At the hall’s entrance, Song Youzhi was breaking out in a nervous sweat, looking around in all directions. This was her first time here, and she wasn’t as bold as Yu Zezhi; her hands and feet were trembling uncontrollably. Yet she didn’t ask a single question, likely having heard much from Wu Qiyu’s accounts.
Within the crowd, Yu Zezhi looked up without warning, her gaze sweeping past the lantern under the eaves.
In that instant, Wu Yinyu didn’t dare move. She wondered if Yu Zezhi had spotted her.
Fortunately, Yu Zezhi quickly withdrew her gaze and asked calmly, “Shall we go in?”
“Go in,” Lu Dongqing said, mustering his resolve.
Watching this group walk through the hall’s entrance, Wu Yinyu slowly slipped out from the lantern and silently followed behind them.
She wondered if Yu Zezhi had deliberately slowed her pace by several steps, falling to the very back alone and leaving a considerable distance between herself and Song Youzhi, who was at the tail end of the group.
Song Youzhi seemed afraid to get too close to Yu Zezhi, sticking closely behind Wu Qixing. Any closer and she’d be nearly pressed against him.
Wu Yinyu’s mind stirred. Quickly, she attached herself to the hem of Yu Zezhi’s skirt, condensing into a palm-sized flying bird embroidery.
A patch of pattern appeared on the skirt without any reason. Yu Zezhi was completely unmoved and soon caught up with the people ahead.
Wu Yinyu thought, Yu Zezhi must have done it intentionally. She really had sensed where she was when they were outside the door.
Entering the pagoda, one was supposed to announce their name. But unexpectedly, Lu Dongqing and the others announced theirs several times without receiving any response.
Strange. Lu Dongqing and Feng Pengqi looked at each other, both impatient and anxious at heart, unsure if they could still ascend this tower.
While they hesitated, Yu Zezhi moved forward on her own, silent and soundless.
Knowing this junior of the Yu family had extraordinary courage, Lu Dongqing was still startled. He hurriedly called, “Zezhi!”
Yu Zezhi didn’t look back, forcing the few people behind to quicken their pace to keep up. Song Youzhi, at the very back, shuddered violently, frightened by the sound of someone else’s name.
Wu Yinyu was attached right to that skirt hem, sensing a force resisting Yu Zezhi as she stepped onto the upper floor.
But that Restriction-like existence dissolved into mist and clouds in an instant.
Thus, this group boldly ascended the pagoda. The moment they reached the top floor, the dozens of Ghost Bailiffs scattered about, who had been busy compiling the Underworld Register, raised their heads in unison. Countless pairs of eyes turned to them simultaneously.
Before the Judge, the scrolls remained piled high. The mask he wore seemed unchanged; with his face concealed, no one could gauge his expression.
But at this moment, he wasn’t reviewing scrolls. He was calculating with his fingers, several characters flickering before him in a mix of red and black.
He was calculating lifespans. The lifespan of many in the world is predetermined by Heaven. Since it’s Heaven’s will, it can be calculated.
However, Wu Yinyu noticed something. The lifespans calculated by the Judge were far too long for ordinary people. Who could live for hundreds of years?
She quickly realized—the Judge probably wasn’t calculating the lifespan of mortals, but rather his own.
Lu Dongqing and Feng Pengqi also sensed this anomaly, both of them momentarily stunned.
The Judge hadn’t expected these Living Constables to barge in without warning. His frame suddenly stiffened, and with a flip of his hand, he retracted all the ancient characters floating before him.
He questioned coldly, “Who permitted you to come up!”
Lu Dongqing’s expression changed drastically. He immediately said, “We beg the Judge’s forgiveness!”
Attached to Yu Zezhi’s skirt hem, Wu Yinyu remained motionless. She had a strange feeling—the Judge truly hadn’t sensed their arrival.
The spot she was attached to was extremely close to Yu Zezhi’s hand. She saw Yu Zezhi’s finger twitch slightly, and a strand of dim Golden Light drifted silently from the distance.
The Golden Light attached itself to Yu Zezhi’s fingertip and immediately vanished.
Wu Yinyu understood. Someone had indeed secretly tampered with things.
“If this happens again, your statuses as Living Constables will certainly be stripped!” A mask concealed the Judge’s face, but the undisguisable panic in his demeanor betrayed his state of mind.
As if trying to cover something up, he changed the subject and asked, “Regarding the matter at Ivory Mast Beach, do you have any leads?”
They definitely wouldn’t. The Five Gates had been busy investigating other matters recently and hadn’t gone to Ivory Mast Beach at all.
But Lu Dongqing, with his righteous appearance, said in a grave voice, “We made a trip to Ivory Mast Beach and found nothing for the time being.”
The Judge opened the Underworld Register before him. “Then what is the purpose of your visit this time?”
“We wish to ask Your Excellency to point us in the right direction once more,” Lu Dongqing said, cupping his fist in salute.
The Judge knew what Lu Dongqing meant—the matter of people disappearing from the Five Gates. Unable to figure it out himself yet, he simply performed another soul search.
With a flourish of ink, however, an image didn’t gradually materialize like last time.
In midair, the undispersed ink resembled a man-eating abyss, seeming to hide the souls and bodies of those three missing persons within its depths.
The Judge stiffened slightly, not expecting this outcome. In a deep voice, he said, “It seems the situation has changed.”
For the Five Gates, if they had to pinpoint a change, it might only be Wu Yinyu leaving the Wu family.
Lu Dongqing remained silent for a long time. Only when the ink color had completely faded did he, with a heavy heart, cup his fist again. “Thank you, Your Excellency.”
The Judge’s flat hand lifted, and he rapped the table several times, his thoughts heavy. “I will continue to investigate this matter. Ivory Mast Beach will be left to you.”
