Judge of Souls - Chapter 42

The little Mountain God had to be sent back to the Shaoling Mountain range to continue his cultivation, but having experienced the mortal world, he had developed a taste for food and television. He wanted to talk to people every day and seemed distracted, rolling on the ground refusing to leave whenever the topic of returning came up.

A mountain god who had just taken form but couldn’t even properly control his true body was clearly neglecting his duties.

The little Mountain God pleaded. “Can I come back to see you?”

Yama replied, “You can come see him once after you’ve finished cultivating a mountain. Once you can control your true form, you can come anytime.”

“Waaah——” The little Mountain God gave him a look that said ‘you’re lying,’ “Won’t he be dead by then?”

Jiang Feng: “……”

Yama replied wearily, “He won’t be. Just focus on your cultivation. You’ve already gained enlightenment, awakened your spiritual awareness, and cultivated half a mountain. Your progress will be much faster from now on.”

The little Mountain God hugged Jiang Feng’s leg and cried, “Dad——if I can’t come see you, can you come see me?!”

Yama put on a stern face. “No! You need to focus!”

The two of them, one big and one small, spent a long time in this educational moment until the little Mountain God became so sad that even the few stubborn cowlicks on his head lay flat.

Huang Yu felt these spiritual beings truly suffered. Hundreds or thousands of years of bitter cultivation, listening to the wind and rain, and occasionally catching the voices of passersby – that was their entire existence.

The whole world was quiet for them; loneliness was truly the most terrifying thing in the world. Yet only through such loneliness could they cultivate into human form.

Spirit mountains endured such hardships to become human, yet some people didn’t cherish their own lives. This was why the Underworld had always imposed harsh punishments on suicides.

The little Mountain God wanted to take the clothes Jiang Feng had bought for him. He also wanted to take one set of Jiang Feng’s clothes to place on the high platform in the Mountain God Temple. That way, next time he came out, he wouldn’t need to wear a plastic bag.

Huang Yu’s maternal instincts were stirred, and she was nearly moved to tears listening to this.

Everyone escorted him back to the Shaoling Mountain range, arriving at the flat cross-section where the mountain peak had been lost.

The little Mountain God, holding his small bag, turned back to look at Jiang Feng with tears welling in his eyes, blinking pitifully.

Yama watched helplessly and pulled Jiang Feng away. The two turned and left first.

Suddenly, a violent wind howled behind them, sending sand and stones flying. The entire Shaoling Mountain range trembled slightly. The wind swept through the forest and gradually subsided.

None of them dared to look back, carefully holding onto trees as they descended.

When Jiang Feng reached the foot of the mountain and looked up again, he saw that a new peak had appeared where the flat top had been. The branches at the peak still retained some greenery, which was now being blown down, with leaves falling in sheets.

Yama sighed and said, “Let’s go.”

Afterward, Yama pursued Chu Xuanliang to address the issue of sewage discharge in the surrounding area. If untreated sewage continued to flow toward the mountain range, he wouldn’t hesitate to make the responsible parties’ ancestors meet their unfilial descendants.

The school also had to be demolished. There shouldn’t be too many people nearby, especially children with strong yang energy.

Chu Xuanliang and his master dreamed every night of King Yama glaring at them with bronze eyes while emphasizing these points. How could Chu Xuanliang dare to neglect this? Moreover, it was his first time seeing a living mountain god that could take human form. He even offered to actively help renovate the ancient Mountain God Temple, make regular offerings, and help the god cultivate.

This was for the best. Human cultivators indeed knew how to act properly. This deserved merit, definitely deserved merit.

After some time passed, school was dismissed for the Spring Festival holiday. Jiang Feng returned home and decided that since he had been mentally exhausted lately and wasn’t short on money, he would rest for a month without looking for part-time work.

The place where he currently lived was too small. People in the stairwell often didn’t dispose of their garbage properly, leaving kitchen waste at the front door for several days before throwing it away.

Winter wasn’t so bad, but in summer there was always a faint stench wafting around, occasionally accompanied by black flying insects.

Jiang Feng planned to change apartments.

During this time, everywhere was busy, especially the Taoist temples and the Underworld.

