Chapter 214.2: Tour of Youdu
After walking for a while, they arrived at another elevated platform. Behind it, more and more souls were lined up in orderly queues.
Pei Shouji explained, “That is the Terrace of Looking Homeward. From its top, one can gaze upon their homeland and loved ones in the world of the living. However, they may only look once. Afterward, they must let go of their attachments, descend the steps, and continue on their way.”
“Such a wondrous thing actually exists?”
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture was astonished yet again.
Cheng Qisheng, who was watching the two of them on their Tour of Youdu, burst out laughing.
Hahaha! Actually, it’s just a supernatural with the ability of [Far-Sight]. They look toward a location based on its address, and then Cheng Anjing, a [Mind Domain] ability user, transfers the images seen by the [Far-Sight] user directly into the souls’ minds.
—No worries, no worries. Once Youdu grows bigger and stronger, there’ll be a real Terrace of Looking Homeward.
Unaware of the truth, the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture fell into deep contemplation.
Judging by everything he had seen along the way, Youdu’s Ghost Gate stood at the boundary between yin and yang, separating the two worlds. The Yellow Springs Road led directly to Youdu, and those who traveled it could never return. Once they stepped onto the Yellow Springs Road, they could use the Terrace of Looking Homeward to take one last glance at the world of the living.
If the journey to reincarnation after death was truly this long, giving souls so much time to come to terms with their own deaths, then surely the souls here would not wail incessantly and resist reincarnation in sheer terror, as the souls he had previously escorted to the Reincarnation Bureau had done.
And if, after death, one could still have the chance to see one’s hometown and loved ones one last time, what a wonderful thing that would be.
“We must part ways here.”
Pei Shouji dutifully explained the arrangements to the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture, even though he himself had only recently learned about the “map.”
“My lord, please look. To the left is the Naihe Bridge, and beside it stands Meng Po’s Pavilion. Meng Po prepares a special soup. Once a soul drinks it, they can forget the joys, sorrows, grudges, and affections of their life in the mortal world, letting go of their past before crossing the Naihe Bridge to reach the place of reincarnation. Most of the souls who take this path are virtuous people who have died of old age.”
—This part was true.
Fallen Heaven Star’s Reincarnation Bureau had collapsed, but that didn’t mean it was unusable.
It was like having a perfectly functional kitchen but no chef. Naturally, no food would be prepared. Now that Blue Sea had stepped into the role of “chef,” the meals could once again be prepared just as they were supposed to be.
The path across the Naihe Bridge led directly to the Reincarnation Bureau.
Pei Shouji had no idea how much effort Youdu had expended to make the road wind and twist its way toward the Reincarnation Bureau. He sincerely believed that this was simply how the underworld ought to be.
He took particular care to explain one more detail to the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture.
“I don’t mean virtuous souls like myself, but rather those who have never committed any serious wrongdoing in their lives. If there is no dispute over their cases, they may cross the bridge and reincarnate on their own.”
“To the right is the City of Wrongful Death. Souls who died unnatural deaths or passed away before their allotted lifespans had ended must wait there until their destined lifespans are complete.”
“Over there is the Office of the Judges. I worked as a low-ranking clerk in the Office of the Judges, where I verified the records of each deceased soul’s merits and transgressions. Sometimes, when those records couldn’t be found, we could consult the Office of Merits and Transgressions further inside. It records every word and deed of every person in the world, distinguishing good from evil so that the underworld officials of Youdu can determine where each soul should be sent for reincarnation.”
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture had been stroking his long beard. At these words, he nearly yanked out a handful of hairs.
“Every word and deed of every person?”
“Precisely,” Pei Shouji replied.
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture’s entire worldview was shaken to its foundations once again.
There were countless mortals in the world. If the past actions of every single person could be investigated, just how immense must the divine power of the Luofeng Youdu Office be?
No, wait. Considering that Youdu possessed so many magnificent halls and had a vast number of subordinate deities, it was already clear that its divine power was immense.
Cheng Qisheng, who was watching them: Actually, the director of the Office of Merits and Transgressions is an ability user with the ability of [Lie Detection].
