Cyber Ghosts

“So, it turned out that, I have inadvertently become a container for soul protection?” Hao Ning suddenly realized. After carefully recalling, he clapped his thigh, “Right, I remembered. On that urgent situation, Xiao Hong, your true spirit didn’t have time to enter my body when I came out from the world of Gods. It should be at that time that your memory inside the world was eliminated. No wonder you don’t remember the Monkey King in the Creation of the Gods.”

Hao Ning obviously hadn’t thought that because of a mistake in his own thoughts, there would have been so many misunderstandings. Now, after unraveling, he smiled out of relief.

“You mean, you really met Uncle Sun in the world of Gods?” Xiao Hong sensed Hao Ning’s determination that he didn’t seem to joke at all. Although Xiao Hong believed a little bit, he still asked with suspicion. “Are you sure it was him? Not somebody else? You know that for so many years, there have always been some monsters and mystic creatures trying to turn into his appearance to confuse the world, and only some people including me who are close to him could recognize. It is easy to make mistakes for the others.”

“Not exactly,” Zhou Yuan said with an untimely smile. “Not only monsters and mystic creatures wish to imitate his appearance, but even mortals are claiming to be relatives of this Avalokitesvara of our own! It is either the brother-in-law of Guanyin in reincarnation or the sister-in-law of the Jade Emperor coming down to the earth. When I went to learn from Mr. Zhang two days before and he taught me how to distinguish the truth from the fake, we went to a lecture that claimed its master to be the mother-in-law of Heavenly Queen Mother.”

“…” Liu Shuai stared at Zhou Yuan, speechlessly. Of course, he knew that Zhou Yuan was mentioning about how mortal people pretended to be gods and mystified others which had hurt many people. He couldn’t help but say, ” Does Mr. Zhang have such a hobby?”

“Of course…” Xiao Hong took it for granted. “He is particularly unaccustomed to this kind of organization that uses the name of the immortal to carry out their own desires.” While saying, Xiao Hong looked at Hao Ning. “Brother Hao Ning, would the Monkey King you saw be a similar act of fraud?”

“Of course not. Could the Golden Cudgel be faked? Or could his skill of chewing the monkey hair to turn into countless avatars be faked?” Hao Ning shook his head for sure and looked into Xiao Hong’s eyes. “But you were calling him Uncle Sun. Even if I were wrong, would you have mistaken his identity?”

“I…” Xiao Hong was stunned. He had not thought that Hao Ning would use his own words as the weapon to turn against him. He had just said that he could recognize Monkey King. It would be a punch in his face if he denied it, so he coughed slightly and said. “Well, I don’t think I would mistake someone else like him ‒ Em, how did he appear, and what did he say after he appeared? Had he said anything important to me?”

Undoubtedly, Hao Ning knew that Xiao Hong changed the topic because of awkwardness, but Hao Ning did not bother to reveal. When he looked at other people, he found that except Nezha had been nodding all the time because he had experienced that incident personally, Liu Shuai and others were like listening to a story and waited for him to continue, “He suddenly appeared after you. It was an urgent time and he didn’t tell you anything. But later he said something to me, which was not about you, but about Zhou Yuan. He said that when he was becoming a Buddha in the Western Heaven Mountain and was crossing a river, he fell into the river and one part of him under the boat became a Monkey Inside turning to the mortal world. He tried many times and asked about it everywhere. He asked Avalokitesvara for a few times. But Avalokitesvara hated him because Monkey King used to say that “It serves her right to live without a husband for a lifetime”– ”

“Brother Zhang would not harbor a grudge,” Xiao Hong suddenly blushed, for he once had said similar things, and Hao Ning knew it clearly, “He just wanted to eliminate this cause and effect.”

“Hehe, you can interpret it in whatever way you like,” Hao Ning was aware of Xiao Hong’s conditioned reflex of protecting Zhang Chi Hang. “In short, because Monkey King had said that sentence, Avalokitesvara never told him the truth. Until some time ago, when Zhou Yuan lost his soul, the Monkey King finally learned that Zhou Yuan was his Monkey Inside, and then those things of the world of gods creation happened.”

