Judge of Souls - Chapter 101

Zhang Yangyang thought being an underworld messenger was pretty cool. No matter how glorious or wealthy someone had been in life, after death they still had to be reshuffled and start over as ghosts.

If he became an underworld messenger, he would specifically target those who had been arrogant and done bad things while alive, scaring them whenever he had the chance.

Jiang Feng watched him grinning foolishly as he got lost in his own fantasies and said, “If you’re interested, I can take you to see what it’s like.”

Zhang Yangyang was startled. “What?!”

“Mm.” Jiang Feng looked him over and said, “But with your personality, you’d probably be annoyed to death most of the time. The work of an underworld messenger is very troublesome.”

Zhang Yangyang didn’t listen to the second half of what he said and immediately started gesticulating excitedly. “I’ll go! I’ll go! How many people could have this kind of experience? This is so cool! Poor people can’t go to heaven, but I can go to the underworld!”

Jiang Feng had to interrupt him. “I’m letting you experience it, just having you collect a soul. I didn’t say I’d take you to the underworld.”

Zhang Yangyang: “That’s fine too, that’s fine too!”

He was still cheerful when he suddenly thought of something, his expression stiffened, and he smiled bitterly. “I won’t… you know… continue losing money, will I? It ruined me so badly before, I need to lay low recently and don’t dare to act up.”

Jiang Feng said, “You won’t. These days the clouds are blocking the sun, and it’s close to Ghost Festival, so the yang energy is heavy in the mortal world. You can go out for a little while at midnight. I can see you’ll be fine, but you absolutely cannot try this yourself.”

Zhang Yangyang patted his chest. “Don’t worry, I don’t have that kind of courage!”

****

Zhang Yangyang slept at Jiang Feng’s place that night. This matter kept running through his mind, and his excitement made him particularly alert.

Their dorm usually stayed up late anyway, but Jiang Feng told him to sleep before twelve o’clock, saying that after he fell asleep, he would pull his soul out to reduce the impact. This was really difficult for him.

As it approached twelve o’clock, he lay on Jiang Feng’s sofa, closed his eyes, and could feel Jiang Feng’s gaze. After a few breaths, he unexpectedly fell asleep without realizing it.

He felt his whole body was cold and cool, his consciousness was very clear, his brain was functioning normally, and he didn’t feel like he was asleep. But his hands and feet couldn’t move, and his five senses were somewhat dulled. Then his body felt light, as if he was floating.

He heard Jiang Feng say, “Open your eyes.”

Zhang Yangyang opened his eyes and saw his own face.

“Wow!” he cried out repeatedly, “Wow wow wow!!”

Jiang Feng: “Are you ready?”

Zhang Yangyang stared at his own face in fascination. “I’m really fucking handsome!”

Jiang Feng: “……”

Jiang Feng: “Are you going or not?”

“Going, going, going!” Zhang Yangyang immediately ran over.

His form was somewhat unstable and he almost fell. He wasn’t used to controlling his current state, which felt completely different from his previous out-of-body experiences. He even felt somewhat warm.

They walked down the stairs, where an underworld messenger with an expressionless face was standing at the staircase entrance. He handed over a slip approved by King Yama, specifying that they needed to go to a certain place to collect a certain soul.

Jiang Feng gestured for Zhang Yangyang to take it.

The moment the paper slip touched his hand, it immediately turned into a golden light and disappeared.

An intuitive guidance led him to walk forward.

Jiang Feng followed behind him as they walked onto the main street.

After confirming there was no one around, Zhang Yangyang proudly boasted, “Oh my, I’m so pleased with myself. Am I the most special person in the world?! Look, this is King Yama’s slip!”

Jiang Feng said ruthlessly, “You’re not. There are yin-walkers in the mortal world. If they’re living people approved by the underworld, they can also travel at night. And Taoist priests with proper lineage can also recite divine edicts and ask people to relay messages to Yama.”

