped out a peripheral outpost of the Yinshan Sect in Jiangzhou last time, he had casually seized a bunch of random spoils, including a few robes said to be woven from Tianshan Ice Silkworm Silk and gold thread.

"Catch."

Lin Ye casually tossed a neatly folded set of black clothing right onto Helena's shame-flushed face.

Helena hurriedly caught it, unfolded it to take a look, and instantly froze.

It was an exquisitely crafted dark black embroidered qipao with high side slits, styled in Great Xia's traditional design.

The edges of the qipao were outlined in silver thread with an ancient warding talisman pattern; the fabric felt cool and silky to the touch, as thin as a cicada's wing yet resilient.

"Put it on."

Lin Ye leaned against the doorframe, casually lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled a thin plume of blue smoke.

"Change right here. I'm your master. Is there any part of your body that hasn't been washed over by my Pure Yang True Qi? Don't pretend to be some chaste maiden in front of me."

Helena bit her red lips, a misty layer of humiliated tears rising in her eyes.

She closed her eyes as if accepting her fate.

In front of Lin Ye, with trembling fingers, she slowly untied the few remaining laces on the back of her tattered maid outfit.

The cheap fabric slid down her fair, voluptuous shoulders, pooling at her ankles.

A body perfection akin to a Western sculpture, bursting with physical intensity, was unreservedly displayed under the dim light.

On her expansive pale skin, faint red scratches from last night's Passion Flower Gu outbreak remained, adding a sense of cruel beauty.

Holding the cigarette, Lin Ye's eyes were as calm as an ancient well.

As the possessor of the Pure Yang Dao Body, he had seen too many top-tier women.

Leng Yue's aloof, breathtaking beauty, Frost Star's contrasting seductive charm—wasn't each of them capable of toppling kingdoms?

Though Helena's body delivered a visually striking exotic appeal, in Lin Ye's eyes, her greatest current value was merely serving as an eye-pleasing, tough super enforcer who could both hit hard and take hits.

Helena didn't dare look into Lin Ye's eyes. She flurriedly grabbed the black Ice Silkworm Silk qipao and pulled it over herself.

It had to be said that the dress fit as if tailored specifically for her.

The tight waistline accentuated her impossibly slender waist to perfection, while the high, swollen curves at her chest, combined with the abstinent frog-button collar design, pushed the concept of "bursting forth" to the absolute extreme.

The absolute highlight was the slit on the hem that ran all the way up to the base of her thigh.

The Western woman's lush, insanely long legs flickered in and out of view beneath the black fabric, radiating a lethal dose of hormones with every step.

"I'm done changing."

Helena stood awkwardly in place, not knowing where to put her hands.

Lin Ye exhaled the last ring of smoke and stubbed the cigarette out in a nearby water vat.

"You look decent enough now. This garment is woven from Ice Silkworm Silk, capable of warding off ordinary blades and low-level spells."

"Wear it while doing your daily work. If someone looks for trouble, deal with them directly. If you ruin it, I'll deduct it from your wages."

"Yes."

Helena obediently lowered her head in response. She now fully understood her role—a high-grade cleaner and enforcer who had signed away her soul.

"Alright. Without my permission, you are not allowed into the basement."

Lin Ye waved his hand, ignoring this newly tamed foreign beauty, and turned toward the elevator leading down to the underground quiet room.

...

Ten meters underground.

Inside the fully enclosed Supreme Yin Quiet Room, Mermaid Oil Lamps emitted a faint, eerie blue glow.

Lin Ye sat cross-legged alone on the central array platform composed of Lightning-Struck Wood array disks.

"System, extract nine nether purgatory tower," Lin Ye silently chanted in his heart.

[Ding! Command confirmed. Extracting plane-grade containment facility—nine nether purgatory tower.]

[Warning: This structure contains the supreme laws of heaven and earth. Upon extraction, it will automatically undergo permanent deep integration with the host's current location (Lins Funeral Shop).]

[During integration, minor geological vibrations and aura anomalies may occur. Host, please be prepared.]

