Chapter Forty-Two: The Scroll

Su Yuanbai was deep in thought.

After leaving the Ghost Prison, he did not head straight for the outskirts of South City in Yinbei, but instead went directly to the Ghost Yamen in South City. Skirting the main hall, he found the ghost judge in the back hall, who was in the midst of a discussion with the chief ghost registrar.

This Judge Yu looked quite different from the ghost judge of Yinbei City as Su Yuanbai remembered him, but Su Yuanbai was not surprised; he knew there were frequent changes in the post of ghost judge in Yinbei City.

What did take him aback, however, was Judge Yu’s demeanor. It was a stark contrast to the gloating smile he had worn when detaining Su Yuanbai on Ten Thousand Ghosts Street.

“This is the one?” Judge Yu glanced at Su Yuanbai, who had suddenly appeared at the back hall’s entrance, but showed no sign of surprise. Instead, he turned first to the chief ghost registrar beside him, who was holding a yellowed scroll.

“Yes, he matches exactly the figure depicted in the scroll left behind by Judge Li, who has now been reassigned to the Hall of Yama,” replied the registrar, dressed in pale blue, after studying Su Yuanbai closely and comparing him with the scroll.

He was about to hand the yellowed scroll to the judge for inspection, when he suddenly realized the scroll had vanished from his hands, leaving them empty.

“Did Judge Li of Yinbei City ever mention what kind of person this is? I just ordered Ox-Head and Horse-Face to seize them and toss them in the Ghost Prison,” the judge asked, casting a glance at Su Yuanbai, who had somehow already acquired the scroll, his dark face betraying no expression. He bent toward the registrar, who stood bewildered.

“Was it the common cell in the back hall? That should be no trouble. Judge Li once told me about him, said he was gentle and reserved,” the chief registrar reassured, stroking his beard.

He had served as chief registrar in Yinbei City for nearly the full span of his ghostly life, witnessing ten judges come and go. Judge Li held the highest position in the underworld at present and had been the most amiable to him during his tenure as judge in Yinbei City. It was said that, in life, Li had been a deputy magistrate, and upon death, should have become a ghost officer in the Yama Hall, but for some reason, he was posted here as judge instead.

There is a saying: Frontier city judges, capital city ghost kings, all pale beside the officers within the Hall.

“What about the prison in North City, where the most unruly ghosts are held? He must be gentle and reserved as well, right?” Judge Yu asked, feeling a little more at ease.

The registrar fell silent.

The longer the registrar kept silent, the heavier Judge Yu’s heart grew.

Today, he ought to have been in a pleasure boat on the Ghost River, listening to the painted-skin ghosts play the lute and sing. But then the ghost guards of Yinbei City had come to report that three souls, each complete with three spirits and seven souls, had arrived from the dark slopes of the Underworld, accompanied by a living person from the mortal world.

Yinbei City was a remote ghost town, without incense from the world of the living and far from the Ten Halls, drawing only wandering, incomplete souls drawn by the banners atop the city walls. Their sole purpose was to add ghostly energy to this secluded city, shielding it from the chilling winds and evil sandstorms of the Underworld.

So when Judge Yu heard the report, he assumed his friend Lin Lan from the living world had sent him three fine ghosts to serve at his command. The Ghost Yamen did have Ox-Head, Horse-Face, Rakshasas, and Night Demons, but many were old retainers from previous judges and proved difficult to manage.

Who would have thought that when Judge Yu brought Ox-Head and Horse-Face to Ten Thousand Ghosts Street, he would find these souls and the mortal among them making bold proclamations—none of them familiar. Alarmed, he ordered their immediate arrest and imprisonment.

Though the post of judge in Yinbei City was not a coveted one, it was at least an official position in the underworld, with a yearly allotment of paper offerings and incense. The ghosts on Ten Thousand Ghosts Street were mostly incomplete, lacking any consciousness, but there were clever young ghosts among them, and cunning ghost officials and underworld patrols as well.

He had no desire to lose his official hat.

Yet after Ox-Head and Horse-Face had led the unresisting mortal and the souls into the prison, Judge Yu found himself unable to enjoy the music on the boat, feeling something amiss. He returned to the yamen and sought out the most senior ghost registrar, Chunqing.

Upon hearing Judge Yu’s description, Chunqing had immediately fetched a scroll from atop the back hall’s bookcase—leading to the scene Su Yuanbai had just walked in on.

“He has killed not a few evil ghosts. Do you know why, though the ghostly energy in Yinbei City is thin, no ghost king has swept through with evil ghosts to sack the city in recent years?” Chunqing, after a long silence, did not answer Judge Yu directly but instead posed this question.

“Could it be… he killed them all?” Judge Yu ventured timidly.

“In a radius of a hundred miles, even those fiends and evil ghosts dwelling in the crags near the dark slopes—he has slaughtered every last one. If Judge Li had not told me to let go my worries about summoning ghosts to protect the city, I would never have known,” Chunqing said softly.

“So he…”

Judge Yu held his breath, asking warily.

“No one knows his disposition. Ordinary ghost officers and ghost soldiers cannot bear to meet him. Even Judge Li only encountered him by chance. Judge Li said he was gentle and taciturn, but given the stories of his slaughter of a hundred miles of fiends, it’s likely he is ruthless when it comes to killing,” Chunqing replied, shaking his head as he scrutinized the man so highly esteemed by Judge Li. This was his first true glimpse of the man.

His appearance and stature were flawless from every angle, his dark eyes now fixed upon the yellowed scroll. He wore a deep yellow, wide-sleeved silk robe, cinched with a belt of gold and jade—luxurious but a touch provincial. Yet on him, it lent a noble and steady air.

It was odd, though. Was he a nobleman, the son of a high official who had taken up spiritual cultivation? But there was no trace of Daoist energy, nor the radiance of Buddhist enlightenment about him.

Perhaps he had studied the ways of the Hundred Schools?

But if so, there should have been some lingering aura: the upright righteousness of the Confucians, the martial ferocity of the strategists, the earthy energy of the farmers, and so on. If he had taken up some heterodox path, that too would be evident in his bearing.

Yet he seemed only a refined, noble scion of a great family, with no hint of any particular teaching, sect, or school.

Su Yuanbai cared nothing for the registrar’s searching, even intrusive gaze. All his attention was focused on the yellowed scroll in his hands.

He was not the only figure depicted in the painting.

He stood at the center, dressed in white with black shoes, his dark hair bound by a blade of dry grass, standing on a low hill and gazing up at the sky.

To one side, a man in a black dragon robe and king’s crown, with twelve beaded tassels hanging from his diadem, stood solemnly atop black clouds, a host of ghosts arrayed behind him.

On the other, a figure in rainbow robes, the true form of a Daoist sage with an auspicious purple-gold visage, sat enthroned upon a nine-colored lotus, surrounded by mighty guardians, Vajra warriors, golden boys, and jade maidens.

Between them stretched the endless hells. Looking closer, one could make out the eighteen levels of hell: the tongue-pulling, the scissors, the iron trees, the mirror of retribution, the steamer, the copper pillar, the mountain of blades, and so on.

All these eighteen hells loomed over Su Yuanbai, who stood calmly on the hilltop, gazing up at the heavens.