Chapter 470: Revenge
Inside Yama Hall, Wei Yue sat on the throne of King Yama, his face dark as thunder, staring fixedly at the approaching Granny Sha and Xiang Tianyu.
“Where is the Righteous Official? Where is Chen Shi?”
His voice rolled like thunder through the temple, loud and resonant.
Before Wei Yue ascended to the Yama throne, he had been honored as the Young Master of the Immortal Capital, though he was not young in years; in fact, his age was roughly the same as Granny Sha’s. His father Wei Ling was a magistrate of the underworld. After the Righteous Official disappeared, Wei Ling took charge of the Immortal Capital, and Wei Yue was thus honored as its Young Master.
Wei Ling was a ghost god, and Wei Yue inherited part of that constitution, giving him a much longer lifespan than ordinary people, which allowed him to still look young.
Although he had been cultivated and placed by the Yan Family to seize power, his natural talent was not great; he had only cultivated to the Refining Spirit realm.
In recent years he absorbed the energy of incense offerings to cultivate, using extraordinary power to forge a Golden Body. His divine power surged, and the gathered divine power now rivaled a Great Ascension realm existence.
Yet despite this might, he remained fearful and uneasy.
Granny Sha led Xiang Tianyu to stand before him and halted.
Granny Sha looked stunning today. She had eaten the Ginseng Grass Fruit that Chen Shi had gifted her; her appearance was that of a woman in her twenties. She wore a moonlight dress, a white gauzy gown without dye or embroidered pattern, as if made of moonlight. Over it she wore a pale yellow, standing-collar, cross-front gauze shirt, the cuffs embroidered with winding lotus patterns, and a red waist sash pulled across her chest.
She had deliberately dressed in that way because when her son went down to the underworld and was lost, she had been dressed like this.
She had come for revenge.
Outside the hall, the sounds of battle shook the sky, yet they seemed to recede farther and farther away; inside the hall, it felt unusually calm.
“Tianyu, is that him?” Granny Sha asked.
Xiang Tianyu studied the face of Wei Yue on the throne carefully. After a moment he nodded and said, “It should be him. At that time there was also a Red-Haired Ghost by his side.”
He had not seen the Red-Haired Ghost himself.
Wei Yue’s expression darkened. “That Red-Haired Ghost who betrayed us, colluded with Chen Shi to break the prison, I executed him under my watch.”
Granny Sha and Xiang Tianyu froze. The Red-Haired Ghost colluded with Chen Shi and was executed by Wei Yue?
Wei Yue ignored their shock and shouted, “Chen Shi, I know you’re out there! Come out and fight me to the death!”
Chen Shi stood guard outside the hall. He heard the voice inside but did not reply. Instead he looked toward the battlefield of Saw-Hell.
The slaughter in Saw-Hell continued unabated.
The Yan Family had countless ghost gods; among them were too many with divine power comparable to Great Ascension. Even with Nannan’s awakened past-life memories, and the aid of the three major magistrates, Zhong Kui, Tie Chi, and Black and White Impermanence, the fighting was still excruciatingly difficult.
These powerful Yan Family figures repeatedly attacked Nannan, attempting to cut her down.
The Righteous Official had no choice but to summon the Dragon Head Executioner’s Blade. Three beams of light fell from the sky, beheading traitors and corrupt ministers alike, severing heads one by one.
Chen Shi’s skeletal form also threw himself into the fray, invoking the Tianluo Blood-Transforming Divine Blade, one slash at a time. Anyone struck by that blade, regardless of cultivation, had their Golden Body collapse and their Primordial Spirit severed; escape was rare.
“The Tianluo Blood-Transforming Divine Blade is truly a supreme immortal treasure!”
Chen Shi could not help but marvel at the blade’s might, but then he thought of Zhong Wuwang—struck by that blade yet not instantly killed, who escaped back to Despair Slope and even healed the wounds.
Zhong Wuwang’s strength was indeed not to be underestimated.
In Yama Hall, Granny Sha held Xiang Tianyu’s hand and said grimly, “Wei Yama, do you not recognize my son Tianyu?”
Wei Yue waited a moment. Chen Shi did not respond. His gaze returned to the pair and he frowned. “Who are you? Do you bear me ill will?”
Granny Sha’s face showed disappointment. “Indeed Wei Yama does not recognize my son. Forty-two years ago, you and the Red-Haired Ghost were searching for the Three Lives Stone, and you met a child who entered the underworld to search for a Three Lives Stone…”
Wei Yue started slightly, looked at Xiang Tianyu, and was astonished. “You’re the child who searched for the Three Lives Stone and entered the Buddhist hells? I remember you! You actually came out of the Buddhist hell alive!”
He became excited. “My ghost servants and I waited outside the Buddhist hell for you seven days! When you didn’t appear we left. I thought you had died there long ago! So you found the Three Lives Stone?”
He rose from the throne, the news of Xiang Tianyu both pleasing and surprising to him, and he said, “If I point you to the Three Lives Stone and you give me half, that’s not too much to ask, is it?”
A nameless fury swelled in Granny Sha’s chest. She ground her teeth, “You killed my son and now you want half of the Three Lives Stone?”
