The Soul of the Matter

1,252 words

Chapter 737: The Soul

Looking at how his arm had easily passed straight through the dried-corpse lama, Li Huowang suddenly understood something. As he lifted his head, his entire body dropped sharply, landing directly on the ceiling below.

Standing steady on that ceiling, Li Huowang raised his head and looked up at the dried-corpses lamas above, and at the Li Huowang they surrounded. Clearly, this Fengdu was not a place a physical body could go.

He could still hear the lamas chanting, but it was as if a layer of gauze muffled it—faint and indistinct.

The sensation was utterly strange. Walking felt light and floaty, as if his body had no weight at all. Is this an out-of-body experience? Wait—does this world actually have souls? If so, then why aren't there any ghosts?

Remembering the lama's earlier words, Li Huowang did not linger. He clenched his fists and walked toward the door.

When he emerged from the inverted Zhongyin Temple, everything outside had changed. It was as if he had stepped into an immensely vast, empty desert—nothing at all.

Yang Xiaohai had already told him this would happen, so Li Huowang wasn't surprised. He pondered for a few moments, then, following Yang Xiaohai's instructions about heading in the direction where Red Center had gone, he set off.

Only three hours. He had to find the Zuowandao Red Center as quickly as possible. If he couldn't find him in this area, he would circle outward, using Zhongyin Miao as the center.

Li Huowang walked through the desolate landscape, his eyes scanning the surroundings constantly.

Yang Xiaohai said earlier that there isn't a single drop of that strange Yuer Shen seawater left now. What does that mean? Is the Death Siming holding off Yuer Shen's invasion?

Yuer Shen probably didn't take control of the Death Siming. A change of Heaven's master would cause a Heavenly Calamity.

Maybe that was a good thing, for them. Anything that thwarted Yuer Shen was good.

But what puzzled Li Huowang was that he had been walking for a while now, and he hadn't seen any trace of Red Center—not even the dead people's souls Yang Xiaohai said were everywhere.

No souls. No massive, grotesque ghost-officials. No bottomless pits. Except for Li Huowang himself, everything Yang Xiaohai had described was gone.

Just as Li Huowang was wondering if he had gone the wrong way, he suddenly felt something was about to emerge from the black mist in the distance.

“That is…” Leaning forward, Li Huowang stared suspiciously at the phantom gradually taking shape in the mist.

But when the shadow in the black mist grew larger and larger, until it even exceeded his field of vision, he immediately understood what it was! It was the Great Black Heaven! It was the Death Siming! He couldn't look at it!

Li Huowang immediately lowered his head, staring intently at the uneven ground, and shuffled to the side.

The next moment, a low humming sound, chilling to the very core of his heart, pierced through him. Li Huowang's body froze in place as if electrocuted, his legs too weak to even lift.

All he could do now was close his eyes, cover his ears, and curl his body into the smallest possible shape. “Can't see me… Can't see me!”

Another low hum hit him. The suffocating pressure pushed Li Huowang to the brink of death.

He felt as though a mountain had been forcibly ground over the top of his head.

Finally, after he didn't know how long, that feeling vanished. Li Huowang gasped for air as he scrambled back up. He saw that his body had melted away more than half, like a melting candle.

And that was just from it passing by. It hadn't even touched him.

“So that's the Great Black Heaven… That's Kui Lei…” Li Huowang muttered to himself, staring at the distant black mist.

Compared to Bashe, who governed pain, and Doumu, who governed truth and falsehood, Kui Lei, who governed death, gave off a completely different feeling altogether. It was like confronting the very embodiment of eternal, silent stillness.

He hadn't understood why this place was so empty before. After that one moment just now, he finally understood why.

Compared to worrying whether the Dice had been lying to him, Li Huowang was now more concerned about whether the memories of the Red Center he was looking for were even still alive.

Given the situation just now—if it happened a few more times, even with the protection of the dried-corpse lamas, he wouldn't be able to hold out, let alone the Zuowandao Red Center.

“Could he really have been reincarnated already? Hey, does this world even have reincarnation?” Li Huowang couldn't help starting to think of the worst-case scenario.

But just as he was thinking this, Li Huowang suddenly raised his head. He saw something in the southeastern corner of the ceiling quickly dart into the black mist ahead.

“Wait!” Li Huowang kicked off the ground and charged toward the ceiling.

When his feet touched the uneven ceiling, Li Huowang threw himself forward with all his might, chasing after the movement.

In this utterly desolate world of death, that thing was the first moving thing he had seen. He had to catch it and ask it some questions clearly.

Li Huowang pursued as fast as he could. Soon, he caught a glimpse of the thing's back. It was the back of a child. Its body was a pale, glowing white.

“Wait! Don't run!” But at the sound of Li Huowang's shout, the thing only ran faster.

As he followed it, the surroundings began to change. Immense pillars, stretching between heaven and earth, began to appear. These pillars were extremely tall and wide, splitting the sky and the earth into two separate parts. The child slipped behind one of the giant pillars and vanished from sight.

Just as Li Huowang sighed in frustration, he heard a mocking, teasing voice from above his head. “Why are you chasing him?”

Li Huowang looked up and saw a Li Huowang who looked exactly like him, hanging upside down from the ceiling.

That was the Zuowandao Red Center. Li Huowang could tell at a single glance—his own face would never make such an expression.

“Great, you're not dead!” Li Huowang was overjoyed. He couldn't help but marvel at his own luck for finding him so quickly.

