Volume 2: Ren Ping Sheng Chapter 39: Examining the Spirit

  There was a power outage all day today, so this chapter's update is late, I'm deeply sorry!

  A strange scene suddenly appeared in front of Chen Jianchen, and he saw a small ghost carrying a huge stone step by step with difficulty.

  That huge boulder, like a small house, heavily pressed down on the little demon. On the surface of the stone, a large "镇" character was very conspicuous, and from time to time, sparks flew out, like flying sparks.

  The little demon carried it on its back, unable to break free, and showed a painful expression. It kept nodding towards Chen Jianchen, begging for mercy: "Lord Chen, spare my life! Please spare my life!"

  Chen Jianchen shouted: "You, this evil spirit, as the master of a piece of land, instead of bringing blessings to the people, you are making trouble with your ghostly powers. Whose orders are you following? How dare you be so reckless and lawless!"

  That little demon nodded like a chicken pecking at rice: "Please forgive me, sir. It was just my momentary confusion as a minor character, and I didn't receive any orders from the City God to secretly possess his soul..."

  Chen Jianchen's eyebrows rose: "Is it really so?"

  The little ghost made a bitter face: "This is absolutely true, how dare the humble one deceive the master? This matter still asks the master not to tell the City God."

  Chen Jianchen sneered coldly.

  He thought it was another intimidation measure from the Yin world against him, but he didn't expect it to be just a unilateral venting action by the Jingyang Village land.

  In the underworld, there are cases of Yang obeying Yin and minor officials abusing their authority. It turns out that this Yin world also has such things. Indeed, it is easy to worship a great god, but difficult to deal with a small ghost.

  Now is a good opportunity to interrogate him and get the information I need.

  "Hum, you're quite bold, land! You really are audacious!"

  Before interrogation, it's necessary to scare it first — Chen Jianchen deeply understands this principle.

  The little demon's face turned pale with fear, if the City God found out about this, it would be inescapable punishment, at best demoted and stripped of its official hat, or worse, its entire cultivation would be destroyed, falling into the 18th level of hell; but if these were just future consequences, then the current situation was even more urgent - it was pinned under a giant stone, if Chen Sword Minister didn't spare it, it would soon die, unable to even enter reincarnation, and it begged for mercy: "Lord, spare my life!"

  My intestines have turned green with regret.

  It thought that the City God would definitely send his capable subordinates, Ox Head and Horse Face, to deal with Chen Jianchen. No matter how hard Chen Jianchen struggled, he would not be able to escape the law; without this worry in the back of its mind, it could use its dark magic to torment Mo San Niang, which would also serve as revenge. As the saying goes, "the son repays the father's debts, and the mother avenges her child's grievances."

  This has always been a common means of punishment for those who dare to be disrespectful in all places, and it has always been effective.

  For example, if the son is unwilling to worship and offer incense, then through dreams or coercion, he enters his parents' spirit, so under their request, the son also has no choice but to come and kowtow; or by entering the soul of a child, making the elders fearful, they must offer incense.

  Various means, either gentle or violent, differ from person to person.

  The ultimate goal is just for a stick of incense...

  But the land of Jingyang Village was not expected, Chen Jianchen actually returned home safely and wrote a character on Mo Sanniang's bedside. The little ghost waited for Mo Sanniang to fall asleep and was about to use his old trick to intimidate her spirit, when he saw that the brushwork suddenly emitted light and instantly turned into a huge boulder, heavily pressing down on its back, almost crushing it into powder.

  Chen Jianchen gazed at him coldly and said, "You'd better tell me, how many more heinous crimes have you committed during your tenure as the landowner of Jingyang Village? If you dare to conceal even one thing, I'll make sure you won't escape with your life."

  The little demon spoke in a cunning tone: "Please, sir, I implore you to clearly discern that this humble one was only granted the position of managing the land of Jingyang Village two years ago and has truly not done anything to harm or oppress the common people..."

  Yes!

  Chen Jianchen let out a cold snort, his aura suddenly turning chilly.

  The little demon suddenly felt that the weight of the rocks on its back was increasing dramatically, and its shape seemed to have grown another circle, pressing down on its spine until it almost broke, its legs unable to support it, and with a thud, it fell to the ground.

  With a thud, only its head was exposed, and it let out a loud cry: "Spare my life, sir! I'll tell you, I'll tell you right now..."

  Under such circumstances, the little ghost dare not hide anything, and hurriedly poured out all the things he had done to extort incense offerings in more than a dozen cases.

  Chen Jianchen listened and felt a surge of anger - what kind of god of the land was this, who instead of protecting one side of the land, was actually a scourge to the neighboring villages.

  It's just that hooligans and thugs collect protection fees, while the land public collects incense and faith.

  Different in form, but essentially the same.

  Pity those country folk who suffer oppression and harm without realizing it, yet believe that ghosts and spirits are efficacious and offer them more sacrifices.

  Chen Jianchen suddenly thought of what Qingyun Daozhang said when he was holding the Painted Skin: "Most people are foolish, they think demons are beautiful..."

  With this sentence, Chen Jianchen can say to those ignorant villagers: "Obviously it's a bandit, but they think it's a god!" Not only do they worship with piety, but also wholeheartedly protect and defend, not allowing anyone to offend in the slightest. Those who offend are immediately condemned by these people, who show righteous indignation, truly laughable and pitiful.

  At this time, Chen Jianchen took advantage of his victory and pursued the enemy, asking about the situation in Yinsi.

  Although the little ghost's status was low and he didn't know much, Chen Jianchen still managed to get a lot of information he wanted from him.

  Yin Si, as the name suggests, is where the management of yin souls takes place.

  In this world, when a person dies, a yin soul appears. These yin souls are all governed and managed by the Yin Department - of course, there are also some unexpected situations where individual yin souls escape and run amok in the Yang realm, becoming evil spirits.

  Yin world is self-contained, with the same clear hierarchy. The upper layer has ten temples of Yanluo, the middle layer has judges, Heibai Wuchang and others, and below that are the city gods of various states and cities. As for the grassroots level, they exist as mountain spirits and land gods.

  The ghost wants to hold an official position, or wants to be reborn into a rich and noble family, then it must earn yin virtue, using a certain amount of yin virtue in exchange - of course, wanting to be an official in the underworld, one's own cultivation must also reach a certain level, for example, to become a land god, without the yin god realm is impossible; to become the City God, you need to have the Golden Elixir realm.

  The Netherworld has laws and regulations, which stipulate that the Netherworld shall not interfere with worldly affairs. However, as the saying goes, "Above there are laws to follow, below there are people who make their own rules." In order to gain incense and accumulate more good deeds in the underworld, the number of cases where the laws are violated is countless. Especially among the grassroots land gods and mountain spirits, those who truly uphold justice and discipline themselves strictly are extremely rare.

  Simply put, the world of Yin Si is a mirror image of the mortal world - this world does not have any so-called gods in the classical sense!