TGM Vol.1 Chapter 1 – Reincarnation

She doesn’t remember how she died.

Whether she was beheaded in the market, or died of illness in her bed… she can’t even remember.

The four guards grabbed the iron chains tied to her body, and she could not help being dragged forward by them.

The fires that run through the sky occasionally land on the red spider-lilies^[1] at the side of the road, raising green flames half a person high. The green flames and the red flowers are extremely enchanting.

There are countless forks in the path, and many of the newly dead, like her, dressed in white, are being pulled along by the guards. Some cried, some laughed, some mumbled something to themselves. However, no matter how many regrets someone had about their death, they will be stifled by the heavy atmosphere

In the end, the only thing she could do was to silently go forward and pass through the distant gate of the city.

The guards leading her onward stopped and waited for her to enter.

She looked up lazily at the grey sky, the flickering fires, and the blood-red spider-lilies. The Red Spider-Lilies are curved like dragon’s claws, and they’re so vulnerable, but there’s also a hint of fierceness.

She was dazed, but then she heard a few guards behind me say, “I don’t know how long we’ll have to wait, but these new ghosts are very noisy, so why don’t we start by feeding them some water from the River of Oblivion?^[2] They will have to drink it before reincarnating anyway.”

River of Oblivion? When she turned around, she saw a dark wine jar being taken out by one of the guards, who then walked to the side of the road and pushed aside the red flowers, revealing a clear river.

She couldn’t tell what color the water was, but it was beautiful and sparkling, and as if it contained many things.

The guard ladled out some water into the lid, opened the mouth of a new ghost, and poured it in despite its cries. The ghost cried out loudly at first, but then slowly stopped moving, with a dazed and naive look on its face, just like a newborn baby.

After feeding several ghosts, the crying gradually stopped. And when she saw that there was still some water in the wine jar, she held out her hand.

“Let me see,” she said.

The guard looked her up and down and sneered, “How dare you call your master to task. Say it again,” it said.

She just held out her hand, “Let me see it.”

The guard didn’t respond, instead it raised a hand to hit her, but the guards who were escorting her were in a panic to stop them.

“Stop! Do you know who she is? Don’t be reckless!”

The guard, still unconvinced, sneered, “I’d like to know who she is! If she was a noble person, why would she be chained?”

A few other guards dragged them aside and whispered, “Because she died in a way that is not allowed by the law, otherwise who would dare to bind her? She doesn’t remember who she is right now otherwise you’ll be dead right now. She is not to be trifled with even by the Great Hou’Tu, let alone by you.”

The guard turned back to look at her carefully, only to see a beautiful woman, who had a dazed but fierce look on her face.

Seeing that she was still asking for the wine urn, they had no choice but to hand it over to her.

She nearly dropped the lid and hurriedly stuck out her hand to catch it. Once caught, she looked at the water, to see fragments of memories, all memories of her life.

The next fragment that comes up, it’s the memory of a demon, who burned, killed and plundered, and finally was beheaded in the market.

The fragments continue to dredge up, they are the memories of a lonely palace maid, who died of melancholy in front of a safflower^[3] tree.

She cycled through memories of different lives several times, but she has never been happy. It was either a lingering sickbed or a lonely life.

She only felt that these fragments were familiar yet unfamiliar. She wanted to know how she died and what she did before she was alive. But for some reason she just couldn’t remember.

Seeing her seemingly in a daze, the guards couldn’t help but panic. This person is smart and capricious, and if she had discovered something at this time, it would not be easy to deal with her. The only thing they could do was to compromise and say, “Miss, you’re almost through the door. The judge has to read the book of life and death, why don’t we wait until we are inside?”

She nods her head and returns the jar to the guard, and in no time she arrives at the towering and beautiful gates of the city.

Two huge, dark gods are guarding the gate, and when they see them, they stop them.

“Show me the sign.”

