Chapter 1 Mayhem

Perhaps, in the eyes of the lonely spirits and wild ghosts outside, the Yin Si (Underworld) is still a terrifying existence beyond reach. It sits high above, its tentacles spread throughout Hell and extending into the Yang Realm (the living world).

Its will is equivalent to the will of Hell.

However,

Outsiders often have a distorted view, much like the way the Yang Realm in recent years has erected barriers along highways to conceal dilapidated houses and unsightly views on either side of the road.

Only those inside can truly feel whether the foundation beneath their feet is solid.

Inspectors, especially those working in the Yin Si, can be considered middle-level cadres.

Among the ones Zhou Ze has encountered, Lawyer An constantly shouts, "The wind is rising, the wind is rising!" and Feng Si'er blatantly helps powerful figures in Hell with their private affairs. They have already made their choices, and like them, many others are also searching for their own lifeboats before this ship sinks.

Old Zhang Tou continued forward on his horse,

Entering from the mountain depression,

Inside, huge rocks were piled up, and the dark crevices gave one an uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

Old Zhang Tou dismounted and sat down, covering his abdomen with his hand. A faint purple light remained in that area, a remnant of his previous injury.

He participated in the interception of the deserters, but failed. If Geng Chen hadn't let him go, he might have already died.

It was he who told Geng Chen that the bookstore in Tongcheng could solve this trouble, at least allowing the trouble to be controlled by someone who could handle it.

However, Old Zhang Tou later tried to send messages from Hell to the coordinates of the bookstore in the Yang Realm, but received no response. Unfortunately, Lawyer An and the others were still in Rongcheng and had not returned.

Right now,

He couldn't help with anything else.

The reason he whipped his horse and came here,

Was also to see just how rotten the situation here had become.

Old Zhang Tou had this kind of spirit when he was alive, and he didn't change his nature after becoming a ghost. When everyone else was retreating, he chose to face forward and die.

With the current state of the Yin Si, if something else went wrong here, and those old immortals ran out again, it was estimated that the Yellow Springs Road would not be able to hold on again.

Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva remained behind closed doors in the rebuilt Buddhist hall, and only occasional thunderous sounds like Di Ting's snores could be heard from the mountain range.

Of the Ten Kings of Hell, King Equality, Lu, had fallen, and the Ninth Hall was still vacant. It was said that a Judge Lu wanted to take over the seal and reorganize the Ninth Hall, but before he could succeed, he and his confidants were buried in the Avici Small Hell under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Hall while suppressing it.

And the remaining nine Kings of Hell no longer cared about affairs. The indifference of the upper levels and the panic of the middle levels had caused a major problem in this originally majestic machine.

Old Zhang Tou rested for a while and walked a little further, stopping at the foot of a broken wall.

He was stunned,

Completely disbelieving

Everything he saw before him.

Yes, he was wrong. He previously thought the Yin Si was so absurd that even after something happened here, they still hadn't sent anyone over.

Actually,

People were sent,

Because on this wall,

Were hung full of corpses.

In the very center was a man wearing red official robes, nailed to the rock wall. His soul had long since withered, but his form was still preserved.

It was somewhat like someone who truly knows how to eat shrimp, able to eat all the shrimp meat while still preserving the integrity of the shrimp shell.

Old Zhang Tou recognized this person. He was a judge under King Chujiang of the Second Hall, known for his violent temperament and extreme cruelty towards his subordinates, but he was highly appreciated by King Chujiang.

The Yin Si's system was actually very simple. The original Ten Kings of Hell were like ten feudal kings, each establishing their own government offices and having their own territories and administrative responsibilities, as well as their own bureaucratic and military systems.

But there was also a central system responsible for overall operation. This system had the largest number of people and the greatest responsibilities, but it was also the least authoritative.

Old Zhang Tou belonged to this system. Lawyer An and Feng Si'er also belonged to this system. Some people wanted to join the Ten Kings of Hell but there were no vacancies. Of course, many others were happy to take it easy.

The corpse of a judge was nailed to the rock wall.

Beside him were more than twenty inspectors in official robes and the remains of hundreds of constables and ghost soldiers, neatly arranged like specimens.

This force should have been sent out by the Yin Si after the deserter's incident. Old Zhang Tou estimated the time he had spent recuperating and calculated that these people should have arrived here just a little faster than him, but the result was a complete annihilation.

Old Zhang Tou wasn't afraid of anything. Anyway, the Old Zhang family had a glorious tradition from him down, and he didn't mind being glorious once more. He was just curious, since the deserter had already taken away part of the origin of the haozhi (a mythical beast), then who was continuing to kill Yin Si officials here?

This extremely western sealed land was becoming less and less like a prison, and more like an entertainment plaza where anyone could come and go, even dance a square dance.

