So Even The Underworld Hires Cheap Labor

Yu Dongxi is a popular but financially struggling live-streamer who appraises antiques for entertainment rather than profit. Despite her large following, she refuses to monetize her audience, maintaining a detached and humorous demeanor. One night, she connects with a viewer who claims to have found ancient artifacts, including a bronze mirror and sword with oracle bone inscriptions. When the man reveals he is digging holes in the wilderness with a Luoyang shovel, Yu Dongxi recognizes the signs of grave robbing. She secretly records the stream and reports the location to the police, tricking the man into thinking he is safe while he is actually being tracked. After the stream ends, Yu Dongxi collapses from exhaustion and is diagnosed with a rare, fatal illness that leaves her with only days to live.

Resigned to her fate, Yu Dongxi visits her grandfather's grave at a cemetery, where she encounters a mysterious night watchman who comments on her fragmented soul. Shortly after, she receives a message from a high-level fan who has moved into a new apartment filled with strange objects. The fan describes finding a Mount Tai stone, a Taoist sword, and a demon-suppressing goat figure. Yu Dongxi realizes the apartment is set up with a Soul-Locking Array designed to annihilate a vengeful spirit. She identifies the fan as the same grave robber from her earlier stream, who admits to setting the trap to exact revenge on her for ruining his operation. The array requires a fifth element to complete, and Yu Dongxi deduces she has been chosen to fill that role.

Yu Dongxi ends the stream and flees to a remote motel, but the supernatural events escalate. She witnesses the neighbor across the hall, a man with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, moving with unnatural stiffness. Despite her attempts to escape, she is hit by a mysterious car with an out-of-town license plate that should not have been on the road at that hour. She dies and finds herself in the underworld, where she learns she actually died two days earlier in the hospital. Because her soul was delayed, she is not permitted to reincarnate immediately. Instead, she is forced to sign a fifty-year labor contract as a Dream Fulfillment Specialist, a job that requires her to help ghosts with unfinished wishes cross over.

Upon reporting for duty, Yu Dongxi discovers her direct supervisor is Qiu Sui, her arrogant and cold-hearted ex-boyfriend from her human life. Their reunion is fraught with tension and unresolved history. Qiu Sui assigns her to a seemingly simple task: retrieving a name that was accidentally transferred to the neighboring department's Book of Life and Death. The target is Song Daquan, the nephew of the head of the adjacent department, who had signed away his humanity in a previous life. Yu Dongxi is sent to the neighboring building, where she encounters Song Yu, a blindfolded, eccentric man who claims to be the head of that department.

Song Yu reveals that Song Daquan is actually missing, having vanished from his own jurisdiction. He forces Yu Dongxi to accompany him to his ancestral home, a desolate mansion in a fantasy realm, to locate the fugitive. The situation is complicated by the fact that Song Daquan is Song Yu's great-uncle, a man with a terrible reputation whom Song Yu claims to have beaten since childhood. As they navigate the eerie estate, Yu Dongxi realizes the underworld is far more dangerous and bureaucratic than she anticipated. Her new role as a civil servant in the afterlife places her directly in conflict with powerful entities, while her personal history with Qiu Sui looms over her professional obligations. The story follows her struggle to survive her new existence while uncovering the secrets behind the array that killed her and the missing soul she must find.