Chapter 197 The Devil's Silence

Until Gu Shen finished speaking, the Ruler of Truth did not react.

Of course, these words were not for the dead King of the Underworld. When a person dies, their light goes out, and the King of the Underworld is no different, even if his will is still scattered in the River of the Underworld.

However, the King of the Underworld could not hear a single word Gu Shen said.

"Don't you want to say something?"

Since the Devil did not speak, Gu Shen simply took the initiative to ask.

"What do you want me to say?"

The Devil said lightly, "I am in your hands now, so I should say something you like to hear... Hmm, I agree, understand, and fully support your choice."

"I'm curious about what the last guy who held the Ruler did."

Gu Shen said calmly, "You can't be completely ignorant, right? Since you can call out 'River of the Underworld,' you should know something."

"..."

Silence.

The inside of the Ruler was extremely quiet.

If one were to use spiritual power to penetrate and sink, one would see that in the space where large areas of light and shadow intertwined, the Devil was lazily sitting on the throne, seemingly having closed its eyes and fallen asleep.

At any time, it had the right to remain silent.

Obviously, the Devil didn't want to talk about its past experiences in this Ruler.

And Gu Shen, who had just completed a transaction, couldn't use "Black Silver" to threaten it at the moment. At least for the next ten days... he had to fulfill his promise and give the Devil "freedom."

"Okay." Gu Shen shrugged and said, "Don't you want to make another deal?"

The word "deal" had a strange magic.

The Devil, who had been leaning on the throne, raised an eyebrow. It lifted its head, and its tone was gloomy and impatient as it said, "Gu Shen... don't take me for a fool. I know what kind of person you are."

Cunning, insidious, despicable, shameless...

This young man called himself "Devil" in his heart, but in this unequal transactional relationship, he was the one who was more like a Devil!

Deal?

Probably even if the sky fell, Gu Shen wouldn't really make a deal with it.

Originally, it had been harboring some hope, trying to achieve the purpose of a deal by relying on temptation, opportunity, and coercion in certain specific situations.

But now it had given up these thoughts.

Because it had completely confirmed that Gu Shen was the kind of guy it hated the most, one who was cautious and afraid of death to the extreme... In matters of deals, even if there was a tiny bit of opacity, a detail that might bring risk that hadn't been figured out, Gu Shen wouldn't agree.

This was a long game.

It was so for Gu Shen.

It was the same for the Devil.

"We've already started the precedent for deals, haven't we? That's a good sign."

Gu Shen coaxed and cajoled, wanting to ensure that his relationship with the Devil was close enough, and also far enough...

Close enough to be useful at critical moments.

Far enough for his own "safety."

Several confrontations, several games.

He was getting to know the Devil better and better, and the Devil was also getting to know him better and better.

If this guy stopped actively mentioning deals one day, then it wouldn't be a good thing... Perhaps one day in the future, Gu Shen would encounter a huge crisis that would be difficult to resolve.

And at that time, the Devil might not be so diligent.

To it, the word "loyalty" was like dog shit.

If this Ruler could change to a new owner, and one who was stupid, impatient, and desperately eager for power, that would be the best!

The reason why the conditions offered by the Devil in these past few deals were so tempting was, in essence, because the supply and demand relationship between the two sides was unbalanced.

Gu Shen needed to adjust this balance, making it neither lacking nor dependent.

"What do you want to say?"

The Devil spoke quietly, not interested in Gu Shen's words.

"I think you should know what the Ruler's previous owner, 'King of the Underworld'... was going to do." Gu Shen thought for a moment and slowly opened his mouth, "Right?"

This wasn't hard to guess.

The Devil kept silent about the old events of twenty years ago.

Obviously, it didn't want him to know the secrets of the previous owner... But thinking about it carefully, the King of the Underworld left the Ruler of Truth in Dongzhou and set off for the [Old World], obviously having planned everything.

How could the Devil be completely unaware?

"Sorry, this is not part of the deal we can make."

The black shadow on the throne gave Gu Shen a rather unexpected answer.

Probing what the King of the Underworld was going to do... was an "untradable item?"

Gu Shen was slightly surprised.

He smiled and stabilized his mind, "Oh? So you also have things that can't be traded... I thought that as long as I could pay the price, you could agree to all deals."

