Chapter 1131: The Road of the Underworld

Shao Yong walked through the county seat of Anlu with an unsteady, stumbling gait; his body was covered in filth.

In the short few miles from the Shao family's yin residence to the county government office, he had already nearly been struck by three carriages.

Two of them had rolled through sewage on the road, splashing it all over him and leaving him looking disheveled and wretched; the third had simply become stuck when the driver passed through a pothole on the dirt road.

Shao Yong had kindly used the clothes on his back to pad the hole, allowing the carriage to drive out, but the driver, eager to escape, whipped the horses with all his might.

This caused the axle to snap as the carriage broke free, startling the noble passenger inside!

The roads of the Underworld are formed by the geomancy of the earth's Qi connecting the various yin residences; as the saying goes, wind generates the path of Qi, and water marks its end. Between auspicious earth veins, wind connects them—gentle wind creates flat, smooth roads, while fierce wind creates steep, rugged paths.

Auspicious geomantic sites undergo minor changes every sixty years, and major changes every three hundred years, which can even lead to the reversal of fortune and the shifting of the site's center.

Therefore, these changes in the earth's Qi manifest externally as wind and rain, leaving the roads pitted and uneven.

In such situations, it is usually necessary for the deities of the Underworld to maintain the geomantic earth veins.

A complete divine path maintains the earth veins from both yin and yang aspects; the yang side involves moving earth Qi, nourishing the roots of the mountains, maintaining the ecology, and orderly logging, so that the erosion by wind and water remains relatively stable.

The yin side requires deities to transport yin soil, sand, and stone, and the roads must be repaved after every storm!

But the Immortal Qin has long since lost the maintenance of the yang divine path, to the point that within Anlu County, many roads have already been severed.

Without the maintenance of the yang divine path, even if the ghosts and gods of the Underworld patrol frequently, it is like trying to put out a burning cart of firewood with a single cup of water; once the dragon veins of the yang earth are severed, the roads of the Underworld are like trees without roots, unable to last long.

Fortunately, the order of the myriad realms of the cosmos is relatively stable now, and destroying dragon veins is an act that incurs the karmic wrath of Heaven.

Therefore, after the major dragon vein roads between the thirty-six commanderies of the Immortal Qin Underworld were severed by later dynasties and the commandery seats were moved multiple times, they eventually stabilized relatively well.

"Strange..."

Shao Yong pinched his fingers to calculate, but he felt that his previous act of trying to smooth things over had shed a trace of bad luck and misfortune, yet his yin virtue had not increased as expected; instead, it had dropped by an imperceptible amount.

"I calculated that the driver has a fate of minor failure—he is hot-tempered, reckless, and prone to shirking responsibility! For such a person, his fortune in life is already slightly in decline; although his days seem smooth, they are actually going from bad to worse. This corresponds to the Gu hexagram in the I Ching—as the saying goes, wind blowing over the mountain breeds the Gu parasite. Recklessness, arrogance, irritability, shirking responsibility, and having no sense of duty are the 'Gu' in his fate. It is a small parasite; his own fortune is being gnawed away by it, and those whose fortune is linked to his will also be implicated!"

"His Qi is robust, but inside he is like the parasite; strong on the outside, failing on the inside..."

"The snapping of the axle earlier is a glimpse into his fate."

"Because he is hot-tempered and reckless in his driving, the axle had already suffered internal damage from the jolting long ago. Finally, encountering this small tribulation of the pothole triggered the major disaster of the axle snapping. This is the principle of accumulated tribulation Qi and hidden failure."

"His master is a noble with a seventh-rank fate, but he likes to employ those with surging red Qi. Seeing that the driver had an eighth-rank fate with robust Qi and great martial strength, he hired him specifically to use the driver's explosive Qi to suppress others, riding on the road without avoiding pedestrians. But he only saw that the driver was a ghost with robust Qi, not that his fate had a minor failure like a parasite. Therefore, the carriage, which was a manifestation of his own prestige, was obstructed by the driver's fate, finally leading to the axle snapping."

"According to the development of their two fates, the master should suffer a head injury and a bloody disaster, while the servant, having no sense of responsibility, faces the risk of losing his status!"

"But all this should have happened three months from now. The condition of the axle had not yet reached the point of imminent danger; rather, it was because of my own decaying luck that the things passing by me had their hidden failures exposed, thereby implicating me."

"Coming all this way, I have already glimpsed the secret of this flow of fortune. Everything hides both good and bad; my decaying luck merely exposes the trend of the 'bad' side of things. Wherever I pass, hidden dangers and perils will erupt."

