Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Unpredictable, Part 2

Spirit-Sealing Academy is a rare building with floors above and below ground, five floors above ground, and five floors below.

The first three underground floors store current world data.

The fourth underground floor is the archives.

The fifth underground floor is completely sealed off, constructed with formation foundations, suppressing the "Institute Formation" that protects most of the city of Jinling.

"..." Ming Yue stood at the entrance to the underground stairway, staring at the floor directory.

The fifth underground floor was only marked with the words "Institute Formation."

It reminded her of the chaotic last semester, everything that happened at the Medical College.

In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.

The Ghost Festival was approaching.

After participating in the summer training camp, she would soon be assigned her internship location for the Ghost Festival.

The elevator was empty, with only Ming Yue inside.

It was summer vacation, and there were few people in the academy. She was the only one in the elevator, and she was also the only one to exit from the fourth underground floor.

As the elevator doors opened, a damp, musty air filled the space, the humidity far surpassing any summer rain that would come to the surface.

Right in front of her was a gray wall, rough and thick, completely blocking the view from the elevator.

Anyone who didn’t know better would think that the entire floor was being demolished and was about to undergo renovations.

"Damn, couldn’t they have made it look better?" Ming Yue muttered, inserting the blood-stained key into the lock. Following the instructions from the academy network, she turned it three times to the left, five times to the right, and on the final turn, she pricked her finger, leaving a small drop of blood in the palm of her right hand. A faint flash of sunlight flickered, and a series of booming sounds echoed from below—the sound of the door opening. But in front of her, the concrete wall didn’t budge.

The ground trembled, and the vibration grew closer. The concrete wall moved aside, and the oppressive cold air hit her, making her want to vomit.

Ming Yue: "..."

She stepped into the elevator box, ready to rush out at the first sign of trouble. Three seconds later, the concrete wall was still open, and she proceeded inside.

The passage was vast, with layers upon layers of large doors standing tall—no fewer than eighteen gates. In front of every two gates, there stood a statue of a deity from the underworld. No, a ghost statue.The ghost statues were not like the ones tourists in Fengdu might imagine, resembling the typical gods and spirits, but were instead carved to accurately reflect the appearances of the various ghosts in the underworld.

As Ming Yue passed each ghost statue, its eyes would open, staring at the living who passed by.

Ming Yue walked further in, comparing the statues to the titles of the powerful beings in the underworld, which she silently recited in her mind.

First Hall, King Qin Guang, who oversees human lifespan and death.

Second Hall, King Chu Jiang, who rules over the Great Earth Hell.

Third Hall, King Song, who rules over the Black Rope Hell.

Fourth Hall, King Wu Guan, who governs the Blood Pool Hell.

Fifth Hall, King Yan Luo, who rules over the Heart Piercing Hell, and was once the "Bao Qing Tian" (a famous righteous official) in the human world.

Sixth Hall, King Bian Cheng, who governs the City of Wrongful Death.

Seventh Hall, King Tai Shan, who rules over the Mortar and Meat Sauce Hell.

Eighth Hall, King Du Shi, who rules over the Hell of Annoyance.

Ninth Hall, King Ping Deng, who oversees the Iron Net Abyss Hell in Fengdu.

Tenth Hall, King Zhuan Lun, who reviews the ghosts from each hall, distinguishing between good and evil, assigning their levels, and determining their reincarnation in the Six Paths of Samsara.

The Wheel-Turning King is the last of the powerful beings before entering the records section.

Ming Yue gazed at the five-meter tall statue of the ghost, who had a pale face with no forehead lines, short whiskers on the mouth, holding a memorial tablet, his cold eyes opening as he locked eyes with Ming Yue.

Ming Yue felt a pang in her heart.

"Not at all like him," she muttered.

"You're much better looking in your next life, older brother."

Upon entering the archives, the entrance automatically logged the visitor’s information. Ming Yue noticed the recording method was strange—it didn’t write the student number or full name, but instead just recorded the Eight Characters, Age, and Surname.

Rows of black bookshelves reached up to the ceiling, with yellowed booklets neatly stacked on the shelves. A faint cold air swirled around the bookshelves, making one want to sneeze.

Looking further inside, there were many other strange forms of information recording mediums.Bundles of bamboo slips, all preserved in ice cages.

Silk, stone, tortoise shells, human bones, animal bones, and even specimens of old blood samples that have been stored for who knows how many years, along with corpses, etc.