“Monkey Inside…” Xiao Hong pondered long and deeply over the question. “I didn’t hear my parents and Uncle Sun mentioning this.”

“It might be the hiding of Monkey King,” Hao Ning nodded. “But he did say this to me at that time.”

“Exactly!” Nezha also nodded and said, “Though I was far away at that time, I still heard the two words of Monkey Inside.”

“But I still feel a little bit strange about what he said.” Without waiting for Xiao Hong to ask questions, Hao Ning himself had some doubts. “If Zhou Yuan is a Monkey Inside, why did Monkey King feel it only after the loss of soul in Zhou Yuan?”

“Hey! It is easy ‒ if Zhou Yuan’s body is the Monkey Inside,” Liu Shuai clearly reflected faster in this aspect than Hao Ning, and he continued what Hao Ning said, “When the soul is in Zhou Yuan’s body and the confluence of the spirit and body is achieved, it should be difficult to find the problems of Zhou Yuan’s body. Once your soul is out of the flesh, you may have these inspirations. So, the Monkey King said that he had found that Zhou Yuan was his own Monkey Inside at that time, and it was not a wrong answer.”

“It seems correct, but too unbelievable,” Xiao Hong nodded unwillingly and asked. “What about later?”

“Well, the later,” Hao Ning didn’t care about Xiao Hong’s expression, but also thought about it carefully. “he told me that Zhou Yuan’s losing his soul was a difficulty that he must pass through ‒ although it sounds a bit strange. It seems like Zhou Yuan was born to lose his soul.”

“So, I was blessed by misfortune? I am really the Monkey King’s ‒ what is that? His Monkey Inside?” Zhou Yuan laughed and danced out of happiness and picked up a signature pen as a short and fine Gold Cudgel, “I am the Monkey King! I have the fast-moving riding clouds. The Golden Cudgel can turn to big and small, and the eyes have the ability to distinguish between true and false!”

“And also the Incantation of the Golden Hoop.” Hao Ning couldn’t help sneering at Zhou Yuan for his being complacent, “It’s best to read it hundreds of times and hurt you to death.”

“Get out.” Zhou Yuan was in his mood when ridiculed by Hao Ning. He glared at him and continued to ask, “What about the Monkey King? Why didn’t he come out with you?”

“Because he was dead.” Hao Ning said without thinking. After seeing Zhou Yuan’s change in facial expression, he quickly changed. “Oh, that should be called Nirvana. It should be a diminishing spirit, and only you, the Monkey Inside, the flesh remained…”

“Nirvana…” Xiao Hong’s eyes flashed and continued to ask, “Why? He lived well in the world of God, why did he Nirvana? Someone killed him?”

“This…” Thinking of this, Hao Ning was drowned by sadness. “It is not the case. No one killed him. It was his own initiative to use the Great Decimation Technique ‒ ”

“How is it possible!” Xiao Hong immediately blurted out. “The Great Decimation Technique is so serious that he would never use it if he was not in a desperate situation!”

“Take it easy. That was basically a desperate situation at the time…” Hao Ning had apparently expected Xiao Hong would be anxious. He quickly looked at Nezha, with mixed feelings in his heart. “Maybe you should be the best person to explain why the Monkey King died.”

“Me?” Nezha had been interested in the story when he suddenly found that he had become the focus of attention, and even Xiao Hong was staring at him. “Why? I don’t know this stone monkey.”

“Nonsense, how would you not know ‒” Hao Ning blurted out. “Ah, maybe you truly didn’t know him at that time. You would get to know him in Journey to the West. Hey, this is not right. Liu Shuai, if Journey to the West has been damaged by May 4th Seal God event, why is it that the Creation of the Gods is okay?”

“How do you know that it’s okay?” Liu Shuai shook his head. “The Journey to the West is famous, thus it has many believers. Therefore, its belief disaster had a great influence. There should be less faith in the Creation of the Gods. Therefore, it should be less influential, but still some influences. I just don’t know what the influences were.”

