Riyoushen

日游神/游巡神 (The Day-Wandering God / The Noon Patroller)
生前为监察御史，因弹劾权贵日夜不停，最终被暗杀于白日的闹市之中。死后其魂魄不散，坚持在阳光下巡视人间，被天庭封为日游神，司掌阳间白昼的善恶记录。 (In life a fearless censor who impeached powerful officials day and night; was assassinated in broad daylight. His spirit refused to rest and continued to patrol the living world under the sun, earning the post of Day-Wandering God to record good and evil deeds by day.)
Death Era: Uncertain; tradition places it during a corrupt dynasty of the imperial era, possibly Song or Ming.
Current Ghost Path Tier: Gui Wang (Ghost King).
Underworld Jurisdiction: None; he serves directly under the Jade Emperor’s celestial bureaucracy, not the Ten Yama Kings.

No specific haunted site is recorded in official annals. Folk tradition holds that Riyoushen can be seen at any bustling city market at noon, especially during the lunar months of autumn. Some temples dedicated to the City God (Chenghuang) include a side hall for the Day-Wandering God, where worshippers place small mirrors to “catch” his reflected image. In southern Fujian, there are oral reports of a stone tablet near an old government office that bears his name, but no archaeological confirmation exists.

This entry is intrinsically linked to the Night Wandering God (Yeyoushen), the Day-Wandering God’s nocturnal counterpart, who patrols the hours of darkness and shares the same origin story of censorial defiance. Riyoushen’s appointment by the Jade Emperor places him within the celestial bureaucracy of the Shen Path, though his essential nature remains ghostly. The concept of the Noon Patroller also connects to the lore of Ghost Kings who achieve their status through obsession rather than consumption, a rare subtype within the Gui scroll. For a complete understanding of the Underworld’s escort system and the rejected soul’s alternative to reincarnation, readers should consult the entries on Heibai Wuchang, the Ten Yama Kings, and the River of Oblivion.

Riyoushen exists at the Ghost King stratum, but his power follows an unorthodox lineage. Most Ghost Kings achieve their rank by consuming thousands of wandering souls, fusing their memories and obsessions into a composite, deranged self. Riyoushen never consumed a single soul. His ascension to Ghost King was driven entirely by an unyielding obsession—the need to expose injustice—and by the divine appointment that followed. The hallmark of his tier is immense Yin energy, command over subordinate spirits (though he rarely summons them), and resistance to the cosmic erosion that frays lesser ghosts. Unlike typical Ghost Kings, his identity remains singular, uncorrupted by foreign memories. His longevity is measured not in centuries of survival but in the steady accumulation of divine authority: the longer he patrols, the more his ghostly form is fused with celestial mandate, hardening him against the natural decay that awaits all unclaimed souls.

The death of Riyoushen occurred at noon, in a crowded market street. A poisoned crossbow bolt passed through his throat while he stood reading aloud the impeachment of a powerful minister. He died on his feet, still clutching the written indictment. The moment his soul left his body, he expected darkness—the familiar dread of a ghost entering shadow. Instead, the sunlight did not harm him. He watched his own corpse fall, the blood pooling around his torn throat, and felt the strange warmth of the noonday sun pass through his transparent form without pain. The cosmic principle that flays new ghosts with light had no effect on him. In its place was a sensation of exposure: he could feel every glance from the living, but no breeze, no heat, no cold. He tried to touch the shoulder of a crying bystander and his hand passed through. He understood then that he was dead, but not that he was vulnerable. The first night he felt the Gang Feng—the cosmic wind—cut into his soul like a thousand invisible razors. Day offered no shelter; night offered only cold. He had no body to protect him, only the thickening coat of his own rage.

Riyoushen did not seek refuge in a grave, a hollow tree, or a forgotten house. The only place he felt remotely safe was the open sun, where he could see his enemies and where the darkness of his own death could not catch him. His first refuge was the path between the imperial palace and the market square—the same route he walked as a living censor. He gathered Yin Qi purely from the emotional charge of passersby: the hatred of the corrupt, the fear of the innocent, the secret relief of those who had betrayed him. His obsession was a double-edged furnace: it kept him solid, but it forced him to relive his murder every noon. At the exact hour he was killed, he would feel the bolt sink into his throat again, watch the faces of the assassins, taste his own blood. He never consumed another ghost. The temptation existed—he felt the hunger of weaker spirits around him—but his singular drive made him immune to the instinct. To consume another soul would be to dilute the pure hatred he carried for the hypocrites of the day. He remained intact, but bitter.

