Chapter 568 — No Guarding Against It

Shen Mu's eyes went wide with disbelief, and a shock beyond all words seized his heart: his jade pendant had been forged by Tubo!

The pendant ought to be the jade of the Shen family, worn against his skin since he was a small child — how could it have been forged by Tubo? What was Tubo to him? Or was it truly that he had done so much evil that Tubo had sealed him inside the jade? Yet at that time he must have been nothing but a newborn babe — how could a babe do evil? And he had no such memory at all; besides, in Jingping and in Taihuang Heaven alike, who did not know that Sect Master Shen was as pure as the clear breeze and the bright moon, broad of heart? When had he ever done evil?

"The seal must have loosened."

Molten Tubo went on leafing through the book. "There were once gods and demons who tried to break the seal. They did not succeed, but the seal was loosened somewhat, and nearly let you out. It does not matter. I will reinforce it in a moment."

He read with extraordinary speed, racing through the accounts of Shen Mu's evildoing recorded in the book. Reaching the final page, he said, "The ill-omened land of Taihuang Heaven: Fengqing, son of the Shen, used the Soul-Pulling Charm to throw the Dark Capital into disorder, seizing forty-eight thousand souls of the dead by force, and wounding the ghost officers..."

Shen Mu said honestly, "It was I who used the Soul-Pulling Charm to draw forty-eight thousand souls out of the Dark Capital. But I did not wound the ghost officers — that was the Seven Killings Star Lord, Wei Liao. If you want him, go and find him."

Molten Tubo turned his head toward the old ghost officer and asked, "Was it the Seven Killings Star Lord, Wei Liao, who wounded the ghost officers?"

The old ghost officer was a clone of the Heaven-Equal Benevolent Sage King. He answered, "The name of the Seven Killings Star Lord, Wei Liao, is written in the Book of Life and Death, but the Seven Killings Star Lord, Wei Liao, had his soul scattered twenty thousand years ago and was struck from the Book of Life and Death; he is no longer under our jurisdiction. In this escape of forty-eight thousand souls and the wounding of the ghost officers, the root cause is still Shen Fengqing's returning of the Seven Killings Star Lord to life, reassembling his scattered soul. Therefore the debt for the wounding of the ghost officers must be charged against Shen Fengqing — after all, he is still alive, and his name is still in the Book of Life and Death."

Molten Tubo looked at Shen Mu. "The debt is written against you. Do you accept it?"

Shen Mu said, "I do not!"

"Write it against him," Molten Tubo said to the old ghost officer. "We will settle it another day."

Shen Mu's face went black at once. "If it is all to be written against me anyway, why bother asking me?" Yet Molten Tubo's words, settle it another day, gave birth to hope in him again: settled another day, not settled now — which meant that this summons had indeed been only to inquire into cause and effect.

Molten Tubo closed the thick book and looked down at the tiny Shen Mu below. "Why did you throw the Dark Capital's order into chaos and summon away the dead? Have you remembered something? Have images of the Dark Capital flashed through your mind?"

Shen Mu, bewildered, shook his head. "When I was sent out — exiled from the Dark Capital, I must have been only a month or two old, no? How could images of the Dark Capital flash through my mind? As for summoning the dead in the ill-omened land, I did it because I had no other choice."

He recounted the whole cause and consequence of his use of the Soul-Pulling Charm, then stood there obediently, waiting quietly for his sentence.

Molten Tubo's eyes had been fixed upon him all the while. Suddenly he spoke: "Truly, no images have flashed through your mind? You have recalled nothing?"

Shen Mu shook his head and smiled. "What is there for me to recall?"

"You have recalled nothing, and yet how is it that you are so fluent in the tongue of the Dark Capital?"

Molten Tubo was still staring at him, as though he could see through everything in him. Slowly he said, "Your mastery of the Dark Capital's tongue let you begin to cultivate the Dark Capital's arts and divine powers, and opened for you the Divine Treasury of the demon path. Are you not curious why you can open the demon path's treasury?"

Beside them, the old ghost officer said, "The demon race are descendants of the gods and demons who came out of the Dark Capital; that is why they can open the demon path's treasury. Why can you also open it? Are you not curious about this?"

"Curious!" Shen Mu put on a look of curiosity. "Why can I open the demon path's treasury, and the god path's treasury as well?"

"Because you are a descendant of the Sorrowless Land, and a living being born in the Dark Capital..."

No sooner had the old ghost officer said this than Molten Tubo cut him off: "He has no need to know these things, and we have no need to explain them to him. He was summoned here to be questioned, not to coax words out of us."

The old ghost officer came to his senses and laughed. "I have had a sentence coaxed out of me after all. This boy — his face is too abominable; it had me caught before I knew it."

Shen Mu flushed and said sheepishly, "His Lordship stirred my curiosity, and so I asked. I was not trying to coax words out of you two. I am only a little child of eighteen..."

The old ghost officer shook his head. "You truly cannot tell that he is lying."

Molten Tubo nodded. "This is an acquired cunning, learned from the people of the world of the living; it is not his nature — though by now he has trained it into his nature."

The old ghost officer said, "Then of his words, how much is true and how much false?"

Molten Tubo knew Shen Mu as he knew his own palm. "When he recounted the cause and consequence of the returning of souls in the ill-omened land, every sentence was true. After that matter he seemed to say a great deal, but in truth he said nothing at all — rather, he was the one asking questions, fishing for ours."

The old ghost officer thought it over carefully, and indeed it was so.

Shen Mu said bashfully, "My nature is not like this. It is only that the elders of my village poured some bad things into me, and so I became like this. I truly have not recalled any images of the Dark Capital."

"That sentence is true," said Molten Tubo. "The seal is still there. It should be that only the memories concerning language have awakened in him; the memories of what he lived through have not."

Sweat beaded on Shen Mu's forehead. He ventured, "I have in the past committed a few killings too. Will that deepen my guilt?"

"That sentence is false; it is fishing."

Molten Tubo said, "But what he wishes to ask is no secret. He may be answered."

The old ghost officer said, "For the evils committed in life, all are treated alike after death. The Dark Capital is not a place of judgment but the home to which the dead return. Only those who are utterly wicked, or who throw the Dark Capital's order into chaos, are eaten by Tubo."

Shen Mu let out a breath of relief. The old ghost officer went on: "Utter wickedness means sins and karmic debts coiled about one; even fallen into the Dark Capital, such a one is forever tormented by the fire of karma, in unspeakable pain. So Tubo eats them, taking their sins and their karmic fire onto himself. To throw the Dark Capital's order into chaos — that is your kind, letting the dead remain undead — you too will be eaten by Tubo."

Shen Mu's heart began to pound with fear again. The old ghost officer studied his face closely, then wore a look of satisfaction. "But we of the Dark Capital do not meddle in the world of the living. You are not yet dead, so we cannot deal with you now; we must wait until after your death."

"My Lord, you have been fished for words by his face again," said Molten Tubo.