Without turning back, Old Zhang Tou continued forward. In a shallow beach nearby, there were also hundreds of corpses, including another judge that Old Zhang Tou recognized.

This judge's surname was Chen, and he was known for his unyielding character. He had criticized the Ten Kings of Hell for holding their positions without doing anything and criticized Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva for ruining the foundation of the Yin Si, shouting about how the upper beam was not straight and the lower beam was crooked.

Then he was kicked around like a ball and sent here, becoming the head of the Yin Si guards in this extremely western land before the incident.

The deserter had appeared, but he certainly hadn't deserted, so he died.

A group of people who were unwilling to desert were also killed together.

Old Zhang Tou sighed, picked up the wine pot he carried with him, and sprinkled some on the ground. The wine of Hell had the effect of intoxicating souls. He wasn't trying to mourn anyone, nor was he trying to show off. After all, the wine might not even be dry before he had to explain himself here. He was just setting up a sacrificial wine for himself in advance.

"Woooooo..."

Howls came,

And it was difficult to tell whether it was the mountain wind or a truly terrifying being unable to bear the loneliness and howling.

The only thing that could be seen

Overhead,

Was a layer of faint blood mist,

Spreading, diffusing,

Like a ferocious beast, opening its bloody mouth and slowly swallowing this vast expanse into its mouth.

Old Zhang Tou looked around, very vigilant, but nothing really happened, except that the sky above seemed to have changed color.

The surroundings began to quiet down again.

Continuing forward,

Old Zhang Tou saw a huge cave,

The entrance was extremely smooth.

This was a sign that the seal here had been destroyed, and a terrifying being had broken out!

However,

When he got closer, Old Zhang Tou found that in the ditch outside the cave entrance, what he had previously thought were fragments of stone were actually half the body of a giant python.

Because the flesh and blood had long been eroded away, leaving only the bones that were the same color as the rocks, it was really difficult to distinguish at first.

Runes remained on the bones. This should also have been a being that once roamed Hell, but at this moment, it had fallen here.

So,

Was this cave also created by it when it broke the seal?

If it had broken the seal, how could it have died here?

Old Zhang Tou couldn't understand. It clearly wasn't killed by the guards outside or the officials who had rushed over. It wasn't that Old Zhang Tou looked down on them, but…

A judge, leading a group of officials, might be able to maintain the situation and stabilize it, but wanting them to lead a team to kill an ancient ferocious beast was simply impossible.

Moreover,

Those people were dead,

It couldn't be said that they had all died together here, could it?

Did this giant snake nail them to the rock wall and then suddenly feel that life had lost its purpose after coming out, and then committed suicide?

Old Zhang Tou climbed over the snake's body and came to the cave entrance. He suddenly discovered that at the cave entrance, there were actually several huge footprints. When he was standing far away, the footprints were mixed with the stones and difficult to distinguish. After getting closer, the subsided parts and the broken stone parts could be clearly distinguished as traces of footprints.

Obviously,

Snakes don't have footprints.

Old Zhang Tou only felt his scalp tingling.

How many ferocious beasts had broken out of the seal?

And were so abundant that they could play a game of mutual slaughter here?

Old Zhang Tou walked inside. He had completely let go and started having fun. He went wherever it was dangerous. When a person didn't care about their life anymore, they were truly fearless.

Walking inside for a while,

The cave was quite deep,

The further in he went, the more he felt a humid atmosphere,

A stream of hot air constantly swept out.

Old Zhang Tou stabilized his body and continued inward along the rock wall.

Soon,

He saw a coffin, lying in the center of the deepest part of the cave!

This was a purple coffin, with restrained brilliance. Just looking at it gave one the urge to submit.

Old Zhang Tou had to avoid the area where the coffin was located. He was really worried that he would kneel in front of this coffin and never get up again.

However,

When he forcibly turned his gaze to the other side of the depths,

He saw a huge black ape crouching there, with its eyes closed, as if it were sleeping. The warm breath he had sensed when he came in was from this ape's nostrils!

So, was the one who killed the giant python and left footprints at the cave entrance this ape?

Under the ape, there was also a purple stone tablet, with a line of vigorous and ancient characters engraved on it:

"The Resting Place of Mount Tai"

Old Zhang Tou's eyes widened,

His mouth was wide open,

The Yin Si had excavated the tombs of several generations of Mount Tai lords and even used their coffins as war weapons to summon the return of the dead, but there were two Mount Tai lords who did not leave behind tombs.

One was the last Mount Tai lord, who disappeared.

The other was the first Mount Tai lord. No one knew where he was buried.

So,

The first Mount Tai lord, who ended the era of turmoil in Hell,

After sealing those giants who caused trouble here,

Also used this place,

As his own tomb!