The first assignment was almost insultingly simple.
A woman in Shanghai, elderly, her body worn thin by years of illness, lay in a hospital bed surrounded by family. Her breathing slowed. Her eyes closed. And her soul rose from her body like smoke from a dying ember.
Li Wei, the fisherman-turned-messenger, stood beside her bed, invisible to the living, his chain glowing faintly in the dim light of the hospital room. The woman's soul flickered, confused, still tethered to the body it had inhabited for eighty-seven years.
"Come," Li Wei said, his voice soft, gentle. The same voice he had used to calm frightened children during storms at sea. "You are not alone. I am here to guide you."
The woman's soul turned toward him, and he saw the fear in her fading light—the fear of the unknown, of death, of what came next. He had felt that fear himself, not so long ago. He had been guided by Wang Sanfeng, had been led through the streets of Fengdu to a small house and a bundle of paper money. Now it was his turn to guide.
"The channel is opening," he said, gesturing to the shimmering portal that appeared beside them. "Step through, and you will find yourself in a place of rest. There will be others there to help you. You will not be alone."
The woman's soul hesitated, then stepped forward. Li Wei followed, and together they traveled the dark passage between worlds, emerging in the familiar streets of Fengdu. He led her to the reception desk, where another messenger took over, guiding her to her new home, her new life, her new existence among the dead.
Easy. Boring. Mind-numbingly repetitive.
---
The second assignment was no different. A man in Beijing, heart attack, died before the ambulance arrived. His soul was angry, confused, unwilling to accept that his life had ended in the middle of a business meeting, in the middle of a negotiation that would have made him wealthy. Li Wei calmed him with the same gentle voice, the same patient explanations, the same steady presence that had guided the old woman.
The third assignment was a child—a girl of six, drowning in a swimming pool while her mother looked away for just a moment. That one was harder. The child's soul was terrified, crying out for a mother who could no longer hear her. Li Wei knelt beside her, his tusked face soft, his red eyes gentle, and he spoke to her of the City of the Dead, of the places where children could play, of the other young souls who would be her friends. She stopped crying. She took his hand. And he led her through the channel to a reception desk staffed by messengers who specialized in the young.
By the end of his first week, Li Wei had guided seventeen souls. None of them had been difficult. None of them had resisted. None of them had required the chain that hung at his waist.
The work was important, he told himself. Every soul deserved a guide. Every soul deserved to be met with kindness at the moment of death. But it was not exciting. It was not the adventure he had imagined when he accepted the Yama King's offer.
---
The talks with his colleagues were less boring.
During the long stretches between assignments, when the messengers gathered in the common rooms of the Tower of Summons to share meals and stories, Li Wei listened. And Nicholas, hidden in the folds of his soul, listened with him.
They spoke of the hierarchy—the Ten Yama Kings, the judges beneath them, the supervisors, the messengers. They spoke of the cities of the dead, each one ruled by a different king, each one with its own character, its own customs, its own challenges. They spoke of the cultivators, the ones who made their work difficult, the ones who fled from death rather than accepting it.
"The Maoshan sect," one messenger said, shaking his head. "They are the worst."
Li Wei leaned forward. "Maoshan?"
"Descended from the Three Mao Lords," the messenger explained. "Celestial gods, disciples of the Lingbao Tianzun—Tongtian, the Lord of Numinous Treasures, once he was present in the world. You know the story?"
Li Wei shook his head. He had been a fisherman, not a scholar.
"The Three Mao Lords were great cultivators," the messenger continued. "They achieved immortality, ascended to the heavens, and founded a sect in their name. Their descendants carry their blood, their teachings, their authority. But the arts they practice..." He shuddered, his tusks clicking against each other. "Dark. Focused on the Yin side of Qi. They raise corpses. They control ghosts. They bind the dead to their will and use them as servants."
Another messenger nodded. "It gives them power in death. Their souls are dense, well-trained. They can resist the pull of the wheel, hide from our channels, fight against our chains. We spend more time hunting Maoshan cultivators than any other sect."
"But they have little backing in the heavens," a third messenger added, lowering his voice. "Their patron, Tongtian, has been sealed for millennia. The Lingbao Lord of Numinous Treasures does not speak for them. The other sects look down on their arts, call them unclean. They are powerful, yes, but they are alone."
Li Wei filed this information away without fully understanding its significance. Nicholas, however, understood perfectly.
The Maoshan sect. Descendants of disciples of Tongtian—the same Tongtian who had shattered the continents, who had been sealed by his brothers, who had lost everything in the war that had reshaped the world. A sect that practiced dark arts, that accumulated heavy karma, that had little backing in the heavens and few allies among the other cultivators.
A sect that was primed for rebellion, if the right opportunity presented itself.
Nicholas marked the information. He would remember it. He would find a way to use it.
---
The mythology was wrong, of course. Nicholas knew that. The Three Mao Lords, according to the texts he had studied in his mortal life, were supposed to be descendants of Laozi—the first of the Three Pure Ones, the embodiment of the Tao itself. But here, in the whispers of the Netherworld, they were described as disciples of Tongtian.
It made sense. Laozi had sealed Tongtian. Laozi had sided with Yuanshi, had helped bind his brother in eternal stillness. The disciples of Tongtian, scattered and leaderless, would have needed a new patron. A new story. A new lineage that connected them to power, that gave them legitimacy in the eyes of the celestial hierarchy.
Claiming descent from Laozi was a lie. A useful lie. A lie that had probably been told so many times, by so many mouths, over so many centuries, that it had become truth in the minds of those who heard it.
But the truth—the real truth, the one that Nicholas had uncovered through the casual gossip of bored messengers—was more interesting. The Maoshan sect were orphans. Children of a dead god, abandoned by the surviving powers, practicing arts that earned them scorn and suspicion. They had power, yes, but they had no allies. No backing. No one to speak for them when the Yama Kings came hunting their souls.
They were, in other words, perfect.
Nicholas did not know how he would use them yet. The plan was still forming, still taking shape in the depths of his strategic mind. But he knew, with the certainty of a Fate-weaver reading the threads of possibility, that the Maoshan sect would be useful. They would be a lever, a weapon, a key to doors that had remained closed for millennia.
For now, though, he watched. He waited. He let Li Wei continue his boring assignments, guiding souls through the channels, learning the rhythms of the Netherworld. And he listened to the gossip of messengers, collecting fragments of information, piecing together the hidden structure of a civilization that had remained veiled for so long.
The Maoshan sect. The Three Mao Lords. The dead patron, Tongtian, sealed away in eternal stillness.
Nicholas filed it all away.
One day, he would find a way to use it.
To be continued...
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