Chapter 3: The Power of a Programmer

“Let me explain the problem with her method,” Yan said. “A body without a soul can learn some amazing abilities, but if you want to keep your body alive, you need something called ‘life exchanging talisman water’. It’s called that because you must take another’s life to extend your own. If Miss Lan is using this method, she’ll need to take another life every forty-nine days. The technique was invented by Shang Yang during the Qin dynasty. His soldiers gained power, but they also had to keep fighting to survive. Bai Qi killed four-hundred-thousand soldiers from Zhao just to obtain more souls to feed his army. After Ying Zheng united the six states, there was not enough bloodshed to feed his army and they slowly died off. It’s part of the reason the Qin dynasty fell. Of course, this is all legend now. Since then, the cycle of rebirth has been fairly stable, and we keep a close watch on souls. This sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore. But it happened today.”

Yan sighed.

"That's why I came back so late," Liu Shuai said, biting his lip. "Something about Miss Lan felt off to me. At dinner, something about you was wrong. You had the faintest smell of a corpse, as if you were already dead. I thought it was because the game meat wasn’t fresh, so I didn't eat any of it, but when we went to the hot spring together, things still smelled off. I was worried, so I followed you after I left, but I got lost along the way. Something was trying to mislead me, and I had to force my way in here. There’s something wrong with this place. We need to get out of here as soon as possible."

I realized that Liu Shuai's breath was uneven. He seemed distracted.

As I watched him, a clap of thunder sounded, and a heavy gale began to pound the walls. The whole building began to shake. Liu Shuai grabbed the bottle and placed Zhou Yuan's soul back inside it, then rushed to the window to look at the situation outside. Confused, I followed him.

"Did you notice anything strange?" Liu Shuai asked me.

"It seems," I stared out, "it seems like the wind is only moving the trees around our villa. Look at the villa across from us. The trees are not moving at all!"

"This is a spell to make a boundary between worlds. I am definitely not a match for somebody powerful enough to do that…" Liu Shuai looked out of the window, then looked at Yan. He bowed. "Today, we are relying on you!"

"Ha! This kid has potential!" Yan looked proud. He glanced at me, as if he was hoping I would also be impressed by his power. "This little spell is still not strong enough to hurt me. Liu Shuai, you just need to seal all the windows in this room. Let’s see who this Miss Lan really is! "

Liu Shuai nodded and pulled a sheaf of paper. He bit his finger until it bled and began to draw runes. When he chanted an incantation, they lit and burned to ashes in the air. Rather than drift to the ground, they held in the air, glistening gold in the lamplight. Liu Shuai drew something else in the air and the ashes exploded.

Yan looked at Liu Shuai approvingly.

"Not bad, young man, using the Divine Transformation technique to activate the Two Elements of Golden Light. It is extraordinary at your age."

The sky was pierced by shrill laughter and the lights on the ceiling started to shake so violently I thought they might crack. The golden light moved like a living creature. Every time a hole opened, the light flowed to it and sealed it back together. The constant breaking and sealing made the whole wall seem alive.

“Yan!” an ear-piercing voice called, “you are an Officer of the Underworld. This is the mortal world, and we have not broken any rules. Besides, we are not dead. What right do you have to stand against us?”

"It seems that you fiends know a lot about how the Underworld works. No wonder you had such a tidy method of killing humans.” Yan looked at the continuously moving wall, stretched out his right hand, and, with a snap of his fingers, the wall immediately returned to its original form. There was no movement from the wall. I looked out of the window and watched the gale slowly die down.

"A baseless accusation! We’ve never killed anyone. This man committed suicide and will not be allowed into the afterlife." The voice wasn't loud, but it felt like the speaker was right next to my ear. "You know perfectly well that has been the law since the May Fourth Seal. No need to play the hero.”

Hearing that, Yan's face changed.

"Who exactly are you, and how did you learn these things?"

He raised his right hand above head and clenched his fist. The room spun around us, but I didn’t feel dizzy. Looking outside, I realized we weren’t the ones spinning. The world was spinning around us.

"Why is everything spinning?" I asked Liu Shuai quietly.

