Chapter 57 The Ferryman Meets the Suffering: "It was merely a spirit pet sacrificing itself for its master."...
Lou Yan stared wide-eyed at Heng Qichun's reaction, noticing that his clear eyes were simply lowered, as if he had not lost his memory because of the Meng Po soup.
Great, it seems the Meng Po soup didn't work on him.
Before they could even catch their breath, Meng Po approached them, her body hunched over, and she scrutinized Lou Yan with her extremely cloudy eyes. "This is..."
Heng Qichun raised his hand and pressed down on Lou Yan's body, blocking Meng Po's view. His voice was light, with a slight hoarseness, "It's just a spirit pet sacrificing itself for its master."
Some Taoist practitioners like to keep spirit pets. Loyal spirit pets will be buried with their masters after their death. If the spirit pet is an animal that has not yet developed its own consciousness, it does not need to drink the Meng Po soup after death and can be reincarnated with its former master.
Lou Yan knew that Heng Qichun said this to avoid being given the Meng Po soup as well, but she still felt strange.
Spirit pets are one thing.
This sounds a bit like being buried alive with the dead.
Before he could figure out the source of this strange feeling, he felt a sharp pain in his leg—Heng Qichun was pinching a piece of flesh on his thigh with his fingertips and twisting it.
Lou Yan winced in pain and instinctively opened his mouth to let out a long "howl," the last syllable of which sounded exactly like the unconscious howl of a wolf.
Meng Po then withdrew her gaze and confirmed that it was a wild wolf that had not yet developed its senses.
"This way, please." She stepped aside to clear the ferry crossing behind her, gesturing for Heng Qichun to walk over by himself.
Heng Qichun remained silent, but took a step forward. Immediately, underworld officials brought over chains and handcuffed his hands and feet.
The heavy iron chains, emanating a strong ghostly aura, were particularly conspicuous hanging on Heng Qichun's fair wrists.
The clanging sound of the chains hitting each other reached Lou Yan's ears. He gritted his teeth and tried his best to suppress the urge to rush up and bite the Yin Messenger to death.
And he kept telling himself: If you can't beat them, just endure it.
At the desolate Yellow Springs Ferry, Heng Qichun stood at the bow of the boat, dressed in white, his hands and feet shackled. A small wild wolf on his shoulder covered the bloodstains on his chest, leaving only his white hair spread out, adding a touch of desolation to his appearance.
Many dead souls were also on board this ship.
The drowned ghost was swollen and pale, with dirty water constantly seeping from its eye sockets; the hanged ghost's tongue drooped, and a "hoarse" sound came from its throat. Several other newly deceased souls refused to board the boat, squatting by the bridge and crying, and were forcibly dragged aboard by the accompanying underworld officials.
For a moment, the sounds of crying and the clanging of chains filled the air.
"Please, sir—"
As the boat sailed along the road to the underworld, a female ghost began to weep bitterly, kneeling before the underworld officials and pleading, "My daughter is not even a month old yet, please, sir, spare her life!"
It was a disheveled woman, her tattered clothes covered in mud and grime, her face covered in dust, revealing only a pair of pleading eyes, and even her hair was matted with weeds.
They looked like unfortunate people who were destined to be hastily buried without even a coffin.
She cried so bitterly and tragically that the spirits on the ship couldn't help but turn their heads to look at her.
She was kneeling before the underworld officials, pleading desperately, her eyes brimming with tears, while the baby in her arms remained completely unaffected, sleeping peacefully.
Seeing that the underworld officials were unmoved, the woman had no choice but to raise her arms and hold up the baby in her arms for them to see, causing the iron chains on her hands and feet to make a series of rapid clanging sounds.
She cried as she recounted, "I carried my child for ten months and gave birth to a daughter, but little did I know that my husband had already been keeping a mistress."
“On the day I gave birth, my mistress bribed the midwife to poison my pregnancy-inducing medicine, causing me to bleed to death. She then claimed to my parents-in-law that she was willing to raise my daughter, thus gaining a reputation for being virtuous.”
"My poor premature daughter only lived for half a month in her care before she ordered her to starve to death—"
She cried harder and harder, and finally bowed down to the underworld officials while holding the child. The violent impact caused the ship to rock violently, and Lou Yan had no choice but to hold on tightly to Heng Qichun's shoulders.
He heard the woman say, "Being persecuted to death is my bad luck and misfortune, but my child is innocent. I am willing to pay any price to beg the officials to grant my daughter a way to live..."
Upon hearing this, the silent officials finally lowered their eyes to look at her.
The underworld has existed for tens of thousands of years, with the dead coming and going, but they stand on this ferry day after day, holding their demon weapons. Every day, the dead kneel before them, begging for their lives.
This line is clearly tired of being used.
But after a moment of silence, one of them suddenly squatted down, lifting his robe. A smile appeared on his gloomy face as he said to the woman with concern, "Then you are also a person with a tragic fate."
The woman covered her face with her sleeve and wiped away her tears, sobbing uncontrollably as she repeatedly pleaded, "Please give my daughter a way to come back to life."
The crouching underworld official clicked his tongue, a troubled look on his face. Suddenly, he leaned over and glanced at her, asking meaningfully, "Are you really willing to pay any price?"
The woman kowtowed repeatedly, saying, "I am willing."
