The Thirteen Trials of the Deceptive Monk

Eating at his house cost one yuan, and staying overnight cost one hundred yuan. If you wanted to learn a skill, you had to pay tuition. If you wanted private instruction, you had to find a way to give him a gift, no matter how old you were. As a result, the children of the Lu family were very happy to send their children to their grandfather's house. They would often return home after only a few days and call their parents "Mom and Dad."

According to the old man, this is called independent education, because everyone has to live their own life, and even your own parents have no obligation to help you for no reason. The old man said that this was because when he was young, he encountered many setbacks while wandering the martial arts world. When he tried to raise money to open a martial arts school, he couldn't borrow a single penny. When he was being chased by enemies, he was turned away by all his relatives and friends when he asked for help. Even after he became successful, he still held a grudge about this and insisted on cultivating everyone's "self-reliant" character so that they wouldn't have to suffer humiliation when they went out.

Grandpa Lu squatted down, supporting himself on his knees, and stared straight at him: "Tell me honestly, how are you doing at this foreign school?"

Lu Wenjun straightened his back and said proudly, "To be honest, I'm the number one in our year!"

The old man looked closely at his expression and smiled too.

"You can even laugh now, so you seem to be doing well." He waved his hand. "Alright, that's settled then. Talking to a dead man is pointless. Get back to what you're doing!"

"Okay, I'll come back to you when I'm done."

Lu Wenjun gave him a light hug, then turned and left. That was just the old man's personality; rambling on and on would only annoy him. Because most of the Lu family practiced martial arts, were decisive, and indifferent to life and death, they weren't used to talking too much about family matters; knowing each other was still alive was enough.

Grandpa Lü watched his retreating figure, a hint of relief creeping into his smile. He walked out of the bamboo grove with his hands behind his back, and after a few steps, he spotted his grandson's classmates.

“Hey, Mr. Lü,” Faris said with a broad smile, “to be honest, we were really curious when you mentioned that earlier…”

“Wenjun is so energetic now, it’s hard to believe he was frail as a child,” Linggong said curiously.

Grandpa Lü glanced at everyone and rubbed his thick fingers together.

"Want to hear a story? There's a condition." He winked. "Do you have any wine that dead people can drink?"

·

If Lü Wenjun knew that the old man had started gossiping about him the moment he turned around after he left, he would definitely turn back and argue back. However, that argument would be useless, because the old man had only agreed to cover up his false background, but never agreed not to talk about his embarrassing childhood stories.

In this respect, the shrewd old man looked three steps ahead, which shows that cunning and physical strength have nothing to do with education level, but are probably something inherited in the blood.

"It's rare to get into a Greater Rift, can't you be a little happier and not spoil my fun?" Jiuguang said.

“What’s so exciting about going on a business trip to the underworld?” Lu Wenjun said listlessly. “It was a terrible idea from Senior Kano… I’m not going to be a keeper of secrets next year, let a new sucker do it.”

Hisamitsu smiled meaningfully: "I think you'll change your mind soon..."

He dragged his zombie-like steps to the entrance of the Thousand-Year Cave, where Kano was waving enthusiastically in front of the large iron gate: "You've finally arrived, Wenjun~ Your bodyguard has been contacted~!"

"May I ask who you are?" Lü Wenjun asked with a bitter face.

Kano nimbly stepped aside, revealing her dashing back behind the iron gate. She was wearing a striped plaid miniskirt and a blazer shirt, the white shirt's front stained with a large patch of paint and blood.

She had been focused on blowing bubble gum when she heard the sound. Her rabbit ears twitched, and her head, which was holding a large bubble, turned around. The blood-red bubble popped open at her lips with a "pop."

"I was just killing time, so I came to guide you." Mingxiao licked the chewing gum from his lips. "Although I don't quite understand what's going on, you can rest assured and leave it to me!"

"Good!"

Lu Wenjun cheered and jumped up excitedly, while Hisamitsu, who had expected this, let out a long boo.

Chapter 96 Cerberus: A Deeply Frightening Experience

"Well, yeah, I can't even be bothered to talk about your little wolfish ambitions." Hisamitsu said disdainfully.

Lu Wenjun's speech was forceful and clear: "What are you thinking? My praise is from the perspective of a magician, expressing my firm trust in and sincere support for Senior Sister's strength. It has absolutely nothing to do with my personal preferences!"

"Tch, you just want to go out and play with Mingxiao."

As the two whispered amongst themselves, Miss Terrifying Killer Rabbit was stretching her limbs in preparation. Kano, standing nearby, looked on curiously: "A new kind of spirit-splitting technique?"

"I was too lazy to change the spell, so I borrowed an avatar puppet from the professor. It was just right to suppress the power output to the level of the Fantasy."