“Oh? You really want me dead? Not a bad way to think about it, I suppose. After all, to you right now, I'm just a memory created by Doumu. Heh, I'd want me dead too.” The upside-down Li Huowang wiped a hand over his face, and in an instant, that face turned into a mahjong tile—Red Center.

“Let me guess. You came all the way to Fengdu to find me, so you must be in some serious trouble, right?”

“What kind of trouble could be so bad that the famous Li Huowang would come looking for a fake memory for help?”

“You know I'm just a memory, right?” The flesh-and-blood Red Center jumped down, splitting his mouth open and laughing heartily.

“Do you have any idea what that means? It means that no matter what I do now, in one hour, I'll reset. And then I start all over again—repeat, repeat, and repeat again! Do you understand that feeling? Do you?!”

With the shout, the mass of stitched flesh that was Red Center began to collapse, finally dissolving into a writhing pool of bloody filth.

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Reading Guide Decoding

A Field Trip to the Empty Underworld

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Fengdu (酆都): In Chinese folk religion and Daoism, Fengdu is the capital of the underworld—a bustling, terrifying city where the dead are judged by the Ten Yanluo Kings (十殿阎王). It's not a simple "hell" but a complex, bureaucratic afterlife with courts, punishments, and even a system for reincarnation. The fact that Li Huowang finds it an empty wasteland is a huge, terrifying red flag. The natural order of death has been shattered.

Ghosts and Afterlife Hierarchy: Traditional Chinese belief is rich with ghost lore. The dead become gui (ghosts), who are then processed by ghost-officials (guicha or niutou mamian—Ox-Head and Horse-Face). Li Huowang's observation that there are "no ghosts" means the entire processing chain is broken. The Great Black Heaven, the Death Siming, is not merely a powerful being; it is the principle of death itself made manifest. When that principle is disturbed, the entire ecosystem of the afterlife collapses.

The Great Black Heaven (大黑天) & Kui Lei (魁櫑): In the novel's cosmology, Simings are not just gods; they are the living embodiments of Heavenly Laws. Bashe is the law of pain, Doumu is the law of truth/falsehood, and Kui Lei is the law of death. "Great Black Heaven" is a direct inversion of the Buddhist "Great Dark Heaven" (Mahakala), a fierce protector deity. Here, it is not a protector but a force of absolute, annihilating stillness. The repeated mention of "Qiu Lei" seems to be an alternate name or title for this Death Siming, emphasizing its crushing, cyclical nature.

Chapter Overview

Alright, buckle up, fellow Daoists, because this chapter takes us on a field trip to the literal underworld. Li Huowang finally steps into Fengdu—not as a physical body, but as something much more vulnerable: a soul. And this Fengdu? It's not the bustling bureaucracy of ghosts Yang Xiaohai described. It's a barren, empty wasteland. The kind of emptiness that makes your bones ache. Our boy Li Huowang is on a tight three-hour clock to find the Zuowandao Red Center, a living memory of himself. But this isn't a simple fetch quest. He has a close encounter with the Death Siming—the Great Black Heaven—and learns that some things are so vast, just passing by can melt half your soul away. The chapter ends with a reunion that's less "helpful ally" and more "screaming, existential collapse," as Red Center confronts the horror of his own repetitive, meaningless existence. It's bleak, it's metaphysical, and it's classic Dao Gui Yi Xian.

Key Plot Points

Soul Departure: Li Huowang confirms he's in an out-of-body state, his intangible form passing through the dried-corpse lamas. Fengdu is a realm for the soul, not the flesh.
The Empty Underworld: Contrary to Yang Xiaohai's description, Fengdu is a vast, empty plain with no souls, no ghost officials, and no pits. The chapter immediately sets up an unsettling deviation from expectation.
Encounter with the Great Black Heaven: The Death Siming, Kui Lei, passes overhead. The mere proximity causes Li Huowang's soul-body to half-melt, forcing him into a fetal position of pure terror. The horror is not in combat, but in existence.
A Fleeing Soul: Li Huowang spots a child-like soul and chases it, his first glimpse of any life (or afterlife) in this dead world. The chase leads him past massive, world-dividing pillars.
Finding Red Center: He finds the Zuowandao Red Center hanging upside-down from a ceiling, wearing Li Huowang's face. The initial relief is short-lived.
The Horror of a Memory: Red Center reveals the true nature of his own suffering: he is a memory that resets every single hour, doomed to repeat his existence endlessly. He collapses into a mess of frustrated flesh and blood.

Reading Guide

This chapter is a masterclass in "show, don't tell" horror. The horror isn't a monster jumping out; it's the absence of everything that should be there. The emptiness of Fengdu is a more terrifying statement than any graphic description of torture could be. Pay close attention to how Li Huowang's body melts just from the proximity of the Great Black Heaven. This is the novel's core mechanic: the higher-order entities don't attack; they simply are, and their being is corrosive to lesser existences.

The reunion with Red Center is the emotional core. He's not an enemy in the traditional sense; he's a tragic victim of Doumu's power, trapped in a hell of his own endless repetition. His final scream—"Do you understand that feeling? Do you?!"—is a direct challenge to Li Huowang, and to the reader. It asks us: is a life that is endlessly reset and forgotten any kind of life at all? This isn't a quest to defeat a villain; it's a quest to negotiate with a broken piece of oneself.