Knowing they would ask about this, Lao Changhai said, "We were curious about it after we went in, too. Only after asking around did we learn that before the Nether Realm closed itself off, it suffered from the counterfeit money produced by the Demonic Path just like the outside world. Back then, the Nether Realm had approached the Heavenly Court, hoping to put the ancient coin molds into use, saying ancient coins couldn't be counterfeited.
"But the Heavenly Court and the Four Great Royal Courts under it firmly opposed the idea. The reason was simple: ancient coins couldn't be counterfeited because they contained something called 'liang.'
"This 'liang' is only produced when something passes through a cycle of reincarnation. For instance, when a person dies and their soul returns to the Nether Realm, one liang is produced.
"So this 'liang' can't be counterfeited. Precisely because of that, the earliest ancient coins were made by the Nether Realm, and the ancient coin molds were in its hands as well. Yet the Heavenly Court no longer had its former might and couldn't keep the Nether Realm in check. Tell me, how could the Heavenly Court and its Four Great Royal Courts willingly hand the right to mint money over to the Nether Realm?
"According to the account circulating in the Nether Realm now, this was one of the reasons it cut off contact with the outside world. Once the Nether Realm, plagued by counterfeit currency, closed itself off, it naturally put ancient coins into use immediately.
"Oh, there's also a denomination smaller than 'liang.' They call it 'jie' here, because not everything produces a complete liang when it dies. Some smaller animals can only produce a limited number of jie. A thousand jie can be exchanged for one liang."
As he spoke,