Hui watched the reaper go and let out a quiet sigh of relief. I didn’t get stepped on. Good! What happens once can be taken as happenstance, but what happens twice must happen a third time, and what happens a third time is a habit. My step counter is already at one, which means we’re on the very brink of being stepped on as a habit!

Wait, no. I’m on the brink. Right, right. I’m not a set of clones anymore. Just me. Just… this one me.

He glanced up. I could probably grow those seeds into clones, but… first off, that fragmented my soul the first time, so I shouldn’t do it again. Secondly, that was with life qi, instead of death qi. Although I can connect to one seed with death qi, I’m not a hundred precent sure I can recreate that network with death qi.

And I shouldn’t. Me sneaking out is one thing. Whether the reaper and Zhu Diyu are overlooking it or unaware, I’ve successfully escaped to the mortal realm. Pushing it further risks discovery, and risking discovery risks my entire mortal realm escape plan. Although I’m not fully escaping death yet, I still want to meet my children. I’m not willing to risk that for anything.

Once I meet my children, though, I can start cautiously exploring the boundaries. But we’ll cross those bridges as we reach them! For now, I need to focus on reaching my children and, of nearly equal importance, not getting stepped on.

Hui started back for his quarters, only to stop dead. His eyes widened. Hold up. I’m unsupervised in the Underworld for the first time! If I gave up on this, I’d never forgive myself. I’ll have time to reach the surface using my known method later, but to assume that I will forever be able to use the same technique to pierce through to the mortal realm… this small Hui isn’t that bold! No, no. To ensure that I can continue to wiggle my way out of the Underworld, it’s time for this small Hui to explore this hidden realm… ahem, the Underworld!

He took off, flying through the low-slung sky of the Underworld. In the space of a few hours, he reached the edge. Turning back, he reached the other edge. By the end of the day, he’d circled the space.

Returning to the town, Hui landed, putting a hand on his chin. Yes, I can wiggle out of the Underworld, but… but the real question is, why hasn’t everyone else? The Underworld is full of cracks. Even if I directly walked out of the Underworld, it wouldn’t be surprising. I suppose the reaper walked to the mortal realm by merely walking, but… it’s like a sieve! He looked up, angling his head just right, and caught a glimpse of the mortal realm’s sky far overhead.

I wonder… are they suppressing my Dao not out of aggression or protecting themselves, but perhaps… to protect what little remains of the integrity of the Underworld?

Hui bit his lip. He shook his head. I won’t give up my Dao. Not for the sake of the Underworld. But… I will keep it in mind. After all, I don’t want to shatter the Underworld. It’s true that every cultivator protagonist must defy the heavens, but—but I’m no protagonist! That, and the Underworld doesn’t need to be shattered and defied. It’s doing its best. There’s already enough ghouls and ghosts in the mortal realm, what with demonic cultivators running wild!

He looked over at the lifeless souls wandering the stony wasteland. Did Zhu Diyu move them here to keep them away from the cracks, instead of to get them to move on to reincarnation?

Hmm. No, I think… I think I can’t ignore this. I’m good at breaking hidden realms, not fixing them, but… after Fen Long, I’m probably the realm’s… top… top… er, at least in the top ten best hidden realm experts! I don’t want to destroy the Underworld. But right now, I don’t know why it’s riddled with cracks. The first thing I need to do is figure out what’s causing it.

And to figure out what’s causing it… obviously, the first step, is to use those cracks as much as possible, to figure out how they work!

Yes, yes, that’s right. I’m breaking out of the Underworld to figure out how to fix it! That’s why I’m heading to the surface. That’s right, Zhu Diyu. So don’t stop me. I’m doing it for your sake!

Clenching his fist, Hui nodded earnestly to himself. “I’m escaping the Underworld… for the sake of the Underworld!”

He glanced around. Did anyone hear that? I want that to get back to Zhu Diyu. He should know! But not… not know too much. I don’t want him to find out that I’m escaping the Underworld if he doesn’t know. An unconfirmed rumor is exactly the amount of “knowing it” that I want him to have!

A few clerks wandered around, none of them paying any particular attention to Hui. He nodded to himself. Good, good. Alright. Time to make my way topside.

I could physically leave this space, but… Hui shook his head. I don’t want to break those cracks wider open. This body is something Zhu Diyu created, deeply tied to the Underworld. My soul, being something nonphysical and more or less equivalent to a ghost, likely creates less damage to the Underworld’s structure. I’ll go back to my quarters and meditate.

Besides, it’s only a small detail, but I don’t know how to leave the Underworld with this body yet. I really… have to ask Elder Sister Reaper how to do that!

Hui walked back to his quarters and sat down to meditate. He settled his breathing and closed his eyes, calling out to the seeds on the surface. The furthest one, the one closest to the Southern Sect Conference. That’s the one I want to reach!

In his mind’s eye, the seeds materialized one after another, each one a perfect black. Their distances from one another stretched in his mind, miniaturized to a scale he could comprehend. One stood far, far apart from the others, almost as far apart from the nearest seed to it as the furthest of the rest of the seeds was to the any other but that far-flung seed.

That must be the seed I dropped at the border of the North and East regions. So if I assume that’s northeast, then the furthest southern seed must be…

He narrowed his eyes at the seed furthest from the far-flung seed. That one!

His soul burst from his body and flew across the void, hurtling toward the seed he’d chosen. A dark tunnel swirled around him, faint streaks of light visible in its walls. Hui watched them closely. Are those the cracks in the Underworld? I wonder…

Abruptly, Hui’s direction jolted to the side. He blinked, startled. Huh? Why am I going off-course? I picked the seed, I don’t want to go somewhere else! I’ll be days behind!