"Ugh~ I have a feeling it's going to burst from being so full."

"How could that be?" Mingxiao waved. "It's all settled. Wenjun, come here! Have you ever heard of the Myriad Spirits Palace before?"

"I know nothing about it except that it's the underworld."

“Ah… speaking of which, this is something you’ll be learning next month…” Mingxiao scratched his head. “I’ll explain it to you when we get there. Let’s go now.”

Lu Wenjun stood next to her, looking at the familiar entrance to the Thousand-Year Cave with a puzzled expression: "Aren't we taking the train?"

“The surrounding secret realms aren’t that complicated, just count to three!” Kano held up his finger. “Let’s do it together. 3, 2…”

"1!"

Kano clapped his hands, and the space beneath their feet instantly cracked open, forming a bottomless fissure shaped like a wound. Lü Wenjun had no time to react before he plummeted into the depths of the fissure. He looked up and saw the space above him closing like a zipper, and Kano waving joyfully in the fading light.

Have a safe trip!

"Damn it! I knew nothing good could come from being associated with him!"

"How come you only just found out?" Mingxiao, who was standing next to him, laughed.

Lu Wenjun gritted his teeth, flipped over in mid-air, transformed into a spring-legged creature, and used his flying shoes to stomp on the air and descend slowly.

The deep passage seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance, the darkness spreading out like an endless fog. The almost infinite space was completely silent, save for the sound of footsteps and the breathing of the two people.

Lu Wenjun couldn't help but feel a little worried. His transformation spell wouldn't last long, and this passage was clearly not a shortcut that could be traversed in just a few minutes. Before he could speak, Jiuguang exclaimed, "It's so dark! So boring! Can't we hurry up?!"

"Let Wenjun experience more of this rare opportunity to travel."

In that silent darkness, another breath drew near. Lu Wenjun's eyes adjusted to the shadows, and he could see chestnut hair swaying like seaweed. Mingxiao swam through the darkness, appearing behind him.

"How do you feel?" Mingxiao whispered in his ear.

“Dark and gloomy, like being in a very deep sea.” Lü Wenjun paused, “It’s a bit unsettling.”

"This is the process by which souls travel to the underworld, and it is also the gentleness of the underworld kings. The deceased are, after all, people whose lives have been completed. Even if the world after death continues, it will never be as lively as the world on earth. Therefore, they use this long journey to calm the restlessness of the souls, so that when they arrive at the underworld, they can quickly blend into tranquility and accept the fact that they are dead."

As Lü Wenjun listened to these words, he imagined countless souls drifting in the shadows over the centuries. They had no companions, no kind predecessors to explain, and could only fall alone in the silence.

In such a world, a moment feels like eternity.

"I feel a little sad," he said softly.

“Yes, death is never a pleasant thing,” Mingxiao said. “But we are the living. Those who live in the present should walk our own path!”

Her tone rose cheerfully, bringing brightness to the endless darkness. It was a dazzling stream of golden fire, the Bright King Fire floating like starlight, illuminating their path to the Underworld. Mingxiao moved closer to him, gripping his shoulders tightly.

In his bewilderment, Lü Wenjun almost had the illusion of being a little bird nestled against someone: "Senior sister?"

"Ready?" Mingxiao grinned mischievously. "Time to go bungee jumping!"

Sparks of fire gathered amidst the laughter, forming a massive wall of flames. She bent her legs and kicked at the flames, using the recoil to propel Lü Wenjun as they plummeted downwards!

A sound suddenly arose from the abyss—the howling of a fierce wind. The vast abyss rapidly expanded before Lü Wenjun, only to be extinguished just as quickly by the raging flames. Light and darkness alternated rapidly before his eyes, and the sudden impact caused him to involuntarily cry out. The speed was too great; even Hermes's flying shoes could not achieve such speed, like a burning star falling into the abyss.

Amidst the screams and the howling wind, he heard laughter. Mingxiao was laughing merrily, the firelight illuminating her profile and casting a brilliant golden hue over her long hair. She twirled with Lü Wenjun in the darkness, like an elf dancing wildly in the fire, her laughter carried on the wind to his ears: "Look, Wenjun! See those spirits? We've overtaken them all!"

"You can't catch up with them!" Hisamitsu chuckled.

Illuminated by the light, he finally saw other objects: specks of translucent light trailing as straight lines in the receding distance—the departed, slowly falling. He imagined the astonished looks on the faces of those spirits, and how they would desperately chase after them. In the eyes of the departed, they were probably insane; three inexplicable figures rampaging through the abyss, turning the peaceful path home as dazzling as a bustling marketplace.

