Hou Niao completely abandoned the idea of asking Li Chuping for a chance to enter the Underground Repository. He knew perfectly well that unless he handled the ghost festival properly, he would never be able to make that request.
He immediately began gathering information about the Shanyin Ghost Festival in the Minister of Justice Prefecture, both from past records and from his colleagues.
Apart from Li Chuping, he had no one to turn to in the Minister of Justice Prefecture. But besides eating, a mouth was meant for speaking, and no one took offense at an abundance of courtesy. There were plenty of people with peculiar tempers in the prefecture, and plenty who were proud and solitary, but there were also many who were mild-mannered, courteous, and willing to help a newcomer.
If he kept asking and showed every courtesy in his manner, there was little he could not learn. The Shanyin Ghost Festival was hardly some momentous secret.
The Shanyin Ghost Festival came once every twelve years. It was a festival on the Brocade Continent that did not belong to mortal humanity. In the mortal world, there were countless rites and festivals concerning ghosts and where people went after death: the Shangyuan Festival, the Qingming Festival, the Double Ninth Festival, Fengdu, and so on. Every region and country also had its own traditions and customs.
The Shanyin Ghost Festival, however, encompassed the entire continent and belonged exclusively to the Netherworld. Of those in the living world, only human cultivators could participate, along with the souls of ordinary mortals who died during this period.
Simply put, the Brocade Continent had countless ghost festivals, but only the Shanyin Ghost Festival was a festival in which actual Underworld Bailiffs and departed souls participated. The others were merely observances invented, staged, and performed