Volume 2 Chapter 15 Rules of Reincarnation
After coming out of the management office, I had nowhere to go for the time being, and suddenly I remembered the line of small words: use the water of the Forgotten River to repair the magic bottle. Anyway, I was here, so I might as well go to the Forgotten River.
I have just asked the registrar for directions to the Wangchuan River. There are nine streets in the underworld, called the "Nine Netherworlds". Each street is divided into different levels, just like the rich and slums in the world. The streets where the rich ghosts live are bustling and lively , while the poor ghosts can only squeeze into the "refugee camp" tents.
The underworld is very vast, and we cannot imagine its entirety just by looking at a street. Because we have walked along this street for so long, and we still can't see the end, I heard that Jiuyou Street is 108,000 miles long. Whether it is true or not, we can only know it after we have walked along it.
Below the Nine Netherworlds are the Eighteen Levels of Hell, which are called the Nine Netherworlds and Eighteen Hells in the world of the living. In fact, they are separate and not the same thing.
The Wangchuan River is at the easternmost end of the underworld, and the Yellow Spring Road comes from the west. To get there, we have to cross the Jiuyou Street. If it is really a distance of 18,000 miles, we can't fly or float, so when will we get there?
Shen Bing and I walked on the dark street. In addition to the houses on both sides of the street, there were also many shops, most of which were taverns, and only a few sold daily necessities. The underworld was similar to a military camp, where soldiers often came and went, and most of them could not stay for long before reincarnating. Therefore, only a few people stayed here. Some daily necessities were burned and sent by relatives, and the sales were not large.
On the contrary, taverns are popular with ghosts. Life in the underworld is very boring, and using wine to numb the days is better than anything else. However, there is another good place in the underworld, that is the brothel!
This street looks deserted, it must be a middle-class street. If you want to find a brothel, you probably have to go to the middle-class streets, where the shops are more diverse than on this street. I am still a virgin in the world of the living, and it is even more impossible to find a ghost prostitute to lose my virginity in the underworld. But I heard that ghost prostitutes are much more attractive , and I feel itchy when I think about it.
Going further, you will see many inns. These inns are doing good business. New ghosts who cannot get land immediately and do not have their own houses have to live here. Only those lonely ghosts who have no one to worship will live in the tents in Refugee Street.
I walked to the door of a pub and unexpectedly ran into the drunk guy from last time. His name was Ma Dawen. Later, I gave him some paper money for the dead, and this guy came to my shop to thank me. He staggered out of the pub, and it seemed that he was drunk. When he saw me, he immediately recognized me, walked up to me, held my hand and asked, "Brother, why are you here again? What do you want to do this time?"
"I want to go to the Wangchuan River to do something. How far is it from here?" I was very happy to see him, feeling like meeting an old friend in a foreign land.
He shook his head and said, "Yeah, everyone says it's a long way. How far is it? I haven't walked there either. But those who have queued up didn't walk there."
I asked him, "How do we get there? Fly?"
"No, the Reincarnation Management Office will send you there, and you'll be there in the blink of an eye. Otherwise, they're in a hurry to give birth, and you'll have to travel tens of thousands of miles, which will only delay things, right?" Ma Dawen said with a twitch of his tongue.
That's true. The woman over there is about to give birth. If you walk over like this, she will definitely die in childbirth. I'm afraid you will have to come back before you even reach the end of the place.
I asked him where the reincarnation management office was, and he enthusiastically took us across a street to a dilapidated thatched house. He pointed here and said that this was the reincarnation management office.
Damn, what a shabby place. The street is so dirty and even more deserted than the street just now. It must be a low-class street. And the house is even more shabby than the management office. Why are all the functional departments of the underworld so shabby? Ma Dawen saw through my thoughts and laughed softly, "This shabby thatched house was built after the underworld was established. After so many tens of thousands of years, it has not been rebuilt, but the business is very popular. The door can be kicked down every day."
That's right, although the street was deserted, the door of the broken thatched house was crowded with ghosts, and they were pushing forward as if they were fighting for prizes. The scene was very chaotic. Suddenly, I saw Ding Ruiyun among the ghosts. She was half-sitting on the ground, squeezed to the outside.
When she went up to ask, she found out that after the Black and White Impermanence took her to register, because she had not gone to the underworld for half a year after her death, the property sent by her family was deposited in the bank, and now the account could not be found. She had no money, was injured, in pain and hungry, so she was anxious to line up to be reincarnated.
Ma Dawen snorted and said, "Didn't you ask the people here who have been waiting in line for years without getting a number?"
Ding Ruiyun shook her head. She had just arrived and didn't understand the rules here. Ma Dawen said that it was not that he didn't want to reincarnate, but that the registration here was too unfair. Because there was a certain number of children born in the world every day, they allocated quotas according to this number, but these quotas fell into the hands of powerful ghosts every day, and only a small number of them were given to the ghosts in front of them. As a result, some people couldn't get a number even after queuing for many years, let alone a female ghost like her with injuries, and she wanted to reincarnate immediately, which was really a daydream.
Shen Bing glared and asked, "Where do those powerful ghosts come from?"
Ma Dawen said that they were all nobles on the high street. They controlled 80% of the economic lifeline of the entire underworld. They lived more freely and happily here than in the world of the living. Therefore, they did not want to reincarnate, but only wanted to make money. They bribed the people in charge of the management office to take away most of the quotas, and sold them to those rich ghosts at high prices, making a lot of money. Those who lined up in the management office were all poor ghosts.
After hearing these words, Ding Ruiyun's face turned dark and he started crying out of grievance.
Although she wanted to kill me, she was badly hurt by my copper coin array. Now she was crying, which made me feel sorry for her. I said to Ma Dawen, "Do you have any money left? Please buy us something to eat first. I will burn some money for you when I get back."
Ma Dawen blushed immediately, and after digging in his pocket for a long time, he pulled out a crumpled 100 million yuan bill, and said with a wry smile, "This is all I have left, just enough for you three to have a meal of steamed buns." Damn, he must have spent all the money on drinking. Maybe he even went to a brothel.
That's fine, having buns is better than being hungry. We returned to the street we were just on, and Ma Dawen went into the pub and bought me five buns. Shen Bing and I were not hungry, so we gave all to Ding Ruiyun. She grabbed the buns and ate them ravenously. Shen Bing and I both stared at her. How long has this woman not eaten? Don't overeat.
After she finished eating, she looked much better. I said that it would be better to go to Ma Dawen's house instead of standing on the street. Ma Dawen hesitated for a long time before saying, "To be honest, I have a habit of drinking and visiting brothels. I sold my house last year and usually live in a tent on Refugee Street."
I had guessed right about this guy, a playboy who didn't do his job properly. We sat on the side of the road to take a break and think about where to stay today.
Shen Bing was no longer afraid of Ding Ruiyun. She sat next to her and asked, "Where are you from? How did you die?"
Ding Ruiyun looked at me and said, "I'm from Shangcheng Town, and Fan Xiaobing is my husband..."