Riyoushen never degenerated into a Li Gui (vengeful spirit) in the conventional sense. A Li Gui loses itself by ingesting foreign memories; Riyoushen lost himself by accumulating too many observations. Day after day, century after century, he watched the same scenes: a merchant donating coins to a temple while his servants starve; a judge passing righteous sentences in public while accepting bribes in private; a woman weeping for her husband’s illness while poisoning him slowly at home. The repetition did not shatter his identity into multiple personalities, but it corroded his faith in human goodness. He began to see every good deed as a performance performed for an audience. He became a cynic with a divine office. His self remained intact—he still remembered his name, his family, the moment of his death—but his original mission, to record the truth, had soured into a constant mockery of pretense. He was not insane; he was disappointed.

As a Ghost King, Riyoushen commands the theoretical loyalty of countless minor ghostly attendants assigned to him by the celestial bureaucracy, but he rarely calls on them. He patrols alone, believing that any delegation is an opportunity for dishonesty. His power is not the result of a hundred thousand swallowed souls; it is granted by the Jade Emperor’s seal and reinforced by centuries of uninterrupted duty. He can manifest a spectral form that terrifies mortals, he can freeze a room with his presence, and he can summon the ghostly blade of his own broken corset pin to cut through evil spirits. He has never attempted the path of Gui Xian (Ghost Immortal). He has no interest in generating Yang from Yin, in rising beyond death. He wants only to stay dead and to watch the living reveal their true faces. The celestial thunder that would meet a Ghost Immortal’s attempt does not concern him, because he has no desire to transcend his condition.

Riyoushen’s relationship with the Netherworld Court is adversarial by origin, tolerant by settlement. In the days after his death, two soul escorts (Gui Chai) came to drag him to the Underworld. He refused. He stood in the marketplace at noon, reading the names of the corrupt officials who had arranged his assassination. The escorts could not approach him in the sunlight—he was immune, but they were not. Word reached the Jade Emperor, who observed the scene and saw a spirit so fiercely just that even death could not silence him. The Jade Emperor summoned him to a celestial audience, and instead of punishing his defiance, invested him with the post of Day-Wandering God. He was exempted from the Underworld’s jurisdiction. He never stood before the Ten Yama Kings, never faced the Karma Mirror, never approached the River of Oblivion. He was pulled from the recycling stream and placed outside the cycle—an eternal ghost with a divine badge.

Riyoushen interacts with the living and the dead across the Seven Paths. With the Path of Immortals (仙), there is little direct contact; immortals generally ascend to the Celestial Realm and are outside his patrol zone. With the Path of Gods (神), he works alongside local earth spirits (Tudi) and city gods (Chenghuang), occasionally sharing records of human behavior. He regards them with the same cynical eye: he suspects that even the gods are sometimes fooled by theatrical piety. With the Path of Buddhas (佛), he has been the target of sutra recitations by monks trying to exorcise him; his divine appointment overrides such rites, and he simply waits until the chanting stops. With the Path of Demons (魔), he has clashed on several occasions, particularly when a lingering grudge transforms into a daytime menace. He fought a particularly nasty noontime Li Gui once, alone, using only his wooden hu tablet as a weapon, until the Night Wandering God arrived to assist. With the mortal realm, he is both feared and worshipped. Some villagers leave offerings of rice and incense at the mouths of alleyways at noon, hoping he will overlook their minor sins. He records them anyway.

Riyoushen remains in active service today, patrolling the human world from sunrise to sunset. He does not sleep, does not recharge, does not age. His existence is a continuous loop of observation and judgment, recorded in a celestial ledger that is reviewed at the end of each season. He has never been reincarnated, and he never will be, unless the Jade Emperor revokes his commission—a near-impossible event. If he were to lose his divine post through dereliction or corruption, he would become an ordinary Ghost King again, subject to the erosion of time and the eventual pull of the Underworld. But his bitterness, however corrosive to his own spirit, is also his anchor. As long as he distrusts the goodness of the day, he will remain exactly where he is: standing in the noonday light, watching.