Chapter 56: Pass the Assessment, Go to Songyang

"Zhang Yu!""Zhang Yu!""Zhang Yu!"

Zhang Yu woke up abruptly to repeated calls of his name, only to hear snickers coming from the classroom. He looked up at the podium and saw the teacher glaring at him coldly. "Get out and stand properly," the teacher commanded. Zhang Yu sighed and walked out of the classroom.

Day after day, his high school life offered no hope. His grades plummeted, his rank steadily fell, and he dropped from the elite class to the lowest. Both classmates and teachers looked at him as if he were a piece of trash. The numerous loans he had taken out to cultivate the Immortal Path were piling up, suffocating him.

One day, he found himself on the school's rooftop. Just as he was about to step off, his phone rang. Zhang Yu answered and heard a voice on the other end say, "Hello? Is this Mr. Zhang Yu? A new cemetery has opened in the northern suburbs. For just 200,000, you can enjoy post-mortem corpse refinement services, with a chance to live again..."

Zhang Yu chuckled bitterly. "Your big data is really something; you even figured out I'm about to jump? Too bad you didn't calculate that I'm completely broke and can't afford your cemetery."

The caller continued, "If you're broke, then wouldn't you want to turn things around? Our company has a 'Heaven-Mending Plan.' If you're interested, I can send you the details..."

Zhang Yu hung up and stared back at the abyss-like darkness below.

"Turn things around..."

After a moment of silence, he eventually reopened his phone and looked at the website the caller had sent. A teddy bear appeared on the screen and spoke, "Make a wish to the gods."

"Just perform a ritual for me, and all your wishes will be granted in five minutes."

"Completely free, no prerequisites, no extra charges."

"Click once to transform your life..."

As he watched, Zhang Yu felt something—a painful memory—darting through his mind, but he couldn't quite grasp it. It was a feeling of constant coercion, torment, and forced suffering, sparking a deep anger. But before those painful memories could fully emerge, his emotions and instincts reacted first.

"Damn it!" Zhang Yu roared, flinging his phone away and then raising his middle finger. "Hahaha, trying to trick me?"

"In your next life!"

Zhang Yu's consciousness flickered, and the next moment, he woke up again in the classroom. But the memories and emotions related to the evil god grew more intense, making him gradually recall something.

"I remember now, I'm taking the assessment for divine assistant personnel."

"This assessment seems to be related to evil gods?"

Zhang Yu felt he understood the core of the assessment and decided to perform well.

Sun Jiayi was very proud. This was because he was not human, but a god. Although he was merely one of the 480 million minor Divine Officials in the Inspection Department, he was still a god, possessing the authority to review humans. Even though he was only reviewing assessments for an outsourced job paying 14 yuan an hour, he had always been diligent and conscientious. This was a god: even in a humble position, he did not dare forget the greater concerns of Kunxu.

At this moment, screens lit up one after another before Sun Jiayi, constantly displaying the content of various assessments. These were tests of the applicants' instinctive reactions to evil god temptations within illusions in the spirit world. The crucial factor for passing the assessment to become an outsourced staff member for the Inspection Department was whether they could resist the evil god's temptation in the illusion.

"What's the meaning of this applicant from Taitian City listing all their family assets and background in their resume?"

"So what if they're worth over a hundred million? If they can't pass, they can't pass. Do they think I'll be swayed by their family background?" Sun Jiayi sneered, dismissing it with disdain. Seeing the applicant hesitate in the illusion, he immediately failed them. "Weak-willed, disqualified."

Sun Jiayi was a proud god, and the more privileged the students he failed were, the more he felt his divine arrogance and the satisfaction of performing his duty.

His attention shifted to the next applicant, from Hong'an City. The applicant's resume was filled with achievements from their first and second years of high school: a top student, frequent competition winner, dazzling talent, exceptional ability, infinite potential, very likely to get into a top university, or even join a major sect. But watching the applicant struggle back and forth in the illusion, taking a full ten minutes to finally reject the evil god's temptation, Sun Jiayi still mercilessly failed them.

"Hmph, they think their bright future and shiny resume will make me lenient? I'm not some common person who only cares about scores."

"Even if they're a prodigy like a university student, if they're in my hands, if I say no, then it's no."

"Taking so long to refuse clearly shows a weak will. How could I let you pass?"

His attention shifted again, and this time, Zhang Yu's information and assessment content appeared before Sun Jiayi.

"Hmm, throwing away the phone on the rooftop decisively, not bad."

"The difficulty will increase now. Let's see how he handles it."

The scenes on the screen changed repeatedly, with various methods of evil god temptation presented to Zhang Yu. There was a beautiful admirer asking Zhang Yu to wish upon the evil god with her; Zhang Yu kicked her away and fled quickly. There was a scene where he was being hunted, at a dead end, and the evil god tempted him with salvation; Zhang Yu scoffed, turned, and threw the evil god doll at his enemies, shouting, "Good stuff! You can wish for anything with this!" In a scenario where a giant tattered doll chased Zhang Yu, threatening him with terrifying power to make a contract, Zhang Yu ran while calling the police. After the constables arrived, he even wanted to charge in and fight the evil god with them.

