Chapter 212

When Xie Bi An wanted to ask Cui Jue what his plan was, Cui Jue just dropped the words "I'm taking you to a place", got up and left.

Cui Jue took Xie Bi An away from the Underworld, away from Mount Luofeng, and towards the most deserted wilderness in Jiuyou. Xie Bi An looked back at Mount Luofeng, which was becoming smaller and smaller, and felt some subtle feelings.

Jiuyou has a vast and boundless territory. How big Jiuzhou is will be how big Jiuyou is. How many towering mountains, rivers and lakes Jiuzhou has, Jiuyou will also have. The Human and ghost realms are actually in the same place but in two different dimensions, just like the two sides of a copper coin, yet inseparable forever.  A person's life and death, live or die, are just different forms of life. The reason seems to be the same.

But what is different between Jiuyou and Jiuzhou is that the Underworld, which occupies only one Mount Luofeng, is in control of the entire world of the Underworld. Merit and demerit are rewarded and punished respectively. Regardless of the original ghost citizens or the collected souls, they have to follow the rule of the Underworld, and no one can escape karma and reincarnation.

Such a vast land in Jiuyou with its countless ghost citizens are shackled by the gods sent down from the high and distant Heaven. It is no wonder that Jiang Qu Lian would disobey the rule of the Underworld and the rules of reincarnation, and said "Jiuyou is the ghost citizens' Jiuyou".

As they flew farther and farther away, Mount Luofeng had already disappeared behind them. There were occasional blood-red fires on the dull ground, but there was even more endless darkness.

Xie Bi An looked at Cui Jue's back with his clothes fluttering, and couldn't help but feel uneasy. Last time, Zhong Kui also brought him to tour around Jiuyou a few times, but they didn't go very far. They were Underworld generals whose main duty was to lead the souls from the earth to the ghost world. The ones who really managed Jiuyou and countless ghost citizens are the five ghost emperors. They would never enter the interior of Jiuyou for no reason.

"Official Lord Cui, where are we going?" Xie Bi An finally couldn't help but ask.

Not long after, Cui Jue hovered above a ghost village. This ghost village was not large. It was wrapped in a dense forest filled with miasma, and there was not a single ghost fire here. Xie Bi An enhanced his vision and looked down to find that the village was empty and appeared to have been abandoned for a long time.

"This is ..."

"This is the village where Jiang Qu Lian was born."

Xie Bi An gasped.

The natives of Jiuyou have ordinary ghosts and extremely vicious ghosts, just like there is good and evil on earth. Ordinary ghost citizens are no different from ordinary people; they live a relatively peaceful life, while ghosts reborn from Hell and Hungry Ghost paths are the evil ones here. The ghosts reborn in the Hell Path, although incredibly dangerous, they carried out most of the activities in the deep mountains and swamps and other desolate and barren places. They already had no consciousness, and were more like the beasts of the earth. Ordinary ghost citizens will not go to those dangerous areas. The real threat to them are the hungry ghosts.

A hungry ghost can even destroy a village or a town if it is born. Whenever a ghost baby is born, all ghost citizens will stand in combat readiness. Once they find out it is a hungry ghost, they will scatter its soul on the spot. But among the hungry ghosts, there are many evil and formidable people who called the shots in their previous lives, and are not to be messed with once they are reborn. As long as he is not killed initially, it will be difficult to eradicate him afterwards, because the more ghosts he eats, the more powerful he becomes.

It was Jiang Qu Lian who ate his own ghost mother at birth and then fed on the entire village. After leaving the village where he was born, he roamed the land of Jiuyou, stepped on corpses and climbed to the position of ghost king. Jiang Qu Lian is the king of ghost kings and the ultimate evil. The biggest crisis faced by the Underworld today, no one knew who should be number one; Jiang Qu Lian or Fan Wu She.

"Why did Official Lord Cui bring me here?"

"You have lived in the Underworld for more than twenty years and rarely go deep into Jiuyou. Plus, Heaven Master likes to visit the earth, and does not know much about Jiuyou." Cui Jue stood with his hands clasped behind his back. His voice was lightly raised in the wind, "Jiang Qu Lian believes that it is the Underworld that manipulated Jiuyou, took away the power and freedom of the ghost citizens. In fact, the Underworld is one of the links between the three realms and balances the power of the three realms. Without the Underworld, the ghost citizens would have fled to earth in large numbers, and then there would be no peace in either realm."

"Yeah, but Jiang Qu Lian has a deep resentment against the Underworld, or rather the Heaven realm, which assigned the Yin officers. He said all he wants is to be reborn as a human being, but he was born from the Hungry Ghost Path and has no great merit, so to be reborn in the Human Path, he has to break the rules of the six paths of reincarnation." Xie Bi An said in a deep voice, "Perhaps what he wants is truly to have the power of the king of ghost kings and be able to do as he pleases in Jiuyou."

