Hou Niao was different from those Underworld Bailiffs. He did not keep to a fixed direction. Wanting to complete his task as perfectly as possible, he roamed the wilderness conscientiously, worried that so many departed souls might attack and fight one another.
As it turned out, not a single incident occurred. Whether these souls had been honest or savage in life, good or evil, strong or weak, they were all in the same state now: remembering the past and mourning what had been.
Then they obediently drifted in one direction with the great current of departed souls.
Several more days passed, and Hou Niao saw Horse-Face, at quite close quarters this time. But neither had any desire to talk. They had no common interests whatsoever.
Horse-Face needed nothing brought from the world of the living, and Hou Niao had no need for a friend like that. Better if he never came visiting with iron chains in tow for the rest of Hou Niao's life. What was so festive about that?
He also spotted cultivators from other sects and factions, but there was even less reason to speak with them. With an unspoken understanding, they kept well clear of one another, each walking their own road and following their own path.
The order had given no clear instructions about the purpose of attending the Ghost Festival. That was also what made this assignment so vile: he did not even know where to begin. What counted as doing it perfectly? What counted as barely satisfactory? Or failure?
There was no standard, much less anything quantifiable.
This was the real difficulty in testing whether a cultivator of the Minister of Justice Prefecture was competent, rather than those so-called assignments with clear objectives, such as infiltrating enemy territory or hunting down a particular target.