"There is only half of Zhou Yuan's soul left." Yan had a serious face, which made his pale face even paler.
Liu Shuai was stunned.
"What do you mean only half of his soul is left?" I was confused, "You store it in your bottle, don't you?"
Yan touched the bottle in his pocket and placed it in front of us. I looked at Liu Shuai and since Liu Shuai temporarily did not have any mana, he was unable to see anything. Still, I felt that the glow of Zhou Yuan inside the bottle seemed to have dimmed a lot compared to that day. Seeing that we did not speak, Yan explained, "I can't tell you why, but it's possible that the fight that night had affected the soul inside the bottle, or maybe I used too much power to destroy Yin and Yang Transporting Body. I just noticed a few days ago that only half of his soul is left."
"Then what about the other half?" I didn't understand. Yan was a professional soul collector. How could he make such a mistake?
"It's gone. Have you heard a phrase called soul dissipation? Don't push me. I have to explain it slowly." Yan looked at Liu Shuai, "He might be able to explain it more clearly to you."
Liu Shuai thought for a while, and then cleared his throat, "A human's soul, or Hun Po, is extremely weak after leaving the body. Some special changes in an environment will cause the soul to become unstable, and then dissipate. In the world that Yan resides, people's souls and lives are not stealed or taken. It would be better to say that these people's lives are nearing their end. If no one comes to collect their souls, then these people will have nothing left."
"He's right." Yan nodded his head, "So the phrase that no one dares to keep you till five o'clock if the King of Hell wants you dead by one o'clock does not mean how scary the King of Hell is, but it means that your soul would dissipate with nothing left by five if soul collectors does not find you by one."
Since we had reached this point, I couldn't help but ask a question that had puzzled me for the past few days, "Yan, your job is to collect people's souls. Why haven't you been out for so long? Does that mean no one is going to die in this world? That's not possible. What about those deal people's souls? Are they all going to dissipate? "
"I used to be very busy." Yan looked at me, "In the nether world, there are a lot of Black and White Wu Chang, Ox-head and Horse-Face and the others who came to handle the matters of souls, but all these have been completely automated during the past yaers. When people die normally, they will automatically enter the nether world. You have fingerprinting, face-scanning and self-help stores, don't you? The nether world has also improved with the times. "
Liu Shuai was dumbstruck when he heard it, probably because he had not learnt this kind of knowledge back then.
"Shit.." I muttered to myself. No wonder the first time Yan saw me, he told me that he played with the Srike of Kings. "Then why are you still collecting people's souls?"
Yan stood up, paced back and forth, and then kicked his legs, "There will always be accidents during automation, such as abnormal deaths, overwork, suicide, and so on. Or else, if there are any problems with this system, we will have to come out and deal with it. Besides, the Heavenly Dao is unpredictable. I will try my best to save as many people as I can. Do you still remember how I told you that my job is to not save them? Although it was said impulsively, it is the truth — Hey, we are talking about Zhou Yuan, right? If you are so curious about the nether world, what about I bringing you over to take a look when I'm out? "
"No, thanks," I broke out in a cold sweat, thinking that I was too curious, so I continued to ask Liu Shuai, "Since Zhou Yuan's soul only has half left, let's quickly put the remaining half back into his body in case there is nothing left after a period of time. If we put it back now, it shouldn't be worse than his current state, right?"
"Well, it depends on your definition of worse." Liu Shuai smiled bitterly as he looked at me, "Wihout a soul, he can still be considered a person who can walk and move in the short term. His memories will not be lost and he still has the abilities of a normal person, but if he loses half of his soul and then the remaining soul forcibly returns to his body, his soul will come to a self-protection mode that turns his body in the lowest consumptive state to nourish his soul."
"It's a good thing, isn't it?" I thought for a moment. "If his body continues nourishing his soul, then his soul would be complete, right?"
"Dream! If his soul is damaged, we should definitely not use such a method to repair it. Only the Six Paths of Reincarnation can repair damaged souls. " Yan suddenly said, "You are too slow. Hao Ning, don't interrupt Liu Shuai. Let him speak."
Liu Shuai thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement with Yan, "An ordinary person's soul cannot recover completely from nourishment of the body, so it must enter the Six Paths of Reincarnation as soon as possible, but it cannot enter the cycle only when the person died normally. Therefore nourishment of flesh body can temporarily ensure that the soul itself does not dissipate. At this time, the soul and body are already at odds with each other, and when it reaches a certain point, the soul will force the death of the body, and then the soul will enter the normal death process that Yan mentioned. It will return back to the nether word and reincarnate. In this process, souls can modify themselves, while the process of fight between the soul and the body for time is called plant man. "
Liu Shuai looked at Yan, and Yan nodded. Then he looked at me, indicating that he had finished.
