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墨書 Inktalez
Chapter 128: Returning to the Yang Realm
Upon hearing this, I finally understood. It turned out that Black Wuchang and King Yan were just putting on a show together, claiming they would impose severe punishments on us. It was clearly a way to intimidate us first, and then they would say that as long as we built ten thousand paper houses, everything would be fine. They forced us to agree immediately, and we even thought we had received a great favor.
At that moment, I cursed their ancestors for eight generations. Just then, Grandpa suddenly turned cold and gave me a slap on the head, angrily scolding me for not being able to distinguish between the Four Ghosts Carrying the Coffin and the Hundred Grievances Locking Yin Formation, saying I deserved punishment!
As Grandpa scolded me, I could only lower my head and take it. Indeed, it was my fault; after wandering in the Jianghu for so long, I had made no progress at all.
While Grandpa was scolding me, Master Ma advised, "Don't blame him; if you want to blame someone, blame yourself for not teaching him properly. You didn't even pass on the Paper Control Technique."
Grandpa shot a glare at Master Ma: "Look at you; you haven't passed on your Yin-Yang techniques to your disciples either."
Their bickering amused both me and Cao Qilong.
Afterward, they both reminded us that once we returned to the Yang realm, we must do more good deeds and accumulate virtue. This time in the underworld made it clear that good deeds bring good rewards while evil deeds bring evil retribution; no one can escape the law of cause and effect.
In truth, even without their reminders, we had already understood this from our journey. Whether it was the hooks and knives on the road to the Yellow Springs or the bloody bridge of Naihe, all of it confirmed the principle of cause and effect.
After expressing a few words of longing to them, Grandpa urged us to hurry back so as not to miss the timing. More importantly, if something went wrong in the Yang realm, we might never be able to return.
Thus, with reluctance, we left Grandpa and Master Ma behind and headed back toward the Yang realm.
After exiting the Underworld, we arrived at Naihe Bridge. I glanced down at the souls who had drunk Meng Po's soup beneath the platform of Nostalgia. Each one appeared dazed and foolish, like idiots. Their eyes were vacant as they walked forward in a daze. Those who did not drink Meng Po's soup could not be reborn; anyone who drank it would forget all ties from this life and begin their next reincarnation without any burdens.
Meng Po's soup is also known as Forgetfulness Water or Worry-Free Powder. Once consumed, one forgets their past lives completely. Every person from the Yang realm has their own bowl here with different soups. It is said that Meng Po's soup is made from water from the River of Forgetfulness mixed with worldly herbs to create a broth that resembles neither wine nor water, available in five flavors: sweet, bitter, spicy, sour, and salty.
There is another saying that when everyone is alive, they will shed tears due to joy, sorrow, hatred, or love. Meng Po collects their tears and brews them into a soup. When they leave the mortal realm and reach the Naihe Bridge, she makes them drink it so that they forget the love and hate of their lives and can be reborn as humans or animals. Of course, not everyone is willing to drink Meng Po's soup. Those who refuse must jump into the River of Forgetfulness and endure the torment of water and fire for thousands of years before they can reincarnate. After being reborn, they will carry the memories of their past life in search of their former lovers or family members, only to find that after a thousand years, everything has changed; you may recognize them, but they no longer recognize you.
Ghosts who have drunk Meng Po's soup can proceed to the cycle of reincarnation, which is divided into six paths. Whether one is reborn as a human or an animal depends on their own merits.
I once heard a story about reincarnation. It said that once there was a person walking at night who saw someone dressed like a constable leading a prisoner in shackles, sitting under a tree. The traveler seemed tired and sat down under a large tree to rest. The prisoner was crying incessantly, and the constable grew impatient with his weeping and kept whipping him.
Seeing this, the traveler felt pity and tried to dissuade him. The Yama Official shot him an annoyed glance and said, "Do you know? He is an extremely vicious and cunning person. In his lifetime, he specialized in sowing discord and plotting against others; he has harmed hundreds of people! Therefore, in the underworld, he has been sentenced to seven lifetimes as a pig to repeatedly suffer the pain of slaughter. I am ordered to escort him to be reborn. Do you still pity such a scoundrel?"
