Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Inside the Yama Main Hall.
Everyone was shocked, including Li Nianfan.
Although, to everyone else, he was just pretending to be shocked.
Gradually, the pagoda solidified. An overwhelmingly powerful aura was emitted. Everyone felt like they could not breathe.
Li Nianfan suddenly said, “Jiese’s body…”
Jiese turned golden. He started to become transparent, too. It was as if he was made with gold crystals. The light of the pagoda shone. In the end, his body was absorbed into the pagoda.
It was the same for Yun Yiyi. Her body spun as the Black Lotus melted into the odd spiral.
Fume—
Then, the golden pagoda and the black spiral beamed in different directions!
Kaboom!
The earth exploded. The entire Underworld shook.
Black and White Impermanence, the General of the Bloody Sea, and Meng Po felt their hearts racing like crazy. They all thought of a possibility. They started breathing heavily. They wanted nothing more than to rush over and confirm it.
It landed!
The eighteen layers of Hell and the Reincarnation landed in the Underworld!
‘Awesome. The Underworld’s now stable!’
They had all their facilities in check.
However, the expert was next to them. Li Nianfan did not move, so they had to contain their excitement and go along with it. They could not be rude.
They stood in place. Jiese and Yun Yiyi floated in the air as ghosts. They both looked lost. Finally, they snapped out of it after a long while.
Yun Yiyi saw Jiese and instantly smiled. “Jiese, are we in the Underworld?”
Jiese nodded, “Amitabha. Most probably.”
“Haha, Jiese. You’re a ghost now, you don’t need to ‘Amitabha’ anymore,” laughed Li Nianfan.
“Mr. Li!”
Yun Yiyi and Jiese instantly felt at ease. They hurriedly floated over, “Lady Daji, Lady Fire Phoenix.”
Nanan put her hands up and reminded everyone, “Us, too. Nanan and Dragin!”
Jiese hurriedly said, “Sorry for being impolite.”
He did not expect to see familiar faces in the Underworld. It was a pleasant surprise.
However, he saw Yuecha. He jolted. He said in disbelief, “Tara Yuecha, you…”
Yuecha said, “I was a Demon before I died. It’s good that I’m dead, otherwise, Buddhism would have a bad name.”
Jiese did the Namaste gesture and said in a tragic tone, “Amitabha.”
Li Nianfan said at the side, “Jiese, I didn’t expect that you and Lady Yun would die. How did you two die exactly? Also, did you know what you two just did? How did you do that? That was amazing. To describe it in one word, awesome!”
‘How did they do it? You’re pretending like you don’t know?’
Everyone froze in place. They tried their best to control themselves. It was hard to endure.
Jiese was turning purple in the face. Buddhists should not call other people out on their lies. He wondered if he should break that rule.
Yun Yiyi coughed softly and said, “Um… An odd occurrence. Jiese and I fought each other to death.”
Li Nianfan said, “Your odd occurrence is so powerful.”
White Impermanence nodded and agreed, “Indeed powerful. Definitely one-of-a-kind!”
Black Impermanence went along with it, too. “You two are blessed! But I’m afraid your odd occurrence is related to the Underworld, our shattered eighteen layers of Hell and Reincarnation are back on track.”
“So, that’s what those two things are,” nodded Li Nianfan.
‘It seems like the expert’s trying hard to pretend that it has nothing to do with him.’
‘Since the bigshot’s pretending, we have to go along with it.’
If the bigshot suddenly pointed at a pig and said it was a dog, then the pig was a dog. Whoever said it was a pig, they would fight them.
“Yeah… Yeah.” The General of the Bloody Sea smiled. He asked, “Mr. Li, do you want to take a look?”
Li Nianfan was interested, “I can?”
“Sure, of course,” Black and White Impermanence immediately nodded. “To be honest, we can’t wait either.”
Li Nianfan laughed, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
“Here, here!”
The General of the Bloody Sea led the way. Everyone walked out from the Yama Main Hall. They went back to the hub and stood in front of a door at the side.
The General of the Bloody Sea stopped in his tracks. He was very nervous. He felt fearful, like reaching home after a long time and fearing that it would all be for nothing.
After a long while, he took a deep breath and entered the room.