"I wish that were the case."

The Devil also smiled, but it was a sneer, "Unfortunately, some things are priceless. It's not that I don't want to trade, but that I can't. You should have figured it out by now. The so-called trading rules are very simple: you pay the price, I fulfill the promise, and souls and spirits act as a medium to ensure that neither party can breach the contract. So what I promise will definitely be accomplished. However, even if you give me everything, I can't help you kill the Light Divine Throne above the mountain. After all... I'm just a lonely ghost dwelling in a Ruler, not a true god great enough to rewrite history."

The last sentence was filled with a sense of desolation and loneliness.

But Gu Shen never fell for this.

Mentioning the Light Divine Throne, he suddenly realized that these few minutes had been a little too quiet.

"The River of the Underworld is a little too quiet... Did the Light Divine Throne successfully descend?"

Gu Shen had already swum a long way in the Black River, and it was pitch black all around. Even as the King of the Underworld, he couldn't see any scenery at the bottom of this Black River.

It wasn't because of rules or anything blocking it.

But because at the bottom of the "River of the Underworld," there was only silence.

No living beings could survive here.

The "will" left by the previous King of the Underworld in this place was only spiritual toxins filled with obliteration, erosion, and infection...

"This is something that can be traded."

The Devil spoke quietly, "Do you want to know what's happening on Black Snow Mountain? I can tell you, but I want more freedom, at least for the next thirty days, you can't use 'Black Silver' to block the Ruler's perception."

"Sorry, I don't want to know."

Gu Shen smiled slightly, politely refused, and then said leisurely, "Although I don't know what happened on Black Snow Mountain, I guess that the Light Divine Throne's descent probably failed... Even if it succeeded, that Divine Throne won't be able to step into the River of the Underworld for a while, otherwise you wouldn't be so calm. Think about your previous performance on Black Snow Mountain. If the Light Divine Throne were behind my ass, you would have been anxious."

A cloud of black mist shrouded the Devil's face, making it impossible to see its expression.

But it was really angry. After hearing Gu Shen's words, it couldn't help but slam the armrest of the throne heavily.

This young man didn't play by the rules at all.

Not only was he picky and stingy about "deals," but nine out of ten sentences he spoke were about trying to get information out of it... As a nihilistic spirit living in the Ruler's space, it really didn't have that many tricks.

As long as there was a similar verbal game, it was bound to be defeated miserably.

Seeing the Devil's reaction in the Ruler, Gu Shen felt even more at ease and confirmed the general situation on the mountaintop.

He swam towards the endless darkness of the River of the Underworld, smiling as he said, "Actually, I didn't want to inquire about what the King of the Underworld was going to do. You didn't have to be so nervous when I mentioned the past."

The Devil ignored him.

It had gradually understood that being with Gu Shen was completely different from being with the previous owner of the Ruler.

The tricks it used to use.

And some familiar routines were of no use on Gu Shen.

It had to transform itself, at least... in matters of deals, to engage in relatively fair games.

The first step was not to let Gu Shen get "information" from it. The reason why a deal was called a deal was because the employer who paid the price had to "buy" it, and Gu Shen had received too much from it for free.

So it decided to remain silent.

To this, Gu Shen only smiled.

He continued to say to himself, "If I'm not mistaken, not revealing the King of the Underworld's plans should be part of your deal with him... Just like you said before, it's not that you don't want to trade with me, but that you can't. You've promised the 'King of the Underworld' absolute confidentiality, and the Ruler's rules won't allow you to reveal it."

While speaking, he paid attention to the reaction of the black shadow on the throne.

This time, Gu Shen gained nothing.

That guy was determined not to give him any feedback.

It didn't matter if he didn't give it; whether these guesses were correct or not wasn't that important to Gu Shen.

What was important was the conditions he was about to throw out next.

Gu Shen said seriously, "I'm serious about wanting to make a deal with you... But the premise is that the rules allow you to make a deal with me. If you have an agreement with the King of the Underworld, then just pretend I didn't say anything."

As soon as he said this.

The Devil narrowed its eyes slightly.

"This time, it's still a guess..." Gu Shen asked, "Although you refuse to reveal the King of the Underworld's past and plans... I guess you don't care at all whether he can really succeed."

