Long long time ago. Maybe one era. Maybe one hundred eras. Who knows.
This is an era long forgotten.
The era when Pangu split the sky and created heaven and earth. By sacrificing all his body parts he remade all things. And here we are now.
But no one really knows. The time for sacrifice — some divine intervention. Let us just say cosmic intervention. Or maybe something like that.
No one knows for sure. Not even Nuwa with all her capabilities. Not even Fuxi. Not even the Jade Emperor.
The brain and the heart of Pangu — just floating up and up and up. Until higher than heaven.
The brain and the heart — by some miracle — survived. And merged together.
I do not know if this is some divine or cosmic intervention. But Pangu creating heaven and earth is not voluntary. His move is predestined by something more powerful than anyone can imagine.
And this is where the story begins.
In the time before heaven fell silent, the courts of hell were many.
The First Court received every soul that died. The Second Court punished dishonest tradesmen. The Third Court dealt with the ungrateful and the unfilial. The Fourth Court judged the miserly rich. The Fifth Court — where Yanluo Wang sat — received those who had already passed through the courts above and those whose sins required deeper judgment.
Yanluo Wang had not always sat in the Fifth Court.
Once he sat in the First Court. He was the first face every dead soul saw. He was the first judge. He was the one who decided which souls passed without punishment and which were sent to the courts below.
He let too many pass.
He was demoted.
He now sits in the Fifth Court. He still judges. He still shows mercy where he can. The punishment does not change him. He cannot stop being what he is.
On the day the grandfather died, Yanluo Wang was reviewing the Book of Life and Death.
Pan Guan held the book. The Book of Life and Death records the name of every soul, their birth, their death, the span between. It tells when a life ends. It does not ask why.
Pan Guan said: there is a soul arriving. The case is straightforward.
Yanluo Wang looked up from the documents.
The soul entered.
It was an old man. Thin. His leg was broken. He walked with a limp that did not come from death. It came from the world he had left behind.
Then the facts of the grandfather's life. Pan Guan stepped aside. The Mirror of Karma stood behind the throne. It had always stood there. Every soul that entered the Fifth Court saw their own reflection in it. Not their face. Their life.
The mirror showed everything.
The facts were these:
The old man lived in a village where the people were starving.
The village was governed by a rich man. The rich man controlled the grain. He took rice from the government stores meant for the people. He sold half. He kept the rest. When the people came to him hungry, he gave them rotten grain and called it charity.
The old man's son and daughter-in-law reported the corruption. They were arrested. They were sentenced to death. The rich man paid the guards to keep them in prison until the sentence could be carried out.
The old man's grandson was sick. Three days without food. Fever. Thirst.
The old man went to the rich man's house. He begged. He was turned away.
He went to the market. He saw a bag of rice unattended. He took it.
He was caught. He was too old to run. The rich man came personally. He paid the guards to look away. He broke the old man's leg with a wooden beam. He released him.
The old man crawled home. His leg dragged behind him.
His grandson said: Grandfather, I am thirsty.
The old man had no water. He had no rice. He had nothing.
He took a knife. He slit his wrist. He held it to his grandson's mouth.
The grandson drank. He fell asleep.
The old man died on the floor. He lost too much blood.
Yanluo Wang read the document.
He said: the grandson. What became of him?
Pan Guan turned the page.
The grandson woke. His fever was gone. He felt well. He found his grandfather dead.
A neighbor helped bury him. There was no coffin. There was only earth.
The grandson went to find his parents. He walked to the county town. He arrived the day before their execution. He sat in the center of the market all night. He did not move. He did not speak.
In the morning the executioners came. The judge read the charges. The crowd was loud. The grandson could not hear what was said.
But his parents saw him.
They shouted his name. He could not hear them.
Then they spoke quietly. They spoke to each other. They spoke to their son.
Do not be afraid. Remember us. We are with you always. Nothing will happen. Everything will be alright.
The grandson heard the quiet words. He did not know how. The crowd was loud. But he heard.
He smiled. He nodded. His tears flowed without him realizing.
The executioners did their work.
When the crowd left, the grandson remained. He was alone. He was five years old, or eight. The records did not agree. He was weak. He had not eaten in many days.
He carried his parents' heads.
He walked to his grandfather's grave.
He buried them together. Three bodies. One grave.
He sat there until the sun went down. Then he stood. He walked away.
The document did not record where he went.
Yanluo Wang closed the document.
He said: the grandfather stole. The law says theft is theft. The punishment for theft is hell.
Pan Guan said nothing. He held his brush.
Yanluo Wang stamped the document. The grandfather's soul was assigned to the appropriate court. The law was followed.
Pan Guan wrote in his small ledger. He wrote the date. He wrote the case number. He wrote the judgment.
Then he wrote one more line. He wrote it in characters smaller than the others. He wrote it in the margin where the main record would not show it.
This will not go unnoticed much longer.
Yanluo Wang set the brush down. The document was correct. Every character in it was correct.
He sat for a moment with the correctness of it.
Then he rose from his seat.
He said to Pan Guan: I am going below.
Pan Guan said nothing. He did not ask where. He knew.
Yanluo Wang walked out of the Fifth Court. He walked past the Sixth Court, the Seventh, the Eighth. He walked past the Ninth. He walked past the Tenth.
He walked past the edge of the ten courts into the dark beyond.
The path does not have a name. It is not on any map of the underworld. It is the place below the lowest court, where the punishments run out and only the darkness remains. Yanluo Wang had walked it before. Not often. Only when he had no other place to go.
Ksitigarbha was there.
Not sitting on a rock above everything. Sitting in the dark below everything. Where he always was. Where he had always chosen to be.
Yanluo Wang stood before him.
Ksitigarbha looked at him.