He shouldn't have laughed; he should have said something more serious. But Mingxiao laughed so happily, her eyes sparkling in the firelight. That confident, lively laughter was infectious, like snuggling beside a bright fire.

Lü Wenjun then laughed heartily, secretly making a wish amidst the laughter and the sound of the wind.

I hope this road can be longer, so that this moment can last forever.

"Brake! Brake!"

He heard Jiuguang's shout and noticed a dark patch of color emerging from the shadows. The "ground" was rapidly expanding before them, and in just a few breaths they arrived at their destination. Mingxiao used the firelight to create several shimmering stepping stones, and she and Lü Wenjun leaped one after another, performing several somersaults with impressive skill before landing perfectly.

Lu Wenjun tried to steady his brain, which was being shaken together, and felt like a heroine who was rescued from a plane crash.

"This is way more fun than anything you've played before, isn't it?" Mingxiao asked.

"It was so exciting," said Lü Wenjun. "It was so exciting that I felt like throwing up."

"Hey, don't throw up on me." Mingxiao jokingly pushed him away. "That bastard Kano didn't say which floor's entrance it is. Let me scout it out first."

She nimbly leaped away, like an oversized, overly lively rabbit. Lü Wenjun covered his head and sat down on the spot, using the remaining Mingwang fire to make out his surroundings.

He sat amidst a cluster of gray buildings, their square structures reminiscent of tombstones, situated within a grid-like residential area divided by straight roads. Each building's entrance was adorned with eerie blue will-o'-the-wisps, every lantern identical in size, shape, and even brightness.

Lu Wenjun immediately understood the reason for exploring the area. The residential area of ​​the underworld resembled a three-dimensional graveyard. Although there were signs for residents in front of the buildings, you couldn't tell which way was which at all. It lacked character, color, and any sense of hierarchy.

"It looks really boring," Hisamitsu commented. "I guess it's the commoners' area? The area for the good people should be nicer."

"Do they still rank the deceased?" Lü Wenjun asked curiously.

“Of course they do, otherwise what would be the purpose of the Hades?” Hisamitsu said. “The first stop for the deceased in the Land of Souls is always the Grand Court, where the Hades from various cultural spheres and pantheons carry out a judgment based on the universal moral values ​​at the time of their death. This judgment will determine the destination of the soul.”

"Most ordinary people who live a mundane life will live here, working normally until they reach the second end. Some who did good deeds in their lives will go to the more comfortable Good People's Area, where they can choose whether or not to work. Those who have committed crimes will be judged accordingly and punished to go to the Land of Evil People. Those who have committed heinous crimes will be sent to the Avici Hell to suffer torture, where they will never be able to escape until their souls are scattered."

Lü Wenjun nodded: "So this is a large courthouse... called Wanlingfu, right? Which cultural sphere does it belong to?"

The term "secret realm" in the inner world basically refers to an autonomous domain established around a powerful individual. The powerful individuals who establish secret realms are usually great demons, great magicians, or even a deity; they are collectively referred to as "Lords of Secret Realms" in textbooks.

The origin of the master of a secret realm usually greatly influences the style of the secret realm, but in this godforsaken place called Wanlingfu, which is full of monotonous and boring tomb buildings, it is really hard to see any style.

"If you don't want to waste your breath explaining common sense, just ask Senior Mingxiao."

"If I could find someone, would I be asking you?"

Hisamitsu scoffed dismissively, “There are no cultural circles here, or rather, all cultural circles are contained here. Because the Palace of Ten Thousand Spirits is a large-scale public secret realm jointly maintained by all forces, where all the deceased and all the gods of death and the underworld are located.”

Lu Wenjun was astonished: "Such a grand gesture? Is the moral standard of our afterlife really that high? Has the world achieved racial unity even after death?"

"It has nothing to do with moral standards, it's just a matter of necessity," Hisamitsu said. "Thousands of years ago, everyone could take care of their own souls. You drank your Meng Po soup and I went to my Sanzu River. Occasionally, someone would die in a foreign land and just accept their bad luck. But in modern times, the frequency of communication between outside countries and the secret realms of the underworld has skyrocketed, and races, beliefs, and places of death are all in a mess. What is the most prevalent belief in the outside world now?"

"If we only look at the number of believers, Christ has more than 20 billion people."

"But the angels simply can't handle so many souls," Jiuguang scoffed. "To be precise, they couldn't keep up for hundreds of years. They were begging and pleading among the various secret realms, begging all the great gods and immortals to send some reinforcements. Heaven and Hell are already overloaded..."

Lu Wenjun's expression was subtle: "I find it hard to imagine the scene of an archangel flying to beg the Buddha... What were their own gods doing..."