They all walked in as well. Li Nianfan felt overwhelmed. There were clanging sounds out of thin air, and a burning heat from the floor. They felt anxious.
They were standing on a narrow bridge!
Underneath the bridge was hot molten lava!
The golden lava slowly flowed and created waves of fire. It was blinding because the Underworld was dim and gloomy… Scary!
Li Nianfan had not compared lava before. However, he had a feeling that the lava was more than a hundred times scarier than volcano lava!
There was a pagoda in the lava, underneath the bridge. The pagoda had eighteen layers. It was extremely huge, and it looked like the pagoda figure they saw earlier.
The pagoda was connected to the bridge and the four walls with metal ropes that were thicker than people. The bridge swayed in the air.
They could see what was happening inside the pagoda from the bridge. All sorts of weird and scary torture devices were in there. Some rooms looked like kitchens full of boiling oil. They could also see a mountain full of knives and a sea made of fire.
Li Nianfan looked at it from afar. He felt visually impacted. He suddenly felt like he was puny. If he had to describe it, it was astounding, majestic, and very scary!
“Eighteen layers of Hell. It’s the eighteen layers of Hell! It’s back, it’s really back!”
Black and White Impermanence and a lot of Onis were awestruck by the sight. They were emotional and they teared up. They almost cried a river.
For countless years, they came here and saw nothing but a wasteland.
The lava used to be cold rocks. The pagoda used to be what was left of it. They felt cold and miserable. However…
Things had changed!
The wasteland became the true eighteen layers of Hell!
They were all thinking of the previous wasteland, so it impacted their emotions harder. They wanted to not cry but it was too hard to endure.
The General of the Bloody Sea looked at Li Nianfan from behind. He had nothing but respect for the man.
‘He can easily change realms. Even the Destructive Black Lotus can be transformed in the eyes of the expert.
‘The eighteen layers of Hell and Reincarnation are probably toys in his eyes.’
Anybody with his level of abilities would have treated the world as an insect. Only the expert would deny taking credit for it.
‘Why?
‘He’s clearly trying to be more approachable with others!
‘Once the expert admits he’s awesome, he’d be so high up. How could we be his bootlickers by then? He would be unapproachable.
‘His level of thinking is so far above us. It’s indescribable.’
“Oh yeah,” said the General of the Bloody Sea. He suddenly had an idea and felt like he had to perform for all the big shots. He said, “Previously, the eighteen layers of Hell were destroyed. A lot of evil ghosts didn’t get the punishment they deserve. I could put them in here. What do you think, Mr. Li?”
Li Nianfan smiled. “You should do as you need, General.”
“Onis, bring them up!”
Soon, a bunch of Onis walked over with a batch of evil ghosts with cuffs on their wrists and legs.
A lot of the evil ghosts were from the previous Bloody Sea. They looked extremely disgusting and horrid. They were scary to look at.
They also struggled and roared.
A lot of ghosts begged and screamed in agony. However, it was too late to regret their actions.
The General of the Bloody Sea looked harsh. “Ha, you all are lucky to be the first batch of the new eighteen layers of Hell. Have fun!”
Every Oni got assigned their tasks under his orders. They sent the ghosts to different levels of Hell.
Li Nianfan was perfectly fine. He did not enjoy looking at torture so he soon lost interest.
Jiese, Yuecha, and Yun Yiyi had complicated facial expressions. They looked frightened because they felt like they could not escape the fate of Hell. They felt weak.
The General of the Bloody Sea noticed that Li Nianfan was not interested. He asked, “How about we check out the Reincarnation area?”
Li Nianfan nodded, “If that’s possible, that’d be nice.”
He visited most of the Underworld. The trip was pretty worth it.
Reincarnation was naturally an important land of the Underworld. It was very important so there were a lot of Onis guarding the area.
Li Nianfan followed the General of the Bloody Sea to the Reincarnation area. He realized that there were as many ghosts there as there were on the Naihe Bridge. The same long rows of ghosts.
Through the express lane, they were soon at the front row.
They saw a huge wheel. The wheel was like a huge windmill, spinning slowly.
There were six parts on the wheel with six different wormholes. They looked like they could suck the souls out of their eyes. They felt dizzy just looking at it.
The six black holes could be put in two groups—the group on the left and the group on the right. A curved Yin and Yang line separated the two groups in the middle.