"He's using the Searching the World method, neither moving nor staying still, to find out the other party. It's very likely that the person we’re looking for has no soul to trace, so most traditional methods won’t work.” Liu Shuai watched the process with wonder. "That’s the only way to search for a being between life and death. Even my master doesn't know this method.”

"What does that mean? Neither moving nor staying still?" It was now spinning so violently that I couldn’t even look outside.

Liu Shuai took out his phone.

“Look at the scenery outside."

I glanced at the screen and looked at outside. I was surprised to see that the view in the camera had not rotated at all. The world around us was still spinning. Just as I was about to ask for a clearer explanation, the view stopped spinning.

“Got it!” Yan shouted.

Yan raised his hand and gradually leaned forward, and I felt the entire house floating up, then quickly flying forward.

It sped through the woods, and I was surprised to find that the trees went through our bodies. I reached out to touch them, but I felt nothing. Gradually, the house flew to the empty plaza at the entrance to the valley. Yan opened his fist, and the room dissolved around us. Now we could see three figures in front of us, Miss Lan and two of her men.

"Good work!" Miss Lan said, clapping. "But there is no conflict between us, right? Your job to take souls, but you probably shouldn’t take the one you’re holding. This person is still in the mortal world, so it would be strange if you brought him back to the Underworld. If you don't handle it properly, you might be convicted of forcibly taking the soul of a living human, so why don't you give it to us? "

"You trash. What makes you qualified to negotiate with me? Hand over the remaining talisman water now!" Yan snarled.

His body tensed, glowing with a faint golden light. Yan seemed surprised.

"It’s the Immortal Tying Rope!"

"You actually know of it, High Immortal." Miss Lan said, flashing a brilliant smile. "Fortunately, Great Mother gave us this life-saving treasure. If you hadn’t come to stop us and we’d been more careful, we would have lost the chance to try it out!”

"Do you think I’m stupid? The Immortal Tying Rope was lost a long time ago," Yan struggled, the golden light shattered and fell to the ground. "A forgery won’t hold me.”

Forgery? Even Yan’s world had that sort of thing?

Miss Lan smirked.

"Of course it’s fake, but this Immortal Tying Seal will still prevent you from using your magic for a while. That’s good enough!"

Yan tried to move, and his face changed.

When Miss Lan saw he was stuck, she held her hand to the sky. Instantly, the clear sky filled with dark clouds. Heavy lightening bolts branched down, striking the plaza.

"Thunder Sovereign of the Nine Heavens!"

As Miss Lan pointed to the sky, Liu Shuai sat, tracing a seal with his hands and chanting. He reached his own hand to the sky and gold powder scattered, reforming the shape of the room Yan had dispelled. The bolts struck the thin layer of gold power as the thunder rumbled and cracked, but they didn’t break through. With each strike, Liu Shuai grew a bit paler. Blood started to trickle from the corner of his mouth, and he looked to be on the verge of collapse.

Zhou Yuan had been frozen in terror, but now he reacted quickly and dropped to the ground, holding Liu Shuai in his arms and propping him up.

"He's used too much of his life force." Yan took out a pill from his pocket and put it in Liu Shuai’s mouth. "That’s a problem. If he’s unconscious, we can’t get out of here!"

Outside the golden room, Miss Lan seemed to have used up the last of her energy as well and fell to the ground. The men beside her had a dull look in their eyes and didn’t react.

"Yan, although you do not have any supernatural power, you still have a title,” somebody called from outside. The voice was sharp, and I couldn’t make out the gender of the speaker. “I, the Great Mother, can trap you, but I cannot shatter your soul. However, you cannot save these young souls around you. Give them to me, and you can walk away unharmed. I will transfer the souls to animals before I kill them, so it will not be the jurisdiction of the Underworld. I can take the souls, and you won’t be asked any awkward questions!”

As the voice faded, the scenery outside the square gradually blurred until I couldn’t make out anything. It looked like another boundary between words, this time separating the entire square.

