82: Final Chapter: The Funeral

After a few seconds of dead silence,

grade 11, class 3 instantly erupted into chaos.

“I don't believe it! I don't believe it!”

Someone frantically slammed their desk, their phone screen nearly being shattered by their poking.

“He only updated yesterday about Old Man Xu’s heroic sacrifice, and now it’s the grand finale today? Is the Dream Weaver allergic to money?!”

“The system must have crashed! Or the Hong Guo Net server exploded!”

A boy in the back row stood directly on his chair, howling while holding up his phone.

“What kind of web novel Almighty plays like this? This is completely unreasonable!”

“Stop refreshing! You’re going to crash the app if you keep refreshing!”

Sounds of questioning, cursing, and phone unlock notifications blended together.

No one believed that the Hell Dream Weaver, who took pleasure in tormenting his readers, would end it so cleanly and abruptly.

It was like preparing for a long journey, only for the guide to tell you the destination has been reached right after you left the door.

Wu Di kept refreshing the Red Fruit APP, his fingers trembling like he had Parkinson's.

“Brother Que... Brother Que, stop sleeping, at least take a look!”

Wu Di, his voice choked with tears, shoved his phone toward Lin Que's face.

“The great Dream Weaver must have had his account stolen!”

Lin Que reluctantly pushed his phone away,

wearing an innocent “How should I know?” expression, and casually pulled a piece of chocolate from his desk drawer and unwrapped it.

Lin Que chewed the chocolate, watching the crumbling faces around him.

This was exactly the effect he wanted; only despair taken to the extreme led to true remembrance.

He casually twisted the knife:

“I don't think so.”

“Perhaps the author felt it was better to blow it up cleanly than let it slowly rot away?”

“What do you know!”

Zhang Ya, who was sitting in the front row, suddenly turned around, her voice trembling:

“Although I don't like how this author operates, you are not allowed to insult the ending of this work.”

Lin Que shrugged and went back to sleeping on his desk.

As everyone started clicking on the chapter one after another,

the noise in the classroom was choked off.

Dead silence spread.

Meanwhile, in the corridor.

Shen Qingqiu had only walked a few steps when the chaos erupting from the classroom behind her made her frown deeply.

These kids, give them an inch and they take a mile.

She stopped, turning around, preparing to go back and restore order.

“Ding—”

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

That was the special notification tone she had set specifically for the Hell Dream Weaver.

Shen Qingqiu's steps froze.

As a teacher, the students coming and going made her instinctively want to ignore it.

But as a reader who was tormented by but couldn't stop reading "the human world is like a prison,"

her hand honestly reached into her pocket.

“Just look at the title first,”

she told herself mentally.

The screen lit up.

The red push notification stung her eyes.

[Hell Dream Weaver has published a new chapter: The Finale: The Funeral]

Shen Qingqiu froze in place.

The Finale?

Does The Finale mean... the ending? Finished?

Or, according to the Hell Dream Weaver's habit, is it a new beginning?

The rain was still falling outside the corridor,

and the cold wind carrying dampness blew onto her face.

She leaned against the cold tiled wall,

inexplicably, instead of returning to the classroom, she clicked on the chapter.

The words, like a black tide, instantly submerged her.

[Dachang City. The sky was no longer a hazy gray, but had turned into a strange crimson.]

[Yang Jian stood at the top of the city's tallest iron tower.

Below his feet were tens of thousands of dense Li Gui.

They were wailing, trembling.]

[“Yang Jian, are you insane?”

The voice of the Headquarters Director came through the satellite phone, laced with hysterical fear.

“Are you trying to turn the entire human world into a Ghost Domain?!”]

[Yang Jian did not reply. He slowly opened the Ghost Eye on his forehead.]

[It was no longer the crimson slit from before, but a true Divine Eye that overlooked all living beings.

Red light instantly erupted, spreading from Dachang City outwards toward the entire world.

Wherever it passed, whether it was an S-rank Li Gui or a recently resurrected Vengeful Spirit,

all were frozen in place, then swallowed by the red light and pulled into a bottomless space.]

[“The world has collapsed; it is hard to distinguish between man and ghost.”

Yang Jian's voice was flat.]

[“Since no gods will save the world, then let the Evil Ghosts rule.”]

[“Since ghosts killing people is the iron law, then I shall stand above the iron law.”]

[“From now on, I am the rule.”]

[The red light completely covered the globe. All supernatural incidents vanished at this moment.

The solitary souls wandering in desolate villages, the evil spirits hiding in mirrors, were all forcibly dragged into Yang Jian's shadow.]

[That was the Eighteen Layers of Hell he constructed.]

[Thus, a new rule was born:]

[“Starting today, there are no ghosts in the human world.”]

[“For all ghosts reside within me.”]

[“My body is Hell, my eye is the Calamity.”]

Shen Qingqiu felt a chill run to her fingertips as she read.

How could this be a savior?

This was clearly an autocratic tyrant!

He used absolute terror to suppress all terror.

He stripped the Li Gui of their right to kill, and also stripped humanity of the courage to commit evil.

The text continued downward, and the scene became grand and absurd.

[Some called him a God, others called him a Demon.]

[In that world enveloped by red light, the crime rate dropped to zero.

No one dared to kill, because as soon as they harbored murderous intent, they would see that red eye hanging above their heads.]

[Yang Jian sat upon the throne constructed from ten thousand ghosts.

His body was no longer flesh and blood, but a convergence of rules pieced together from countless Li Gui.]

[He sat atop the Corpse Mountain Throne piled high with ten thousand ghosts, with all living beings prostrating and trembling behind him.]

[At this moment, myth and terror overlapped.]

[The people knelt and worshipped, trembling, no longer calling him Yang Jian, but invoking that ancient and majestic name—]

[Erlang Shen, Yang Jian.]

[Achieving Sainthood in the flesh, answering the call but not the decree.]

[But this Sainthood was not the Daoist True Saint bathed in golden light,

but the Hell Ghost Saint who bore ten thousand ghosts and commanded a sea of blood.]

[He killed Yang Jian the "man," and used his own body to imprison all the terror in the world.

He held a grand funeral for all mankind, and then, amidst the great fire,

established a new world where only he suffered alone.]

Shen Qingqiu's fingers trembled violently on the screen.

She had originally thought the ending would be Yang Jian completely destroying the Li Gui.

But she hadn't expected the answer given by the Dream Weaver to be this.

Using evil to control evil.

Using the greatest fear to end fear.

What kind of arrogant, yet tragic, imagination was this?

At the end of the chapter was a monologue.

[Within the red light, Yang Jian lowered his head and glanced at this overly quiet human world.]

[There were no flowers, no applause, only countless pairs of eyes staring at him with awe and terror.]

[He stroked the Xi Gou beside him, which had already transformed into an Evil Spirit Black Dog, and his lips twitched slightly.]

[“This is the Peaceful and Prosperous Era you desired.”]

“You're welcome.”]

[the human world is like a prison - FIN]

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