“So, this is what the Six Wheels of Reincarnation look like.”
Li Nianfan gained knowledge again. “The left and right parts represent… Yin and Yang?”
White Impermanence nodded. He replied, “In a way, yes. It’s more commonly known as good and evil.”
Li Nianfan nodded and stared at two figures in front of the wheel.
The two figures were eye-catching. Li Nianfan instantly recognized them on sight. They were the Ox-Head and Horse-Face for sure.
They guarded the area and scratched their ears. They seemed to be anxious.
The Ox-Head and Horse-Face immediately came over when they saw Li Nianfan and the others. They looked excited.
Horse-Face could not wait to say, “General, what happened in our Underworld? Staying put to guard this area’s inhumane. This is torture for us.”
“Exactly! When can we get more helpers out here?!” shouted the Ox-Head. Then, he exclaimed, “The Wheel of Reincarnation has started to spin again. The effectiveness of Reincarnation’s going to increase. All we lack are helpers!
“You’re troubling us brutes by letting us decide the Reincarnation routes of the ghosts. It’s more tiring than fighting!”
“Stop complaining. Who isn’t tired like a single dad or a single mom around here? I worked in multiple positions. Did I say anything about it?”
The General of the Bloody Sea interrupted the two complainers. He moved aside and glared at Ox-Head and Horse-Face. He threw them hints like crazy. Then, he said in a serious tone, “These are the important guests of the Underworld. This is Mr. Li. Hurry up and greet them properly!”
‘Mr. Li?’
‘That expert!’
Ox-Head and Horse-Face instantly jolted. They were nervous and excited. They felt like they were meeting their idol.
They knew they were able to break their seal all because of the expert! He was the golden bigshot of the Underworld.
‘No wonder there was such a hassle just now. Even the Wheel of Reincarnation was fixed. It’s because the expert has arrived!’
‘Blessing of the Underworld. This is a blessing of the Underworld!’
“Mr. Li, I’m Ox-Head. Welcome to the Underworld.”
“Mr. Li, I’m Horse-Face. Next time you’re here in the Underworld, I’ve got your back!”
Li Nianfan saluted. He smiled and asked, “Pleasure to meet you two. Are you two… judging for Reincarnation?”
“Yeah. Are you interested, Mr. Li?” Ox-Head and Horse-Face lit up. They quickly jogged over. “Mr. Li, let me show you how it’s done.”
They immediately raised their hands and out came a small book. It was the Death Note. A calligraphy brush appeared in the other hand.
He said in a professional tone, “Next.”
A dog ghost slowly walked over. Woof!
“Look, Mr. Li,” said Ox-Head as he put the Death Note in front of Li Nianfan. “This indicates the judgment for the dog.”
“Loyal guard dog, died defending its owner. Can be reincarnated as a Human.”
The word ‘can’ implied that Reincarnation was all based on the decisions of Ox-Head and Horse-Face.
Ox-Head picked up the brush and drew a tick on it. The Wheel of Reincarnation spun. One of the black holes sucked the soul of that dog.
“Next.”
A student appeared. He did not do much because he drank the Meng Po Soup. His mind was like a baby’s.
“Look again, Mr. Li.” Ox-Head kept it true. “This is the judgment of the Death Note. The small row of words at the side here are the comments and suggestions of the City Gods.”
“Kind-hearted, helpful, rule-abider. A good person. Should be reincarnated as a Human.”
The comments of the City Gods stated, ‘This person is kind. Likes to read books. However, he felt like life is painful. Physically and mentally exhausted. Did not want to reincarnate as a Human, would rather be a fish.’
Ox-Head was stumped. He rubbed his horn. “This is a difficult case. There’s nothing much to go on and not a lot of bonus to the personality. The student could only be reincarnated into a normal household. They didn’t specify what type of fish they wanted to be either.”
Li Nianfan asked curiously, “Can we find out what type of books he liked to read?”
“Not hard to find out.” Ox-Head did his thing. Two more words appeared, ‘Original publishing’.
Li Nianfan instantly respected that. He said, “This could be a bonus.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Li. I thought so, too!”
Ox-Head circled the words and added, “Shall be reincarnated into a rich family. A happy life with money and success. Death by old age while sleeping.”