Cui Jue said expressionlessly, "The line of Heaven's Path never seeks justice for one person, but balance. And this balance may harm some people, but it has maintained the peace of the three realms for millions of years. Anyone who tries to break the balance may lead to incalculable consequences."

"What Official Lord Cui said is true." After recovering his memories from his previous life, Xie Bi An was once the Human Emperor, and inevitably began to look down on the people and things around him, but only to Cui Jue, he was still respectful to him as before. Cui Jue is not just a scholar who adds or subtracts a few strokes from the Book of Life and Death, but he is like a prime minister of a dynasty who works hard for the operation of the underworld and the balance of the two realms, and is an indispensable person in the underworld. The things that such a person does and says must have a reason, so Xie Bi An also asked the question in his mind, "Why did Cui Jue bring me here and say these words to me?"

"Because of what Jiang Qu Lian said, because of your past life and present life, and because of what you have seen and heard on earth that made you question the Way of Heaven too." Cui Jue slowly turned around, "When your face was showing hatred and injustice, and spoke to me about Li Bu Yu, I could even hear your heart raging. You couldn't understand that thing that everyone couldn't understand; why good people don't get good rewards and evil people get good endings."

Xie Bi An's shoulders slumped somewhat uncomfortably: "You once said that reincarnation is cultivation for everyone, and must cultivate both good and evil. I thought I understood, but now I ... I don't know what to believe." When he was still only Xie Bi An and was a naïve underworld general, he had his first experience of losing faith because of a child who was abused to death, because it was her own father who killed her, but that beast was not punished in any way. He was only 14 or 15 years old at that time and was so young and vigorous that he even wanted to take the beast with him if the local city god had not stopped him.

When he returned to the Underworld, he ran to the judge's mansion and asked Cui Jue how many years the beast had left in his life and that he should die now, but Cui Jue refused to tell him. He had taken Cui Jue as his second master since he was a child. Although he had never formally paid respect to him, how he served Zhong Kui was hardly different from how he served Cui Jue. That was the first time he had ever talked back to Cui Jue in his whole life. He didn't understand; if there’s karma, and good and evil have retribution, then why did an innocent child who had never harmed anyone had to be tortured from birth? As if she had come to this earth to suffer until she died, while other children reincarnated with her might have lived a luxurious life, enjoyed the love and affection of their parents, and lived the rest of their lives in peace and prosperity until they died.

Why are people and people’s lives so different from each other?

So Cui Jue told him that reincarnation is a necessary lesson for everyone. That child is here to cultivate suffering in this life, and perhaps has to cultivate wealth and prosperity in the next life, and that father of that child is here to cultivate evil in this life. Only in the endless cycle of reincarnation, in all kinds of good or evil, sweet or bitter trials, regardless of origin and experience, are not to be disturbed by the world of the living. By sticking to your original heart in every cultivation and doing more good deeds, you can achieve perfection and transcend the cycle of reincarnation.

Xie Bi An had been persuaded on the spot. He thought he was here to cultivate goodness in this life to accumulate merit and virtue, but when he had the memories of two lives at the same time, he saw that the goodness of his previous life eventually bore evil fruit, and that this evil fruit had taken root and sprouted into a big tree that was hard to uproot, and cast a huge shadow on his present life as well. He knew no matter what he had cultivated in his previous life, he had failed. So what about this life?

Cui Jue's gaze softened as he looked at Xie Bi An: "You should believe in yourself. Believe that the good thoughts in your heart will influence all the karma and eventually lead you to a good end. You can't question yourself in this life just because you failed in your previous life, and don't be swayed by Jiang Qu Lian's prejudice and madness."

Xie Bi An pursed his lips. He wanted to say something, but there was only silence when he opened his mouth.

"The purpose of me bringing you here is to tell you that Jiang Qu Lian is a ghost, and you are a human being. He is a ghost who had cultivated a total mess in his lesson, so he was sent to the Hungry Ghost Path. He has deep evil thoughts in his heart, while you, no matter how much suffering you have experienced, still have a single thought for good. Just that, when people are in pain and despair, they want to find new faith in the collapse of faith. This is the best time for evil thoughts to take advantage of the situation, so I must remind you."

Xie Bi An was greatly shocked. He stared at Cui Jue in a daze, unable to speak for a long time.

It was said that those who knew all and understand half will live a long life, and those who knew everything will die, but for someone like Cui Jue who seemed to know everything, what else could shake his heart of Dao?

"Alright. Now I'll tell you the second purpose for bringing you here; my plan to kill two birds with one stone." Cui Jue looked down at the village where Jiang Qu Lian was born, "Jiang Qu Lian is able to enter and leave Jiuyou freely. He thinks he has an advantage. We can beat him at his own game, trap him in Jiuyou and make him unable to go to earth again. In this way, we can break them apart."

 

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Edited on 28 May 21 (Emzie)

 

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