Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 115: Chen Huangpi, You've Been Found Out

Boom, boom, boom...

The Yama's corpse was truly wrenched from the dragon throne by Chen Huangpi's raw strength.

It felt like an ant toppling a mountain.

The Yama's corpse was not rigid.

Once Chen Huangpi pulled it from the throne, it slumped to the ground beside it.

Fortunately, there was no dust inside the grand hall.

Otherwise, the sheer force of that colossal body hitting the ground would have kicked up far more than a gale.

Mercifully, nothing else happened.

Chen Huangpi stood atop the dragon throne, gazing down at the countless ghost officials below, overcome by a feeling of standing upon the highest peak, surveying all the lesser mountains beneath him.

He even had the illusion.That if he gave the order right now, legions of ghost officials would obey his command.

Fortunately, after everything he'd been through, his willpower was extraordinarily firm.

He knew it was merely an illusion.

He would not be seduced by it.

The Brass Oil Lamp said, "Chen Huangpi, what are you doing sitting on the dragon throne? Get up this instant."

"Insolent, Huang Er! How dare you bark at Us?"

Chen Huangpi erupted in fury. "This throne was seized by Our own hands! What—do you wish to play the old game of 'the throne passes around, and this year it's my turn'?"

"Guards! Drag this Huang Er out and behead it!"

"You've lost your mind!"

The Brass Oil Lamp shrieked. "Haven't you noticed the throne is shrinking?! You're sitting right on top of the path back to the mortal world! This thing is cursed—get off it, now!"

At those words.

Chen Huangpi's expression shifted dramatically.

Only now did he realize that the once-enormous dragon throne had, at some point, become astonishingly small.

So small that his backside fit into it perfectly, as though it had been tailor-made for him.

It was indescribably comfortable.

And there was a seduction beyond words.

Something that made him loath to lift his rear even an inch.

No—it was genuinely difficult to get up.

Chen Huangpi felt as though his body had been fused to the throne, becoming one with it.

Now he recognized that something was terribly wrong.

"We won't sit anymore! We won't sit anymore...!"

Shouting, Chen Huangpi fought against that wrenching reluctance with everything he had. He gripped the throne's armrests and forcibly hauled himself to his feet.

"Huang Er, this throne has problems—major problems!"

"Nonsense!"

The Brass Oil Lamp was now seated on the dragon throne, livid with rage. "This throne belongs to Us! Whether it has problems or not—does Us not know better?! And you dare address Us by name?! That is treason of the highest order! Punishable by death!"

"Guards! Seize Chen Huangpi and execute him publicly at once!"

But there were no guards to be had.

The grand hall held only ghost officials, and those had been dead for who knew how many years.

They couldn't move a muscle.

Chen Huangpi's eyes blazed. He lunged forward and grabbed the Brass Oil Lamp by the head, hauling it downward. "Give Us back Our throne!"

"It is Ours!"

The Brass Oil Lamp clung to the throne for dear life, howling, "Our throne! Our treasure! Us shall die upon this throne if need be!"

"Contract Master, Huang Er—the both of you..."

The Life-reaping Ghost couldn't bear to watch any longer. It pleaded earnestly, "Haven't you two realized that this dragon throne has the power to bewitch the mind?"

"The Yama's corpse sat upon it and was drained into a hollow shell."

"How long do you think you could last? In mere moments, it'll suck your flesh and blood dry!"

"This dragon throne is an evil spirit!"

The Life-reaping Ghost had identified the problem and shouted, "Contract Master, pull Huang Er off right now! Neither of you can sit on this thing!"

The moment those words landed.

Chen Huangpi tore the Brass Oil Lamp off the throne by brute force.

He'd used every bit of his strength.

So much that his body staggered backward several steps.

This left the Life-reaping Ghost as the one now closest to the throne.

A flicker of intoxication passed through its dark-red eyes.

Then, before it even realized what had happened, it was already seated upon the throne.

"Leave this to Us!"

The Life-reaping Ghost intoned with regal grandeur. "We are the son of a Yama. One of you is a lamp, and the other isn't even human. What makes either of you worthy to compete with Us for the throne of power?!"

"Guards—"

"Return!"

Chen Huangpi slapped the Soul-Hooking Manual.

Before the Life-reaping Ghost could finish its sentence, it was involuntarily yanked into a streak of spectral light and sucked back into the Manual.

