Chapter 54: Reincarnation

Li Ang said calmly, "That's quite a melodramatic story."

"It is melodramatic," Zou Zhengze smiled and said, "When I came to terms with it and returned to that city, I found out that she had completely left, and I started looking for her traces, wanting to apologize to her for once.

It's just that when I heard about her again, it was already twenty years later.

Naturally, she had become a wife, a mother, and I didn't hate her for it. On the contrary, I felt genuinely happy for her and blessed her.

I began collecting their household trash. People can lie and deceive, but their trash does not.

I saw her kitchen waste and knew she still liked to have millet porridge for breakfast, still liked sweet and sour ribs and sautéed meat with mushrooms. I saw her shopping tags and knew she still liked to use Bee Flower Sandalwood Soap and Peony Hand Cream. I knew they would go to a concert hall once a month, and every Wednesday night, they would dance slowly in the living room to the music from the vinyl record player.

Seeing her living well made me very happy."

"If that's really the case," Li Ang asked, "why would you then attempt to harm them?"

"Just like I said before... it's because of love."

Zou Zhengze gave a bitter smile, "Do you know about the Chinese Heterodox Academy?"

Li Ang nodded.

The Heterodox Academy or Society of Extraordinary Matters and Phenomena, traceable back to the Qin and Han dynasties, is one of the earliest superhuman organizations in this country formed by Slaughter Game Players.

Ancient "Necromancers," or "Players," naturally established contact and communication with the rulers after acquiring superhuman powers. Since the royal family also possessed top players, the necromancers' several attempts at usurpation ended in failure, and ultimately, under the auspices of the royal Transcendents, an organization named the Heterodox Academy was established.

This organization was loyal only to the current rulers. When the Slaughter Game began, and Spiritual Energy resurged, the Heterodox Academy was responsible for recruiting civilian players, assisting the royalty in eliminating demons roaming the world.

When the Slaughter Game ceased, and Spiritual Energy withered, the Heterodox Academy was responsible for compiling books, mapping demon atlases and mission records, and trying to bypass the Slaughter Game to document and pass on superhuman powers under conditions of depleted Spiritual Energy.

It could also be understood as preaching.

After the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Slaughter Game started less frequently and on a smaller scale, which denoted the withering of Spiritual Energy and gradual recession of superhuman elements.

The necromancers of the Heterodox Academy had bamboo scroll heritages. Although they were not like fish in a dried-up pond waiting to die of thirst, they couldn't develop much either, and their presence became more negligible.

By the end of the Ming and beginning of the Qing, with the country in decline and Immortal Path Termination at hand, the Heterodox Academy was left with nothing but a couple of cats, and a warehouse of bamboo scrolls covered in dust in the Forbidden City.

New rulers who had never experienced the surge of Spiritual Energy held a passive or even negative attitude towards the work of the Heterodox Academy; a large number of bamboo scrolls were lost or destroyed, and the Slaughter Game's mission logs, the transmission of superhuman powers, and the demon atlases were thus lost to history.

Only when "ten thousand branches of willow greened in the spring wind, and all the realms under heaven renewed," did the almost decaying Heterodox Academy finally regain vitality, collecting the scattered bamboo scrolls amidst the widespread destruction of mountains and temples, replenishing the records.

Seven months ago, when the Slaughter Game started on a large scale again, the Heterodox Academy, with its good historical reputation, stepped back onto the historical stage as an intelligence support institution assisting the Special Affairs Bureau with its work.

It can be said that the existence of the Heterodox Academy is a blessing and a boon from its long history, a legitimate and reasonable innate advantage at the strategic layout level for the nation's machinery.

After all, it had a glorious past.

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Even in forums, where most players gathered, the Heterodox Academy still belonged to the most mysterious and unpredictable of ancient organizations, the kind that came with an awesome retro soundtrack and had a reputation meter that was pegged at full.

But what does that have to do with you, Zou Zhengze?

Facing Li Ang's puzzled gaze, Zou Zhengze sighed, "Just yesterday, I entered someone's scripted mission mode. After eliminating the resentful spirit of an ancient necromancer, I discovered a huge secret about the Heterodox Academy.

Besides recruiting players from the public, exterminating demons, and compiling books, they are also burdened with a heavy responsibility—that is, guarding death."

Guarding, death?

Li Ang faintly felt as if he had grasped the overall essence of something.

"As a player of the Slaughter Game, you must have killed modern resentful spirits, right? Aren't you curious why those resentful spirits told you that the afterlife is empty, with no Ghost Officials to catch them, no Underworld Yin Court to judge, no Six Paths of Reincarnation?"

Zou Zhengze spoke with a foreboding tone: "Because ever since the penultimate large-scale Slaughter Game ended, the entire Underworld Yin Court has been missing for over five hundred years.

Ever since then, the Six Paths of Reincarnation completely halted. When mortals die, their souls are unable to reincarnate. Instead, they fly towards the Extreme North Outer Space, where they are ground into pure Soul Fragments, stirred evenly, and remolded into a brand-new soul that doesn't belong to themselves."

At this point, Zou Zhengze's face showed fear, his body trembling uncontrollably, "As long as the Six Paths of Reincarnation operated, no matter how many times a soul went through reincarnations, drank Mengpo Soup, walked the Netherworld Path, and crossed the Spider Lily Sea,

death, rebirth, revival,

the memories would change, but the essence of the soul would not. You would still be you."

Between life and death, there is great horror. All human civilizations around the world, in the course of their historical development, hold the most devout fear and reverence for the afterworld.

From ancient times to the present;

From the barbaric Cannibal Tribes of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific to the modern American New York Metropolis;

From the war-torn Middle East to the solemn and sacred Vatican.

In different eras, different languages, different cultures, different races, and even different educational levels, all humans believe, deeply believe, and hope in the existence of souls, to lessen the fear of facing death.

The start of the Slaughter Game for the first time truly proved the existence of the soul, but before those in the know could rejoice, the crushing reality made it hard to breathe.

Humans have souls, but after death, the souls are crushed into fragments, with neither hell nor heaven, the so-called peace after death is bullshit. Death is just that, ceasing to exist.

Li Ang was silent. Although from an external perspective, whether a soul is crushed into fragments or undergoes reincarnation doesn't make much difference to the world of the living, to individual humans the difference is immense.

To some who are entangled in the integrity of the soul, the afterworld seems incredibly desolate.

"After death, souls will be crushed into fragments, spirits scattered, the world will know you no more."

Zou Zhengze said gravely: "The only way to avoid your soul from being shredded is to become a Lone Ghost. And to become a Ghost, there are two ways: one is to die with intense injustice and sorrow, and the other is to be informed about the operational model of the afterlife."

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