The temples had to undertake various religious ceremonies, conduct sacrifices, and handle the endless stream of people coming to burn incense for the New Year. With no classes to teach and no homework to assign, the Taoist Association needed to recruit personnel from various places to ensure social harmony.

Chu Xuanliang’s daily routine was overtime, overtime, and more overtime.

Yama’s daily routine was summoning judges, reprimanding judges, and simultaneously summoning and reprimanding judges. And this was twenty-four hours a day without rest.

****

Two days before the New Year, Chu Xuanliang brought a young man to visit Jiang Feng.

The two of them brought drinks and gift boxes, put on slippers as they entered, and placed the gifts on the coffee table.

The young man seemed uneasy, keeping his head down. He had delicate features with a pleasant appearance, but there were heavy bags under his eyes. He seemed only slightly older than Jiang Feng, but now he sat listlessly, lacking the vigor typical of youth.

As he accepted the hot tea from Jiang Feng, his restless hands finally found a place to rest, holding the cup and drinking two cups in one go.

Jiang Feng didn’t refill it for him, letting him hold the empty cup to calm down.

Chu Xuanliang rubbed his forehead and said, “The temple has been very busy lately, especially me. My workload has increased by nearly double compared to previous years, and I’ve received collective condemnation from fellow Taoists. They blacklisted me for three days as a warning.”

After the demolition of the walking school, the parents involved all reported having nightmares. Their dreams were filled with bizarre, terrifying scenes that remained vivid even after waking. This left them spiritually exhausted and overwhelmed by fatigue.

They all went to see doctors but no issues could be found. Later, when they met other parents of students, they compared notes and realized they weren’t the only ones experiencing this.

This couldn’t possibly be a collective mental illness—they had clearly encountered ghosts.

This group constantly came to the temple for help. Chu Xuanliang could only tell them that this was a minor punishment from the Underworld, urging them to pay more attention to their children and never send them to the walking school again. Sure enough, the symptoms gradually disappeared afterward.

The young man didn’t want to listen to their chat and impatiently reminded, “Master Chu.”

“Oh,” Chu Xuanliang nodded reassuringly and said, “Don’t rush.”

The young man was so anxious his bottom was practically on fire. How could he tolerate Chu Xuanliang’s slow pace? He said, “I’m just an ordinary person, I’m almost dying so of course I’m afraid!”

Chu Xuanliang was greatly embarrassed. This person was ruining his strategy and affecting his performance.

He sighed reluctantly and said, “It’s like this—lately, many people have been seeking help from the Taoist Association. Some people keep their supernatural encounters to themselves until vacation, making their situations quite serious by the time they come to us. Some cases require thorough investigation before we can prescribe the right solution, and can’t be resolved quickly. I must go to another province, and I really can’t free myself up. Sun Lei, that’s his name, his problem is also very thorny, but I currently have no leads, so I came to ask you.”

“You’re handing him over to me?” Jiang Feng raised an eyebrow and said, “I don’t know how to handle this.”

Chu Xuanliang gestured. “Well… just listen to his situation first.”

The young man called Sun Lei opened his mouth, swallowed, and then said, “I… I like playing all kinds of games and I love modern electronic products. When VR was popular a few years ago, I bought the equipment, and in recent years, I’ve purchased all the new products and games. I’ve been playing all along without any problems.”

Jiang Feng glanced at his attire—he seemed to be wealthy.

“There really weren’t any problems before, but last month, I played a horror escape game.” As he spoke, his pupils dilated and his face showed uncontrollable fear. He swallowed again and continued more quickly, “That game was just an ordinary paid game circulating in the market, and many people on the forum were playing it too. I tried it, playing about two hours a day, and then logged out. After playing for two or three days, I lost interest and stopped opening the game…”

He raised his empty cup to drink, brought it to his lips but nothing came out, and only then remembered the cup was empty.

Both Jiang Feng and Chu Xuanliang waited for him to continue.