"I originally tried to avoid them by running and hiding, only to find that these perils ended up falling upon others."

Shao Yong felt somewhat depressed. The Underworld has no heavenly Qi, so Qi moves with people and inevitably falls upon people.

This leads to all karma eventually falling upon people.

In the yang world, if a person throws a stone, it might not cause any reaction—hitting a mountain, falling into a river, or hitting flowers and grass—but in the Underworld, it will definitely hit someone.

Because without people, the Underworld would not exist, so all karma in the Underworld points to people.

This led to the fact that once Shao Yong avoided the disasters triggered by his decaying luck, these disasters would definitely fall upon others. So, when the carriage wheel splashed filth for the first time, Shao Yong dodged with the 'Heaven-Avoiding Step,' and it splashed onto another hardworking ghost.

Ghosts are not like people; if a person gets their clothes dirty, they can just wash them when they get home.

But most ghosts only have one set of burial clothes. Once they are dirty or torn, it stains their ghost body, and it can even implicate their fate, causing their fortune to decline.

It is just like a person in the yang world without good clothes; if their clothes do not cover their body, their behavior gradually becomes timid, and in the eyes of others, their status becomes increasingly low.

Gradually, others stop associating with you, you lose your popularity, you have no connections, your expression slowly becomes dull, your reactions become sluggish, and you become detached from the crowd, eventually becoming a beggar.

Therefore, without a house, clothes easily become dirty.

Once clothes are dirty and torn, others will look at you differently and avoid you.

And once others avoid you, you lose normal social interaction and become detached from the crowd.

And once detached from the crowd, no one is willing to sell you things, no one is willing to talk to you, and you are not far from the collapse of your fate and the decline of your fortune.

This is the reason why, in the yang world, if you don't have a house, you become a homeless person and won't live for more than seven years.

In the Underworld, all this is even more naked through the laws of numbers, karma, and fate. If a ghost's clothes are dirty, it will damage their fortune; if their fortune is suppressed, they will encounter all kinds of setbacks, gradually leading to the collapse of their fate, eventually becoming a broken-fate ghost driven out of the county seat to wander the wilderness, becoming a lonely ghost, or being captured by the Great Qin to serve as a laborer repairing city walls, maintaining roads under the driving of ghosts and gods, suffering immensely.

Therefore, ghosts love new clothes the most and hate filth the most.

Once clothes are dirty, they can only be washed with yin dew, but yin dew is the food of ghosts; in the yang world, it is equivalent to needing rice to wash clothes clean.

Therefore, Shao Yong used a little heavenly silver to compensate that ghost.

At the same time, he no longer avoided bad luck or dodged disasters.

Coming all this way, Shao Yong had been splashed with dirty water, his clothes had been soiled, he had been hit on the head by roof tiles from the roadside, and his eyes had been blinded by dust blown by the yin wind.

But he discovered that after he bore these misfortunes, it was equivalent to eliminating the hidden 'evil Qi' and 'misfortune' in others. Although his fortune remained low, his yin virtue grew invisibly by a trace.

Moreover, being the same kind of ghost, when others had dirty clothes and a foul smell, no one was willing to pay attention to them.

But he remained calm, his behavior was polite and his attitude humble, and he was willing to compensate others for their losses with money. From noble seventh or eighth-rank ghosts down to poor, lowly ghosts about to be driven out of the city, everyone was willing to talk and communicate with him.

But this kind of communication still could not avoid disdain...

At this moment, Shao Yong finally realized that clothes and money are a person's external attire.

Speech and knowledge are just a person's slightly more internal attire, which requires further understanding to be known.

And demeanor, etiquette, morality, behavior, and wisdom are also a person's clothing and headwear.

How important a person's wisdom, behavior, and speech are, is how important their clothing and headwear are. When it comes down to it, fate is also just a kind of clothing and headwear for a person.

But it requires an extremely outstanding demeanor, morality known to all, behavior that stands out from the crowd, and even generous wealth—only by adding up so many aspects of 'clothing and headwear' can one offset the bad luck of truly dirty clothing and headwear.

For a ghost, clothes are really important, more important than ghost skin.

Or rather, clothes are a ghost's skin.

Similarly, yin residences and carriages that can cover clothes are also the reason why they have extremely important significance for noble ghosts...

"The master with a seventh-rank noble fate lost his carriage, suffered a bloody disaster, and his fortune is in minor failure, while the driver who drove the carriage will inevitably be driven out of the yin residence, and his fortune will suffer a major failure."