Previously, during the maze mission, from his contact with Jin Suihua to rewriting the slaughter spirit left by the King of the Underworld, the Devil had not appeared in the Ruler... For it, the time had not yet come.

But from another perspective.

The Devil didn't care at all whether the previous King of the Underworld's layout in the maze could succeed.

His "rewriting" of Jin Suihua was undoubtedly a major change in the King of the Underworld's previous plan that was out of control... Once the "subconscious" of this great serpent no longer wanted to slaughter, then it would no longer attack the transcendents who went out of the fortress, nor would it collect souls for the Pure Land!

If the Ruler had a deal with the King of the Underworld to protect the plan.

I'm afraid it wouldn't have been so easy for him to subdue Jin Suihua.

In the spiritual space of the Ruler of Truth, two cold words came.

"So?"

Gu Shen smiled, "So... since you don't care whether his plan succeeds, you might as well help me completely smash his plan."

He held up a finger.

"This is a fair deal. You don't need to tell me where the King of the Underworld buried his traps or hid his objects... I'll go find them and destroy them myself. You don't need to put in too much effort in this process either. I just need you to point the way at critical moments."

One thing in exchange for another.

The Devil thought for a moment and asked, "What's in it for me?"

"Freedom."

Gu Shen said seriously, "The deal we reached earlier was to give you ten days of freedom... During these ten days, you won't be sealed by Black Silver, and you can sense what's happening in the outside world. But you should also be very clear that once the ten-day period is over, I'll seal you up again!"

Although it had known from the moment the deal was completed that it would be resealed on the eleventh day, the Devil still felt very unhappy when it heard these words from Gu Shen.

A hint of anger appeared on that dark face.

This was only the first day of the ten days!

Gu Shen was already threatening it?

"If there is no seal on the eleventh day, then ten days of freedom is meaningless." Gu Shen said lightly, "This is also for your own good. How can you know the value of freedom if you don't taste the bitterness of the cage?"

The reason why Gu Shen's deal with the Devil was going so smoothly was because he held a card in his hand that could be played infinitely.

That was... freedom!

Ultimately, the Devil was just a wisp of spirit.

To it, being immersed in Black Silver... was more than just losing freedom; it was simply suffering torture!

However, Gu Shen was also clear that the "freedom" trump card looked useful, but in reality, its effect wasn't very significant... This card could only be used to complete small deals. This Devil had been able to endure twenty years of loneliness, and if it was really pushed to the limit, it could definitely endure the torture of Black Silver.

Gu Shen guessed that this guy's ultimate goal should be to "seize" his body.

So he had to constantly propose deals, throwing out one new goal after another, pointing towards the ultimate goal.

At least, he couldn't let the Devil lose hope.

On the other side, it was the same idea... In this silent game, both sides were hunter and prey. From today's perspective, Gu Shen seemed to have taken control of the overall situation, but in reality, he was the one walking on thin ice.

Dealing with the Devil was like walking on a tightrope on a cliff.

A slight mistake would lead to a heavy fall, never to recover.

"I want to clear the 'spiritual toxins' of the River of the Underworld."

Gu Shen held the Ruler in front of him and said calmly, "If you lead the way and help me complete this 'clearing'... then I can guarantee that I won't use Black Silver to seal the ring-ruler after leaving the River of the Underworld. Do you accept this deal?"

Inside the Ruler's space.

The black shadow on the throne fell into deep thought.

It looked at the outside world, at the young man holding the Ruler, who was extremely dignified.

This was a tempting deal...

But something seemed a little off?

"You only have three seconds to consider."

Gu Shen's voice sounded once again.

The Devil frowned.

Instinctive vigilance made it want to refuse... But simply leading the way could get it long-term freedom.

This was really a sure profit deal.

Without waiting for Gu Shen to count down.

The Devil said in a deep voice, "Okay... I agree."

The sound was transmitted, and a silent link formed on Gu Shen's heart lake.

The deal was done!

The Devil fulfilled its promise, using its spiritual power to point Gu Shen in a direction.

"Buzz buzz buzz—"

A speck of light faintly appeared at the distant end of the boundless Black River.

(End of chapter)