Watching through the Human Effigy's eyes, Gu Zhe was still reeling from the discovery that an Underworld of ghosts truly existed when-
"ROAR!!"
Far off on the horizon, countless thousands of miles away.
An uncanny roar sent the pitch-black clouds churning, as though it would tear apart the endless sky itself.
An indescribable pressure settled over the ghosts' hearts.
It was the instinctive recognition of something at the very top of the food chain.
The nearby ghosts, even the Human Effigy, instinctively looked toward the distant horizon.
"Roar, roar, roar..."
A colossal skeletal dragon thrust its mountainlike head out of the sky, its skull alone hundreds or thousands of yards tall.
Through the torn layers of dense clouds, a winding skeletal body seemed to stretch for hundreds or thousands of miles across the boundless void.
The endless winds of astral force could not budge it; the endless pallid lightning could only temper its bones.
The skeletal head opened its jaws, then inhaled sharply.
A tornado spanning heaven and earth sprang into existence.
Across the ground countless thousands of miles away, innumerable ghostly creatures were swept up and hurled into its hideous maw.
"Roar... not enough, not enough..."
"Hahahaha! Twilight has passed, the spirit tide has risen, Gaia resonates, the Void Realm evolves, and heaven and earth have finally become familiar again."
"The Netherworld Land has returned from endless uncanny chaos, and I, too, have awakened from the old era. Hahahaha! Another new era. Good, good, very good..."
"Only..."
Disdain seeped into its voice.
It smacked its terrifying jaws together with a thunderous clacking.
"Antlike souls, inferior Ling creatures. No flavor, no flavor at all..."
"ROAR!!"
Another tremendous roar rang out.
Its head turned toward an enormous brownish-yellow mountain. The towering peak seemed almost to touch the sky, while the rest of the range stretched for tens of thousands of miles.
Jagged rocks and countless caves dotted its slopes. Filthy black miasma spread everywhere, ghostly trees and eerie pools lay ready to devour, and demonic ghosts and strange beasts occasionally emerged.
Another tornado was about to sweep through the place to satisfy the appetite of this terrifying creature, the likes of which the ghosts had never seen.
"BOOM!!"
A mass of black vapor burst out of the mountain.
It became a pitch-black, five-clawed hand that covered the sky, crushed the tornado in its grip, then clenched into a fist and struck, making even the skeletal dragon's mountain-sized head sway slightly.
"Hehehe, Ba Kui! You've merely forced open a tiny gap in the Nine Nether astral force. How dare you prey upon my Brown Mountain..."
"Roar! A puny Nether Ghost dares challenge this dragon's majesty? You seek death... roar, roar, roar..."
But the clouds churned overhead.
The endless pallid lightning grew fiercer, and the Nine Nether astral force, seemingly capable of grinding heaven and earth into chaos, raged all the more wildly...
Before the skeletal dragon could finish roaring, its body, hundreds or thousands of miles long, began slowly retreating into the Void Astral Force.
"Roar! The spirit tide has risen, the spirit tide has risen! Just wait! Wait for me, wait for me..."
Then the pitch-black clouds of the void closed over heaven and earth once more, restoring everything to its former state.
Heaven and earth lay dim and deathly still.
Once again, the scene sank into a bone-corroding silence of despair.
Yet that fleeting, mythlike spectacle left every ghost trembling.
This world was vaster than they had imagined.
Ghosts were not the only beings in this world.
A sky-spanning bone dragon watched from the Nine Nether heavens, while peerless ghostly beings lurked between heaven and earth...
Within the sky of the void, endless astral force annihilated the five elements, extreme yin thunderfire destroyed all that defied it, and the boundless void itself formed shackles...
This world, growing ever stranger to humans and ghosts alike, felt familiar to certain beings?
This was myth... and it was also mystery and terror...
Human or ghost, everyone felt a chilling dread.
Gu Zhe withdrew his gaze.
He sat quietly inside the room.
What he had witnessed today had shattered his entire worldview.
The netherworld, the Underworld, was real!
And it was terribly desolate. The dead did indeed become ghosts, but there seemed to be no order of reincarnation, nor had he seen any legendary Yellow Springs or ghost cities.
He recalled those powerful beings running rampant.
That world was so desolate and vast, with unimaginable beings lurking and entrenched within it.
Comparing what he had seen with the real world, Gu Zhe reflected.
Gu Zhe felt a profound sense of unreality.