As she lowered her head, she wiped the mud off her cheeks, revealing a clean and fair face. Her skin was pale, yet her delicate features were undeniable.
She was a very young woman.
The several underworld messengers gathered in front exchanged glances. The one squatting in front grinned and suddenly reached out and grabbed the woman's chin.
Meeting those tearful eyes, he asked, "We've been lonely on the road to the underworld for a hundred years. Would you be willing to let us have some fun?"
The woman looked up in alarm, her eyes bloodshot with fear, and tears welling up in them.
If she were still alive, she would probably be weeping buckets by now.
She struggled to move backward, her knees scraping against the hard deck, her mud-stained clothes becoming stained with a layer of Yellow Spring water.
The moment she moved, the baby girl in her arms let out a cry.
The woman immediately stopped, bending her neck inch by inch to look down at the child in her arms.
The infant, not yet full-term, had fair and tender skin, but his cheeks were sunken, and his tiny body was emaciated. He had actually starved to death!
The woman's arms trembled, her ten fingers shaking uncontrollably, yet she held the baby girl tightly in her arms.
After a long silence, she let out a mournful cry, "I do..."
People often say that a loving mother's kindness is great, but Lou Yan did not realize it when he was young.
His parents abandoned him in the mountains without hesitation, nearly making him a meal for the tigers.
He had hated his mother's clan for a long time, even in his previous life...
In his previous life, after he became the ruler of the demon realm, he hunted down and wiped out all the wolf packs.
But the mud-covered woman knelt before the underworld officials, weeping and begging, even offering everything to please hundreds of spirits, all just to save the infant who couldn't even speak.
Lou Yan stared blankly at this scene, feeling as if the things he had done in his past life were collapsing and crashing down on him.
The underworld officials were surprised that the woman would actually agree to their conditions. After exchanging glances, they all grinned maliciously, and one of them took the lead in untying the belt around his waist.
The woman wanted to back away, but the baby's cries kept her knees firmly planted in place.
She lowered her head and buried one cheek deep into the baby's swaddling clothes, the only sound she heard was the tearing of fabric.
"Sizzle—"
The ferry rocked, and the Yellow Springs water flowed up the side of the boat, soaking the woman's tattered clothes.
She opened her eyes trembling, but what she saw was not the sinister official, but a young man bound in chains.
A white shirt concealed his extremely handsome figure. His face was pale and cold, with slightly furrowed brows and a fierce-looking little gray wolf perched on his shoulder.
Heng Qichun glanced sideways, his slender fingers gripping the wrist of the underworld official. The force was so great that the official cried out in pain and staggered backward.
"You!" The underworld official, filled with shock and rage, rebuked Heng Qichun, "A mere soul of the dead dares to rebel?"
Heng Qichun lowered his eyes, his expression indifferent, but his voice was as cold as a deep pool: "On the road to the Yellow Springs, all living beings are equal. Who taught you to arbitrarily humiliate the souls of the dead?"
The leading underworld official struggled to free his wrist. He waved his hand sharply, and the other underworld officials immediately surrounded him, their chains rattling and exuding a sinister aura.
The woman, trembling and clutching her child, looked at Heng Qichun with tearful eyes and said in a trembling voice, "Young master... you don't need to do this for us..."
Heng Qichun didn't turn around, but slightly tilted his head and casually rolled the chain wrapped around his arm, saying in a very soft voice: "Hold the child tight, don't look up."
Before he finished speaking, he had already swung his arm and struck, the iron chains wrapped around his arm heading straight for the underworld official's face.
"Whoosh—"
A loud clanging sound as an iron chain struck flesh.
The entire ferry rocked violently, and the waters of the underworld surged up, splashing the hems of the souls' clothes.
Lou Yan gripped Heng Qichun's shoulders tightly, watching helplessly as the underworld official, his face covered in blood, screamed and fell backward.
Heng Qichun withdrew his hand, his white clothes untouched except for a few drops of blood on his knuckles. He disgustedly wiped them away with his fingers and glanced at the others with narrowed eyes.
He didn't use any spiritual power; he defeated them with his physical body alone, preventing them from advancing.
The underworld officials stared at him in terror, retreating as they met his cold gaze. One of them stammered, "You...you dare to lay a hand on an underworld official!"
"Take him down and throw him into the eighteenth level!"
The "Tongming Zhi" records that the underworld has eighteen levels of hell, each level of torture corresponding to the sins committed in life. Sinful souls suffer endless torment until their karmic obstacles are cleared before they can be reincarnated. This is where the underworld punishes evil souls and maintains the order between the yin and yang realms.
The eighteenth layer is—a knife and saw.
Before Lou Yan could react, dozens of underworld messengers had already surged towards Heng Qichun.
Heng Qichun pressed down on one of Lou Yan's back legs with one hand to prevent the wolf cub from falling due to fear, and with the other hand he tightly wrapped the chains around Lou Yan's wrists, raising his arm to smash down on the surging Yin messengers, just like before.
With a "whoosh".
The underworld official staggered back several steps, cursing inwardly, "If I don't cut off your path to reincarnation today, I'll go and explain myself to the Yi Emperor!"
Heng Qichun glanced at him, her voice as cold as icicles under the eaves in winter, and said only one word, "Come."
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Author's note: Come here! [starry-eyed]
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