Chapter Twelve: Backlash and Retribution

At first, the Third Princess of the East Sea became pregnant before marriage and framed Yang Jian. Her primordial spirit also incited the Dragon Mother of the East Sea, attempting to find someone to violate Yu’er. As a result, her celestial soul had not returned to the heavens since descending to the mortal realm. Now, her reincarnation in the human world, Zhao Zhixia, is fifty years old.

Feng Huyuan initially took Yang Yue to a temple run by Zhao Zhixia, the Third Princess of the East Sea. Zhao Zhixia had indeed helped Yang Yue cure a demonic illness and also repaid her karmic debts. However, Zhao Zhixia later realized that Yang Yue’s future abilities far surpassed her own. Driven by jealousy and rivalry among practitioners, she cast a dark spell on Yang Yue’s injured chest, turning it into a black hole that endlessly absorbed malevolent spirits.

Hearing this, I felt a surge of anger. No wonder Yang Yue’s health had been so poor—she had enemies undermining her from all sides.

Teacher Xing’s face was also full of fury. “Those three who have harmed Yang Yue will all be reported today and utterly destroyed.”

On August 7th, Teacher Xing first offered three incense sticks to seven sacred statues in the temple. Then he passed a yellow memorial paper three times over the incense burner on the altar, followed by the pen used to write the memorial, imbuing both with spiritual energy.

The memorial paper bore the inscription:

“Report and Appeal

Feng Huyuan, on [Year/Month/Day/Time], today we specially report to Heaven and Earth to break all evil spells Feng Huyuan cast upon Yang Yue. Gratitude to all gods and all living beings of Heaven and Earth.”

The Imperial Jade Seal was then stamped onto the paper. Finally, the contents were publicly announced before the seven statues, and the paper was burned.

The same procedure was repeated for Xu Linlin and Zhao Zhixia.

Teacher Xing saw in the Jade Emperor’s Heavenly Palace the Emperor himself, wearing a crown and dark golden dragon robes, seated on a golden dragon throne at the highest place in the hall. Three memorial papers appeared on his desk. The Jade Emperor read each one, then stamped them with the Imperial Seal, signifying approval.

The Jade Emperor summoned the True Martial Emperor, the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li, and the Kunlun Mountain Sect Leader to the Heavenly Palace. Teacher Xing felt a tremor as a golden light shot from his body—his primordial spirit, the Kunlun Mountain Sect Leader, had been summoned.

The Sect Leader, True Martial Emperor, and Heavenly King Li stood below the Heavenly Palace, all clad in armor, their blades sharp and ready.

Heavenly King Li commanded 300,000 troops to cleanse Zhao Zhixia’s temple and all the spirits and earth immortals assisting her.

True Martial Emperor led 500,000 troops to purge Feng Huyuan’s faction—slaughtering every demon, ghost, spirit, earth immortal, and even the Hu Huang Serpent associated with Feng Huyuan throughout the Three Realms.

Because Feng Huyuan was the main culprit, Teacher Xing specially invited the local City God to arrest the souls of Feng Huyuan’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and father, imprisoning them in the underworld for a hundred years. He also asked the Earth God to collect the celestial, terrestrial, and human souls of Feng Huyuan’s son, daughter-in-law, grandson, and granddaughter, detaining them for a hundred years.

Xu Linlin’s case involved the Kunlun Mountain Sect Leader leading one million soldiers, plus Yang Yue’s 100,000 underworld ghost soldiers, dispatched to Thailand and Singapore. Since they needed to go to two places simultaneously, the Sect Leader created a perfect clone of himself—identical in appearance and attire. The clone saluted him and led a troop to Singapore, while the original spirit led the remaining soldiers to the Thai sorcerer.

The Thai sorcerer was about fifty years old, with a dark face and dressed in black robes wrapped diagonally around half his body. He sat cross-legged on a couch, idly playing with a bracelet of yellowish-white beads. The beads shone with a thick patina, revealing they were polished human bones, neither jade nor wood.

He squinted his small eyes maliciously, eyeing the female disciples kneeling before him, chanting ancient scriptures. His rough, dark fingers pointed at a voluptuous disciple. “Tina Ruo, come here.”

He approached a wall where a huge cloth painting hung—depicting a fierce man wearing a skull crown and a seductive, naked woman engaged in dual cultivation. The sorcerer pulled aside the curtain, revealing a small white door behind it.

Pushing the door open, the small room inside was windowless and lightless, a pitch-black space with only a narrow bed.