Her job is to make the souls fill out forms and then run lie-detection checks on them one by one. The Office of Merits and Transgressions, which looks so mysterious and sophisticated, is actually just an assembly line.
And since Blue Sea currently has only one person with the ability of [Lie Detection], she has no choice but to remain on duty constantly.
Almost everything the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture was witnessing as wondrous and mysterious had been hastily cobbled together by various Blue Sea residents, like a makeshift stage set.
The guiding principle was simple: make the exterior look incomparably magnificent, while the interior is nothing but straw.
However, Cheng Qisheng estimated that once Youdu had brought down all the souls currently stranded in the mortal world, the faith power generated when those souls saw Youdu and came to recognize its existence should be enough to transform the Luofeng Youdu Office into a genuine underworld.
Which brought them back to the same problem: People! They needed more people to get the work done!
Pei Shouji had absolutely no idea that he was already hard at work. His job was, in fact, to recruit people.
He continued his enthusiastic tour, explaining as he went.
“Further in this direction is the Hall of the Ten Kings. Given my position, I’m not permitted to enter, but I’ve heard from my colleagues that the Hall of the Ten Kings truly contains ten separate palaces, each housing one of the Ten Kings. They handle the administrative affairs of the entire netherworld. If evil souls are found, they may also send them to the various hells for punishment. Apparently, there are Ice Hell and Blazing Hell, among others. Only after their sentences have been served may the souls reincarnate.”
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture felt as though he were a country bumpkin who had come to the big city. He listened and nodded repeatedly.
“Everything in the world has both good and evil. If wrongdoing goes unpunished, wouldn’t that encourage evil and suppress good?”
“This is excellent indeed. If news of the netherworld and its hells spreads back to the mortal world, those who commit evil deeds there might think twice before acting.”
He couldn’t help sighing in admiration once more.
“The Black and White Impermanence who go to escort souls are already so powerful. I truly cannot imagine just how vast the divine abilities of Youdu’s Ten Kings must be.”
Cheng Qisheng: Surprise! All ten palaces are empty, and not a single one of the Ten Kings has been appointed yet.
The ones currently running the Hall of the Ten Kings are several thousand Blue Sea residents.
And so, letting an unsuspecting local recruit other locals was such a brilliant decision.
Because Pei Shouji himself firmly believed every word of his own explanations, even the more experienced City God of Tianjiang Prefecture had been completely led down the garden path by him.
Cheng Qisheng could already tell that the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture was utterly captivated by Youdu.
Now, all that remained was to give him one tiny extra nudge.
She didn’t even need to do it herself. Pei Shouji would naturally take care of it.
Sure enough, Pei Shouji extended an invitation.
“We’ve been walking around for quite some time, my lord. Are you hungry? Would you care to join me for a meal?”
Reminded by Pei Shouji, the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture finally realized that he had indeed been in Youdu for at least half a day. However, everything he had seen was so novel, almost as if he had entered another world entirely, that he was reluctant to leave just yet.
“Are we going back now?”
“Not back to the mortal world. I’d like to invite you to have a meal at Ghost Realm Fort in Youdu.”
Pei Shouji had actually eaten only one “meal” at Ghost Realm Fort himself. But the place was so lively, with much the same atmosphere as a marketplace in the mortal world, that whenever he spoke of it, he couldn’t help smiling. After all, he himself had died only recently.
“Ghost Realm Fort is Youdu’s commercial district. Some departed souls who must remain here temporarily for various reasons, along with the underworld’s ghost officers and deities, go about their business there. My lord, you can simply think of it as a marketplace in the mortal world.”
—Here it comes. This is the important part.
Cheng Qisheng watched with a hint of anticipation.
Youdu had only opened the day before yesterday, and thanks to Old Eighth and the others working so diligently, the faith power they had gathered over the past two days was already enough for Cheng Qisheng to alter one of Youdu’s rules.
The first rule she changed concerned Ghost Realm Fort.
—
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture followed Pei Shouji into Ghost Realm Fort.
The moment he entered, he was stunned.
The entire broad street was packed with people—or rather, “people”—everywhere he looked.
Among them were true deities walking about, each radiating streams of pure golden divine power. There were also souls surrounded by white mist, busily going about their tasks with their heads lowered. He even saw a demon ghost whose original form was a bird casually strolling right past him as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
Yet the sheer number of these “nonhuman” beings wasn’t what surprised the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture most.