Sun Lei calmed himself for a moment and continued. “Two days later, I put on the headset, and the system automatically loaded that game. I didn’t think much of it, even found it interesting, so I played for a while and then logged off. After that, strange things started happening that I couldn’t control! I don’t know what went wrong, but whenever I put on the headset, that game would pop up. No one on the forum had experienced this issue. It wasn’t a virus either, which was when I really started to get scared. I tried to delete it but found it impossible to remove—it would automatically download itself back every time I deleted it.”

Jiang Feng said, “Then just don’t play games for now.”

“I really did stop playing!” Sun Lei exclaimed excitedly, “I stopped, you know? But one day, half-asleep and half-awake, I opened my eyes to find myself in the game again! I’m sensitive to light, so I noticed the change and woke up. You don’t know how terrifying it was—I live alone, and that headset had automatically placed itself on my head in the middle of the night! I was playing the game, and my character almost died! I don’t know what would happen if it died, but I had a very bad feeling… it was extremely realistic.”

“I didn’t even realize I was in the game at that moment. I thought I was dreaming or had somehow been transported somewhere else, and was terrified. Luckily, I jumped up and hit the wall, which made me understand what was happening, and I immediately took off the headset. That game is made to be particularly terrifying… extremely terrifying…” Sun Lei said, “I….I checked and found that the headset wasn’t even connected to the computer. It wasn’t connected to anything but could still be played—it definitely had to be haunted!”

Jiang Feng asked, “Then what happened?”

Sun Lei touched his neck and recalled. “I was so scared at the time that I wanted to throw it away… Fortunately, someone on the forum reminded me not to, saying that the device might be important. They also recommended a Taoist temple and a Taoist priest, Master Chu, so I came to find him.”

Chu Xuanliang took over. “I’ve checked, and there’s nothing wrong with his headset or computer, but he clearly carries yin energy, so there’s definitely an issue with the game. So I stayed with him for two days, and then had my junior brother stay with him for two days. I don’t know if it’s because the ghost won’t appear when someone else is present, but we didn’t encounter anything during those days. However, I need to go to another province to handle another matter, and the others at the temple don’t have much time either…”

Chu Xuanliang paused and said, “Your constitution is quite unusual, isn’t it? I think if you stay with him, maybe the ghost won’t be wary of you. Your family’s child, he’s an underworld official, so if he comes to protect you, there shouldn’t be any problem. What do you think?”

Sun Lei had already been tormented severely and moved over to grab Jiang Feng’s arm, saying, “Please, I can pay you any amount! Really, I’m going crazy!”

Chu Xuanliang looked at him and sighed. “He used to be quite brave.”

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have played horror games.

Chu Xuanliang: “Now he’s almost scared out of his wits.”

Jiang Feng hadn’t seen Yama for a long time and probably couldn’t request his help. The Underworld was busy, and Yama was the person least able to take time off. Besides, lately Jiang Feng had been waking up feeling tired every day, probably because the judge was also being called back to work at night.

Jiang Feng asked curiously, “What kind of game is it?”

Sun Lei: “A horror escape game. The character appears on a map and must constantly look for clues to survive and escape. There’s also a ghost on the map, and you can’t get caught by it.”

“What happens if you get caught?”

“Well… according to the description, the ghost will possess you, the ghost becomes human, the human becomes a ghost, and the game ends.”

“Oh, I see.” Jiang Feng pondered thoughtfully, “You can send your things to my home first.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Sun Lei was almost crying with joy, grabbing his hand and shaking it vigorously. Finally, he added worriedly, “What about you? Are you really going to be okay?”

Jiang Feng said, “It’s fine.” After all, he wasn’t human either.

Chu Xuanliang said, “I’ll give you several protective talismans. This matter is dangerous, so if you feel something’s not right, don’t force yourself, and remember to contact the temple immediately. By the way, where is that lord at your home?”

Jiang Feng: “He’ll be back tonight.”

Chu Xuanliang relaxed and said, “I see. That’s good.”

Sun Lei asked Chu Xuanliang, “Can I… still sleep at your temple?”

Sleeping with the Taoist priest made him feel safe.

Chu Xuanliang: “I suppose so. I’ll let people at my temple know. Someone always has to stay there anyway, and you can sleep in my bed for now.”

Sun Lei said gratefully, “Thank you, really thank you. I’m putting my life in the hands of you two masters!”