Wei Yue glanced at her, then laughed suddenly. “You’re this little brother’s mother? The ancients say even a tiger won’t eat its young—he is your son, so why are you so cruel? Why let him risk himself in the underworld to find a Three Lives Stone?”
He chuckled darkly. “Of course, you were trapped by your cultivation back then and longed to break through. You entertained malicious thoughts and made your son’s soul leave his body and sent him into the underworld to seek the Three Lives Stone for your breakthrough. You should have known the underworld is extremely dangerous and that your son might well die there, yet you still let him descend!”
Granny Sha’s body trembled as she struggled, “I made perfect preparations for Tianyu…”
At that, tears burst from her eyes, streaming down her cheeks.
She truly believed she had done everything she could: she had placed all the protective methods she understood on her son, hung every talisman she had found on him, prepared horned-incense to guide his soul, and set up an altar ready to enter the underworld at any moment to rescue him.
Yet something still went wrong.
Chen Yindu, Du Yiran, and the others had warned her in those days: she handled things roughly, only caring whether something worked, not pursuing refinement; though she often made pioneering breakthroughs, she left gaps in the details and would eventually pay dearly.
This time the loss was unbearably bitter.
Xiang Tianyu panicked and grabbed her hand, “Mother, don’t cry, Mother. I’m here and fine!”
Granny Sha’s grief surged and she could not stop crying, clinging to him.
She had prepared everything, yet her son had still died.
Xiang Tianyu was beside her, but what returned was only a ghost. She had used secret methods to forcibly bind Xiang Tianyu to her company.
Some wounds never heal.
Granny Sha always appeared cheerful on the surface, smiling outwardly, but she had been trapped in the pain of losing a child all along and had never truly recovered.
Wei Yue’s gaze flickered as he descended step by step from the high platform, staring at her coldly, sneering, “All these years you have been searching for your son, living in pain and regret. What about your husband? Does he resent you? Does he blame you for sacrificing your son for your own interests?”
His voice was cruel but effective, like a bloody blade sliding into Granny Sha’s gut, stirring and tearing at her heart, exposing every wound.
Blue clouds surged around Wei Yue; divine power concentrated in his palm and formed a long blade as he silently approached Granny Sha.
“He must hate you, perhaps he could not even bear to look at you anymore. Yes, he divorced you. You could have had a happy life together, but now you are strangers—this all is your fault, your greed.”
He raised his long blade and smiled, “If your son had enemies, those enemies were never me but you.”
Granny Sha knelt to the ground.
Xiang Tianyu stood before her, arms outstretched, and shouted angrily, “You will not harm my mother!”
Wei Yue sneered and slashed his blade down!
Granny Sha lifted a hand, and with a thunderous boom Wei Yue’s body convulsed and was thrown flying, crashing into the wall of Yama Hall!
He was shocked and terrified. When he looked up, he saw that his body still stood where it had been, frozen in the mid-slash pose!
His divine power was indeed great—comparable to the Great Ascension realm—but his cultivation level was poor; he was only in the Refining Spirit realm.
He was a living person who followed the path of becoming a god through incense offerings. Extraordinary power had been fused into his flesh. Against many opponents that might suffice, but he faced Granny Sha, whose mastery over the soul was supreme; her strike severed his flesh from his spirit outright!
Wei Yue rushed to his physical body; if he could reclaim it he would once again possess boundless strength!
Granny Sha did not stop him. She rose and pulled Xiang Tianyu close, wrapping him deep into her arms.
Wei Yue’s Primordial Spirit shot back into his body in a flash, spirit and flesh recombined, and he finally relaxed.
Without a word he reunited with his body and rose into a towering divine demon one hundred zhang high!
As his body swelled, so too did Yama Hall expand along with him, keeping the proportions unchanged.
Wei Yue swung his blade down; the blade’s light reached only halfway before his body convulsed again and he was hurled backward, smashing fiercely into the hall wall!
“I know I was wrong all these years.”
Granny Sha’s voice came through. “I thought of Tianyu dying because of me and I was wracked by guilt, wishing I could die in his place. But I lived on.”
Behind her, as if awakening, a towering ghost god slowly opened its eyes and a Realm of Emptiness floated into being.
Her cultivation had long been stuck, but after Chen Shi rescued Xiang Tianyu’s ghost she had revived, her cultivation steadily rising. In recent years she had broken through to the Return to Emptiness realm!
“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”
Chains flew out from the Realm of Emptiness, wrapping around Wei Yue’s Primordial Spirit and flesh, dragging him entirely into the projected realm.
Wei Yue was suspended within that domain, neither reaching sky nor ground; looking around, the world there was bleak and vast.
The heavens rotated around the Bagua, the eight trigram elements—Heaven, Earth, Wind, Thunder, Water, Fire, Mountain, Marsh—alternating without end.
Within thunder he was struck until he was charred inside and out; within the Xun Wind his flesh and spirit were blown and dissolved; within Li Fire he was burned to charcoal; within K’an Water he was eroded and riddled with holes!