What astonished him most was that there were actual shops lining the streets, and the sound of vendors hawking their wares rang out from every direction.
He slowly made his way forward, passing one stall and shop after another.
“Honey-scented incense candles! Incense candles made with real honey!”
“Fruit for sale! Fresh offerings of fruit! We’re no unscrupulous merchants selling paper offerings! We have all kinds, so come and take a look!”
Just hearing these sales pitches would be enough for any Blue Sea resident to recognize immediately that every single vendor here was from Blue Sea.
But the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture had no idea of that. He could only walk stiffly through the bustling streets, wishing he had thirty-six pairs of eyes so he could take in every single sight in perfect detail.
“Clothes for sale! Clothes for sale! Exclusively for yin deities and souls! Buy now, and I’ll burn them for you in the mortal world right away. You can choose your own styles. We’re the only shop of our kind in all of Ghost Realm Fort!”
“Exchange your old soul-guiding banner cloth for new! Exclusively for yin deities and underworld officials!”
“Pastries, wine, and meat! All genuine offerings made with sincere devotion! They taste absolutely delicious! Hey! Hello there, fellow ghost! Why not buy some and give them a try? They’re really tasty!”
When one of the vendors spotted the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture and zeroed in on him as a potential customer, he was practically at a loss for what to do.
He had been a City God for far too long—or at least, it had been a very long time compared with his former life as a living person.
He was accustomed to going wherever he pleased without anyone being able to see him. Whenever he needed to discuss something important with the living, he had to expend divine power to enter their dreams. Sometimes, even that failed. He could explain everything perfectly well in a dream, only for the person to wake up and promptly forget every last word.
The only ones he spoke to on a daily basis were the same familiar faces: his subordinates, the Day and Night Patrol Gods, and the ghost officials under his command.
Now, all of a sudden, he had entered a world where everyone could see him, and where he could even buy and sell things. The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture was both thrilled and utterly bewildered. He genuinely had no idea how he was supposed to react.
All he could do was hurriedly wave his hands, doing his best not to appear rude.
“No, no! I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t have any money…”
All the silver he had collected was buried beneath the City God’s temple. At the moment, he was completely penniless.
The vendor looked at him as though he had just said something utterly impossible.
“You’re a yin deity, aren’t you? How could a yin deity have no money? Have you only just arrived in Youdu and not learned how to use money yet? Here, let me show you! See this stone? Just infuse it with your divine power. Divine power is money!”
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture froze.
“Divine power is money? Isn’t money supposed to be gold and silver?”
The young vendor laughed.
“Gold and silver are only useful to the living. Neither of us is alive, so what would we need gold and silver for?”
He took out several small stones that shimmered with golden light.
“Cultivation is what’s truly useful.”
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture had spent the entire day in a state of bewilderment, and his mind was still struggling to keep up.
“Isn’t divine power something you can only cultivate yourself?”
“That’s true in the mortal world, but not in Youdu.”
As he spoke, the vendor demonstrated. He clasped one of the little golden stones in his hand and closed his eyes. Before long, a wisp of pure golden divine power drifted out of the stone and seeped into his body.
“See? In Youdu, divine power can be used as currency. Of course, you have to willingly infuse it into the stone yourself. That’s why Ghost Realm Fort is always so lively. As long as you have enough divine power, you can buy all sorts of things here.”
Indeed, this was the first “rule of Youdu” that Cheng Qisheng had changed.
In Youdu, divine power could be used as currency.
The various mortal dynasties on Fallen Heaven Star had their own currencies, but the form of money universally recognized by mortals was gold and silver.
However, in Fallen Heaven Star’s supernatural world of gods, demons, and spirits, there had never been a universally accepted currency.
Strictly speaking, there had never been any currency at all.
Back when the Heavenly Dao still existed and single-handedly shouldered the burden of maintaining everything, this had been a world where everyone operated independently. Most deities kept to themselves and rarely interacted with other deities, let alone traded goods with them.
Of course, there had been nothing wrong with that arrangement when the Heavenly Dao was still around.