Just as the system's emotionless electronic voice fell,

the void before Lin Ye's eyes suddenly warped and collapsed.

A palm-sized, nine-story mini tower radiating a dark hue slowly emerged from nothingness.

The tower was neither metal nor wood, its surface covered with intricate Dao runes hard to discern with the naked eye.

Hanging from the eaves of each story were fingernail-sized ancient bronze bells.

Swaying without wind, they produced a deep chime that resonated straight into the depths of the soul.

Merely floating in midair, visible black cracks appeared in the space surrounding the tower body, as though this realm was entirely incapable of bearing its weight.

"What a domineering, ferocious artifact!"

Lin Ye's Pure Yang eyes narrowed.

He could clearly feel that the energy contained within this tower was even purer and a hundred times more terrifying than the thousand-year Nether Dragon Marrow in the Ten Thousand Mountains!

[Integration initiating.]

"Buzz—!"

As the system notification sounded,

the palm-sized nine nether purgatory tower instantly turned into a streak of dark light, slamming straight into the black floor tiles beneath Lin Ye.

Immediately following,

a silent yet earth-shattering transformation boisterously erupted ten meters beneath Jiangzhou's Taiping Old Street.

"Crack, crack, crack..."

Lin Ye could clearly feel that the entire quiet room, the foundation of the Funeral Shop, and even the earth veins within a one-kilometer radius were being forcibly twisted and restructured by an irresistible mighty power.

Countless invisible black chains of order spread out from deep underground like a massive spiderweb, tightly ensnaring Lins Funeral Shop within.

The ground trembled softly.

However, the trembling was controlled remarkably well; mortals on the surface would only think a heavy truck was passing by the street corner, never imagining an earthquake.

After a full ten minutes, the vibration finally subsided.

A flood of control permissions and detailed information regarding the [nine nether purgatory tower] instantly poured into Lin Ye's mind.

[Facility Name: nine nether purgatory tower (Current Status: Integrated with Lins Funeral Shop)]

[Host Authority: Absolute Control (You are the deity of this tower)]

[Core Function 1: Absolute Domain (Floor 1 Unlocked): The entire Lins Funeral Shop has now become a projection of the nine nether purgatory tower's first floor.

Within this domain, all unapproved shadowy entities, unorthodox spells, and even Western Holy Light Magic will have their power forcibly suppressed by 80%! Furthermore, escape via any spatial means is rendered impossible.]

[Core Function 2: Soul-Suppressing Furnace (Floor 1 Unlocked): Any enemies or ghosts defeated by the host and thrown into the tower (the Funeral Shop's underground dungeon) will have their cultivation, malice, or faith extracted automatically by the Purgatory Tower, refining them in the bottom furnace into [Nine Nether Yin Virtue Pills] or [Pure Spiritual Fluid].

The stronger the evil creature, the higher the quality of the refined pills—a completely non-polluting, eco-friendly waste-recycling mechanism.]

[Note: Currently, only Floor 1 is unlocked. Subsequent floors require the host to slay higher-tier supreme beings or consume massive amounts of points to unlock.]

Looking at this nearly absurd status panel, Lin Ye couldn't help but gasp.

"Holy crap. Suppress 80% of strength? Block spatial escape? And automatically refine enemies into pills?"

Lin Ye rubbed his chin, unable to hold back a greedy capitalist smile.

"What kind of containment tower is this? This is clearly a fully automated slaughterhouse and money printer! System, you really understand capitalist operations—you even factored in green recycling for me."

With this tower suppressing the core underground, Lins Funeral Shop had now completely transformed into a bottomless black hole where one could enter, but never leave.

Forget about whatever Western Joint Enforcement Team; even if a Cardinal from Western mythology personally led a crusade over here,

as long as they dared set foot inside this shop's door, they'd be suppressed into a local dog that could only bark!

"Everything is ready; all that's missing are the fat sheep."

Lin Ye stood up, patted off the dust on his clothes, his eyes flashing with the thrill of pre-hunt excitement.

"I'm going to squeeze those foreigners dry, down to their marrow and every drop of profit they brought along!"