Chapter 2
My energy is now depleted, and I don’t know how long it will take to reach the Yellow Springs.
If my energy can't keep up, this little bit of Yang Qi won't even be enough to fill their teeth. And if the Yang Qi is gone, then I will really go straight to the underworld.
I had no choice but to summon the Fire Bell, which sprayed a large amount of flames around me. This created a brief vacuum around me, and the energy consumed by the Soul Protection Technique was instantly reduced.
I need to find a balance between destroying wandering ghosts and protecting my own soul to minimize energy consumption.
And so, I persisted for a long time.
I have never felt so tired from walking. As I saw the energy in my body getting less and less, those wandering ghosts became more and more crazy.
I could even feel them biting me, which made me panic. I had a vague feeling that I might not be able to hold on to the end.
Now every step forward was very difficult, and finally I stopped, I really couldn't walk anymore.
Those wandering ghosts were like hungry wolves, gnawing at my yang energy.
At this critical moment, a burst of clear air came from the front and wiped out all the wandering souls.
I looked at that light, like a beacon.
In this clear air, the first person I saw was a little girl.
So familiar.
"Sister, do you still remember me?" It jumped out from the clear air.
I searched my memory hard and finally remembered who it was.
"Lingling?" I said in surprise.
"Hehe, it's not just me."
Behind it are all the souls whose souls I once saved with the feather stone. Although they have long been reincarnated, they have left their traces on this road to the underworld.
This pure air is their expression of gratitude to me, and is also God's reward for my salvation of them.
All the wandering spirits around me vanished, and I suddenly felt lighter. I seized the opportunity and quickly ran towards the light.
That is the guidance they left for me.
Finally, a sinister, ancient gatehouse appeared before my eyes, its four corners crowned by eaves and a horizontal plaque inscribed with the blood-red characters "Ghost Gate." Above the gate, a massive beast head, holding a ring, and engraved with ferocious runes, was a truly menacing sight. On either side, stone tablets stood, inscribed in official script: "This is the Underworld."
On either side of the Ghost Gate stand vast expanses of red flowers—these are the red spider lilies, also known as Lycoris radiata. Each person encounters the Ghost Gate with a different flower. Red, with its curled, wrinkled petals, symbolizes endless longing and eternal farewell. White, also known as Mandragora, symbolizes pure tenderness. Yellow, symbolizes the pain of lost love.
I looked at the rich red color in front of me, and each flower represented my deep longing for my family.
Suddenly, the red flowers quickly withered and grew leaves.
In the legendary red spider lily, the flowers and leaves never meet, which means that yin and yang are separated and cannot be reversed.
I thought it was over, but the leaves withered and the white flowers of the other shore bloomed instantly.
This red spider lily actually bloomed twice for me.
Such a strange phenomenon naturally attracted the attention of the eighteen ghosts in front of the Ghost Gate.
They stood guard at the front, each one ferocious and terrifying, with scaly faces and fangs, baring their teeth and claws. But the words they spoke were gentle: "Pass!"
I handed over the pass given to me by the God of Land. After checking it and confirming that it was correct, it opened the Ghost Gate together with the other seventeen ghosts.
A huge ghostly aura came from inside the door, pressing me so hard that I couldn't breathe. As I gradually adapted to this eerie ghostly aura, I finally walked into the ghost gate.
The first thing I saw at the Ghost Gate was the Ox-Head and Horse-Faced Devil, which were widely circulated among the people. I had only heard of them before, but now that I had actually seen them in person, I couldn’t help but take a few more glances out of curiosity.
The ox-headed beast has two curved horns and eyes like copper bells, while the horse-faced beast has a long face, pointed ears, and a messy mane. They all have one thing in common: they are extremely ferocious, which is to intimidate living people. If you have done evil in your life, seeing their appearance will terrify you.
The Horse-Faced Guard shackled my hands and feet with iron chains. Regardless of whether one is good or evil, or if one's life span has not yet ended, once one has entered the gates of hell, one is a ghost. Before meeting Yama, one must be shackled with iron chains.
Niutou walked behind me, holding a knife and fork.
I was escorted by the two of them all the way to the first hall of Yama Palace.
In the hall sat a figure with leopard eyes, a lion nose, a long beard, a square crown, and holding a hu tablet. He was King Qin Guang, who oversaw life and death in the human world, governed the fortunes and misfortunes of the netherworld, and was responsible for receiving newly deceased souls. His instrument, the Nie Jingtai (Sin Jingtai), could reveal the good and evil deeds of one's lifetime.
Good people are directly guided to ascension. Those whose merits and demerits are balanced are sent to the Tenth Hall for reincarnation, but their gender must be changed before reincarnation. Those who have done more evil than good are escorted to the Second Hall for punishment.
Speaking of King Qin Guang, his experience was extremely bizarre.
His original name was Jiang Ziwen. He was a native of Guangling (present-day Yangzhou) during the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. He served as the prefect of Moling. He was a drunkard, a womanizer, and a bohemian. However, he prided himself on his extraordinary bone structure and believed he would become a god after his death.
Once, when he was chasing thieves to Zhongshan, he died in the fight with the thieves and was finally buried at the foot of Zhongshan.
Such a righteous man appeared in dreams many times after his death, using witches and sorcerers to tell people to build temples and offer sacrifices to him, otherwise disasters would befall them.
Sun Quan didn't believe it at first, but then fires broke out frequently in the Zhongshan area, with dozens of fires a day, and even spread to the imperial palace. Sun Quan was forced to confer the title of "Marquis of Zhongdu", build a temple for King Jiang, and change Zhongshan to "Jiangshan".
After Jiang Ziwen was enshrined, he repeatedly appeared in the underworld, blessing the Zhongshan area with good weather and turning disasters into good fortune. As a result, his popularity among the people soared. Eventually, due to his "fairness and strictness", he was promoted to the position of Qin Guang Wang, the first hall of the underworld.
I stood before the Mirror of Sin, and the distinction between good and evil was clear. King Qin Guang ordered the Ox-Head and Horse-Faced Demons to remove my shackles, saying, "Since you are a good person, you will naturally ascend to heaven."
I knelt on the ground and said respectfully, "Your Excellency, I am a descendant of the ghost clan. I am not here to reincarnate, but to travel through the underworld to see my family."
"Oh? No one has passed through this gate of hell for a long time." King Qin Guang said with interest.
"It's not what I wanted, please bear with me," I said.
"You've already passed this level of mine. You don't need to wear the handcuffs and anklets anymore. Go directly to the Second Hall and suffer the pain of the ice."
"Yes!" said the Ox-Head and Horse-Face.
I followed them to the second hall. The Yama in the second hall is called Chujiang King, who presides over the living hell and the sixteen smaller hells, punishing those who hurt people, commit adultery, steal, and kill.
But as someone who has passed through the gates of hell, I need to pass through the ten palaces one by one before I can enter the gate of life and return to the human world.
King Chujiang had a short face and a wide mouth, wore a crown on his head, and held a hu in his left hand.
Now the entire underworld knows that I am going to break through the ghost gate, and many ghost officials have gathered outside the second hall.
They are also for fun.
Among them were the Seventh Master and Eighth Master whom I knew, and the Guiding Ghost whom I had just encountered when I fell down. In addition, there were also the Soul Catcher, the Ox-Headed and Horse-Faced Demons, and even that Meng Po, all of whom came to watch the fun.
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