I looked at Liu Shuai blankly, "So, if I use Avalokiteshvara's medicine at this time to reunite Zhou Yuan's body with his soul, Zhou Yuan will immediately …"
"The wounds on his body will disappear instantly, but he will fall into a coma." Liu Shuai looked at the expressionless Zhou Yuan. From the moment we entered the door to now, Zhou Yuan merely listened to us, but there was no expression of sorrow or joy on his face, as if we were talking about someone completely unrelated to him. Liu Shuai sighed, and then finished what he wanted to say, "Until his flesh body dies. This way we can only extend his life, but in such a state, there's no difference for him to live one day or one hundred years."
I also looked at Zhou Yuan. After a long while, I asked, "Zhou Yuan, what do you think?"
"Me? I have no idea. " Zhou Yuan said nonchalantly, "It is the same for me as being alive, in a coma, or died. In the past I couldn't do what I wanted. I had to face all kinds of negations every single day, and play the part of not being my own in the eyes of others, but now that my soul isn't in my body, I don't even know who I am now. I'm just mechanically doing things that I don't like or hate. If I keep living in this way, there would be no difference to live one day or a hundred years. Maybe there is some difference, but not in me; it's about how you think of me in your minds. You think that I suffer not because you feel sorry for me suffering, but because my situation is projected into your hearts, and is too far away from the way I am supposed to be living in your hearts. What you think as me is not really me. It's the person you imagine in your minds. "
"Jesus!" Yan said in a low voice, "If I hadn't known about his current condition, then with his words just now, he would have basically turned into a Buddha!"
"That's right. But what a pity! We cannot see Tathagata if we want to allure him with our outside appearance or beg him with our voice." Liu Shuai took over the conversation, "A thought can make a person become a Buddha or a demon. You can't judge him just based on what he said. You must examine his motivations and desires, but Zhou Yuan already stopped thinking about it."
The place was deathly silent for a long while.
"How could this be?" I looked down at the ground, shook my head, and muttered, "Liu Shuai, how could this be? If we can't save Zhou Yuan, then what were we struggling for these past few days?"
I turned my head to Yan with my rims turning red. Yan was shocked by my appearance. "We are only the most ordinary losers in this world. Why can't we live normally to the end of our lives? Why do we have to suffer such hardships. Why do we have to listen to the stories of others's children all day long and grow into distorted —" I pointed at Zhou Yuan, "grow into distorted selves?"
"Zhou Yuan was originally so bright and cute. He never argued with anyone in the company. No matter how Liu Shuai ridiculed his graphs, he would always accept it seriously with a smile. At most, he would admit that he was incapable and would try hard next time —"
"Previous Zhou Yuan never had a venomous tongue. Even if I occasionally ridiculed him, he would just pretend he never heard it. He just laughed and then went back to work with us, playing around —"
"Previous Zhou Yuan never spread negative energy. Sometime the director accused him of being incompetent, and he accepted it wholeheartedly. He never complained to us about what the director said —"
"Previous Zhou Yuan only wanted to become what his mother called 'others' children'. However, he did not understand that he could never be the so called others' children, because even if he made it, there would be more outstanding ones. So he was actually fighting with the entire world alone."
"That's right. His abilities are limited. He is trapped in a wish he doesn't want to do but has to make, while he hasn't hurt anyone except himself. The measure he had to take was also because he did not understand the consequences. Could you blame him for that? "
"If we blame him, then what are we? We live muddle-headed, speak nonsense to others, to kneel and lick those who are higher than us, and look down on those who are lower than us. In the end, who lives like a human and who lives like a ghost?! "
Liu Shuai lowered his head and did not speak. Yan looked at me, unable to answer my question.
"Why? Why can't someone like Zhou Yuan live a good life? He is just a poor guy. Could it be that he cannot even have the power to live peacefully in this world?! "
"What Borrow Me Your Mana, what Avalokiteshvara, what miracle medicine, what Bodhisattva fears the cause while mortals fear the effect. That's all bullshit!"
"Bam!"
The more I said, the angrier I got, but I could not find a way to release. Without thinking, I took out the medicine Avalokiteshvara gave me and ruthlessly smashed it on the television in front of me. That was my new 60-inch liquid crystal TV, but I didn't care about it anymore. The TV shook after being, which slightly mitigated my anger.
At this moment, the television that was turned off suddenly turned on and a faint sound came from it.
"Hao Ning, even if you are angry, what's the use of you smashing a television screen?"