Though Zhao Changyu was very angry, he still had the ghost butler follow along. Though the underworld had strict laws, there were always places the law’s light couldn’t reach.

Zhao Zhongyu had just come down to the underworld. According to what he said, he was poisoned together with the Emperor by Liu Cong. The people would certainly sympathize and commemorate him greatly. Looking at his expression, he clearly died heroically as well, so even more people in the mortal realm would commemorate him.

He was now equivalent to becoming rich overnight without knowing it, like a child carrying gold through the marketplace.

The ghost butler quickly caught up with Zhao Zhongyu and led him to find ghost officers to collect items – incense, money, and everything sent down from the mortal realm.

Items offered in worship in the mortal realm couldn’t all be received in the underworld. After all, some people had strange ideas and would burn all sorts of chaotic things down.

With the ghost butler leading, only then did Zhao Zhongyu learn that time flowed differently between the underworld and mortal realm.

So though he felt he had just died and come to the underworld not long ago, in fact he had already been dead for some time in the mortal realm.

Most wonderfully, different places in the underworld also had different time flow rates. This involved spatial and temporal laws. Not only did the ghost butler not understand this, even Zhao Zhongyu, who had been immersed in it these past few years, hadn’t researched much.

“So the things burned for Second Master from above must have all arrived.”

These items all had to be collected at the Underworld Bureau.

Zhao Zhongyu wasn’t a naive youth. He didn’t want to stay with his brother, but wouldn’t drive away the servant ghost he sent either.

He accepted the ghost butler’s service with peace of mind, having him lead the way to the Underworld Bureau to collect items.

As soon as he reported his name and birth details, the way the ghost officers at the Underworld Bureau looked at him changed.

Zhao Zhongyu frowned, feeling puzzled, when a ghost officer took a silver key and said: “Follow me.”

The ghost butler saw that silver key and his eyes lit up. He immediately urged Zhao Zhongyu to follow, whispering: “Second Master, you have a whole warehouse of items.”

In the mortal realm, news of the Emperor and Zhao Zhongyu being poisoned had already spread. The Jin officials in Xiongnu territory wept bitterly. Overnight, aside from a very few court officials, everyone else died one after another, massacred by Liu Cong’s people. This action aroused resentment not only from Jin officials, but even the Han officials, Di tribe and Jie tribe in the Xiongnu camp were quite dissatisfied. Zhao Zhongyu’s words persuading the Emperor to die with dignity spread from the fallen lands. It was heard that he personally served the Emperor the poisoned wine, then calmly went to his own death.

Because of those four words “calmly went to death,” and because of the Emperor being humiliated by the Xiongnu, the shame and inferiority of being poisoned were somewhat alleviated, transformed into towering rage and murderous intent, as well as sympathy for the Emperor and admiration for Zhao Zhongyu.

In a situation of national mourning, aristocratic families and landlords everywhere spontaneously held memorial services for Zhao Zhongyu. Zhao Hanzhang also widely distributed announcements and proclamations denouncing Liu Cong, so the common people also joined in. Of course, they mourned for the Emperor, crying for the Emperor twice, then wailing for Zhao Zhongyu. Occasionally when crying for Zhao Zhongyu they would also mention Zhao Changyu, believing that the Zhao brothers could both be called the Jin state’s green pines – unfortunately both were dead, and both died for Great Jin.

Common folk naturally couldn’t afford to burn incense candles and lamp oil, much less silk. They would burn wheat stalks or one or two sheets of paper money.

Burning paper money for the deceased was a custom that began in the Eastern Han, but only in limited circulation, as information spread slowly. After Zhao Hanzhang’s paper workshop opened, the paper industry developed rapidly, taking on all kinds of business. The cost of paper money also dropped rapidly. Add to this that many people had died in recent years, and Zhao Hanzhang promoted simple burials in her territories, even specially submitting a memorial to the court asking them to issue announcements promoting this.

At that time it was Zhao Zhongyu who reviewed it and spoke for her in court to promote it.

The truth was that the gap between rich and poor in the funeral industry was too vast. People who froze or starved to death on the roads were directly abandoned in the wilderness, turning from corpses to white bones without anyone collecting the bodies. Yet for some wealthy families, not to mention burial goods, whenever a rich person was buried, the silk bundles, ceramics, clothing, various gold and silver jewelry burned, and even… people, were countless.

Though human sacrifice had long been abolished, it persisted in the folk despite repeated bans.

Such extravagant funerals consumed enormous social wealth every year. Honestly, with wars everywhere and social resources rapidly decreasing, yet they still buried and burned things in grave pits – several times Zhao Hanzhang couldn’t help but want to implement Boss Cao’s old strategy. She used great willpower to suppress her desire.

So Zhao Hanzhang had people mass-print paper money, promoting from Yuzhou that paper money should be the main currency for funerals, replacing silk bundles and such.

Before this, because the folk commonly used cloth as currency of value, what they burned for the deceased was also mostly silk bundles as underworld currency.

Under her constant promotion and leading by example, with Yuzhou as the center, the custom of worshipping ancestors and deceased with paper money as primary finally spread.

Every year in Zhao clan ancestral worship and Qingming tomb-sweeping, they also switched to paper money. Silk bundles and such were all removed – only the five sacrificial animals and wine remained unchanged.

This was only achieved with the strong support of Zhao Zhongyu, Zhao Song, and Zhao Ming. Even so, there were quite a few dissenting voices within the clan.

Zhao Zhongyu asked: “Can the paper money burned in the mortal realm truly be used in the underworld?”

“Of course it can be used,” the ghost butler said with a face full of gratitude and admiration: “I don’t know whose great merit this is. How could families like ours afford to burn silk bundles and objects? Being able to burn a handful of wheat stalks was already not bad. Since there’s been paper money it’s different – even poor families can receive some money during festivals or death anniversaries.”

The ghost officer walking ahead turned back: “The underworld long ago started using paper money, but few burned it. The Great Emperor once had ghosts go give dreams to their families, but after the dream-giving, perhaps they didn’t explain clearly – the poor ghosts’ families would only burn wheat stalks, occasionally offering one or two bowls of white rice or three large steamed buns. The rich ghosts’ families would burn silk bundles and pots, pans, and ladles, never burning the right things.”

Actually they also preferred the mortal realm to use paper money. This was cheap – even the poorest family could buy a stack for one coin to give to their deceased family members.

The wealth gap in the underworld was somewhat alleviated. It didn’t show before because people who died could quickly reincarnate. They didn’t stay in the underworld long. Whether rich ghosts or poor ghosts, after settling their life’s good and evil and determining which womb to enter, after drinking Meng Po’s soup and crossing Naihe Bridge, they were gone.

They basically couldn’t use the wealth they brought down. The underworld was relatively fair then.

But now too many ghost souls were stranded in the underworld, and this showed the difference. The poor had no wealth while the rich got richer – this made the Great Emperor very unhappy.

The Great Emperor believed that when people lived in the mortal realm he couldn’t control them, but once dead, ghosts in the underworld should be equal. Yet with this stranding, the wealth gap stretched from earth to sky – the difference was too great.

This made managing the underworld difficult – there were always ghosts being attacked and robbed of their incense. This made the Great Emperor and King Yanluo, who couldn’t tolerate any grain of sand in their eyes, very dissatisfied.

The ghost officer led Zhao Zhongyu to a warehouse. Upon opening it, it was full of money and items.

All were things that people in the mortal realm specifically designated to send to him.

Zhao Zhongyu opened his mouth wide in surprise. The ghost butler’s eyes nearly turned red with envy.