DNDAS

Chapter 12: Ghost Messenger

The footsteps grew louder and louder. The yinchai and Fu Li glanced in the direction of the footsteps simultaneously. A handsome man dressed in a suit appeared at the corner of the street. An expression of reverence unraveled on the yinchai's face upon seeing the man's appearance. "Mr Zhuang Qing."

Zhuang Qing nodded, his gaze sweeping across Fu Li. He came to a stop, not intending to join their conversation.

The underworld and management bureau had dealings with each other. With Zhuang Qing present, the yinchai became much more reserved. However, seeing Fu Li had made him recall the events that had happened many years ago. At that time, he had just become a yinchai and hadn't gotten used to witnessing separations caused by death. The occasional grief and sadness of a ghost's loved ones had made it difficult for him to relieve the tension in his heart. He had a time when he had even encountered a yaoguai with a cultivation base who attempted to forcibly seize the soul of the deceased from him, preventing him from taking the soul to the underworld.

Upon knowing that he had to fetch a human soul at a mountain where yao cultivators resided, he was extremely fearful the entire way there. When he rushed to the place, the yao cultivator was sitting beside the deceased's corpse, having helped cover the corpse with a pretty brocade quilt. It was said that such brocade quilts weaved from silk produced by spirit silkworms could prevent the corpse from rotting for a hundred years. The moment the yinchai saw this attitude, he felt a sense of doom. Even this sort of quilt had been taken out; it would probably be somewhat difficult for him to take the soul away this day.

Fortunately, the soul didn't weep or raise a fuss about not wanting to die. The yao cultivator didn't appear to demand anything of him either, not uttering a single word from start to end. Only when he tightened the Soul-Locking Chain did the yao cultivator tell him to make his actions a little gentler.

He did so accordingly. The soul didn't say anything along the way. Only after they passed through the entrance to the underworld did tears of blood drip from the soul's eyes, forming two bloody lines. The image of scarlet tears paired with an expressionless face was truly too shocking, which was why the yinchai could still remember that soul and yao cultivator even after so many years had passed.

"Two thousand years ago, this humble one had the chance to meet you," The yinchai didn't mention that human soul, fearing that this yao cultivator would ask him who that human had reincarnated as.

"Two thousand years ago..." Fu Li thought about it for a very long time and then recalled the first time he had met a yinchai. "You're the yinchai that was sent by the underworld?"

The yinchai smiled awkwardly. He had indeed been very lacking in courage that year. "This humble one is called Li Xu. It is also fate that we can meet again after many years." He noticed the uniform Fu Li was wearing. He was... a security guard in the human world?

Fu Li noticed that the uniform Li Xu was wearing differed from the yinchai he saw in the evening and commented with understanding, "It seems you've been promoted in these two thousand years."

Li Xu smiled and fished out a cigarette from his pocket, handing it to Fu Li. After Fu Li declined, he lit it for himself. "I thought, like the other yao on that mountain, you had also..." He glanced at Zhuang Qing not too far away and swallowed his words.

He had only gone to that mountain once to guide that soul. Only after he asked the other yinchai a hundred years later about the yao cultivators on that mountain did he learn about the incident that had taken place in the eightieth year of his soul-ferrying. At that time, several azure dragons had caused repeated rainstorms from playing with water. The yao cultivators on that mountain couldn't bear to see the humans suffer and so pleaded for leniency with those few dragons. Yet, who would have expected for the azure dragons to fly into a rage? In the end, some of those yao cultivators perished while others were wounded. Even the entire mountain was razed to the ground. Li Xu had assumed that this yao cultivator had also died. Yet, despite these vicissitudes of life, this yao still managed to survive till this day.