Mass soul auction was going on between those with two or more rays on them.
Was I being inspected like an object up for auction? Hell yeah. By four rays.
The maximum in this town.
Zaixing had explained the many heavens concept - each person would return to their belief system's netherworld.
Taoist to theirs, Christians to theirs - you get the drift. One netherworld per soul.
Not that I cared.
Those with single rays on them were snatched up quickly like cheap sales items, or free sachets they handed out at supermarkets.
"On second thought, not for me," the booming voice originating from a ray declared loudly and vanished.
Go f**k yourself. If you can't accept quality, don't make it look like you rejected me.
Spotlight number 1 vanished, leaving 3.
"Ehhhh Nani? Yasomagatsuhi….EEEHHHH," That would be the Japanese Kami of Takamagahara. Did I mention how useful my past Japanese lessons were.
Their ray vanished. Sh*t. That could have been anime heaven with all the hot gods. Gorgeous goddesses need not apply. I used to make wishes at their shrines (hot gods only) to get it mysteriously granted.
Did they just call Zaixing Yasomagatsuhi? The Japanese Kami of Calamity? The one from Sakurai and Kego shrines, of Fukuoka? Then, where is my favorite, Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto? They say that he is among the most handsome. Farewell, my eye candy.
"I advise that the nine heavens to turn away."
"Hehehe, I think that's Lingbao Tianzun," Zaixing whispered to me, quite amused for whatever reason. What the heck would one of three great primordial Sages want with me? Was he so proud about rejection? His ray vanished.
Am I some plague in the heavens or something?
"Suaaaay Sinnng WAHHHH CAO." Sounds like some deity from the Chinese Nine Heavens was swearing. At Zaixing.
Another voice interrupted abruptly.
"Great Nine Heavens, Can the court of the netherworld reject this entrant? Look, it is not like the first time Zaixing, or even Kanghui entered... then again ...the last time over Renxiang...unless you want to ascend this particular hun, without us. We can forgo the entrance and waived this one up?"
Hun? I am only part of a soul? You see, hun refers to part of the human soul. Not honey. Associated with the Yang part of the yin-yang system. It is the supposed one which can ascend to the heavens.
Po is associated with the Yin aspect. Think of it like a sticker permanently glued to your physical mortal body. It can't ascend to the heavens.
Each soul is believed to have three hun and seven po.
Don't ask me how they interacted to form the full soul - I am no deity. But no one seems to want my miserable hun. Not sure where my other two hun went to.
Oh well, no biggie, I am dead anyway.
"No thanks." And the final ray disappeared.
Beyond belief, they all actually rejected me because of Zaixing.
I was the kid who was never selected for any team. Any team which took me in, were just desperate to form the minimum number. Ditto for the afterlife.
Not that I would fancy being judged in the Chinese netherworld, or any netherworld. Even my chance of being reincarnated into maybe an animal has vanished. Come to think of it... maybe not.
The Chinese 18th level of hell could involve turning me into a broiler chicken with its beak cut, squashed worse than a sardine in a can, and depending on its luck, shat on by its neighbours in the cages above. Finally, ending up as cheap chicken meat or sausages after the egg laying capabilities are gone.
Then again. I should be scared of a deity who scares other deities. Why was he appearing so friendly?
"Let's go to my realm."Zaixing winked.
Maybe his realm was the 18th level of Chinese hell. My late father did warn me before the devil was a handsome man, with a book and a pen. This one just had a fan.
Crapamoly.
"Ingrate. Listen, you will be interested in this assignment... a chance to relive a life shortened." Zaixing smirked unhappily. "Your previous life was more of a training session."
"Ehhh?" I exclaimed. Hey, he spoke like I was selected for the Olympics training team.
A snap of his fingers. We were in the middle of nowhere in the colorful cosmos with magnificent luminescent nebula clouds in the background like the ones seen in NASA pictures.
By right, I should be suffocating in the vacuum of space or floating about. By left, OMFG, this is better than the Hubble telescope images.
It was like standing in an interactive 3D wallpaper where there is an invisible ground which forms ripples on each footstep taken among the stars in the universe. So this is what it is like to be a deity. I can live with that.
"Ji Feng, thirteen years old male, Third Prince of Lingyun Kingdom in Jinshi world. Cultivation of ling qi destroyed internally at the age of eight in a poisoning incident. Soul components: three hun returned to whence they came from, one po left, six returned to the earth. Species: human. Got you the good shit, and it is easier to communicate in that world than Earth since they actually use magic openly. Ghosts, demons, celestials are all out in the open," Zaixing gleefully pitched, like a very experienced used car salesman.
The soul is starting to sound like a huge jigsaw puzzle of hun and po.
How many hun have he tricked into these types of assignments, I wondered.
Whoever that was, life was hanging by a thread of one singular sad po. Yeah, I read enough books on weird magical stuff, including Taoist sorcery, in my spare time to understand what it meant.
'Got you the good shit'- almost now sounded like very bad news.
"Aren't you supposed to give me some Meng Po soup to erase my memories of the old world?" I asked.
A legendary old lady named Meng Po will feed you a bowl of soup to forget your previous life before you reincarnate into either a plant, animal, or person again. Depending on the luck of your draw and the judgement of the netherworld.
'It doesn't exist. Just a metaphor, but there's a purpose in keeping your memories,' Zaixing replied.
Damn. No Meng Po.
"Anything else I should know of?"
"Well, um...that world is like ancient China but better.…" an uncomfortable pause ensued.
Gut instinct, even without my physical gastrointestinal tract or body, was screaming 'BULL CRAP'.
Magical world may be the ultimate fantasy of any Chinese or Japanese transmigration anime otaku but with Zaixing, the feeling of truth being withheld is never far, even on Earth.
"Don't trust him entirely, he is an infamous klutz", warned another mysterious voice. Was another deity helping me?
"Shut up, Kanghui."
Kanghui - The Chinese netherworld court had uttered his name in more fear than Zaixing and Renxiang. What's wrong with all these deities and immortals? Esoteric, esoteric, esoteric. No wonder many said that trying to understand the universe will drive one over the verge of insanity.
"O Great Deity of Unstoppable Calamity, do enlighten us on what happens to a person in Jinshi world, if their ling qi cultivation is destroyed?," asked the very disembodied voice of Kanghui.
"Um...well..."
Those were his last words. Bloody Zaixing.
***
(Somewhere in the universe…)
"That prince is a walking, talking vegetable. Unlike on that Earth, where he would be considered a healthy human being. In Jinshi, it is a terminal disability and a lifelong liability. That's why he is poisoned and only has one po left." Kanghui stared at Zaixing.
"I hope that you know what you are doing. And the fact that Takamagahara came, not Yomi-no-kuni, came for this hun - the consequences I need not tell you," Kanghui warned.
"It is actually one of the best to execute order in that world," Zaixing replied, ignoring the latter part of Kanghui's words.
Kanghui only sighed in resignation and said, "for the last time - quit using that form unless you want the memories to trigger in that hun that you planted into that body. Zaixing, you are a walking calamity but when calamity stacks upon calamity, is it a blessing or a curse?"
***