"Don't bluff! Your real body isn’t here. The three outside already belong to you, and the woman with all the power has no energy left,” Yan called. He frowned, and looked at me gently. “She’s right. I don’t have access to my magic. The best I can do is negotiate and convince her to let you go, at least.”

"How can you say that? This a trap!" I watched the blurred world around us. "How can I just leave things like this?! These are my friends! How can you just stand by and watch them die?!"

"My job is to stand by and watch humans die," Yan replied.

I knew he spoke the truth, but the cold way he said it still stung.

Yan looked at me and bowed his head in thought for a moment, then looked back out the nothing around us.

"Where are you from? How dare you come destroy souls, you monster?! If the Underworld finds out, they will send you to the deepest level of Hell so your soul is never reborn!”

"Hah! There are so few talented people left in the Underworld. A few decades ago, that threat would make me nervous. But now, since you don't appreciate me offering you a good deal, you can’t blame me if I break the rules!”

As the Great Mother spoke, the lightning began to flash outside and the thunder roared. Hail and wind began to batter the filmy golden wall that protected us.

"I've only got the basics of the Two Elements of Golden Light, and I won't be able to hold her off for long. The odds are against me tonight..." Liu Shuai said softly, slowly opening his eyes. "Fair enough. Zhou Yuan, help sit me up."

Zhou Yuan was terrified, holding up Liu Shuai with trembling hands.

“Zhou Yuan, even though this is happening because you were willing to give up your soul to improve your art, we’re responsible too,” Liu Shuai told him. “We made things hard for you and never understood how much you were struggling, so we deserve to bear this too. On behalf of all your colleagues, I want to make sure you know none of us ever doubted that you were a good man who worked hard. We criticized your work, but we never intended to criticize you.”

“You saw today, because of your greed, we might all lose our future,” he continued. “I hope if we do survive, you’ll listen to your soul, and not allow it to become twisted…”

Liu Shuai’s voice was getting weaker until it faded completely.

Zhou Yuan was already sobbing.

"Liu Shuai, you can't die like this. It's all my fault! I was stupid! I should have known there’s nothing you can get without paying the price.”

Liu Shuai opened his eyes and glared at Zhou Yuan.

“Who told you I’m dead? I am activating the Two Elements of Golden Light! "

Zhou Yuan and flushed with embarrassment, but Liu Shuai ignored us, muttering an incantation. He took out a needle, pricked his forehead, and his pale face went even paler.

“Quick, give him this!” Yan said. He took out a pill, and had me place it under Liu Shuai’s tongue. "He’s forcing himself to convert his life force into power. If he doesn’t replenish some energy, he really will die."

"You have so many pills…" I couldn't help muttering. It was a brown pill, and not only did it have a strange shine, it had a pleasant smell.

"Of course," Yan said with pride. "It’s caffeinated chocolate. They have a new recipe that’s five times as strong.

I was speechless.

"You use chocolate to make your spiritual medicine? How poor is your Underworld!? I thought it was some rare concoction, but you aren’t that reliable after all!"

Yan looked embarrassed.

"The magic pills in your TV plays that could save lives are just this kind of stuff, aren't they? What’s more, he really needs to replenish his energy…"

The house itself began to blur and the hail outside the window seemed to stop. Looking out the window, I realized that the hail was rushing towards the window faster than I could comprehend. Strangely, when it reached the window, it disappeared, as if it had gone somewhere else.

"What is this? A Two Elements Dust Array?" the voice yelled. "No! Why was there only an Illusion Gate? Where are the other five gates?”

It paused for a moment, then laughed.

“You bald little donkey. A Two Elements Dust Array with just one gate is just a cheap imitation. You can’t stop me with that. Soul Hunters, Go! "

The two men with empty eyes shuddered and their heads turned to look at as, eyes streaming green light. They ran at us and began to punch at the gold powder. Liu Shuai flinched with every blow as if they struck him directly and another mouthful of blood spilled out.

"The Illusion Gate can’t block attacks from a human body!” Yan moved again, but he still hadn’t recovered from the seal. "What do we do? These two have strength beyond normal human ability. Without magic power, I’m no match for them. We’ll all be killed.”