Hao Ning nodded and turned to Nezha: “Why were you tempted by Jiang Ziya at that time? And wanted to kill us?”

“What? Jiang Ziya tempted Nezha?” It was the first time Liu Shuai had listened Hao Ning said that and known that he was so dangerous in the world of Creation of Gods, “He wanted to kill you?”

Hao Ning made a gesture to stop Liu Shuai from talking. He had not wanted to say these details before because if he said that he almost died in the world of Creation of Gods, Zhou Yuan might feel guilty. Zhou Yuan was even so cared about what his mother said about “other people’s children”. At the time when he was just sealed into a moment god, if he knew that Hao Ning almost couldn’t come back because of him, he would probably have another accident.

Hao Ning had intended to conceal this matter. But who knew today they had talked about it? Hao Ning saw that Zhou Yuan was in a rather good condition, so he planned to hear from Nezha of the details.

“It is still mentioned about this thing.” Nezha shook his head and smiled bitterly. Looking at Hao Ning, he said: “If I say, Uncle Jiang was not trying to tempt us, but to save us, will you believe me?”

“I‒” Hao Ning looked at other people and said quietly, “I could hardly believe. Jiang Ziya said to me that time, to let me take him out.” Hao Ning suddenly understood, “That’s it. Is it true that Jiang Ziya could not get out of the world of gods? Just like the true spirit of Xiao Hong going through the enchantment of the world of gods, if Jiang Ziya went out, his soul would also melt into the enchantment, wouldn’t he?” Seeing Liu Shuai and Xiao Hong nodded, Hao Ning continued, “So Jiang Ziya tempted me and hoped that I would take him out.”

“Why did Jiang Ziya want to come out?” Liu Shuai felt very strange. “How much had you experienced in the world of Gods, Hao Ning? Before this, you just said that we had encountered some small problems in the world of gods, but there were noble people who helped us, and it turned out to be only a close call. You hadn’t said that Jiang Ziya wanted to come to the real world, had you?”

“It was because it seemed too weird, and I felt that it would be an unnecessary worry for everyone knew about it,” Hao Ning said, looking at Zhou Yuan. “If it were not for these things today, I wouldn’t have said it. At that time, Jiang Ziya told me that he would create the gods in this real world. He got hold of the Creation of Gods. After using the incense to recreate the gods, he could become the ancestor of the gods.”

“What?” Liu Shuai patted the table. Not as the same as Hao Ning, the table was so hard that his hand got hurt. “How dared he do such a thing?”

“When I went into the world, Nezha was not like him now,” Hao Ning looked at Nezha’s clear eyes. At that time, his eyes were dull and completely different. “It seemed like he had been tempted. His eyes were lifeless, like a walking dead.”

“Hao Ning,” Nezha shook his head. “What you saw was only a part of the thing, and the whole thing was not the case. In fact, it’s the opposite. I don’t know when it started that the entire Zhou Dynasty army and the spirits to be sealed as gods after the war of the Creation of Gods had been enchanted by a mysterious force. At that time, only Master Jiang was spared from it for the Apricot Yellow Flag he owned.”

“What?” Hao Ning couldn’t help but frown as he listened. “You mean Jiang Ziya that tempted me to take him out that night was not enchanted? The so-called creating gods in the real worlds and becoming the ancestor of the gods were actually his real thoughts? That’s even worse!”

“No. Listen to me.” Nezha continued to recall, “Uncle Jiang had soon discovered this abnormality that the entire gods-to-be changed from the original good ones to evil. If these spirits of the evil ‒ also including me at that time ‒ all evil spirits were sealed as gods by the Creation of Gods, it would be a disaster for both the world of gods and the real world!”

“Wait,” Hao Ning couldn’t help but interrupt again. “I know why evil spirits could become the scourge of the world of gods once they were sealed. But why could it hurt the real world? Weren’t they unable to cross through enchantment?”