However... Sun Jiayi, in front of the screen, was no longer watching his active performance, because someone had contacted him. Seeing Zhang Pianpian pop up in the contact window, along with her status as Acting Deputy Captain of the Songyang City Inspection Department's Patrol Team, he frowned slightly and asked, "Is there something I can help with, colleague?"

Zhang Pianpian said, "There's an applicant named Zhang Yu, I hope..."

Sun Jiayi was about to wave his hand to refuse, but then he saw her activate a talisman scroll and directly cast a spell. "You dare cross the spirit world and cast a spell directly on me, a dignified Divine Official?"

"How audacious!"

But upon seeing the specific spell she cast, Sun Jiayi immediately relaxed. "It's a Favorability Talisman?!" A Favorability Talisman, a spell that quickly increases a deity's favor. Its specific mechanism was that it didn't require the deity's name, information, or even their account number; by simply activating the Favorability Talisman during contact, money would be directly deposited into their account, with transfer records automatically hidden.

Realizing the effect of the Favorability Talisman, Sun Jiayi's originally stern expression relaxed. "To think that you, a mere mortal from the lower realm, know so much about talismans, even learning the Favorability Talisman." And upon noticing the changing numbers in his account, a smile appeared on his face. He remarked, "For a high school student to be so reverent, it shows truly firm faith."

"What do you need me to do?"

Zhang Pianpian wasn't surprised by this. From her two years of experience using talisman scrolls and learning talismans, faith levels depended on recharges, learning spells depended on recharges, and getting guidance from righteous gods depended on recharges... so talismans were essentially recharges! However, recharging gods also required proper methods and techniques. Channels like talisman scroll recharges, private transfers, public transfers, Favorability Talismans... the differences were vast, and this was where the mastery of spells came into play.

Zhang Pianpian said, "Could this great god please lower the difficulty of Zhang Yu's assessment just a little bit..."

Sun Jiayi casually replied, "Oh, a job that pays 14 yuan an hour, how hard could the assessment be?"

In the illusion.

Zhang Yu looked at the world before him, his eyes filled with confusion. He was now in a white room. In the center of the room, a line of text floated: "The evil god tempts you. Will you accept?" Below it, two options floated: "Yes" and "No."

"No... this must be a trick question, right?" The question seemed too simple, so simple that Zhang Yu couldn't answer it. After thinking for a full ten minutes and truly failing to find any trap, Zhang Yu nervously chose "No." The next moment, a notification appeared before him, stating he had passed the assessment.

A bewildered Zhang Yu withdrew from the spirit world, still somewhat unsure of what had happened. Just then, his phone rang. Zhang Yu answered the call, and Zhang Pianpian's voice came through: "You must have passed your exam, right?"

Zhang Yu immediately voiced his confusion. Zhang Pianpian explained, "Oh, I paid a sum of money to the Divine Official on duty, asking him to reduce the assessment's difficulty a little?"

"This is 'a little'?" Zhang Yu was stunned: "You can bribe a god with money?"

Zhang Pianpian: "How could that be?"

Just as Zhang Yu was about to relax, Zhang Pianpian continued, "Spending money only *might* bribe a god. It depends on how much you spend and how you spend it, which is related to your mastery of talismans."

Zhang Yu: "But... that's a god!"

"In Kunxu, gods work for money; that's how money connects to the divine," Zhang Pianpian said matter-of-factly. "Without money, how would the Eight Righteous Gods operate Kunxu? How would they govern the world?"

Zhang Yu was speechless again, realizing he had gained a much deeper understanding of Kunxu. Remembering what she had said earlier, Zhang Yu asked, "Didn't you say this assessment tests one's Dao heart and will?"

Zhang Pianpian said lightly, "Yes, it requires you to have enough Dao heart and enough will to persevere until... I can find the Divine Official on duty responsible for your assessment in the spirit world and transfer money to his account using a talisman." She continued, "Alright, I've brought your work ID and your work talisman scroll. Let's meet at your high school gate."

"Now... we can have a talk with Songyang High School's student council."

So Zhang Yu, dragging his exhausted body, quickly squeezed onto a bus. An hour and a half later, he arrived at the school stop and saw Zhang Pianpian standing at the intersection from afar. She handed Zhang Yu a black-and-white, manual-like object.

"This is your work talisman scroll. It grants you one free spell usage per day, and you get discounts on learning Inspection Department spells through it..." She then pointed to the strange symbols on the scroll and said, "The symbols on the scroll are the Inspection Department's mark. You can show it when you're in trouble."

Zhang Yu carefully held it up, thinking, "So this is a talisman scroll. Even the cheapest ones must cost nearly a hundred thousand, right?" Talisman scrolls were crucial for learning talismans, and talismans, in turn, affected one's Daoist magic grades in high school. Zhang Yu had even heard of high school students who mortgaged their own organs just to buy a talisman scroll.

"They actually hand these out just for joining? The Inspection Department must be really rich."

"If A-Zhen saw this, wouldn't she kneel and call me 'Dad'? Begging me to let her play with it?"

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