The Three Pure Ones' Secret: Expressing Spirit

The paper effigies seemed to lack common sense, stubbornly following Fan Biao no matter how he tried to shoo them away. However, Fan Biao had a peculiar habit: whenever the paper effigies of boys and girls approached, he would kick them mercilessly. But the effigies were as clingy as taffy, and Fan Biao had no choice but to pull out a few crumpled pieces of paper from his pocket, muttering something unintelligible. After he finished speaking, the crumpled paper in his hand spontaneously combusted, and he threw it at the paper effigies of boys and girls.

The two paper-mache figures of a boy and a girl burst into flames. The paper figures, which were originally silent, began to squeak like mice, making them look particularly eerie.

Fan Biao frowned and shouted, "Chase him! Damn it, just because I'm not showing my strength doesn't mean I'm a pushover!"

I looked at him, speechless.

Then Fan Biao led me away. Perhaps fearing that the Black and White Impermanence would come back and catch us, he led me away very quickly. Seeing a dilapidated train passing by in the distance, he hurriedly led me to climb onto it.

The dilapidated train didn't even stop at the station; it just slowed down and began to gradually accelerate after leaving the station. The train carriages were old and run-down, and there weren't many ghosts riding on them. Fan Biao and I found an empty seat and sat down. The broken wooden seat was a bit uncomfortable, but thankfully the train was moving smoothly without any bumps.

I don't know how far the train traveled, but it passed through many places along the way, without ever leaving Fengdu City. I was surprised to find that Fengdu City was so big. Just as I was sitting there feeling like I was in another world, my mind blank, Fan Biao called out to me, "Old Pu, we need to get ready to get off."

I paused for a moment, then came to my senses: "Where are we?"

Fan Biao looked at the buildings slowly passing by outside: "We should be arriving at the final stop soon."

I looked at the buildings outside and noticed they had become sparser than before. The train stopped a short distance from a city gate, and Fan Biao beckoned me to get off. After all the ghosts on the train had disembarked, the train slowly started moving again, turning back the way it had come.

Fan Biao and I walked towards the city gate tower. When we arrived at the main gate, there were many ghosts lined up in a long queue. Fan Biao didn't lead me to join the queue. Instead, he found another small gate to pass through. The ghost guards at the gate were just as respectful as before. They let me through directly when they saw Fan Biao. I was stopped again, but they let me through later because of Fan Biao.

Fan Biao and I left Fengdu City and arrived at a small underworld town called Huiguan Town. The town was built along a river, next to the wide River of Oblivion. I looked at the churning and surging river and wondered why the water was churning so violently when there was no wind around. But when I followed Fan Biao closer to the riverbank, I discovered a chilling scene.

The reason why the waters of the River of Oblivion surged and rolled without wind was that the waves were not caused by wind or waves at all, but by human faces pushing and shoving each other. They seemed to be suffering endless torment and wanted to escape, but the waters of the River of Oblivion bound those restless figures like glue.

I was so frightened that my face turned ashen. When Fan Biao saw that I was staring blankly, he asked me, "What's wrong? Are you scared? These are evil ghosts who committed heinous crimes in Fengdu City in the underworld. They will never be reincarnated and will be trapped in the Weak Water forever."

Looking at those horrifying faces, I couldn't bear to look any longer, so I said to Fan Biao, "Let's go then. Where do we go next?"

Fan Biao pointed at me, and I looked in the direction he was pointing. He was pointing to a bridge. I looked at it; this bridge was different from the Ping Sheng Bridge we had come across. Although this bridge was also large, it only had one wide passageway with two smaller paths on either side. Despite its vastness and grandeur, the bridge was constructed of stone. I wondered how they had managed to move the enormous stones across. But then I thought, there must be gods and immortals in the underworld; surely they could just use some magic?

Fan Biao led me, and I thought he was going to queue up like the other ghosts, but Fan Biao didn't take me to queue up. Instead, he took me up the bridge via a side path.

When we arrived at the bridge, we stood on the path beside it. In the middle of the bridge, many ghosts were neatly arranged, with ghost guards on both sides suppressing them. The ghosts on the main path in the middle of the bridge were arranged in order, but their expressions were different. Some were happy, some were sad, some were sobbing, and some were even being escorted by ghost guards.

