This was a dim, murky world.
Above, a black canopy as deep as the nine abysses shrouded every corner of the sky. Terrifying roars occasionally rang out within it, and ghastly white lightning seemed to rage through the rolling banks of dark, heavy clouds.
The land stretched boundlessly below. Here and there along the horizon, endless ranges of sky-piercing mountains rose, vast and savage.
Most of the surrounding land lay barren, broken occasionally by hills, woods, and rivers.
But the trees grew in grotesque shapes, their trunks and branches utterly bizarre, with strange birds and beasts lurking among them. Fissures riddled the hills, and whimpering sounds sometimes drifted out, their uncanny source unknown. The rivers were turbid, with white bones drifting through them and whirlpools lurking beneath the surface, as though their waters could corrode all things. Occasionally, strange beasts with razor-sharp ridges along their backs stirred up ripples...
Bone-eroding winds blew ceaselessly through the air, freezing cold, eating away at hearts and souls, eroding forms and stripping away the self!
The entire world exuded vastness, deathly silence, desolation, chaos, and despair.
This was where the dead returned to oblivion, a realm of darkness and confusion corresponding to the material plane.
This world seemed boundless, its countless tendrils stretching into the void.
Some called it the Netherworld, some called it hell, some called it the Underworld, and some called it the Spirit World or the Nether Realm...
Qiu Jianguo drifted across the land in a daze.
Sometimes lucid, sometimes muddled.
His body grew ever thinner beneath the relentless chill winds.
Suddenly, the winds weakened.
He came to his senses.
He looked around in fear.
He muttered anxiously to himself.
"I have to find shelter from the wind. I have to find somewhere to stay!"
He looked at those menacing, twisting woods, then cast a fearful glance at the malformed giant birds cackling strangely within them.
"If only I could claim a tree in the Yinwood and eat some spirit food from this realm, I wouldn't be in such a state."
"Or if I could find a den to shelter in, I could nurture my body instead of having my soul scattered into nothing!"
He lowered his head fearfully to look at his body.
It had grown much thinner since the last time he had come to his senses.
His expression shifted between terror and savagery.
"Last time, a mad ghost blurted out a secret. For ordinary ghosts to survive for long, they have to slowly nurture their bodies, absorb the energies of the Netherworld, eat its food, and..."
He glanced around at some others in the distance who were also lucid.
"The other way is to devour their own kind, become crazed and brutal, and turn into Vengeful Ghosts..."
Fear and savagery kept alternating across Qiu Jianguo's face.
"I don't want to die again. I've already died once!"
"So this world really does have an Underworld, and ghosts. I still want to go back and see my family, see my grandson, see the human world. They say that if your soul is strong enough, you can use the unseen bonds of blood and lineage to connect with the living and enter their dreams..."
"They say that if chance lets you enter some kind of place where the worlds meet, or a hidden or uncanny realm, you might have a chance to enter the human world. I don't know if it's true. I want to live. I want to live..."
He looked off into the distance.
He saw a ghost cradling its own head roar and lunge at an even thinner ghost.
Many ghosts did not want to perish.
He also saw a soaking-wet ghost and a ghost with a long, dangling tongue. They had both begun hunting other ghosts.
Those who had died full of resentment were more easily driven to brutality by the pressure to survive, and they were somewhat stronger too.
"Where are all the people who died before us? Where are Black and White Impermanence, Ox-Head and Horse-Face? Where is King Yama? Where's the Ghost City we were promised?!"
He howled in despair.
"Even if I went out to fight, who could I beat in my condition... who could shelter me...?"
Suddenly.
He saw the body of the ghost being torn apart and devoured by that Water Ghost become a little more solid, its strength increasing along with it.
It violently threw the Water Ghost off and fled in one direction.
That was... a fragrance.
An instinct from deep within told him that it was incense burned in the world of the living. It carried heartfelt wishes, following the unseen bonds of blood or recognized lineage into this shadowy realm to nourish the ghost.
At that thought.
His spirits lifted.
It seemed the time for his Seventh-Day Rite had arrived.
Although it was not a great clan's ancestral ceremony, and offerings from his wife and children could only give an ordinary ghost temporary relief, something was better than nothing.
Sure enough.
The next instant.
An instinct stirred within his ghostly body. Through an unseen connection, he seemed to glimpse a blurry black-and-white image of his wife, children, and grandson burning incense and paper offerings.
His heart stirred, and then an invisible force flowed into him.
But... why had his body solidified less than that other ghost's?
What was going on? Were his family not sincere enough?
Just as he frowned in disappointment.
Something suddenly blurred before his eyes.
He was so startled he nearly jumped.
"Master!"
Master?
If not for that word, he would have fled for his life.
"Master, please give me your orders!"
Qiu Jianguo: ???!!!
He examined the thing before him.
It had a human shape, but its limbs and features were badly proportioned. Its two hands, for instance, seemed to differ in thickness, and their positions were not even symmetrical.
Then there were its torso and legs. Its torso seemed to take up two-thirds of its height, making it look utterly ridiculous. And its neck-there was no neck. Its head grew directly out of its torso.
It wore what could pass for brightly colored clothes, but he could not tell whether it was male or female. Its body and clothing seemed to be made from some special material. It looked quite solid, with a sense of strength about it.
Yes.
Li Jianguo remembered. It gave him the same impression as that fellow in the kung fu movie who said, "I'm a farmer."
Sturdy and able to take a beating.
He hesitated.
"Were you calling me master?"
"Yes, master!"
Dull and wooden!
It did not seem very intelligent, yet somehow it put his ghostly heart at ease.
Suddenly.
Qiu Jianguo recalled the scene he had glimpsed through that unseen connection.
He seemed to have seen something identical among the offerings.
But it had not been this big. That had only been a Paper Servant Effigy!
An absurd thought arose in his mind.
Could there be some mysterious reason behind the living world's tradition of burning Netherware?
Could things burned over there be received here?
But.
Another question arose.
From what he had glimpsed through that unseen connection, they had burned plenty of things. Why had only this arrived?
And besides.
He had seen plenty of ghosts while wandering in his dazed state.
This was the first time he had seen anything like this.
If Nether Offerings burned in the living world really could become tangible objects in the Underworld, its ghosts would not have to be so miserable. It could not be that simple.
There had to be a reason behind it.
But whatever that reason was.
For now, it was a good thing for him.
"What do you do?"
"Master, I am a servant."
"What can you do?"
"Master, I obey your orders!"
Qiu Jianguo patted his forehead.
"All right, then. Protect me for now. Don't let anyone hurt me!"
"Also, are you afraid of the chill winds?"
"Master, my body is different from yours. I am not afraid of these chill winds!"
"Good. Then shield me from the wind too. Let's find a good place to shelter from the wind and rain!"
"Yes, master!"
"So the Netherworld really exists. The Underworld really exists!"
Following his unseen connection to his creation.
A sliver of Gu Zhe's consciousness also witnessed everything that the Nether Offering Doll saw.
Since it was only a sliver of consciousness, its emotions were limited, so it did not feel particularly afraid.
He watched ghosts fight and devour one another, and watched others drift in a daze, frail and helpless.
"If this Netherworld really only appeared in the last few years, then between those dying now and those who died before, I wonder who's luckier!"