He said: you have judged humanity for ten thousand years from a throne.
He said: you have never lived a human day.
He said: go. Prove it.
He said nothing else.
Yanluo Wang stood for a long time.
Then he turned. He walked back toward the Fifth Court.
While Yanluo Wang was below, a messenger walked through the halls of heaven.
He carried a sealed document. The document bore the seal of the Heavenly Censor. It was addressed to the Fifth Court of Hell.
He walked slowly. The halls of heaven are wide. The distance from the Censor's office to the gate that leads down to hell is not short. But the messenger walked more slowly than the distance required.
Because even messengers sometimes wish they were carrying different news.
That morning, in the Lingxiao Treasure Hall, the Jade Emperor had held court.
Tai Bai Jin Xing announced the emperor. The ministers bowed. They said the words: Wan Shou Wu Jiang — ten thousand years of life without end.
The Heavenly Censor presented his file.
The file was three hundred years of records from the ten courts of hell. Every judgment. Every sentence. Every soul that passed through.
The numbers were these:
Sixty-three percent of souls received sentences below the minimum required by law. Twenty-two percent of souls were released with merit despite having committed acts that the law considered punishable. The remaining fifteen percent were judged correctly.
The Heavenly Censor said: the King of the Fifth Court is responsible for the majority of these deviations. He was moved to the Fifth Court for this same nature. He has not changed. The recommendation is removal from his position entirely.
The Jade Emperor said: noted. Accepted. Next.
Heaven continued as if nothing had happened.
The messenger walked.
He passed the Four Heavenly Kings at the Southern Gate. They did not ask what he carried. They did not need to ask. They knew.
He passed the Jade Pool. The water was still. The peaches were not yet ripe.
He passed the place where the Monkey King had overturned Laozi's furnace. The floor was still scarred. Heaven had not repaired it. Some marks, heaven kept.
He reached the gate that leads down. The gate is not a door. It is a place where the light of heaven stops and the dark of the underworld begins. The messenger stood at the edge. He looked down.
He could see the Ghost Gate in the distance. He could see the Huangquan Road. He could see the souls walking.
He held the document.
He thought: they moved him once. From the First Court to the Fifth. They said it was correction. He continued anyway. He could not stop being what he is.
He thought: now they are removing him entirely. Not correcting. Removing.
He thought: what do you do with a judge whose only flaw is that he sees too clearly?
He did not say this aloud. Messengers do not speak of what they carry. They carry. They deliver. They return.
He stepped forward into the dark.
Yanluo Wang returned to the Fifth Court.
He sat on his throne. He did not pick up his brush. He sat with his hands empty.
Pan Guan said: are you well?
Yanluo Wang said: I spoke with Ksitigarbha.
Pan Guan said nothing.
Yanluo Wang said: he told me three things.
He was silent for a long time.
Then he said: he told me I have judged humanity for ten thousand years from a throne.
He said: he told me I have never lived a human day.
He said: he told me to go. Prove it.
He said nothing else.
Pan Guan waited.
Yanluo Wang said: the reassignment will come.
Pan Guan said nothing.
Yanluo Wang said: it does not matter.
He stood.
He said: I am going to the bridge.
He walked out of the Fifth Court. He did not look back.
Pan Guan sat alone. He held his brush. He did not write.
Yanluo Wang walked through the Tenth Court. He passed the throne of King Zhuanlun. The king was not there. The court was empty.
At the far end of the Tenth Court, the Naihe Bridge stood before him. Three fingers wide. No railings. Below, the River of Oblivion. The water was still.
Meng Po stood at the bridge. Her cauldron bubbled. The smell of herbs filled the air. She held her ladle.
She did not ask why he was there. She had been at the bridge since the Han dynasty. She had seen kings come. She had seen kings go. She did not ask questions.
She filled a bowl.
The soup was dark yellow. Not tea. Not wine. Something between.
Yanluo Wang took the bowl.
He looked at it.
He thought about a grandfather who fed his grandson his own blood.
He thought about a boy carrying his parents' heads to a grave.
He thought about a law that said theft is theft.
He thought about three words.
Go. Prove it.
He drank.
The soup was bitter. Then salty. Then something else. Something he did not have a name for.
He set the bowl down.
Meng Po took it. She filled it again for the next soul. She did not watch him leave.
Yanluo Wang walked to the Wheel of Reincarnation.
The wheel turned. It had always turned. It would always turn.
He stepped forward.
The wheel took him.
In the space between heaven and hell, Ksitigarbha sat on his rock.
He watched the wheel turn. He watched one soul step off and another step on. He watched the souls walk the yellow road, cross the bridge, drink the soup.
He watched a King of Hell become a baby.
He smiled to himself. Very slowly.
Hell difficulty, he thought. You are the King of Hell. Hell difficulty should not be a problem for you. Right?
He picked up his staff. He stood. He walked toward the darkness. The rings on the staff rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then the sound faded.
In a small house in Indonesia, a woman was in labor.
The room was hot. The walls were thin. The smell of clove smoke drifted in from somewhere outside. Her mother held her hand. The midwife spoke words she did not hear.
Outside, the call to prayer was beginning. The sound came through the thin walls and filled the room without asking permission.
The pain came. Then the release.
The baby came out. Small. Red. Screaming.
The midwife wrapped him in cloth. She placed him in his mother's arms.
The woman looked at her son. She touched his face. She counted his fingers. She counted his toes. He was whole.
She said: Ah Wen.
She did not know who he had been. She did not know what he would become. She knew only that he was here. That he was alive. That he was hers.
The baby stopped crying. He opened his eyes. He looked at his mother's face.
He did not know her. He did not know anything.
He closed his eyes. He slept.
END OF CHAPTER ONE