996 Before Death, 007 After

*Working title for now. I might change it if I think of something better~

*Plot-driven ensemble cast / my take on the supernatural / a very loosely built setting / loads of original worldbuilding.

In recent years, viruses have run rampant and disasters have struck one after another, with the daily death toll reaching new highs.

On top of that, the younger generation in the human world is reluctant to have children, leaving spirits with little chance of reincarnating. Ghosts have piled up in the underworld.

The sudden surge in the ghost population threw the underworld into chaos, and even the passage between the worlds of the living and the dead was crushed.

Without the passage, newly dead ghosts were stranded in the human world with nowhere to go.

*

Song Huaishuang, a master of the mystic arts, foresaw a great calamity in the human world: the passage between the worlds of the living and the dead would be damaged, forcing spirits meant for the underworld to remain among the living.

After that, overwhelming malevolent energy would transform into monsters, leading a procession of ghosts to wreak havoc across the human world.

Raise hell, will you? What the hell is there to raise hell about? Clearly, they don't have enough homework or enough pressure at work! They're just too idle!

If they've got that much free time, they can all come work for me!

That was Song Huaishuang's take on it.

And she meant it. She and her disciples quickly founded a company, sending little ghosts back to school and helping grown-up ghosts find new jobs after death.

Heard the human world's 996 office drones are under a lot of pressure, with suicide rates on the rise?

Song Huaishuang rounded up a group of ghosts to work as psychology lecturers, visiting people in their dreams to counsel them.

The ghosts spoke from experience: You think you won't have to hustle after you die? After death, it's 007, and you still have a mortgage to pay! I'm telling you, friend, you'd better stay alive!

Heard the special effects in Chinese horror movies look fake, so they can't compete with foreign films?

No problem. Song Huaishuang handpicked a group of ghosts who'd died violent deaths, and had them perform all kinds of horror scenes for real. No more bargain-bin effects.

Before long, Chinese-style horror had taken the world by storm.

Heard horror-themed escape rooms are all the rage lately?

Great! Do you need real ghosts to play your NPCs? The kind who can scare you right up in your face and do anything, even pull off their own heads on a whim and invite you to kick them around like a ball.

Once they heard about it, escape-room owners rushed to hire real-ghost NPCs. Players who tried them couldn't stop singing their praises.

After a long period of chaos, the underworld finally got its ghost population under control and repaired the passage between the worlds of the living and the dead.

When the officials nervously opened the passage, they didn't see the chaos in the human world they'd expected.

Quite the opposite: the human world was peaceful, and humans and ghosts were getting along wonderfully.

After learning what had happened, the underworld officials breathed a sigh of relief, then hurried over to Song Huaishuang, waving their hands excitedly: Boss, please come help us build a new underworld! You can set your own terms!

Theme: Good and evil both meet their just deserts