In that world, the strong devoured the weak, beings of myth and mystery held sway, and a thousand-mile bone dragon thrust out its head-a scene of boundless, apocalyptic wilderness.
Yet reality carried on in peace and prosperity... even the various rumors seemed like fantasies. Even the people posting with such conviction mostly treated them as amusing anecdotes, utterly unaware of that world's despair, deathly silence, and chaos.
Was this the difference between the living world of reality and the Underworld?
Those changes and uncanny things had not yet affected reality much!
"Or the government is deliberately suppressing them!"
Or perhaps...
He recalled the information revealed in those few simple remarks.
"Or perhaps... this is only the beginning..."
"Twilight has passed, the spirit tide has risen, Gaia resonates, the Void Realm evolves... the netherworld has also returned from chaos... and some beings from the old era have begun to reveal their might?"
A dim gleam shifted in Gu Zhe's eyes.
"So this is only the beginning. Only the first signs have appeared."
"Of course, if there's some truth behind those myths and legends, then the present world of the living must still differ from the world where those dead people exist."
After a while.
Gu Zhe sighed.
"An age of great struggle, an age of great struggle..."
Yet there was no fear on his face, only a certain anticipation at confronting the unknown.
"Now this is interesting!"
He thought back on his former life.
He had known nothing of this world's true nature, only pleasure, indulgence, and extravagant living. Ahem, how dull and tedious... now, though he had fallen on hard times, he had begun to encounter reality and grasp the truth.
This is what I want!
Coming back to himself from those sweeping thoughts and revelations.
Gu Zhe sensed a certain connection within his mind.
He murmured to himself.
"I can only borrow its vision, not interfere with its actions. That ghost is its owner."
"Is it because I sold off ownership? Under the rules, I'm no longer its owner, so I can only use the Mysterious Origami Craftsman profession's innate perception to observe it, without influencing it?"
"So that's how it works!"
After that.
Gu Zhe resumed the tedious daily routine of an origami craftsman.
No matter how much he pondered.
He was still weak and only starting out. He had to take things one step at a time.
If a Paper Servant Effigy could become a humanoid in the netherworld, what about paper dolls? What about inanimate funerary offerings?
He looked at his half-finished spirit house.
Time to set a small goal.
First, he would make a building.
The old Gu Family had laid its foundations in funerals and made its fortune in real estate...
Now that he was bankrupt, he would start with a building in the Underworld.
He picked up the various materials.
Bamboo strips, paper, paste, pigments...
And began patching up the shoddily made spirit house again.
He picked up his scissors and made two quick snips.
"Hmm, a window here..."
"A load-bearing beam here, a framed structure here."
"Right, add a bathroom. A kitchen... uh... probably unnecessary? Whatever, it's only a snip of paper!"
"A drainage system..."
"It can't be too tall. It'd be bad if it couldn't stand steady and collapsed."
Early the next morning.
Gu Zhe had faint dark circles under his eyes.
He looked at the spirit house before him.
After examining it for a moment.
"Right, if I add another layer of paper, will it be sturdier after transforming?"
A little while later.
Gu Zhe looked at his work with a measure of satisfaction.
"It's a little crooked, but fairly stable. I just don't know whether these inanimate Nether Offerings can transform. They should be fine."
"Looks don't matter, as long as it's practical."
Gu Zhe gave a fond, doting smile.
As though looking at his own child.
"Ah..."
The greasy middle-aged man next door, perhaps with no customers that morning, could not resist wandering into Gu Zhe's shop.
Then he instinctively let out a cry.
After all, seeing someone gaze at a warped, bizarre, garishly colored spirit house with a doting smile, as though admiring a beloved treasure.
Really did send an instinctive chill down one's spine.
A moment later, he recovered.
He looked at Gu Zhe's handsome face, then at his craftsmanship, which was hard to put into words.
"Heh heh, buddy, keep it up!"
"Heh heh, heh heh... heaven rewards those who persevere..."
He shook his head.
And turned away.
Inwardly, he gained a new appreciation for the saying "all looks and no substance."
He could not help humming a song.
"A laugh rings across the vast sea, the tides surge along both shores..."
Gu Zhe shook his head in amusement.
The everyday reality of these ordinary folk did much to dispel the sense of uncanny wonder left by what he had witnessed last night.
Perhaps ignorance truly was bliss.
But if an era really was returning, if the world really was changing... would the present world truly remain unharmed? How long could this ignorant happiness last?