He fought the pull, but the pull proved stronger than him. Hui hesitated, then gave in, playing dead. If the pull is this strong, it might be someone pulling me. Better to give in and go limp than to give them signs of life! There’s no fish on the end of this line, Elder Brother! Give up on me! Go fish some other soul up from the Underworld!

A burst of light appeared at the tunnel’s end. He fell lifelessly toward it. His body impacted something, and he jolted, coming to a pale imitation of life.

Silently, Hui peered around.

He laid on the side of a cliff. Rain poured down, and a reddish mud slowly slipped down the side of the cliff. Not a single cultivator, nor mortal, was in sight.

…huh. I guess… it was nothing? Weird. Waiting another few moments just to be sure, Hui shrugged. Oh well. No time to waste!

Hui again circulated death qi from the Underworld into himself in the mortal realm, using it to grow the seed into a new body. His body formed quickly, even more quickly than before. In the space of a breath, he went from a seed to a toddler-sized man, from a toddler to child-sized, and finally to full grown.

Sitting up, Hui looked around. Mud slogged down a slope around him, carrying his growing body with it. Roots spread from his body into the mud, stealing nutrients to fuel Hui’s regeneration. A random mountainside in the middle of a rainstorm. I’m in the Eastern region, for certain.

Wait… the seed is a death qi seed. How is it absorbing things from this mountain? Unless…

Hui jumped up. A distinctive red tint tinged the mud on his hands. Floating in the air, he looked down at the mountain. Red-brown blood slid down the slope. Here and there, rounded white rocks poked through the mud.

Not rocks. Bones. This mountain isn’t a mountain at all, but a grave mound.

He closed his eyes and reached out toward the ground. Rich death qi, thicker even than that of the Underworld, swirled into him. Unlike the Underworld’s death qi, though, impurities coursed through this death qi. Resentment, anger… and rot qi, which Hui quietly separated out. If only I had the ducks, I could—

“Quack!”

A black duck leaped up and snapped away the rot qi. It circled back into him, vanishing into his dantian again.

Oh! I do still have the ducks. Fantastic! Hui fed the rot qi into the ducks, letting them fill up on it.

But the emotions and impurities in this qi… I don’t know what to do with them. He regarded the resentment from the outside, frowning at it. The emotions colored his own, leaving him twisted and uncomfortable, but there was no way to remove them.

At least it’s easy to separate them from my own emotions. I rarely feel intense anger, and I’m careful never to accumulate resentment! Resentment and anger are the first steps to losing one’s poor little life. Better to play dead and let others’ anger pass over you, than to act on your own anger!

Eh, I… am already dead. So… I guess that didn’t work out for me.

But the point remains! I didn’t die because of anger. But I easily could have! And just because I made it back to the mortal realm, doesn’t mean I’ll always be able to. Just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean my soul can’t be obliterated. I still have to protect my poor little unlife, and that means avoiding anger and resentment!

“Ghosts’ resentment. The way to resolve that… it’s simple, isn’t it? Wipe away the resentment by resolving whatever they had issue with in life,” Hui murmured to himself. He looked at the bones. “What is your resentment?”

The bones said nothing.

Hui crossed his arms. He stepped back, viewing the bloodstained and bone-strewn landslide thoughtfully. Hmm, wait. This isn’t my resentment or anger. These bones… and my lotus seeds. What if I create a vessel for this resentment, instead of taking it on myself? Then it can avenge itself, and I don’t have to worry about any impurities or backlashes from using this wonderfully thick death qi.

He waved his hand. The bones flew up from the ground. With another wave, he transformed them into powder. Slowly, he began to circle his hand in the air, dragging the powder with it. At the same time, he fed the anger, resentment, and death qi into the powder mixture, following the usual technique he used to make a lotus seed.

From out of the bone, resentment, anger, and death qi, a pure white lotus seed formed. It trembled, shuddering in midair, then burst roots from its heart. Hui released it, letting it fall into the rich red earth below. The roots dug deep into the grave mound, devouring the resentment and anger left behind in the bloody mound.

Hui happily absorbed the purified death qi, letting the white lotus seed handle the hard work. Wonderful, how wonderful! I should’ve thought of this a long time ago. Using the lotus seeds to purify impure qi… perfect.

Ah, usually the ducks do a good enough job, but what they can’t digest, they can only store, like the rot qi. They’ve never metabolized deep resentment before; I doubt they could.

Actually, aren’t they a manifestation of Fatty’s resentment, originally? So it’s good I didn’t feed it to them. It would be cannibalism, cannibalism!

The white lotus seed twitched. From its heart, a strange form began to take shape.

Hui stepped back, putting a hand on his chin. Wait, hold on. I just gave a body to an immense amount of resentment and anger that’s been locked in a burial mound for untold centuries. Isn’t that… usually… what B-villains do immediately before that monster wakes up and ganks them?

The shape trembled. Spikes appeared on its surface. A single pale hand reached up from the seed, then another, then another. A thousand pure-white hands reached for the sky, their fingertips stained with blood and nails blackened and bruised.

Motherfuck—oh Hui, oh Hui, you fucked up today! Hui turned and sprinted off, zooming through the sky at top speed. Haha, little resentful seed, it’s not me you want to kill! It’s not me, I swear! It’s whoever put you in that mound. I’m just the benefactor who freed you! Leave me alone! Hahaha!

A distant roar sounded from the burial mound. Hui swallowed and sped up again. See? What did I say? Resentment and anger lead to one’s death! Even if you’re simply passing by, it’s easy to get wrapped up in someone else’s resentment! Resentment Seed Elder Sibling, please overlook this small cultivator, okay? I never meant to disturb you! It’s fine to go back to sleep!