The sorcerer and disciple Tina Ruo entered. She obediently stripped off her clothes one by one. The sorcerer, gifted with night vision, could see clearly even in total darkness.

Tina Ruo lay obediently on the bed. Just as the sorcerer was about to advance, a gust of wind blew into the room. His scalp tingled. He shouted sharply, waved his hand, and the human bone beads on his wrist scattered, transforming instantly to ash.

A flash of golden light appeared. The Kunlun Mountain Sect Leader, clad in golden armor, with sharp eyes and wielding the Divine Dragon Sword, materialized. Behind him stood 500,000 soldiers and 50,000 ghost soldiers. Though the room was small, in another dimensional space it was vast enough to hold such an army.

The Thai sorcerer sensed danger. He had thought other sorcerers were challenging him, but seeing these troops, he knew they were gods from a foreign land. He had long heard how formidable the Chinese gods were, very different from theirs.

He immediately sat cross-legged and recited strange incantations. Suddenly, countless ghost children appeared—pale and bloodless with large heads and small bodies, the infamous Kuman Thong spirits of the underworld. Thousands of grotesque yaksha demons flew out from the walls, and countless seductive female demons slithered from under the bed.

The Kuman Thong belonged to the underworld, but the 5,000 ghost soldiers brought by the Kunlun Sect Leader were enough to handle them. The celestial generals and heavenly soldiers under the Sect Leader focused on the yakshas and female demons. The battle raged for five hours until all the evil spirits were exterminated.

Finally, the Thai sorcerer could no longer chant the spells, his body stiffened, and he toppled backward onto the floor, his face dark blue, blood trickling from his mouth. Were it not for the faint breath from his nostrils, one might have thought him dead.

At the same time, Feng Huyuan, Zhao Zhixia, and Xu Linlin, in different places, all turned pale. Their internal organs felt as if shredded in a meat grinder, and their bones seemed to be brutally broken and violently reassembled.

All three were cultivators, but their deeds destined them for the eighteenth hell. It is said that some cultivators descend to the eighteenth hell during their practice.

The longer cultivators engage with the metaphysical realm, the more they gain supernatural powers or forbidden arts. Using these dark methods to harm others or for personal gain is easy; thus, they must constantly correct their hearts. Once seduced by material desires, they commit increasingly heinous, unprincipled acts.

Regarding Jing Hong, the Dragon Mother of the East Sea in the mortal world, Teacher Xing later told me that her business failed again. Every day, debt collectors came threatening and beating. Her husband died after exhausting vast sums on medical treatment. Her son, burdened by debts and his father’s death, developed depression and was hospitalized.

In the end, Jing Hong, a woman who sought prominence by any means in both the divine and mortal realms, went mad under the weight of family and career misfortunes. She muttered endlessly that she was the Dragon Mother of the East Sea, possessing countless treasures and supreme power. Once, during a bout of madness, she ran away from home and was never seen by her family again.

Years later, Teacher Xing and Yang Yue, traveling for business, saw an elderly, deranged female beggar living under a bridge. Her appearance resembled Jing Hong who had once been to the temple.

As for the Third Princess of the East Sea, Zhao Zhixia, her original family was well-off and politically connected. Her second husband was Teacher Su, who co-ran the temple with her. Teacher Su was originally married. Zhao Zhixia, both in the divine and mortal worlds, loved being a mistress and used despicable means to rise.

She threatened the original wife to divorce, flaunting her family’s power. Otherwise, the wife would be ruined in the city. Unable to resist, the wife divorced. Zhao Zhixia and Teacher Su then ran the temple together, both skilled but unscrupulous, often doing the same as Feng Huyuan—stealing others’ fortune and lifespan or casting evil spells.

Later, to make money, they ran a financial scam, accumulating massive debts. To escape creditors, they fled to another city. Zhao Zhixia’s parents aged and died from illness. Her family’s officials were either disciplined or failed to advance.

Both Zhao Zhixia and Teacher Su grew old. With the scam money lost and debts mounting, Zhao Zhixia was later in a car accident, resulting in leg amputations. Though the perpetrator paid compensation, Teacher Su abandoned her, taking the money and disappearing, leaving her with no power or money.

Her children were unfilial and dependent, despising their bedridden mother, unwilling to care for her. Zhao Zhixia endured immense suffering and died within five years. Funeral workers noticed her body was covered in rotting bedsores, festering and maggot-infested, causing a new worker to vomit on the spot.

Because she had used evil spells to harm countless people through her temple, after death, all her souls were condemned to the eighteenth hell.