"If there really was an omniscient and omnipotent god, there wouldn't be so many secret realms; the world would have been unified long ago." Hisamitsu scoffed. "In the end, no one wanted to see Heaven explode and the dead scattered everywhere, so they held a general meeting and discovered that the Hades kings of other forces were practically bored out of their minds. So they simply invited each Hades king to take their respective territories on a business trip, creating a super-sized, cobbled-together graveyard..."

"Watch your words, okay? Be serious!"

“This extra-large grave, once pieced together, is the Palace of Ten Thousand Spirits,” Jiu Guang concluded. “By the way, it’s said that Professor Ji spearheaded that meeting back then, so the Palace of Ten Thousand Spirits is located directly below our Great Secret Realm. That’s why your grandfather bumped into you as soon as he jumped down.”

"Well, this has come full circle!" Lu Wenjun felt a chill run down his spine. "So our school really is built on a cemetery..."

"This place also involves a lot of conventions about the afterlife, such as the ban on reincarnation and the natural death date of the deceased. It's complicated, so I won't go into details. If you want to know more, ask Mingxiao." Jiuguang yawned. "Should I log off later? I don't really want to be a third wheel."

"What did you say..." Lu Wenjun said with a wry smile, "Miss, you're overthinking it."

"It's rare for you to go out with Mingxiao. You're such an obvious otaku, and you still have the nerve to say I'm overthinking things?" Jiu Guangyin chuckled.

"Would you want to date a paramecium?" Lu Wenjun asked abruptly.

Hisamitsu was momentarily speechless, then awkwardly said, "To be honest, I've never been this harsh when I criticize you..."

“But it’s true. My senior is a legend, while I am an anomaly. She can easily flatten mountains, while I can barely lift a stone even with great effort. From the perspective of life, the difference between me and a paramecium is not that big for my senior,” Lü Wenjun said calmly.

"That's why I admire her so much. Not just because she treats me well, but also because I envy her strength, and even more so because of her carefree attitude towards life. She can do whatever she wants without worrying about the consequences. Her strength and personality allow her to live like a strong person... and I can't do that."

Hisamitsu was silent for a moment: "So, it's because you yearn for strength?"

“It’s because we yearn for her lifestyle that we want to reach out to her because she’s so far away,” Lü Wenjun said. “Paramecium would melt if it tried to get close to the sun. We’ll talk about that when we evolve into humans.”

He didn't mind telling Hisamitsu these things; after all, while the young lady had a sharp tongue, she wasn't so bad as to spread such things around. Besides, what difference would it make if she did tell? Hisamitsu was so oblivious and had such a steely nerve; she'd probably just laugh it off after hearing it.

Hisako found it increasingly strange as she listened. Lü Wenjun's talent was undeniable; even she had to admit he was an almost supernatural genius. Yet, this guy would occasionally display a strange inferiority complex, leaving everyone speechless.

This attitude made her feel quite bored. She hated dull atmospheres the most, so she unusually encouraged her, "Don't be so pessimistic... Sometimes people do take a liking to a majestic insect, just like those amorous gods in ancient Greece."

"Thank you for your kind words. I'll have the chance to learn a beauty enhancement technique later." Lu Wenjun stood up. "By the way, you just said that only the deceased are brought in for trial, right?"

"...Theoretically, yes."

"Could you please explain what's going on with this noise?"

They all heard a terrifying rumble, like a vast army marching in the distance. The tombstone-like buildings trembled violently, the shockwaves sending shivers down Lü Wenjun's spine. Fierce panting sounds spread through the darkness; the source of the noise was rapidly approaching.

"...Well, on the bright side, at least now you know who's in charge of this place," Hisamitsu said.

"Then why don't you look at it from a negative perspective?" Lü Wenjun said expressionlessly.

The cute and docile little creature leaped out of the darkness, carrying three large, furry, smelly heads. It was about 40 meters tall, like a vibrant, legged hill. Its three gaping mouths exhaled scorching breath, and thick green venom dripped from between its teeth like a lush green waterfall cascading down from the sky, corroding the surrounding buildings into dust.

Its six large eyes gleamed with sharp light, staring directly at the mortal before it. The fur on its back stood on end, and its roar stirred up a gust of wind strong enough to blow an ordinary person away!

Lu Wenjun screamed desperately in the howling wind, "Keke, don't eat me!!!"

Chapter 97 Stiller Cooper's Terrifying House

Regarding Cerberus, the guardian dog of the underworld in Greek mythology, there are three undeniable facts:

1. It has many heads. Hesiod says in the Theogony that it has fifty heads, while many later writers and poets say it has three. Considering that fifty heads would be difficult to distribute evenly and aesthetically on the upper part of its neck, Cerberus himself usually used only three heads.