All of these could be used to record the history of the Yin-Yang world.

Ming Yue stared at the corpses lying on the platform: "......"

She didn't know how they were preserved.

They were covered in dark ink lines drawn in crisscross patterns, tightly binding their muscles, preventing them from turning into corpses.

No wonder they say the archives cannot be open to the public. Look at this—if someone didn’t know better, they might think the Spirit-Sealing Academy was hiding traces of murder.

Ming Yue, feeling a sense of gratitude, quickly bowed to the predecessors who had likely been lying here for years, and then continued forward.

The records section was not hard to find.

Ming Yue checked the time.

Six hours. She divided the remaining 340 minutes into segments of 60 minutes each, setting a timer for each hour to prevent herself from getting too absorbed in one section and forgetting the other things she needed to find.

First, the record of Bai Wuchang.

The location was positioned earlier than the Ten Halls of Hell. Ming Yue arrived at the file rack and saw the record of Bai Wuchang's daily accounts in mid-air, written in black ink. The pages automatically flipped, recording the many aspects of Bai Wuchang's work at unknown depths in the underworld:

"……July 2nd, in the Falling Red District of Jinling City, 72 people came, 83 people left..."

The next part was the detailed records of each case.

At a specific time and location, a living soul's name would be recorded, along with a brief summary of how the soul was successfully claimed.

Occasionally, there would be a few lines of conversation between Wuchang and the living souls.

"Coming" refers to birth, and "going" refers to death.

Understanding this, Ming Yue took out her phone to check the lunar calendar.

Today was the 3rd of July.

Following the clues, Ming Yue quickly found the record for Bai Wuchang from 2007.

The pages were old yet sharp. As she pulled the page down, it quickly cut across her palm, leaving a bloodstain. It quickly formed a small blood spot on the first page.Ming Yue didn’t mind. If she wanted to read these precious records, there would definitely be traces left behind. Otherwise, if something went wrong later, it would be impossible to track down the person responsible.

The 2007 record of Bai Wuchang was neither thick nor thin, nowhere near as substantial as the 2008 volume.

The July section.

Ming Yue's heart raced. She sniffed and cursed herself for being useless, then started flipping the pages from the right, searching one by one.

"July 14th, Jinling City, Pujiang District, 107 people left, 87 people arrived."

"July 14th, Jinling City, Falling Red District, …"

"July 14th, Fengdu, 46 people left, 23 people arrived."

"July 14th, Imperial Capital, Haidian District, 356 people left, 270 people arrived."

Twelve years ago, the Ming family was still in the Imperial Capital, but her father always took her older brother around.

Ming Yue finally found her brother Ming Ye's name in the sixth entry of the Haidian District record.

"July 14th, Imperial Capital, Haidian District."

"At the third watch, Haidian East, Ming Ye, a dual-soul body occupying another’s, unjustly deceased."

"Encountered obstruction."

"Living soul sent to the Sixth Hall to manage the Wraith City, awaiting reincarnation."

"Blood relatives' flesh used as a seal, body preserved in the world."

Only a few dozen words.

Ming Yue felt tears fall onto the pages of the book. The tears, tainted with Yang energy, caused the paper to sizzle and burn. Ming Yue snapped to attention, hurriedly wiping it off in panic.

The daily record only recorded the facts.

Such a brief few sentences made Ming Yue’s heart ache like a knife.

"Encountered obstruction."

"Bai Wuchang's soul-taking encountered obstruction."The cause of her father’s death all those years ago was truly because of the Wheel-turning King.

"……"

Ming Yue sat on the floor, leaning against the bookshelf, staring at the ceiling above her where dark mist swirled. Her head spun as if the world was upside down.

Zhou Lu's explanation had already been very clear.

The cycle of reincarnation could not swallow the souls of kings like the King of Hell.

So, there were only two possible outcomes.

One: the Reincarnation Pool produced a fissure and collapsed.

Two: the soul was weakened, barely managing to persist.

Now, combining the historical records, it was likely that both results occurred simultaneously.

The Reincarnation Pool overloaded from swallowing the Wheel-turning King, causing it to collapse.

The Wheel-turning King’s strength was severely weakened by the Reincarnation Pool and ultimately succeeded in reincarnation.

But, but.

Ming Yue wiped the tears from her face, gritted her teeth, and her lips trembled.