It was as if he had fallen into a personal hell, enduring every torture, only to be restored and then suffer anew.
Granny Sha’s Realm of Emptiness, twisted by the pain of losing a child, resembled a hellish landscape rather than the typical projected realm of other cultivators.
Wei Yue was constantly destroyed and reborn, repeatedly suffering each torment.
At first he could still hold on, but eventually his Dao Heart cracked and he wailed for mercy.
Granny Sha only repeated the punishment again and again.
After an unknown span of time, the ghost gods from the Heavenly Pool Kingdom had cleared other hells of their masters and rushed to reinforce Saw-Hell, turning the tide against the Yan Family’s ghosts in a one-sided slaughter.
Seeing this, Chen Shi finally relaxed.
He entered Yama Hall and, seeing the scene, urged softly, “Granny, wallowing in revenge will only warp your Dao Heart. You don’t need to torture him anymore.”
In the Realm of Emptiness Wei Yue heard the voice and a flicker of hope kindled.
“Give him a clean end,” Chen Shi said.
Granny Sha choked and nodded. Inside the projected realm elements of Heaven, Earth, Wind, Thunder, Water, Fire, Mountain, and Marsh mixed into chaotic confusion and ground Wei Yue down until he was erased, reduced to flying ash.
Granny Sha seemed to lose all strength and collapsed to the ground.
Chen Shi helped her up. At that moment Zhong Kui, Wang Fu, Jia Yuan, Black and White Impermanence, and other ghost gods escorted Nannan into Yama Hall.
The ghost gods halted and formed neat ranks, standing on both sides of the great hall.
Nannan strode like a dragon and tiger, climbed the steps, and ascended to the throne. She climbed into the seat and sat, though her small body made the throne look cavernous.
The little girl hugged a toad in her arms, solemn and majestic as she glanced left and right.
“We pay homage to the Yama Son of Heaven!” the ghost gods kowtowed.
“Rise.”
Nannan raised her hand and spoke in a deep voice, “In former years the True King was invited by burning incense. This court crossed the great sea to come to the Western Ox New Continent, pacified the underworld, set the laws, and maintained the order between the two realms. Unfortunately the True King perished; the mortal world lost its ruler and the underworld fell into chaos. Today I have retaken the Yama throne. I now decree to the underworld: summon all ghost gods and march against the Thirteen Great Clans, pacifying the remaining courts of the dead!”
The ghost gods bowed again.
Nannan immediately issued orders to attack the Thirteen Great Clans, which the ghost gods spread out to carry out.
She handled affairs with seasoned wisdom; even Chen Shi could not find fault.
“Sha Qiutong, now that the underworld has vacancies and officials are lacking, your son has been gone a long time. Why not allow him to remain here to gain experience?”
Nannan led the toad to Granny Sha and said, “If one day he achieves greatness and receives incense offerings from the commoners, he will not be forgotten.”
Granny Sha shook her head and refused politely, “Thank you, Your Honor. But I am ashamed as a mother. I could not give Tianyu the joys of companionship, nor let him experience the sorrows and delights of youth. I cannot selfishly keep him by my side any longer. He deserves his own life.”
Nannan asked, “You will send him into the Six Paths of Reincarnation to be reborn?”
Granny Sha cradled Xiang Tianyu’s head and nodded.
Nannan said, “Once he is reborn, even if he remembers this life and you as his mother, it will feel like a past-life memory and will not be closely tied to his present life. In his next life he will have a mother of that life and a life of his own. If he does not awaken his past-life memory, you will be strangers. Do you still choose to send him to be reborn?”
Granny Sha still nodded.
Nannan did not press further.
Chen Shi accompanied them to see them off and watched as Granny Sha led Xiang Tianyu to an entrance to the Six Paths of Reincarnation in the underworld, indicating him to step into the light of rebirth.
“Mother, I don’t want to leave you.” Xiang Tianyu stopped and turned to look back.
“Silly child, your mother does not want to leave you either.”
Granny Sha smiled with tears at her eyes as she pushed him into the cycle of reincarnation.
“Mother wants to give you a whole life, without the pain of this one,” she whispered.
In Longmen County, Hejin Town, Xianzhou neighboring Xinxiang, the Fan household was reasonably well off. Fan Xiucai was a cultivator and a private school teacher. That day the Fan family welcomed a new child: the wife gave birth to a chubby baby boy, and the whole household celebrated.
Strangely, the child was born with a tricolored stone about the size of a thumb.
Fan Xiucai regarded it as an auspicious sign. He drilled a hole through the stone, hung it around the baby’s neck, and named his son Fan Pu, meaning a raw jade to be carved.
Chen Shi stood outside Hejin Town and watched the family from afar for a long time, then turned to Granny Sha and said, “Granny, it’s time for us to go.”
Granny Sha wiped her tears and nodded.
When Fan Pu grows up, the Three Lives Stone may cause him to recall a past life, but the blood ties between this mother and son are severed. In Fan Pu’s heart he will regard his present parents as his true family.
But in Granny Sha’s heart the bond of mother and son never truly broke; it remained like a cellar-aged wine, growing deeper the longer it was kept.