Zhang Yangyang: “……You’re not cool, you’re cold.”

The place for collecting souls this time was in the residential area behind A University. Zhang Yangyang’s body followed his thoughts, and the scenery on both sides of the road flew past rapidly, forming blurred dotted lines. He was worried that Jiang Feng couldn’t keep up, but in the blink of an eye, he found him already behind him.

Zhang Yangyang arrived at the family’s door and wiped his pants with his hands. “Should I knock?”

Jiang Feng: “……”

He pushed Zhang Yangyang from behind and they floated in together. Inside, an old person was sitting, hanging her head and wiping tears beside her own corpse.

Zhang Yangyang coughed. “Time to go, collecting souls.”

The old lady looked up at him, stopped crying, and stood in front of him. Zhang Yangyang took the chains and put them on her.

“How did you die?” Zhang Yangyang saw the bottle on the table and said, “You didn’t commit suicide, did you?”

The old lady sobbed twice more.

Zhang Yangyang: “What’s wrong with you? What’s so bad that you can’t think it through? Isn’t living good?”

After saying this, he wanted to slap himself.

The person was already dead… of course it was because living wasn’t good!

Zhang Yangyang scanned the entire room.

There was a thin bedding on the sofa, which should be where she slept. There were light snoring sounds from the bedroom, someone was sleeping. There were no old person’s shoes on the shoe rack, but there was a pair outside the door.

Either she had just arrived, or she wasn’t welcome by the homeowner.

Zhang Yangyang said, “Alright, let’s go this way.”

The three of them left the house, and the old lady started crying again.

“I’m illiterate. In our generation, we were so poor and miserable, living itself felt difficult, let alone studying. Later when life got better, I was already old.” The old lady said in a low voice, “Today my granddaughter asked me to buy juice. I saw a big glass bottle in the supermarket with an apple drawn on it, and I thought this must be juice. The price was quite cheap too, so I bought it…”

Zhang Yangyang: “She said you were being cheap?”

The old lady said, “Mm, I bought apple cider vinegar drink…”

Zhang Yangyang: “Uh…”

“She scolded me, and I, I didn’t know what to do, so I went to buy another bottle.” She said, feeling extremely wronged, “I saw a small bottle with a high price tag, with a peach drawn on the packaging, and I thought this must be it for sure, so I bought it and brought it back.”

Zhang Yangyang: “It still wasn’t right?!”

The old lady said, “It was peach-flavored tea! But there was no tea drawn on the outside at all!”

Zhang Yangyang pulled the chain and said, “It’s okay, I’ll condemn them for you! How can manufacturers be like this?!”

The old lady said sadly, “I really am an old fool who won’t die. I didn’t study hard when I was young. Back then my mother wouldn’t let me study, my father wanted me to at least finish elementary and middle school, to learn to read, but I thought my mother was good and followed her out to cut pig grass every day. That’s why I can’t even recognize words now. Society with phones and computers is developing too fast, I can’t go out, can’t pay money, can’t buy tickets. I stay at home all day being despised by people. This society isn’t suitable for me anymore. I want to study, I want to learn.”

She looked at Zhang Yangyang earnestly. “Young man, study hard.”

Zhang Yangyang loudly responded, “Yes!”

When Zhang Yangyang brought her to the receiving underworld messenger, she was still chattering non-stop about how she wanted to study hard in her next life, that she was going to study.

Zhang Yangyang watched her being taken to the underworld and sighed. “What a highly enlightened ghost…”

Lonely and desperate, she committed suicide, but her wish after death was still…

Zhang Yangyang said profoundly, “People still need to be self-reliant.”

Jiang Feng: “……Your enlightenment is also quite high.”

Zhang Yangyang sighed. “That’s why I’m always worried about the future. What if I raise a child like this? I can’t just strangle him.”

“Your child?” Jiang Feng said, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Zhang Yangyang jumped up and shouted, “Jiang Feng, what’s wrong with you! Are you still my sweetheart?”