A mere mortal’s body could never endure the soul of a King of Hell, tempered for millennia in the underworld—even if that soul had been weakened countless times, it was still impossible.

My elder brother, you sacrificed your body and talent, and were filled with the purest Yin energy. How could you have opened the Yin-Yang eyes?

My father, you, with your sense of responsibility towards the cycle of reincarnation, brought in evil spirits. But things developed far beyond expectations. The bloodline of the living contains Yang energy, and the Yin-Yang energy of blood relatives can be shared. What did you do, father, to seal the soul of the Wheel-turning King?

The words "blood relatives’ flesh used as a seal" pricked at Ming Yue’s eyes, stabbing deep into her heart like needles.

She touched her Yin eye, and a conjecture surfaced in her mind.

It’s fine.

Ming Yue thought to herself.

Even if it’s true, if my guess is right.I don’t blame you anymore, older brother.

You are the blood and sweat of our entire family of four. I will definitely protect you well.

The Wheel-turning King’s daily records were incredibly boring to read.

Most of it was about how this guy managed the Reincarnation Pool every day, calculating how many souls he sent in, working with Cui Jue to “reconcile” the ledger of life and death, tallying up the karmic merit and hindrances of each soul, performing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, deciding which soul should enter the path of animals, which should go to hell, what kind of hell, and which had good fortune and would be reincarnated as a human in the next life.

Ming Yue looked at it, tears almost making her laugh and cry at the same time.

Older brother...

Is this really how you’ve been living for all these millennia?

No wonder, someone like father, with his personality, could “successfully flirt” with you.

Ming Yue flipped through the Wheel-turning King’s daily records from the 1980s, laughing and sighing as she read.

Her guess was correct.

The records indeed detailed everything clearly. Between the lines, she could trace the cause-and-effect relationship between Ming Dihai and the Wheel-turning King.

"In the year 1984 of the mortal world, the Demon Slayer Ming family made a mistake with the Yin-Yang Path and entered Fengdu’s Avici Hell."

"Pingdeng King captured him and handed him over to the Wheel-turning King."

"One day later, the Wheel-turning King ordered Cui Jue to return Ming’s soul to the living."

Ming Yue: "????"

Why did Pingdeng King, who controls the Fengdu Hell, hand father over to the Wheel-turning King?

If we follow this logic, does that mean the Wheel-turning King is… the superior of Pingdeng King?

Or? Is the Wheel-turning King the actual ruler of Fengdu?

Also, after reading these records for hours, why is there no mention of the ruler of Fengdu, “Emperor of the Northern Yin” at all?

Ming Yue was puzzled beyond belief.The administrative system of the underworld seems simple, but in reality, it is likely quite different from what it appears on the surface.

For example, Fengdu, one of the birthplaces of the underworld, predates the underworld itself. However, for some inexplicable reason, over the last few centuries, it has gradually been stripped of its power—originally, the Ghost City was the primary administrative center, but now, its main function has become overseeing one of the many hells.

Discussions in the mortal world about this are all over the place, with all kinds of wild guesses.

Six hours passed.

Ming Yue left the archives on time, turning to watch the cement wall slowly close behind her.

She had finished reading everything.

She understood a lot, but she also had new questions.

Some things she could control, others she could not.

However, the most important thing she could investigate was her problem with the Yin Eye.

Ming Ye had always emitted yin energy instead of yang energy, and Ming Yue knew this.

Since she was little, her older brother’s hands had never been warm, cold like ice.

The key question was whether the yin energy within him had... any part that was of the same origin as Ming Yue's?

If it did, it could only prove one thing.

Her Yin-Yang Eyes, which were imbalanced, had been perfect when she was young. Then something happened, and someone “took” them away. Now, the incomplete Yin Eye resided within Ming Ye.

Even though they were blood relatives, they wouldn't have the exact same yin-yang energy, much like organ transplants—blood relatives are extremely similar, but never exactly the same.

Thinking this through, Ming Yue took out two vacuum-sealed manifestation talismans from her bag.

Both talismans had been used before, one covered in black, displaying yin energy.

One was the sample of yin energy Ming Yue had collected from Ming Ye's study when she visited home.

The other was the result of her own painstaking effort, collecting the yin energy from the tears that had formed in her withered left eye.

Next came the moment to witness the miracle.

"......"

Ming Yue took out her phone and called Zhou Jingren, who was in her contacts."Senior, it's me, Ming Yue from the first year."

"I'd like to ask you for a favor."