Chapter 136 - My Costar Inspires Me

Fan Wujiu leads Yao Shen through parts of Youdu he has never seen before; out of the sinuous, dizzying streets with all their improbable skyscrapers and into what looks like an underground system. The city's guts.

Layers upon layers of construction that lay beneath the ground and have been built upon. All of Youdu's past buried underneath its present.

The underground tunnels are like sunken streets, still bearing the marks of all the feet that have walked them. 

To Yao Shen they seem labyrinthine and dizzying, but Fan Wujiu knows his way around, switching from tunnel to tunnel and lowering his head in anticipation of the stretches where the ground above them sinks down.

Eventually, they come to a stop in front of a doorway half submerged in soil.

Fan Wujiu stretches out his fingers and a black seal flies towards the the door, slamming it open with a bang.

Yao Shen peeks from behind Fan Wujiu's shoulder, but no sound comes from the darkened doorway.. 

Fan Wujiu leads the way and Yao Shen follows him inside the derelict building. The air inside is stagnant and foul smelling, but it smells of staleness, not of decay.

They turn a corner and come upon a larger chamber where five people lay suspended in the air. Their long hair trails almost to the ground in their horizontal positions, but their hands are folded almost ceremoniously over their chests.

Fan Wujiu takes a deep breath and draws another seal in this air, this time his movements are wider, more ample. When he shoots it towards the unconscious people, it flashes between black and grey for a moment before disappearing in a flash of light and dropping everyone to the ground.

A young looking girl, with the top-half of her hair done up in two buns at the side of her head, jumps to her feet immediately. 

"Fan Wujiu I won't let you get away with this!" she shouts. She pulls out a horse-tail whisk from behind her back and brandishes it towards Fan Wujiu.

Slowly, the other ghost kings start getting to their feet too.

"I'm afraid I already have, Yi Wang," Fan Wujiu says, with a sigh of contrition.

A chorus of indignation raises up. All the other ghost kings advance towards Fan Wujiu.

Yao Shen steps in front of Fan Wujiu with his arms spread out. "Listen, we don't have time for that. Just let us explain."

The man leading the charge stops in his tracks, his dark eyebrows knitting in confusion. "Shi Wang? Is that you?"

The young girl walks up right to Yao Shen and gives him a long, appraising look. "It is you! I almost didn't recognise you with the short hair." She frowns. "Did they make you a ghost king again? Your spot was still empty..."

Yao Shen shakes his head. "No, I'm still a mortal human." Well, he does have some ghost king abilities back, but that's just Si Wang's workaround, he doesn't know if it counts.

Yi Wang frowns. "Then, how?"

All the other ghosts behind her have equally complicated looks on their faces, so Yao Shen figures it's best if he explains himself. "It's a long story but I'll try to make it short..."

---

"I never trusted that Si Wang...always too solicitous."

"I can't believe we've been unconscious for two years! How hasn't Youdu collapsed under the influx of new ghosts?"

Yao Shen thinks it's a big indictment to all ghost kings in general that it hasn't. It just goes to show that things haven't been running properly for a long, long time.

"So does that mean that Si Wang was behind the other ghost king's actions?"

"No, they have different goals," Yao Shen says, trying to clarify all the bevvy of questions being thrown at him. "Si Wang pretended he was on their side."

Among the volley of questions and accusations flying around, Yao Shen also learns how the current situation came to be.

According to the other ghost kings, what prompted the traitors to seal them, was them finding out that they had been controlled using gu insects.

Apparently, whenever the traitor kings wanted to achieve something, they controlled a number of the other ghost kings so they would speak in their favour during council meetings. Implanting in them a strong, reasonable reason as to why they might have taken a position contrary to their own best interests or ideals.

They were careful enough to switch from king to king, so no two would ever side with them in a row. Maybe their plan would have gone on for centuries if their stock of gu insects hadn't run out.

As Ba Wang explains it: the gu insect's control is only effective for the period of life of the insect once inserted in the host, which doesn't extend past a full day.

"There's only one gu insect left now," Yi Wang says, the corners of her thin mouth hooked down on a severe frown that looks out of place on her youthful face. "I found that out when I went to search for them to use on two ghosts who didn't want to admit their sins and face punishment for them."

Yao Shen swallows drily. He knows exactly where that gu insect is. 

The ghost king's desperation to ensure that he succeeded in eliminating Xin Hulei makes sense now. He was a last resort -- but the traitors were running out of options, and desperate to hold on to their power.

Ba Wang, a plain-looking fellow with a thin nose and a protruding chin spits on the ground in disdain. "Those bastards wouldn't give us any answers as to where the gu insects went. We had to torture the ghouls who usually run menially jobs for us for answers." He shakes his head. "Ugly business."

After that, they were all lured in here and sealed by Fan Wujiu. Yao Shen knows that side of the story.

Someone in the back, a handsome man with a loud voice speaks up for the first time. "As much as I want to depose the traitors, I'm not sure if I want to enlist a demon's help for that. Maybe we can find an alternative."

His words are met with a few murmurs of agreement, but Yao Shen decides to nip that conversation in the bud.

"With all due respect," -- which is none -- he thinks to himself privately, "all of you are extremely incompetent."

The silence that follows his statement is sepulchral, behind him, Fan Wujiu tries to muffle a chuckle.

Yao Shen looks in the eyes of all five ghost kings, one by one, not hiding his disdain.

"Don't paint yourselves as poor victims of a cruel plot. Your own carelessness allowed this to happen. You were more concerned with growing your cultivation, and making sure that Youdu was a more prosperous city than Modu than in fulfilling your roles."

Yi Wang opens her mouth to protest, but Yao Shen's glare shuts her up immediately.

"Your own laziness allowed things to reach this state. Who knows how many souls will be forever removed from the wheel of reincarnation due to your selfish behaviour? You treated Youdu as your own private playground. Ignoring the millions of ghosts who live here alongside you!"

Yao Shen doesn't know where all this rage is coming from. Perhaps it's the remnants of the Crown Prince's righteous nature, perhaps it's because he recalls Xin Hulei's despair at having lost the only home he has ever known. 

It all seems to him so petty. And it all boils down to ego. He can see it written plain as day in the shamed faces of the ghost kings. Whether they chose to become ghost kings, or had no choice at all, it's clear they all tried to use their post as ghost king as a way to achieve whatever ambitions they left unfulfilled in the human realm.

Privately, Yao Shen also blames whatever gods are responsible for choosing ghost kings. It's clear not much thought is put into it. Then again, the man in the black veil who approached the Crown Prince said it himself: they don't get involved in matters of the Underworld.

He takes a big, fortifying breath and addresses the other ghost kings again. "While you were here sleeping, the other four ghost kings grew stronger. Whether you like it or not, you need the demons' help."

One after the other, the ghost kings nod in acquiescence, none of them too pleased, but unable to come up with an alternative strategy.

With a spineless bunch like them, Yao Shen refrains from mentioning that the demons will be staying for good after the traitors are removed. The five ghost kings should consider themselves lucky to no longer be buried under Youdu.

Yao Shen has half a mind to seal them back as soon as he doesn't need them anymore.

They're making their way out of the tunnels when Yi Wang approaches him, her eyes narrowed in silent appraisal. "I liked your speech, but you were very fast to cast blame. We could have used that determination back when you became the tenth king."

Yao Shen just shrugs. "You could say I've had a change of heart."