Jiang Feng just wanted Zhang Yangyang to experience what yin-walking was like, while also accumulating some yin virtue to help him change his luck in the short term.

Zhang Yangyang, filled with a sense of responsibility, went back to search the nearby area to see if he could pull a few more to the underworld and boost his performance.

Jiang Feng thought he would be an excellent candidate for pyramid schemes, managing to bring a performance mentality even to soul collection.

Zhang Yangyang chatted casually, “I thought people who committed suicide couldn’t go to the underworld.”

“The underworld has additional punishments for people who commit suicide. If they didn’t commit major wrongdoings in life, they’ll keep their souls until their natural lifespan would have ended, then take them back.”

“What if they did commit wrongdoings?”

“Depends on their fate.”

“What about that old lady?”

Jiang Feng: “Her natural lifespan was about up anyway.”

The two of them wandered around the residential area. Perhaps the wandering ghosts saw them and hid, because the road was quiet the whole time, and they didn’t encounter a single ghost.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by screaming.

A person with a pale face ran out from a staircase entrance. He stumbled and rushed onto the street, seeming extremely terrified of something behind him, screaming, “Help! Help! Call the police, please help me call the police!”

The man seemed to see them and ran straight toward them. “Quick!”

Zhang Yangyang turned around and confirmed there was no one else around, just the two of them.

Zhang Yangyang: “Holy sh*t!”

Jiang Feng said, “It’s time to go back.”

“Huh?” Zhang Yangyang pointed at the man, “What about him?”

Jiang Feng: “What does he have to do with you? Can you call the police for him?”

Jiang Feng grabbed Zhang Yangyang by the back of his collar and yanked him back forcefully. Zhang Yangyang’s cry was stuck in his throat, and when he opened his eyes again, he had already woken up.

“So tired.” He got up and said, “So sleepy. When I was being an underworld messenger, didn’t that count as me sleeping?”

Jiang Feng said, “Your physical body has already rested enough. You’ll be fine after adjusting a bit.”

Zhang Yangyang reached for his phone and dialed 110 to call the police for that man. Then he rubbed his neck and lay back down. “I’ll rest for a bit first.”

****

There weren’t many people on the midnight streets anymore, but there were still 24-hour pharmacies and supermarkets operating.

The man rushed in, threw himself on the counter, reached out his hand to the staff on duty, said something about calling the police, and then collapsed from exhaustion.

The ambulance took him to the hospital, but because the reporter was unconscious and they didn’t even know what the case was about, there was no way to file a report.

It wasn’t until the next morning that the man woke up.

His eyes were filled with red bloodshot, he was breathing heavily, and he grabbed whoever was nearby and said, “Someone wants to kill me! Get the police to come protect me!”

****

The next morning, Zhang Yangyang was awakened by the doorbell.

Several plainclothes adult men were standing at the door, with Officer Ye leading them.

“Why is it you again!” Officer Ye said in frustration, “Oh wait, when I heard it was near A University, I had a vague feeling it was you!”

Jiang Feng: “What happened?”

Zhang Yangyang followed him out.

Officer Ye asked, “Last night, which one of you called the police?”

Jiang Feng: “I watched him make the call.”

Officer Ye: “Then let’s all take a trip together.”

Jiang Feng’s photo had been posted online by Qin Ru before, and due to the infamous reputation of bullying depression patients, it had spread quite widely. Although it was later clarified as false and deleted, the people at the police station still had some impression of him.

The unlucky scapegoat.

Everyone showed expressions of “so it’s you.”

It seemed that the aura of being a scapegoat was not easy to shake off.

Officer Ye invited them into the car, which was just an ordinary car, so you couldn’t tell they were being taken by the Public Security Bureau. But Zhang Yangyang, being a law-abiding citizen, instinctively felt nervous when he saw police. “What did I do? You’re making me panic like this.”

Officer Ye said, “It’s nothing, we’re just asking you to come answer some questions.”