Fan Biao showed no interest in anything on the bridge, but as he led me across, he said, "After we cross this bridge, we'll pass through one more village and return to the edge of Banbuduo City where we came from. There's a train station on the other side of this bridge; we'll take the train to Yibushao City, and then leave the city for the Three-Way Crossing."

When I heard that I had to go through several more places, I felt a little melancholy. I originally thought that I could go back after crossing this bridge, but I didn't expect that I would have to go to several more places.

As Fan Biao and I approached the end of the bridge, Fan Biao was stopped by the ghost messengers for the first time. Fan Biao was speechless, perhaps because he saw something on the bridge. A hot, sexy woman emerged from what appeared to be an office room on the bridge. She walked towards Fan Biao and me, speaking in a thick Northeastern accent: "Hey, you bunch of good-for-nothings, what are you doing? Are you blind or something? You can't even recognize Master Fan!"

Upon hearing the woman's words, the two ghost messengers hurriedly opened the passage. The woman looked at Fan Biao, her face full of charm as she mocked, "Oh, I didn't expect you, Master Fan, to have such a ridiculous look. I haven't seen you in so long, I've missed you so much!"

Fan Biao cupped his hands in a gesture of respect to her: "Sister, please don't tease your brother. I have something to say here. Next time I come, I'll bring you some of our local specialty wine!"

The woman said coquettishly, "Hmph, Brother Fan, you should stop talking nonsense with your sister. You always say the same thing, trying so hard to fool me. I don't believe you, you little rascal."

Fan Biao was a little embarrassed: "Uh, I'm not kidding you, I need to take my brother back. His lifespan hasn't ended yet, but something unexpected happened. If I don't take him back soon, the Ox-Head and Horse-Face demons will come to take his soul!"

The alluring woman complained, "Oh, you're getting impatient asking for my help? Would you like to come to my room for some tea before you leave?"

After she finished speaking, the woman looked me up and down. I felt very uncomfortable under her gaze and my heart was pounding.

Then the woman said with some doubt, "Wow, this guy gives me a really familiar feeling!"

Fan Biao was taken aback: "You've passed by so many ghosts in a day, how can you still recognize them?"

The woman shook her head: "No, it's just a feeling. You wouldn't understand that stuff anyway. Let's go, don't keep me from work. I got a task from above to keep an eye on a young man, don't let him get away!"

Fan Biao didn't dare ask any more questions. After we left, I felt something was off, so I asked him why he hadn't asked who they were looking for. Because I was also a ghost who had wandered from the human world to the underworld, but they didn't treat me like a ghost at all.

Fan Biao took out a cigarette and said to me while smoking, "Because what she can say isn't some kind of heavenly secret. If we ask, it would be like prying into heavenly secrets. If she says something we shouldn't hear, we'll be in trouble. So we can't ask."

I was very curious about what that woman was in charge of, and then Fan Biao told me a name that left me speechless: "Meng Po".

I never dared to imagine that the woman with the thick Northeastern accent was actually the legendary Meng Po. What kind of place is this? The underworld! The entire realm of the netherworld. How many Meng Pos are there? But her appearance and image just now were nothing like what I had imagined or heard about. It wasn't that they were different; they were completely unrelated.

As the old saying goes, everything should be reasonable and logical. In my mind, Meng Po has always been an ugly old lady, but the beautiful lady I just saw is completely different from what I imagined. I never thought that Meng Po would be such a beauty, and she even speaks with a Northeastern accent.

Wasn't that the bridge we just crossed the Bridge of Helplessness that people talk about? I actually crossed the Bridge of Helplessness without even realizing it? I was incredibly surprised: "Could that bridge just now have been the Bridge of Helplessness?"

Fan Biao nodded nonchalantly: "Yeah, it's the Bridge of Helplessness, so what?"

Uh… I had mixed feelings. I’ve been to the underworld for almost a year now, and I never imagined that the gloomy, terrifying, and tragic Bridge of Helplessness that people talk about is like this. And Meng Po is just too… too beautiful!