In those days, the deities could handle their own responsibilities just fine. Even when a deity was occasionally killed by some powerful demon passing through, such incidents were rare.
Most deities didn’t need anyone else’s help, nor did they require any external equipment.
But things were different now.
The Heavenly Dao had fallen, and demons and monsters were everywhere. The way the various divine beings interacted with one another needed to change.
For example, they needed a marketplace and a unified currency.
And most importantly of all, as the chairwoman of Youdu, Cheng Qisheng could use divine power as currency within Youdu to pool resources and enable individual believers to wield greater amounts of divine power.
—Take the Black and White Impermanence, for example.
On Blue Star, this name referred to just two ghost deities. But on Fallen Heaven Star, it had become a position that could be filled by large numbers of recruits. The job involved fighting evil ghosts, so as long as someone was hired, Blue Sea would provide them with divine power.
Changing this rule had consumed nearly half of Cheng Qisheng’s mental power, leaving her speech a little less halting than before.
But it was all worth it.
Even if no one in the divine community had ever heard of Youdu before, now that the rule “divine power can be used as currency here” existed, the entire divine community of Fallen Heaven Star—and even human cultivators—would gradually be drawn to it.
Cheng Qisheng was almost a little envious of Fallen Heaven Star’s environment.
It was simply too well suited to the divine path, too perfect for her to develop her power.
As long as she had enough faith power, she could change any rule, move mountains, overturn seas, and accomplish practically anything.
If Dark Star had been an environment like this, and she had been able to develop there for tens of billions of years, then when that damn black hole arrived back then, she might have been able to swallow the thing whole.
Then again, perhaps it was precisely because Dark Star was so weak that it had gradually nurtured powerful beings like Old Eighth.
Meanwhile, mighty Fallen Heaven Star had failed to cultivate many truly formidable children.
In Cheng Qisheng’s eyes, the deities of Fallen Heaven Star were, at most, humans who possessed tremendous power but were bound by moral constraints.
And humans had always longed for community and the company of their own kind.
Just look at the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture. How brightly his eyes shone as he gazed at this long marketplace!
He hadn’t even realized it himself, but his face was filled with delight and yearning.
His gaze fell upon a stall selling tanghulu—sugar-coated hawthorn skewers. These were offerings to the gods; otherwise, they would never have made their way into the world of spirits.
And the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture hadn’t tasted tanghulu in over a hundred years.
He walked over slowly.
“How much are these?”
The tanghulu vendor immediately greeted him enthusiastically. “One green-bean-sized piece of divine power.”
The City God of Tianjiang Prefecture lowered his voice. “I don’t have one of those stones. Do you have any empty ones?”
“I do! Just a moment.”
The tanghulu vendor promptly produced a handful of ordinary-looking pebbles.
In fact, they really were just pebbles.
It was only because of the “rule” Cheng Qisheng had established that any pebble found lying around Youdu could be picked up and turned into a vessel for divine power.
Holding one, the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture cautiously infused it with divine power.
It didn’t feel like that much. The amount was roughly equivalent to the divine power he normally expended traveling for the time it took an incense stick to burn.
He immediately felt he could afford it. He asked for another empty pebble and bought two tanghulu skewers.
One was for himself, and the other he handed to Pei Shouji.
Pei Shouji accepted it with delight. “Thank you, Your Excellency. I’ve only just become a ghost deity, so I really don’t have much divine power to spend on things like this.”
He had originally planned to take the City God to the staff canteen. As a ghost deity, he received two sticks of incense every day, and he had intended to give one to the City God of Tianjiang Prefecture.
But the City God simply smiled as he ate his tanghulu.
“There’s no need to be so polite. We’ll be colleagues from now on, after all.”
<< _ >>
**TN
鬼神 (guǐshén) — ghost deity: A spirit or ghost that has attained divine status or become a deity.
阴神 (yīnshén) — yin deity: A deity associated with the yin realm, the underworld, or the world of the dead. This term emphasizes the deity’s connection to the yin side of existence, rather than necessarily describing how they became a deity.
阴差 (yīnchāi) — underworld official: An official who carries out duties for the underworld, such as escorting souls or apprehending ghosts. This is a role, not necessarily a type of being.