Most ghosts are hired by others, either receiving some yin dew as wages, or being provided with food and housing, borrowing a corner of the master's yin residence to survive, and being able to have a daily portion of yin dew to fill their stomachs.

Being driven out, if they have no yin residence of their own, or if their yin residence is dilapidated, they will have to become lonely ghosts!

Even reincarnation is difficult.

One must know that reincarnation requires queuing and drawing numbers. If you want to reincarnate early, you must bribe the ghosts and gods with heavenly silver.

Shao Yong calculated the causes and consequences, and felt some guilt in his heart, which is why he wanted to spend money to settle the matter.

"Most disasters and misfortunes can be converted into the disaster of losing wealth! And converting it into the disaster of losing wealth is the most favorable for me. Its karma is the smallest, and there are no future troubles. Compared to being targeted by villains, peach blossom luck, or even turning into illness or suffering, it is much better."

Shao Yong used his wisdom of the path of fate, wanting to respond to the tribulation with wisdom.

But wisdom told him that problems that can be solved with money are best solved with money!

"Coming all this way, eight or nine eruptions of misfortune have only cost me one qian of heavenly silver. With my savings, it won't be difficult to get through three months like this. But looking at this conversion of yin virtue, to completely offset my broken-fate misfortune, I need at least five liang of heavenly silver. And this is the result of the teacher using heavenly sound to repair most of the brokenness of my fate for me. Five liang of heavenly silver—that is the price of a high-quality yin residence. Ordinary ghost families could bribe the ghosts and gods to reincarnate ten times with that!"

"But this time, using money to solve it seems to have gone wrong..."

"That driver insisted that it was to avoid me that he fell into the pit, and also said that he startled his master and damaged the carriage, insisting on demanding two qian of heavenly silver from me, saying that my bad luck had collided with them. Although I saw early on that this person had no sense of responsibility and would only shirk responsibility and argue irrationally, this is the first time I've seen someone so eager to give up money, which actually carries the risk of converting into a human tribulation. That master seemed to stay out of it, letting his driver come forward to entangle me, clearly holding the intention of using the driver as a knife to fight for his own interests, like letting a dog bite someone."

Shao Yong frowned slightly. In order to cut off the human tribulation, he decisively paid two qian of heavenly silver to settle the matter, but he discovered that his yin virtue not only did not increase, but instead decreased by a trace.

These two qian of heavenly silver were a pure loss; not only did it fail to cut off the tribulation, but it also faintly became stained with the tail of a human tribulation.

"Fate, it's still a problem of fate."

"The driver's fortune was catalyzed and surged in a short period of time, but like the parasite on the wind-mountain, the ghost status that damages his true life became even more dangerous. Through the catalysis of my two qian of heavenly silver's fortune, the parasite of his fate became stained with a trace of toxicity; it is no longer a small parasite of minor failure, but a fate of a poisonous parasite of major failure!"

"The master who keeps the parasite also has a tribulation of family ruin and death..."

Shao Yong suddenly realized: "Is it because I complied with the bad part of his fate and fueled the Qi of decay? His fate of minor failure was caused by his own recklessness, carelessness, irritability, and shirking of responsibility. This is fate, not luck. Everything I encountered before was just a tribulation based on timing and luck; only this time, it was a disaster caused by someone else's fate. So my loss of wealth not only failed to eliminate the tribulation, but instead became the reason for suppressing and catalyzing the tribulation."

"His master held the intention of borrowing a knife to slaughter someone and letting a dog cause trouble. Originally, through this tribulation, he should have realized that the driver was hot-tempered and had no sense of responsibility, and fired him."

"But my two qian of heavenly silver covered up the disaster he should have discovered, making him value this person even more."

"And the driver, having taken advantage of this tribulation, naturally won't reflect on his own mistakes. Instead, besides being hot-tempered and shirking responsibility, he added a trace of desperate arrogance. In this way, the disaster for a time was suppressed, but a more terrible tribulation is brewing in the dark. If this continues, either the driver will attract a lawsuit for his master, or there will be internal strife in the family, and the driver will kill his master!"

"I held a piece of kindness, but fueled an evil result."

"But if I were to reprimand him, encountering a hot-tempered driver and a noble who fans the flames, I would instead attract a human tribulation. If my status were higher than theirs, reprimanding them with 'law and order' would naturally make them reflect—this is the method of the Great Qin, it is prestige. And if I used wisdom to secretly guide and punish them, making them realize their mistakes and teaching them with 'reason,' this is the style of the three religions of Daoism and Buddhism, it is virtue!"