Saying this, he raised his arm, about to send this group away.
Yu Zezhi was indeed “audacious.” She asked calmly, “Was Your Excellency just now calculating your own lifespan?”
Not just the Judge, even Lu Dongqing and the others were stunned.
Those red and white characters were incomprehensible to ordinary people, let alone to Yu Zezhi, who, before returning to Wise City, seemed to have had no contact with any Yin-Yang affairs.
Lu Dongqing turned his head in shock, wanting to stop Yu Zezhi’s impertinent questioning, but he was even more astonished by the certainty in her tone.
Yu Zezhi spoke as if asking a question, yet her tone lacked any trace of doubt. Her eyes stared straight at the Judge.
The Judge didn’t answer for a long time, so long that Lu Dongqing thought Yu Zezhi had hit the nail on the head.
Yu Zezhi then asked another question that chilled one’s heart and blood. “Shouldn’t a Judge’s Yin Lifespan be infinite? How can an end be calculated? Were there other Judges before this?”
This was not something ordinary people dared to ask. Not to mention daring to ask, few even dared to think about it.
In the eyes of common people, the Judge was an undying and unborn existence. Probably the combined lifespans of dozens of people couldn’t compare to a single Judge’s.
Lu Dongqing said in a hushed, pressuring tone, “Zezhi.”
Yu Zezhi didn’t respond, still staring fixedly at the Judge with a slight air of interrogation. Her Phoenix Eyes narrowed slightly, so sharp it seemed she naturally belonged in a high seat, appearing dignified and aloof, unapproachable and beyond insult.
The questioner was clearly just a mere mortal, yet the Judge imperceptibly leaned back, a surge of fear involuntarily rising in his heart.
Lu Dongqing and the others were all breaking into a sweat, casting Yu Zezhi repeated meaningful glances, hoping she would stop talking in time. No one noticed the Judge’s backward-leaning posture.
The Judge stared intently at Yu Zezhi. That bizarre sense of familiarity surged in his heart again. His hair stood on end; were it not for the mask covering his face, he would likely have shown his fear before these mortals.
Alarmed and uncertain, he equivocated, “A Judge’s Yin Lifespan is indeed infinite, but that doesn’t mean they cannot die.”
“So Your Excellency means, there truly was a previous Judge?” Yu Zezhi actually pressed further.
The Judge said coldly, “This is not for you to inquire about.”
With a sweep of his sleeve, he hastily sent the group away.
Before Yu Zezhi was transported away from the Two-World Sea, Wu Yinyu seized the opportunity to detach from her skirt hem and stick to a Nether Guard’s Underworld Register.
In that single moment, Lu Dongqing and the others had already returned to the Living World.
The Judge breathed a sigh of relief, leaning back loosely. Immediately after, however, he froze again at the figure that suddenly appeared before him.
Wu Yinyu had reverted to her original appearance. She walked slowly toward the Judge’s desk, cupping her fist in salute. “Your Excellency, I ask your forgiveness for the offense.”
The Judge recognized Wu Yinyu. She had come to receive the Ghost Charter several times. Not seeing her this time, he had been slightly puzzled.
He asked hoarsely, “You were hiding just now?”
“There was something I wished to entrust to Your Excellency but didn’t want others to know, hence resorting to some unorthodox methods,” Wu Yinyu confessed.
“Speak freely,” the Judge said.
Borrow the Judge’s power? Naturally not. Wu Yinyu had originally intended to borrow it to control that mass of Ink. Now it was unnecessary; she didn’t yet want to expose her inexplicable entanglement with the Ink Qi.
Wu Yinyu feigned anxiety, saying, “Could I trouble Your Excellency to look through the Underworld Register and see whether I am truly a member of the Wu family?”
She lowered her gaze, pretending to be restless and uneasy. “After all, only those of the Five Gates are qualified to bear the Ghost Charter. If I am not of the Wu family, holding the Ghost Charter now is against the rules, and it should be returned.”
The Judge listened, bewildered. “How could you have such an idea?”
“Heard with my own ears, seen with my own eyes,” Wu Yinyu said. “My name is not in the Five Gates’ Family Register.”
The Judge pressed his lips together and waved his arm.
The cabinets and shelves against the wall rattled and rumbled in unison as wooden drawers opened and closed one after another.
These cabinets held the Underworld Registers of thousands upon ten thousands of people. To search them one by one would take days, but if one knew the name, the correct register could be found effortlessly.
Half an hour passed, yet not a single Underworld Register flew out from its wooden drawer.
The Judge stared unblinkingly at the towering cabinets in the distance, his heart still uncalmed and now surging even more intensely.
Wu Yinyu perceived the implication. It wasn’t that her register couldn’t be found, but rather that no Underworld Register belonging to her existed at all.
This meant she truly wasn’t a person from “this place.”
The Judge appeared calm, but inwardly he was deeply anxious. No one knew better than him why this register couldn’t be found.
When traced to its root, it was inseparable from the feeling of familiarity that had surfaced in him not long ago.
If an Underworld Register couldn’t be found, it was highly likely someone had broken the rules, secretly leaping into the Two-World Sea for Transmigration. But the probability of that was absolutely zero. However, twenty-three years ago, a woman had come to this place and, right before his eyes, cast a twelve-faced die into the Two-World Sea.
In his memory, that woman’s face and figure had become blurry and indistinct. He only remembered that after she threw the twelve-faced die, she left for a period of time.
Not long after, the woman returned uninvited. He had intended to capture and interrogate her for her crimes, but before he could catch her, the woman had vanished.
The only thing the Judge could connect to Wu Yinyu’s origin was that twelve-faced die from back then. He mused that it was extremely possible a soul had been attached to that die.
The die sank into the Two-World Sea, and the soul within naturally underwent Rebirth.
