In the spring of the fourth year of the Qingli era,

in the Yang realm,

an official named Teng Zijing was demoted to Baling Commandery;

by the following year, having nothing better to do, he began renovating Yueyang Tower,

and in the third year, Fan Zhongyan, newly exiled to Dengzhou, wrote "Record of Yueyang Tower."

It was also in this year, 1044 AD (the fourth year of Qingli).

The gates of Buddhism opened,

a Bodhisattva, seated upon a massive ferocious beast, arrived in Hell.

On this day,

the myriad ghosts of Hell looked up together, beholding the sky-obscuring sight of that beast;

on this day,

the officials under the Prefecture Lord system treated the event as idle gossip, utterly unaware that the Prefecture Lord system, which had been in operation for thousands of years, would be overturned by the arrival of this Bodhisattva.

And that Diting, whom they called "the big oaf," would, in the millennia to come, become the ears listening to their every move, bringing unbearable terror.

On this day,

Li, a purple-sashed judge, had just slain a Ghost King who had secretly cultivated in a minor hell, and was sitting with his fellow officials before the Ghost King's corpse, using its residual resentment as a bonfire to sing wanton songs;

on this day,

Dong, a man from a branch of the Prefecture Lord's lineage, was leading a group of subordinates to the site of an incident on the Yellow Springs Road, hunting down a group of evil ghosts attempting to create chaos and return to the world of the living.

This day, if judged without knowing what would come, was just an ordinary day;

but considering everything that followed,

this day,

in fact, was the day Hell truly changed.

At the summit of Mount Tai, there was a palace, if it could still be called a palace.

A courtyard palace enclosed by walls,

a main hall,

a bedroom,

and a large courtyard with only a stone table and a stone bench.

A man in white, yawning, reached out to rub the fur of the monkey beside him,

his eyebrows, the corners of his eyes, his nose, his gaze, all filled with "tedium" and "boredom."

Sometimes,

a life that starts too high

isn't necessarily good.

Born with everything one should have.

Life loses its meaning from the very beginning;

who told his ancestors to be so powerful, single-handedly pacifying all the troublemakers in Hell, without leaving a few for their descendants and successors to practice on?

The last few Prefecture Lords had been, if not exceptionally meritorious, at least conscientious, so that when it came to his turn to take over, all he could do was follow tradition and find a monkey to smash, with nothing else to do.

Actually, a few hundred years later, someone named Xiao Hongzi would have a similar feeling. However, Xiao Hongzi focused his energy on sleeping with women and building a harem, making an undeniable contribution to the development of the television and cultural industries of later generations.

A shadow fell,

the man in white looked up at the western sky,

and sighed:

"So big."

The monkey beside him immediately raised its head, a look of dissatisfaction on its face, preparing to reveal its true form and have a contest.

The man in white reached out and patted the monkey's head,

saying perfunctorily:

"Yours is the biggest, yours is the biggest."

The monkey smiled happily.

The man in white rolled his eyes,

ever since he had chosen it,

he would often have moments of self-doubt,

why did I choose this idiot to be by my side?

Was it to highlight my own intelligence?

No,

I'm definitely not that shallow!

The Diting flew directly to the summit of Mount Tai, its body radiating the Bodhisattva's boundless light;

the man in white reached out and picked at his ear,

got up,

and stretched.

In an instant,

from Mount Tai onward,

wind and rain surged,

the majestic aura seemed to squeeze water from the very firmament;

and the massive Diting at this moment was like a lone boat in the ocean, swaying and rocking.

The Bodhisattva rose and descended from the Diting's body.

Like a sage stepping on raging waves, from one shore, heading towards another.

The Diting then began to shrink, transforming into a young man in black robes, his face still showing some lingering immaturity and rebelliousness.

The Bodhisattva came down, and the Diting followed the Bodhisattva down.

The man in white sat down on the stone bench,

when the Bodhisattva and the Diting landed in the small courtyard,

the man in white pointed around,

enthusiastically and hospitably saying:

"Sit."

But in this courtyard, there was only one stone table and one stone bench;

for the Prefecture Lord,

in the entire Hell, almost no one was his equal, and if there were, they would be quickly eliminated.

So, in this courtyard, one stone bench was enough, and anyone else could kneel.

The Bodhisattva did not feel slighted,

and naturally sat cross-legged before the stone table,

the Diting behind him glanced unhappily at the monkey beside the man in white and also sat down cross-legged with the Bodhisattva.

"I have come."

The Bodhisattva said,

at the same time,

bowing his head,

with a hint of respect,

he said in a deep voice:

"Ksitigarbha pays respects to Prefecture Lord."

The man in white glanced at the master and servant meditating on the ground,

and said:

"Buddhism always talks about reincarnation. In recent years, I heard that you tried to create three thousand minor worlds yourself, wanting to create your own reincarnation, but it seems there has been no follow-up.

I know that you have always coveted Hell, wanting to bring Hell into your hands, but I'm just curious, when the previous Prefecture Lords were here, you didn't make any moves;

how is it that when I arrived,

you actually sent someone,

and,

instead of a Buddha,

you sent a Bodhisattva."

The Bodhisattva's masked face showed no emotion. Faced with the man in white's blatant provocative questioning,

he simply replied calmly:

"Buddha is Buddha, I am I, Buddha has Buddha's affairs, I have my affairs."