"But prestige requires status and power, and virtue requires reason and wisdom..."

"If there is no power and wisdom, what can be done?"

"Oh! One can also be 'spineless'—no money, no power, being bullied by them, bearing everything with one's own grievances. I was a bit 'spineless' just now."

"For the common people of the world, most of the resolution of disasters and misfortunes does not rely on wisdom and power, prestige and virtue, but on being spineless, grievances, and forbearance... This is the three methods of responding to tribulation: prestige, virtue, and forbearance."

"Prestige relies on power, virtue relies on wisdom, and forbearance can only indulge the growth of evil causes, forming greater evil results. Even with forbearance, one may not be able to escape."

"Besides these three, are there any other ways?"

Shao Yong couldn't think of any for the time being, but he couldn't sit by and watch the evil cause grow, so he secretly transferred a trace of bad luck, wanting to detonate the evil result in advance.

That evil servant carried his master away, and before leaving, he even wanted to force Shao Yong to buy their broken carriage.

But Shao Yong only looked at them with a strange gaze, a look that made the master feel cold in his heart, secretly pulling the evil servant's sleeve, and only then did he stop, leaving triumphantly with his master on his back.

Shao Yong experienced tribulations all the way, pondering the various principles of the path of fate, and unknowingly arrived in front of the Judge's Office of the County Government.

But he heard the evil servant say loudly in the hall: "I spent money to buy his door axle to repair my master's carriage. Who would have thought this person was greedy, and after taking half a qian of silver from me, he still wasn't satisfied, insisting that I was here to steal his door axle. My lord, you must investigate clearly! He is just a person with a ninth-rank broken fate, while my master is a noble with a seventh-rank fate. Would he covet his broken door axle?"

Xi said coldly in the hall: "Half a qian of heavenly silver? Don't mention buying a door axle; even buying his broken yin residence with only a few tiles on the roof would be more than enough. Why did you pay so much extra silver?"

The evil servant said triumphantly: "My master has nothing else, but he has money!"

He tossed two pieces of heavenly silver in his hand and laughed: "My lord, look, we carry two qian of silver with us when we go out, and this one qian was twisted in half, which was given to him."

That poor ghost cried out: "My lord, I am wronged!"

Xi slapped the gavel and said: "Since the silver was twisted, there must be silver scissors and a gold scale. You all must confess quickly—where are the scissors for twisting the silver and the small scale for weighing the silver?"

The evil servant was speechless for a moment, but saw his master take out a small pair of scissors unhurriedly and laugh: "The scissors are here!"

"As for the gold scale, this old man is a seventh-rank sharp merchant ghost, and I have a unique ability. No matter what it is, I can know its weight just by weighing it in my hand. This is the ability of weighing, so I weighed the amount and gave the silver to the driver to buy the door axle. I even specifically instructed him not to be stingy with the silver."

That poor ghost cried out: "Master, I don't even have a drop of yin dew on my whole body, let alone half a qian of silver!"

"Poverty breeds evil schemes. This person is so poor and fierce, how could he not be greedy when he sees silver?" His master bowed upward and said: "He must have hidden the silver and instead falsely accused me of stealing his door axle. I am a noble who rides in a carriage, and his door axle is not some precious object. How could there be a reason to steal it for a door axle?"

The poor ghost cried: "He is a sharp merchant ghost. Can what he says be taken seriously?"

"Presumptuous!" The sharp merchant ghost glared and shouted: "There is no merchant who is not sharp. The so-called sharp merchant refers to when the Tian family was a grain merchant in the Qi State, buying with a small measure and selling with a large measure. The grain sold must be heaped high to benefit the people. This is what 'no merchant is not sharp' means. This is the manifestation of my merchant virtue. How can you slander me?"

"My lord, for such slander, please beat his face to a pulp!"

Judge Xi just watched coldly, looked down at the recorded files, and said: "Bring the evidence up!"

The ghost runner beside him then pulled the scissors, a thick door axle, and the carriage with the broken axle into the hall. Shao Yong even saw his own two qian of silver.

Judge Xi circled the carriage twice, looked carefully at the blade of the scissors and the door axle, and then nodded: "This official has already seen the material evidence..."

"Wu Bing, is this two qian of silver what your master brought out today?"

The evil servant hid the part about Shao Yong and replied: "There is no doubt. My lord, you can see that the silver mouth is newly twisted, and I haven't bought anything. If it wasn't to buy his door axle, why would I twist the silver?"