The guard smiled and pulled out a red sign with her name and important facts about her life. The strange god took a look at it and his expression changed slightly, he looked at her carefully, but she didn’t know anything about it, just played with her sash.

“How can she be tied up?” the strange god asked in a low voice.

The guard shook his head, put his hand on his neck, and pulled it away gently. The strange god suddenly understood, he looked at her scrupulously, retreated to the sides, and said, “Please come in.”

The guards pulled the heavy soul-chain and pulled her in. The city is full of pavilions and mansions, just like the human world, except that all the inhabitants are ghosts, with the occasional old ghost as an assistant running a tea-house, all of whom will not go to reincarnation.

She felt that everything was new, so she looked around and forgot about the water in the river and was led to a gorgeous building.

She is led up to a magnificent tower, whose layers of green tiles spread upwards like the wings of a phoenix. Above it, auspicious clouds enveloped the tower and the overlapping green floors, truly this wondrous scenery could not be seen in the mortal world.

“Please come in, Miss.” Two of the guards loosened the chain around her waist and went to the court to return with the Judge. The other two stayed behind to watch over her, waiting in the hall.

A ferocious looking Imp brought over some tea in a panic. Seeing the strange growth on the imp’s head, she couldn’t help but reach out to touch it. The imp’s face nearly turned grey with fright, and cried out on the spot, screaming, “Have mercy!”

The guard is in a hurry to get rid of the imp and smiles, “Don’t blame him, he’s new on duty and has never seen the world before. Let’s give him a break.”

She nodded her head and said, “I only find the growth on top of his head interesting. Can’t I touch it?”

The guards can only laugh bitterly, saying: you are the nemesis of all demons, who dare to let you touch a finger?

There was nothing to say. Meanwhile the two guards who went to the court gave the official documentation to the Judge, who was bearded, and sat puzzled for a while, not knowing what to do.

After a while, he asked in a deep voice, “How did you handcuff her?”

The guard replied, “Since she is a human being, so she must have her soul in handcuffs when she dies.”

“Idiot.” The Judge frowned, “Who asked you that! Who knows who she’ll be in the next life?”

The guard quickly laughed and said: “Your Excellency is wise. I was confused. It is said that she should not be handcuffed with a soul chain, but she died in the world by her own hands. If she is not handcuffed, it is against the law. Fortunately, she has no memory, she was ignorant, and was taken into the underworld obediently. Instead, I have to ask Your Excellency, what reincarnation should she enter this time?”

The Judge stroked his mustache and pondered for a while before saying, “By her own hands… it seems she has not yet achieved immortality, too much hostility, still needs to be honed. This time, we’d better go back to the way we came, with more suffering, until she is enlightened. If she is still unwise and continues to commit suicide… you take the blame and next time she will be thrown into hell and left to her own devices!”

The guard was about to go down to deliver a message when a voice came from the curtain behind the Judge,

“Wait.”

The Judge and the guards hurriedly turned around and bowed down, saying,
“Greetings to the Great Emperor Hou’tu.”

The voice, which sounded neither like a man or a woman, said, “I have pondered over the matter, and I feel that suffering may not lead to enlightenment. She is already eccentric, and I am afraid that the fury will be even greater if the pressure is heavy.”

The Judge hung his head and said, “I wonder what the Great Emperor has in mind?”

The person behind the curtain said, “I am afraid it was not a good idea to give her pain and suffering in her previous lives, as a result of which her evil spirits will not go away and her mind will be lost. It would be better if she could be touched by peace and harmony, and then plunged into the heavenly reincarnation to cultivate her immortality.”

The Judge is in a quandary: “She has cut herself in this life, and she must devote herself to the realm of heaven…. Besides, the road to immortality is difficult, and there are so few successful people. When this time is not successful, it will be a waste of the emperor’s goodwill.”

After a long while, Hou’Tu said, “You should leave her in the underworld and teach her daily with books on the cultivation of immortality. After a period of time, we will decide which one to devote ourselves to.”

“I obey the decree.”