"Contract Master, I..."

The Life-reaping Ghost cried out in alarm, "Don't look at the throne! Don't look at it!"

Chen Huangpi didn't dare.

He stood with his back to the throne, heart hammering with terror.

That throne was beyond sinister.

Just getting close to it and glancing at it a few times was enough to fall under its influence.

Even his iron will couldn't resist it at all.

"The throne is Ours!"

The Brass Oil Lamp screamed, "Release Us! Release Us— Ahhh! Our eyes..."

"Chen Huangpi, why did you poke Us in the eyes?! That hurts!"

"'Us!' 'Us!' To hell with 'Us!'"

Chen Huangpi landed three punches on the Brass Oil Lamp, rattling it so thoroughly that it finally snapped back to its senses.

What followed was pure, bone-deep terror.

"What?!"

The Brass Oil Lamp curled up in Chen Huangpi's arms, shrieking, "That throne really is an evil spirit! Utterly sinister! I'm supposed to be the Nine Nether God Lantern—the most sinister and most evil of all—and it managed to bewitch my mind!"

"Chen Huangpi, did you see the path back to the mortal world?"

The throne could not be touched, nor even looked at.

Otherwise, one's mind would be compromised.

But the path home lay directly upon that throne. Without a solution, that path was a dead end.

Chen Huangpi said with a pained expression, "I was too busy calling myself 'Us' to look for any path."

"A Gui, what about you?"

"Contract Master, same here."

"Let me try!"

The Brass Oil Lamp said, "I didn't see it just now either, but if you hold onto me this time, I'll take one look. If my mind starts to waver, hit me—hard. I do not want to stay in this hellhole playing 'Your Majesty' for the rest of eternity!"

The taste of power was intoxicating.

Seductive. Something everyone chased after.

But the freedom of the mortal world held the Brass Oil Lamp's heart far more.

Chen Huangpi trusted the Brass Oil Lamp. He grabbed its body with both hands and let it stretch its head out, opening its eyes for a clear look.

"Our throne..."

"Ahhh! Eyes! My eyes...!"

"Did you see it?"

"The moment I look at the throne, I can't see anything else. One more try—I'll definitely see it clearly."

"Our throne..."

"Again..."

"..."

"Huang Er?"

Chen Huangpi frowned. "Why aren't you talking? Don't tell me I crushed your throat?"

"Chen Huangpi..."

The Brass Oil Lamp's teeth chattered with terror as it whispered, "If I told you the Yama's corpse has gotten up... that it's alive... would you believe me?"

"What?"

Chen Huangpi instinctively whipped his head around.

And there it was—the Yama's corpse, the one he'd dragged off the throne and left lying on the ground, was now crawling toward the throne.

The Yama's corpse was incomprehensibly massive.

After Chen Huangpi, the Brass Oil Lamp, and the Life-reaping Ghost—those three "emperors"—had each taken their turn sitting on it, the throne had shrunk far from its original size. Compared to the mountain-sized Yama, it looked pathetically tiny.

And yet...

The moment the Yama's fingers touched the throne.

The throne instantly expanded.

The headless Yama corpse—clad in black ceremonial robes embroidered with four-clawed true dragons—slowly, under Chen Huangpi's trembling gaze, lowered itself back onto the throne.

In the next instant...

The entire grand hall blazed with light.

Sickly green ghost-fire erupted in every corner.

On both sides, those headless ghost officials began to tremble in unison.

Then, one by one, they leaned forward. Though they had no heads, Chen Huangpi could feel with absolute certainty that those ghost officials were craning their necks toward him right now.

"Run!!!"

Chen Huangpi's blood ran cold. Terror consumed him.

Without a heartbeat's hesitation, he spun and bolted.

The Brass Oil Lamp was so frightened that it ignited every drop of lamp oil in its body at once.

Golden light flooded the entire grand hall in an instant.

"Singular Divine Light!"

A golden sun shot toward the grand hall's entrance in the blink of an eye.

Inside the hall, atop the dragon throne, the headless Yama's corpse stirred. Its throat bobbed several times.

And then a voice rang out—grim, hollow, dead. "The criminal Chen Huangpi has dared trespass upon the Yama Hall and shown contempt for this King. Where are the Day and Night Patrol Gods? Where are the Impermanence Ghost Envoys? Seize him at once!"