"Doctor Wu, is this two qian of silver what you personally gave to Wu Bing?"

Master Wu bowed and said: "It was personally carried by this old man, and after the axle broke, I gave it to Wu Bing for him to buy an axle."

Xi sneered and asked the poor ghost: "Since this is the case, then when did Wu Bing give you the silver, and how did he take the door axle? Tell the truth!"

The poor ghost said in a panic: "I, I have never seen his silver! I was so hungry I couldn't stand it! I was curled up in the residence when I suddenly heard a sound in the courtyard. I went out and saw Wu Bing carrying my door axle. I went up to stop him and was pushed by him. I shouted and was heard by the ghost runner, and then I was brought here."

Wu Bing said: "Because the carriage axle broke, I was looking for wood to repair the carriage everywhere, but I saw that his door axle was a piece of material, so I agreed with him to buy the door axle for half a qian of silver, and he personally took it down and gave it to me."

"Who would have thought that in the blink of an eye, he started shouting, startling the ghost runner brother, who arrested me and my master together and brought us here."

Xi said lightly: "You said he personally took down the door axle and gave it to you?"

The sharp merchant old man's face changed, and just as he was about to speak, Xi came to the poor ghost and pushed the door axle. The poor ghost, who was thin as a skeleton, reached out to catch it but couldn't hold it steady, and the door axle fell to the ground.

Xi said coldly: "He can't even hold the door axle steady, how could he be so violent as to take it down?"

After saying that, he pointed to the heavy wood marks rubbed off at the head and tail of the door axle.

"The person who took down the door axle was extremely impatient, ignoring the door frame and taking it down violently. Even if he was eager to sell it and seemed impatient, he could never have taken down the door axle like this. On the contrary, you, this servant, are tall and strong..."

The sharp merchant ghost wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said hurriedly: "This old man waited in the carriage and did not go with my servant, so I don't know the inside story. I suppose he was reckless and rude, and forgot whether he took it down himself or the poor ghost took it down!"

The evil servant said hurriedly: "It was this servant who forgot! It was this servant who forgot! He couldn't lift the door axle, so I helped a little..."

"You waited in the carriage?"

Xi said again: "Then why is the mud on his feet so heavy, with his whole feet submerged? With his eighth-rank fate, why is his body so heavy? This is not his own weight, but rather like he was carrying something heavy."

"Come here!" Xi called the ghost runner and said: "Go to the scene of the crime, measure the footprints, and see if those footprints are the weight of the fates of Wu Bing and Doctor Wu."

Master Wu said hurriedly: "It was me, it was me, this old man forgot again. It was Wu Bing who carried me, but he put me in a dry place and went to buy the door axle himself. Throughout the whole process, this old man never saw them trade! My lord, listen, didn't the victim also not see me?"

The poor ghost said submissively: "I indeed didn't see him."

"Full of lies..." Xi slapped the gavel: "You lied twice, and you still dare to call yourself a 'sharp merchant'? Full of evil schemes in the public hall, I think you are a 'treacherous merchant'!"

As soon as the words fell, the 'sharp' character that the sharp merchant ghost had painstakingly covered up suddenly shook off.

The two beautiful whiskers by his mouth turned into rat whiskers, his body suddenly became wretched, and he became rat-headed and mouse-eyed.

"Sure enough, it's a treacherous merchant!"

The group of ghosts outside the public hall were in an uproar. The treacherous merchant ghost touched his rat whiskers and was suddenly terrified, wanting to kneel.

"My lord, the little one really didn't know! I gave him all the silver... Whether this servant bought it or not, I don't know. I hope my lord will investigate clearly!"

The evil servant was shocked and angry, but still gritted his teeth and said: "My lord, I indeed bought it with money."

"Then where did the money come from?" Xi glanced at the clothes wrapped under the carriage wheel and suddenly said: "Call the witness!"

The ghost runner stepped forward and said: "My lord, where is the witness?"

Xi grabbed the clothes and revealed a smile: "Shao family, Shao Yong!"

At this time, Shao Yong stepped out and bowed: "No need for my lord to summon, Shao Yong has already arrived!"

In the Judge's Office, the master and servant of the Wu family looked even more terrified.

Master Wu couldn't help but take a few steps back, stammering: "Young Master Shao, you... why are you here? This matter has nothing to do with you!"

"It has to do with me." Shao Yong raised his head and said: "Because that silver is mine!"

?? Returned to Kunming, resumed updates, will code a chapter first to recover the feel.