"Don't you want to become a Buddha?"

"After becoming a Buddha, I am still me, Buddha is still Buddha, becoming a Buddha is just a stage, not an end."

"You're a bit interesting."

The man in white stood up and walked to the Bodhisattva.

The Diting opened his eyes, staring at the man in white with intense vigilance.

The man in white suddenly reached out,

like he had just petted his own monkey,

and patted the Diting's head.

The Diting was stunned for a moment, then became furious, but in the next moment, a terrifying consciousness instantly overwhelmed him, instantly crushing all his anger and courage.

Meow…

The man in white continued to pet the Diting while looking at the Bodhisattva,

"No wonder you were sent here, the Prefecture Lords of the past were never known for their good temper, those true Buddhas didn't dare to come themselves and specially sent you here to die, it seems you're not doing too well over there either?

But, I can also see that you probably look down on them too, right?"

The Bodhisattva remained silent.

The man in white shook his head in dissatisfaction and said, "You came, didn't you come to talk?"

The Bodhisattva nodded and replied, "I was just thinking about what to say."

"Is there even a need to think?"

"One must carefully consider."

"Am I that hard to talk to?"

"Talking to you is simple, but persuading you is difficult."

The man in white waved his hand, and the original stone bench split in two, he pointed to the other side and said:

"Sit down, let's talk it over, actually, I'm quite wasteful, really."

………………

No one could know exactly what the Bodhisattva and the Prefecture Lord talked about during those days, but they talked for forty-nine days in a row.

Originally, they should have finished on the forty-seventh day,

but the Prefecture Lord forcibly kept the Bodhisattva for two more days, the two of them clearly had nothing left to talk about, but still sat face to face in silence for two days.

Because the Prefecture Lord felt that reaching a total of forty-nine days sounded more impressive.

Regarding this exchange between the Bodhisattva and the Prefecture Lord,

the souls of Hell, based on subsequent events, summarized a version that was relatively convincing to everyone.

For example,

after the conversation ended,

the Bodhisattva walked out of the courtyard,

stood next to the stone lion at the door,

and made a great vow:

"If Hell is not emptied, I will not become a Buddha."

As if the person spreading this version was that stone lion itself.

Subsequently,

after the conversation ended,

the Prefecture Lord sat on the stone bench,

fell into deep thought,

and finally smiled casually,

saying:

"The Bodhisattva is right."

The person spreading this version seemed to be that stone bench, sticking close to the Prefecture Lord's buttocks, so they heard everything.

But in fact,

after the conversation ended,

the Bodhisattva sat on the Diting's body and directly chose to leave.

The Diting asked the Bodhisattva:

"Is it settled?"

The Bodhisattva shook his head,

"Maybe it's settled, maybe it's not."

"Will we come back?"

"Maybe we'll come back, maybe we won't."

"This courtyard feels a bit small." The Diting said.

"I still think it's a bit big."

This factual version certainly couldn't satisfy the curiosity of the myriad ghosts of Hell, it wasn't domineering, nor was it exciting, even if it was true, it would definitely be treated as fake.

On the other side,

after the conversation ended, the man in white was drinking wine while helping his monkey catch fleas that didn't even exist.

After catching for a long, long time,

the man in white reached out and knocked the monkey on the head,

scolding:

"People know to ask questions, and maybe they'll accidentally become famous quotes that are passed down,

why can't you even fart?"

The monkey felt very wronged.

The man in white shook his head and sighed, "You know, if Xiao Hong was here, he would have already rushed out to smash that guy's brains out."

The monkey was stunned for a moment,

then immediately showed a fierce look,

got up,

seeming to plan to find that Diting for a one-on-one fight, to see who was really the biggest.

"Clang!"

The man in white knocked the monkey on the head again,

"He is very smart, so smart that I find it a bit unbelievable."

The monkey clutched its head aggrievedly, not knowing whether to nod in agreement or shake its head in disagreement.

The man in white looked at the stone bench that had been split in two,

smiled foolishly,

and said:

"If I wasn't afraid of scaring him, I wouldn't have just split it in half, I would have given you all of this hot potato."

The man in white took another gulp of wine,

smacked his lips,

and laughed:

"Let's see who has the last laugh after a thousand years!"

The man in white lowered his head and looked at the monkey's "uncomprehending" expression,

touched his forehead,

helpless,

he explained:

"The one who laughs last, laughs best."

The monkey grinned,

smiling very exaggeratedly.

………………

In the pharmacy next to the Late Night Bookstore,

under the gaze of Qing and the owner Zhou,

the old Dao, who had been lying there blankly with his eyes wide open,

suddenly "hehehehe" laughed,

laughing,

like an idiot.

——————

We had eight chapters blocked by the system before, and Long has revised and released them with the editor.

When I wrote to chapter 1000 before, some students complained to Long, saying: why doesn't the author divide it into volumes, you have to write more than a thousand chapters, fortunately the chapter names are not counted in the word count.

This time, when revising the blocked chapters, the convenience came out, directly 67, 127, 234, etc., just type them out directly, and it is much easier for Long and the editor to find and revise them, and there is no need to look for them volume by volume.

This is Long's deliberate foresight, in terms of experience in this area, Long is not bragging…………