After receiving the decree, the guards came out and when he saw her, he sighed in his heart as he saw her looking around and touching everything in the hall. She was so curious about everything that he couldn’t help but sigh in his heart. To keep this evil star in the underworld, some of them will be afraid.

He smiled and said, “Congratulations, Miss. The Emperor Hou’Tu has decreed that you should stay in the underworld for a few days and then talk about reincarnation.”

She looked at him in a daze, seemingly not understanding. The Judge cursed in his heart, compensated and said, “That is……let you play in the underworld for a few days, read books and take a walk, and then send you to reincarnate when the time is right.”

She nodded and touched the picture of the Nine Heavenly Maidens hanging on the wall, saying, “I like this place, I’ll stay here.”

The man nodded his head, “If you like it here, it’s a blessing for us.”

He turned back and told the ghost imp to go to the second floor and clean up the room, then he turned back and said, “Miss, there is one more good thing. The emperor has pity on you for being so confused and forgetful, so they gave you a name.”

She was so ignorant that she didn’t know what was going on, but the guard on the other side of her had already pulled her gently down and bent her back, and said, “The emperor has given you a name, and you must kneel down and accept it.”

She didn’t kneel, she just stared at the guard. The Judge really couldn’t bear it, so he said: “The emperor gave you the name Xuanji. In the future, those who call Xuanji will be calling you.”

She turned around and saw the imp coming down from upstairs. She smiled and grabbed him by the growth on his head, causing him to wail like ghost and howl like wolves^[4].

Xuanji stayed in the underworld for a while in such a confused state. On the surface, it was said she was doing miscellaneous tasks for the Judge, serving tea and water, but in reality, how many people dared to call on her? She is left to roam around the city all day long, hoping that she will stay out of trouble.

Every day, the Judge would bring her some books about immortal cultivation and worldly principles to read in her spare time, and was amazed at how well she could read and write, and was so talented that she could even often quote from them, which was amazing.

As time went by, the Judge couldn’t help but marvel at the wisdom of Emperor Hou’tu. If that ignorant soul had been allowed to reincarnate, she would have only made mistakes again and again, without knowing what they were. Now that she has become more interested in immortal cultivation, she has lost her dullness and has become a bit more intelligent than before.

She is like a stubborn stone, fresh from the bottom of the river, with her features completely blurred and her mind dazed.

Now that she has been taught the principles of the world and the stories of the immortals and sages, she has been carefully crafted and is finally emerging, and the talent hidden within is about to emerge.

There is only one thing, and it’s a headache.

That she is lazy, surprisingly lazy, and so lazy that the Judge is angry with God.

As long as she can lie down, she will never sit. If she does not have to think she will not. She only likes to sit in a daze by the River of Oblivion, and take a handful to look at the water, and then throw it back.

Everyone knows what she is looking for, but no one dares to tell her that all of her past life memories have been taken away by the Emperor Hou’tu. Who wants her to cut off all her past hostility and start all over again.

The Judge searched for her for half a day, but she was nowhere to be seen. He summoned the guards and asked them only to find that Xuanji had been looking at the flowers by the bank of the River of Oblivion for the whole afternoon and hadn’t moved.

He was so angry that he went to look for her by the river with a book in his hand, intending to give her a good scolding. After spending a few months with her, the two of them have become a little bit like teachers and disciples. It is because she is studious and intelligent, and the Judge’s original guarded mentality has also relaxed and truly taught her as a student. There is no teacher in the world who would not be angry at his students’ laziness.

After leaving the castle gates, he saw the thin white figure sitting by the River of Oblivion. He approached, but saw her staring at the Red Spider-Lilies, which were in full swing on the shore, her eyes staring straight ahead, not knowing what she was thinking.

He was about to call out to her, but Xuanji did not look back and whispered, “Teacher.”

The Judge sighed and went to sit beside her, looking with her at the blood colored Spider-Lilies. After a long time, he said, “What are you looking at?”