The words had barely settled.

Before Chen Huangpi could even react.

He felt a cangue clamp around his neck and iron chains wind around both wrists.

The Daoist robe he'd been wearing transformed into white prisoner's garb.

"Contract Master!"

The Life-reaping Ghost saw what was happening and burst out of the Soul-Hooking Manual immediately.

It realized what was about to occur. It tried to intervene.

But a whip lashed out and struck it viciously.

"Ahhh!"

The single crack of that whip shrank the Life-reaping Ghost's massive body by a third.

The Day and Night Patrol Gods and the Impermanence Ghost Envoys each seized one of Chen Huangpi's arms and ripped him straight out of the Singular Divine Light, dragging him bodily back into the grand Yama Hall.

"Huang Er, save me!"

"Chen Huangpi!"

The Brass Oil Lamp's eyes nearly burst from their sockets. It charged back like a raving lunatic.

But with a thunderous boom.

The grand hall's doors slammed shut. No matter how hard it threw itself against them, no matter what technique it used, they would not budge.

"A Gui! What are those things going to do to Chen Huangpi?"

"Sentencing..."

The Life-reaping Ghost said in despair. "Then they'll cast him into the eighteen layers of hell. Never to be reborn."

...

Inside the ghost-fire-shrouded grand hall.

The headless Yama sat upon the dragon throne, flanked on both sides by countless ghost officials.

The Day and Night Patrol Gods and the Impermanence Ghost Envoys dragged Chen Huangpi forward.

As for his cultivation—all of it had been suppressed by the cangue around his neck and the chains on his hands. He couldn't so much as lift a finger.

Perhaps out of sheer terror.

Perhaps because he sensed the danger.

Chen Huangpi shouted at the top of his lungs, "Injustice! This is injustice!"

The headless Yama spoke. "This King is the Yama of the Seventh Hall, guardian of the Town of Wrongful Death in the name of the Yin Emperor. You trespassed upon the Yama Hall and dared defy your superior. And yet you have the audacity to cry injustice? Do you not realize your death is upon you?!"

Chen Huangpi replied, "Your Majesty, I'm just a child! I don't know any better! I know nothing of the laws of the Yellow Springs and Yin Lands! As the saying goes, those who act in ignorance cannot be faulted. To condemn without first teaching—that is cruelty. Surely you are not so cruel?"

The headless Yama said impassively, "Where is the Judge?"

From the ranks of ghost officials on the right, one figure in court robes stepped forward, clutching a ledger. It first bowed to the headless Yama, then barked at Chen Huangpi, "Insolent brat! Sharp-tongued little wretch!"

"Know this—in the Yellow Springs and Yin Lands, ignorance itself is a grave offense!"

With that, the Judge flipped open its ledger. "State your name!"

"My name is Huang Er."

"Impudence! Giving a false name is a crime in itself. Your life's deeds are recorded clearly in this Soul-Hooking Manual, down to the last detail."

The ledger in the Judge's hands was, in fact, yet another Soul-Hooking Manual. It continued, "Surname Chen, given name Huangpi. Residence: the Pure Immortal Temple on Mount Yuqiong. A Daoist acolyte who claims ignorance of the laws of the Yellow Springs and Yin Lands—that compounds the offense."

"Hmm? The Soul-Hooking Manual contains no record of your registered origin?"

"How peculiar! How strange!"

The more the Judge read, the more wrong things seemed. By the end, its entire body had begun to tremble uncontrollably. It snapped the Manual shut.

Then, in a voice drenched with disbelief, it announced, "Your Majesty, this Chen Huangpi has been alive for seventeen thousand, six hundred years. And furthermore, he was dead for eighteen thousand years. Combined, that is over thirty-five thousand years."

"For all living beings, life comes before death."

"Yet this one has done it in reverse!"

"I know!!"

Chen Huangpi rushed to explain. "Your Honor the Judge, I used to be a dead egg! I only hatched later! And besides, you must have miscalculated my age—I'm only nine. Well, I should be twelve now. But twelve is still a child!"

"I've never been to school! I've never had proper education! I'm a mountain boy—you can't pin crimes on me!"

"Silence!"

The headless Yama said coldly. "In this Chen Huangpi's thirty-five thousand years of existence, how many grave offenses has he committed?"