Surprised as I was, the journey had to continue. Fan Biao and I were supposed to take the dilapidated train to Yibuqiao, but before boarding, he asked if I wanted to walk, saying we had plenty of time. Seeing that he seemed to have a choice, I asked him if there was a faster way back. In the end, we could only take the same dilapidated trackless train we had taken before.

We got into the car, and everything around us was not quiet. Many ghosts were just playing around, while others had drunk Meng Po soup on the Bridge of Helplessness and lost consciousness. The unconscious ghosts were escorted by ghost messengers.

Fan Biao and I sat on the train for a long time. I don't know what Fan Biao was looking at, but he was staring intently at the pile of ghosts. Seeing how absorbed he was, I asked him, "Hey, Lao Fan, what are you looking at?"

When I asked him, he didn't look away, but whispered to me, "I've noticed something's off about this guy!"

I didn't quite understand what he meant, and said blankly, "What's wrong?"

Seeing that I was interested, Fan Biao said to me, "Do you see that young man in the second row by the front door?"

I looked in the direction he pointed and saw a young man about our age in the second row by the carriage door. He was quite handsome with an oval face, but unfortunately, he had short hair and looked like a street thug. However, his eyes were very frightening. One of his eyes had a completely black pupil, not the brown pupil of an Asian, while the other eye was a rather frightening white.

I felt a sense of fear when I saw this person's eyes: "Why are these eyes so frightening?"

Fan Biao gestured for me to be quiet, then lowered his voice and said to me, "He has the ability to see ghosts, and the purest kind of ability to see ghosts?"

When he mentioned the purest form of Yin-Yang Eyes, I was a little puzzled. Could it be that there are mixed-breed Yin-Yang Eyes? So, I asked him helplessly, "Uh, are there different varieties of Yin-Yang Eyes?"

He chuckled, somewhat speechlessly, upon hearing the word "variety": "What are you thinking, brother? It's not what you think. There are three types of Yin-Yang eyes: Yin eyes, Yang eyes, and Yin-Yang eyes. All three are Yin-Yang eyes, but people with both are extremely rare. Yin eyes observe people, Yang eyes observe the world, and Yin-Yang eyes observe the three realms!"

I didn't understand, and I didn't know what it meant. What did it have to do with me? I wasn't very interested, so I didn't pay any more attention. Everyone here is dead. What's the use of being awesome before?

The journey took a long time, and in my dazed state, I had no mind to pay attention to my surroundings. Just as my mind went blank, Fan Biao nudged me and whispered, "We're almost there. Let's get ready to get off. No matter what happens, stay right behind me!"

I was a little stunned. Hadn't I been following him the whole time? Did he have something else going on? I hadn't paid much attention. But that's how people are; the unexpected happens most of the time when you're least expecting it.

Fan Biao and I slowly squeezed off the train and arrived at a place that resembled a small village. The only people around us were ghosts being escorted by ghost messengers, and the only ones not being escorted were Fan Biao and me, and that young man.

The ghosts were being escorted by ghost messengers to one place, while Lao Fan and I walked in another direction. I was a little curious about where the ghosts were going, so I asked Fan Biao next to me, "Why aren't they going the same way as me?"

Fan Biao glanced at them and said, "They're going to the Reincarnation Well to be reincarnated. We're going to the Three-Way Crossroads. Once we get there, we'll head towards the Path of Returning Souls."

As soon as he finished speaking, Fan Biao glanced behind him and then said in a low, wary voice, "He's following us!"

I was stunned for a moment, then shuddered and asked him nervously, "What's following us?"

Fan Biao answered me in a low voice: "The young man on the train just now!"

When I heard it was that young man from before, I wasn't too scared. At least he looked to be around our age. But I was a little nervous about why he was following us. Could it be that he was after us?

I immediately dismissed the thought. Even Meng Po was so polite to Fan Biao. Although I didn't know what kind of deity Meng Po was, at least in my understanding, she wasn't an ordinary ghost. And if Meng Po could chat so easily with Fan Biao, then the ghosts around them certainly wouldn't pose any threat to him.

And often, the less people care, the more outrageous things get. I was talking quietly with Fan Biao, but for some reason, the next second Fan Biao suddenly exploded like he'd gone mad, shouting at the person behind him, "Where did this brat come from, daring to follow Master Fan!"