She said quietly, “Look at the colors. I have a very familiar feeling that I should have seen it from time to time, but I can’t remember.”

The Judge was slightly shocked in his heart, but he said, “Your past life has already passed, so don’t bother yourself with these mundane matters, or else it will go against the principles I have taught you.”

Xuanji said, “That’s right. What the teacher says is always right. I’ve always felt that it makes sense. Although I understand it very well, I don’t know why I feel that it’s so distant and difficult to achieve.”

“Oh? What are some things that you find difficult to do?”

“You told me to cultivate my character, not to look into the past, nor to think ahead. Those things tend to make one possessed, and one’s heart is not pure, so that one cannot cultivate. When the six roots are defiled, one cannot see beyond the form, and is easily addicted to sound and fame.”

She plucked a flower from the shore, crushed it in her hand, and the red juice flowed down between her delicate fingers.

“But the heart is born to think, and the eyes are born to see, the mouth to speak, and the ears to hear. If I give up all that, what am I? I don’t understand what the teacher meant when he talked about becoming immortal, but after becoming immortal… is there nothing left?”

The Judge was surprised that she would ask such a tricky question, and after a while said, “No. In their minds, it is plausible that they know but do not know, that they understand but do not understand.”

“Then what do they really know?” She asked seriously, “If they know, can they still pretend not to know? Can the Immortals be happy?”

The Judges frowned: “Xuanji, you’re taking the bull by the horns. Happy? Do you think worldly attachments can bring true happiness ?”

She hung her head and whispered, “I know what you mean. I just don’t get it. If there is no purpose and no heart, then why do we need to exist? I couldn’t understand it. I have thought about it for a long time, but I don’t think I can do it. If I don’t think about the cause, then what is the reason for it? You must be very disappointed in me, Master.”

The Judge sees that her eyes are clear, but her face is foggy and she has a strange look of seemingly knowing but not understanding. The Judge was even more shocked. He knew that she was too clever to be allowed to remember the past and the present, and that if she did, she would fall into hell and become a demon, and she would never be able to turn over a new leaf. The painstaking efforts of the Heavenly Emperor and Emperor Hou’tu would be wasted then.

He was silent for a long time, and finally had a plan in mind. He suddenly clapped his hands and said, “I understand what Xuanji means.”

She hurriedly stared, and said in a wondering tone, “What did the teacher understand?”

The Judge laughed, “I’ll show you your past life! Just this once, and never again.”

She was so delighted that she danced around so much that she couldn’t even speak.

The Judge picked up a handful of soil from the shore, threw it into the river, and said, “Take your time, and don’t ask these questions again.”

She hurriedly leaned forward and saw the rippling water in the River of Oblivion, and the colour of the water gradually condensed and formed into a woman in white. At the sight of that woman’s face, Xuanji was stunned.

It was herself.

But it doesn’t seem to be her.

The two eyes are like shattered ice with a chilling intent. Suddenly, she pulled up a sword, her skirt twisted, and blood splashed all over her body. Then, she withdrew her sword and wiped her face, leaving a bloodstain on her left cheek. Suddenly, she smiled strangely, as if she was in pain.

Xuanji only felt that this scene was familiar, that smile, that white dress stained with blood, that pair of eyes that looked like crushed ice and snow… Her ears seemed to ring out the familiar sound of trumpets, golden armor, and overwhelming shouts. The General on the horse had three heads and six arms, surrounded by flames.

Āxiūluō! That was the path of Āxiūluō!^[5]

She suddenly caught a glimpse of inspiration in the darkness and was about to blurt it out, when suddenly she was pushed by someone behind her and couldn’t hold on. She fell into the River of Oblivion with a splash, and drank several bitter mouthfuls of the water.

Like a big cat falling into the water, she crawled to the shore in a panic. By the time her hands hit the ground, her mind was in a daze, and all the past and present disappeared into a mist of smoke. She tilted her head blankly at the Judge on the shore, wanting to tell him something, but forgetting who he was.