Hearing this, the traveler was terrified and quickly left. When he looked back, the two ghosts had already vanished.
Although it is unclear whether this story is true or not, it has long been said that those who commit many evils are reborn as animals.
Returning to the present, I focused my gaze ahead; there was the Naihe Bridge. This time, the Ghost Messenger did not let us cross from the lowest wooden bridge but allowed us to pass through the upper golden bridge. The golden bridge with a jade surface was flat and wide; however, very few people walked across it—perhaps there are too few good people these days!
As I crossed the bridge, my eyes were mostly looking down at the River of Forgetfulness below, hoping to catch a glimpse of that familiar figure. But no matter how hard I searched, all I could see were wandering souls; I could not find the person I was looking for.
After crossing the Naihe Bridge and walking along the Yellow Springs Road past the Ghost Gate, my return journey was unusually smooth. Along this way back, I only encountered some unfriendly looks from the newly assigned eighteen punishment ghosts at the Ghost Gate; I knew they were dissatisfied with their duties. Alas, these Underworld officials are not much different from those in the mortal world!
Once past the Ghost Gate, everything before me became dim. In this dark world, we faintly saw a light ahead and walked toward it. We knew that light was none other than the life-sustaining lamp we had lit in the mortal realm.
It is said that wandering souls returning to the living world need guiding lights; this is indeed true. This is also why there is a tradition of releasing river lanterns on July 15th of the lunar calendar—because these lanterns serve as guiding lights for wandering souls returning home. The roads in the underworld are very dark; when they see these guiding lights, they can find their way back home.
Following the light forward, it soon grew brighter and brighter until it became blinding. When we opened our eyes again, we had returned to the living world; we were lying in bed, and that blinding light was none other than the oil lamp lit on our bedside!
As soon as we woke up, Brother Wang excitedly called out to us, asking if we had really crossed into the underworld.
We smiled and nodded, thanking him for his care. In fact, our successful passage through the underworld owed much to Brother Wang; we had entrusted our lives to him. If he wanted us not to return, all he had to do was turn our shoes upside down or extinguish our life-sustaining lamp—he had told us all this before we descended into the underworld. So he protected us so that we could return safely; we were truly grateful from the bottom of our hearts. One must ask: how many people in this world are worthy of having their lives entrusted to them?
I told Brother Wang that the village would be peaceful from now on, and all the troubles had been resolved.
Brother Wang was very surprised to hear this and kept thanking us repeatedly.
Although this time we brought great misfortune upon ourselves in order to help the village, and nearly lost our lives, we were genuinely happy that everything had finally been resolved. It felt like it was all worth it.
Soon, dawn broke. We did not visit any other villagers' homes but directly bid farewell to Brother Wang. Although Brother Wang hoped we could stay a few more days, I was worried about Lin Xiaoqi and just wanted to head to the Northeast as soon as possible to seek help from the immortals. So now that the village was safe, I naturally couldn't stay any longer.
Even though we did not inform the villagers, some of them saw us leaving the village and rushed over. Seeing that we were about to depart, they expressed their immense gratitude.
Looking at these villagers, I felt they were all good people—simple and warm-hearted. It was worth it to help them resolve their troubles.
After leaving the village, we continued heading north. For the next few days, we stayed in inns whenever possible and didn't have to sleep outdoors, as Cao Qilong had a little money from helping the villagers with their grave relocation at Yin Zhai.
We traveled for several days until we reached a place called Yue Village. We stopped there not for any particular reason but because the Hut Family was facing some trouble.
It happened that one day, as we passed through Yue Village, we saw a crowd of villagers gathered in front of a Hut Family house as soon as we entered the village. From a distance, we could hear them discussing animatedly, pointing fingers, with panicked shouts and desperate cries.
Upon closer inspection, we saw a man standing on the roof of the house while the gathered villagers below were looking up at him, clearly concerned about what he was doing.
At that moment, Cao Qilong and I were very curious, so we quickly walked over...
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