Chapter 167: Governing the Green Bull Demon

After Dai Yu left, the City God saw him off for a distance, but since he took flight in a spiral, traveling the Xiangyuntiantian and entering the Shangjie and Shangshangjie from within the Dharma Realm, he was gone.

The City God, being within the Dharma Realm, only travels the Underworld paths and cannot fly.

So he soon turned back and said to Xu Jia, "Congratulations! True Person Xu, from now on, any cases involving demons or spirits causing trouble around here will likely pass through your hands, and with you governing the entire Jiangnan West Circuit, I fear you will be quite busy!"

"Are there many demons in the Jiangnan West Circuit?" Xu Jia asked.

"Many. Beneath Poyang Lake lies a Jiaochao, which is a gathering place for water demons of the south. This is one, and the hardest to monitor. Moreover, flood dragons are descendants of true dragons, and they often stir up winds and waves."

"Another thing is that there are extremely many mountain ranges here; which mountain doesn't have a legend of some Great Demon? Look at Yushan, didn't it successively produce a centipede dragon, the demon Immortal Huang Muchun who subdued him, and now the three Mountain Dragons of the Changyuzhi variety... not to mention other places? The Jiangnan West Circuit is very large..."

"Then I shall first manage Yushan, then Xinzhou, and as for Nanchang and Poyang, I will radiate my influence across the entire Jiangnan West Circuit."

The City God nodded: "Very well, then I shall give you a list of the demons under my jurisdiction."

Xu Jia suddenly remembered: "Hu Jinhua has a junior named Hu Agui; does the City God know him?"

The City God nodded: "I know. She reorganized the entire prostitution industry in Yushan and put all those old hags out of work. Now they are all young ones. Since she arrived, the spirit and appearance of our Yushan have improved quite a bit. Why? Do you intend to make her your first target?"

Xu Jia quipped: "Still an industry elite."

"The profession of prostitution has been passed down since ancient times; her doing this line of work can be considered a professional match," Xu Jia said. "But demons harvesting essence to supplement Yang is generally not permitted."

The City God said: "As long as she doesn't eat people, I turn a blind eye. Of course, if you want to deal with her, I am absolutely in support!"

Xu Jia thought: "We shall see. If it returns to the previous chaotic state, the common people might even build a temple for her, missing and being grateful to her!"

"She pays a lot of taxes and provides sufficient Incense Fire money," the City God added. "Besides, you have a nest of foxes under your command, and they are relatives; why not incorporate her?"

"That is even more out of the question. One bad male ruins a man, one bad female ruins a nest. If she comes in, none of my nest of demon Immortals will be able to cultivate."

"She is a male fox!"

"That is even worse, it's too promiscuous!" Xu Jia refused even more firmly.

The City God thought: "Then there are no other demons. You have already subdued the Lao Zhupo of Lan Shi Huo, the rat demon beneath the county town is also under your command, and the chicken demon was killed by you. What other demons are there?"

Xu Jia reminded him: "There is still a bull demon, the one that suddenly gored its original owner's intestines!"

The City God realized: "Right, right! This fellow is not bad. Whether as a mount or tied up to plow the fields, he has plenty of strength!"

"That creature is in Jiujiegou and has always kept a low profile. That area is fertile land with a section of the Jiujiequ. This creature is also clever; when others come to farm, as long as they don't bother him, he lets them farm. Once it's grown and the grain is just starting to produce milk, he goes to eat it. He eats one patch at a time and even forces people to harvest many of these milky rice stalks and store them, so he can eat them fresh..."

Xu Jia said: "Destroying crops is a grave crime. Does no one among you manage this?" "This cannot be managed. In his previous life, he was a pregnant woman sacrificed for rain. When she died, the rain fell and saved all the crops on this land, so these people all owe her."

Xu Jia: "? That was only the pregnant woman. What about the child in her belly? Did it reincarnate?"

"That is unclear," the City God said. "If she had let go and forgiven, she could have reincarnated as a heavenly being, but she told the Judge of the Underworld that she wanted revenge, to pay them back, so she reincarnated into the animal path for another life, becoming a great bull demon. The one previously gored to death by the bull demon was the reincarnation of the shaman who sacrificed her in her previous life."

"Some time ago, another seven-year-old cowherd boy was gored to death; this was to pay for the life of the child in her belly."

"These are all destined and arranged by fate; how am I to manage them?"

Xu Jia said: "This sounds like the Underworld of Buddhism, with such large concessions. If it were me, I would have sent her directly to reincarnate into the heavenly path, and spared all these troubles that last for generations!"

"That won't do. Once a heavenly being, their Dharma Power and abilities are many times greater than a mortal's. What if her Resentment Qi erupts one day? Wouldn't that cause even greater destruction? Cause and Effect are knotted, and Cause and Effect are settled. If she doesn't let go, one cannot force her to forgive; one can only let her reincarnate again. Many things in this world are like this; they cannot be untangled."

The City God said: "However, since you have noticed him, True Person, and have taken the office of the Demon Administration, it means his allotted time is up."

Xu Jia nodded: "That is fine too. I will see if I can enlighten him. If I cannot, I will detain him as a stud bull. Bulls are true auspicious beasts; plowing fields and pulling carts are the foundation of people's livelihood. One that has become a demon is enough to start a bull farm. It just so happens that I am developing that land in Lan Shi Huo and have caught a batch of evildoers to reclaim the wasteland there; human labor is never as good as bull power..."

The City God clicked his tongue: "Only True Person Xu could think of such methods. It actually benefits those evildoers; they were originally going to continue accumulating karmic obstacles in the mortal world, but now it has been curbed, and they are even accumulating merit in reverse. Who knows how much suffering of the animal path in future reincarnations they have been spared."

"By the way, never mind the bull demon, what about the divine position for my Luejue Shen?"

The City God nodded: "The application has been approved. Third-rank Underground Lord, third-rank outside the regular system. It cannot compare to a Land Deity, but he can manage graveyards and tombs, enter into Yin Contracts with mortals, build Yinzhai, and form a new Dharma Realm village of the Underworld. Once he becomes a first-rank Underground Lord, he can be promoted and transferred to become a Town Land Deity."

Xu Jia clicked his tongue: "Where can one bury so many dead people to reach the scale of a town?"

However, he still expressed his thanks: "This was a lot of trouble!"

"It is nothing. If not for you, True Person, the matter of the Evil Aura in Yushan would likely have been the end of us."

"However, True Person, are you aware that the Ancestor of Shanju Guan has been resurrected and then gone missing?"

"Resurrected and then missing? I just dug up his coffin in Lan Shi Huo; he should be dead through and through. Tree roots had even pierced into the coffin; how could he have been resurrected?"

"That is unclear. It was the temple-resident Daoist Zhang Zhenji who asked me to help trace his tracks, but how could I track such an Earth Immortal True Person? Since it concerns you, True Person Xu, I fear it is yet another entanglement of Cause and Effect."

"I don't even know if what came out is a living person, a zombie, or some other old monster that has used Jieshi Huanhun..."

Xu Jia had a headache: "If he is not found, what if he does evil? Won't that be counted against me?"

(End of chapter)