“You…” she murmured, “I…

It’s strange. It’s as if I’ve forgotten something important. What is it? So what the hell….

The Judge summoned the spirits, put a soul-locking chain around her and pulled her ashore, saying loudly, “Xuanji, you’ve been in the underworld for more than three months and now your mind is clear. You will be sent to reincarnation. I hope you will practice immortality diligently in your next life and return to Heaven as soon as possible.”

After saying that, everyone brought her to the reincarnation path. Seeing that Xuanji was in a daze and knowing that it was because she had drunk the water of oblivion, The guard said cautiously, “Judge, what path is Miss Xuanji being sent to? Or is it the same as before, to the Āxiūluō Path?

The Judge shook his head: “No, she is no longer what she used to be, and her mind is about to broaden. At such a critical moment, as long as she is uncertain, she will become a demon. Therefore, the official has planned and instructed her to make her drink the Water of Oblivion. She cannot be reincarnated as an Āxiūluō, otherwise everything that has been done will come to naught. Now there are many immortal cultivators in the world, and they respect immortals, so let her go to humanity. As long as there is sincerity, the result will be determined in the future.”

The gates of the wheel of human reincarnation have been opened, from inside glorious light spills out, and one can see there are tens of thousands of paths spider-webbed together. As the light touched her, Xuanji’s whole body gradually became transparent, and finally turned into a pearl.

The Judge fetched the pearl and cast it into the door of reincarnation, saying in their heart, “If you and I are destined to meet, we will meet again in heaven. I hope you will take care of yourself.”

That night, the wife of the head of Shaoyang Peak of Shaoyang Mountain gave birth to two daughters. On the eve of the birth, Head Master Chu Lei had a dream in which he saw exquisite jade and dazzling starlight, so he named his daughters Ling Long and Xuan Ji.

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[1]: Lycoris radiata, known as the red spider lily, hell flower, red magic lily, or equinox flower, is a plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. Originally from China, Korea, and Nepal, it was introduced into Japan and from there to the United States and elsewhere.
Since these scarlet flowers usually bloom near cemeteries around the autumnal equinox, they are described in Chinese and Japanese translations of the Lotus Sutra as ominous flowers that grow in Hell, (Chinese: 黃泉), and guide the dead into the next reincarnation.

[2]: 忘川 (wáng chuān) – 忘 (to forget) 川 (river, creek). literally: River of Forgetting. According to Chinese Mythology, the River of Forgetting is a river in the underworld the water from which will erase all memories. Souls must drink the water before moving on to reincarnation.

[3]: Safflower, (Carthamus tinctorius), is a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual plant. It is commercially cultivated for vegetable oil extracted from the seeds and was used by the early Spanish colonies along the Rio Grande as a substitute for saffron.

[4]: 鬼哭狼嚎 (guǐ ​kū​ láng​háo) – idiom which literally translates as ‘to wail like ghosts and howl like wolves’.

[5]: Āxiūluō (Sanskrit, Pāli: असुर; Japanese: 阿修羅 Ashura; Korean: 아수라; Chinese: 阿修罗; pinyin: Āxiūluō,) in Buddhism is the name of the lowest ranks of the deities or demigods of the Kāmadhātu. They are described as having three heads with three faces and four to six arms. It is a peculiar path in the Six Paths. They are the enemies of the devas, and are the mightest of all demons. In terms of material enjoyment and psychic power, it is similar to Deva. However, in some aspects, it is even worse than the Human Path. The male Āxiūluō is extremely ugly and furious, and always fight with each other. The female Āxiūluō is as beautiful as an angel. They are proud of themselves, thus reluctant to learn and practice Buddhism.

Contentious and belligerent, Āxiūluō fight continually with the gods. The world of Āxiūluō is counted as one of the six paths, or the six lower states of existence among the Ten Worlds.

For more details about Āxiūluō follow this link.

For more details about the Underworld/Hell follow this link or this one.