Chapter 6 — The Ancestor Turns the Underworld Upside Down

I turned, my gaze locking onto Qi Chen and Lou Yan, who remained crumpled on the floor. Qi Chen was shaking so violently that his entire frame seemed to rattle.

"A moment ago, you claimed that A An possessed a hardy fate, asserting that even without a proper incarnation, she could thrive anywhere," I said, meeting his eyes directly. His pupils constricted in terror. "By my calculations, your cultivation has not advanced for a full century. It is long overdue for you to descend into the mortal realm to endure the cycle of suffering."

Qi Chen recoiled, shrinking into himself. "Mother..."

"Your own fate is quite sturdy; you have no need for a favorable destiny," I said coldly. "There is no time like the present. Today is an ideal day for your departure."

Qi Chen began to kowtow frantically, his forehead striking the stone floor with desperate intensity. "Mother, I beg you, punish me however you see fit, but please, do not cast me into the mortal realm to suffer a lifetime of trials!"

"Punish you?" I echoed, my voice devoid of warmth. "That is merely a requirement of justice." I glanced toward Cheng Hao. "Retrieve their tablets and strike their names from my family register. From this moment forth, these two no longer exist within the lineage of the Qi family in the Underworld."

Qi Chen and Lou Yan stared at me in stunned disbelief. "Mother! Are you truly casting us out of our own home?"

"If you have no regard for your own flesh and blood, what need have you for a family?" They opened their mouths to protest, but the words died in their throats, choked by their own guilt and cowardice.

"Since you favor Quoc Tuyet Thuan so deeply, then by all means, follow her. Whatever fate was originally destined for her, she shall receive. I will not alter a single thread of it. You shall be a family with her for the rest of your lives."

Qi Chen collapsed, his body appearing to lose all structural integrity, as if his very bones had been hollowed out. "Mother, I do not wish to be demoted! I do not want to become a mere mortal!" He lunged forward, clawing at the hem of my robes, but his fingertips stopped an inch short, unable to bridge the distance. He sprawled there, motionless. Lou Yan finally broke down into jagged, piercing sobs, her voice shrill and desperate. "Mother, we were wrong! We should not have treated A An so cruelly! I beg you..."

I looked down at her with detachment. "Your tears come far too late."

I turned back to Cheng Hao. "Carry out the judgment. Ensure fairness in the transition and oversee the allocation of their reincarnation destinies."

Cheng Hao bowed. "As you command."

He signaled to two nether-guards, who seized Qi Chen and Lou Yan by their arms and hauled them away. They wailed as they were dragged off, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. I turned my attention to Quoc Tuyet Thuan. She remained huddled on the edge of the well, her knuckles white as she gripped the stone railing. I studied her briefly. "You go as well. You shall receive exactly the fate destined for you. I will not change a thing."

Quoc Tuyet Thuan looked up, stunned. A moment later, she sank to her knees and kowtowed once. "Ancestor, I am sorry. I have no parents, no family of my own. I did indeed desire a better life. But I truly did not know that A An would have to suffer so much. My parents told me she had offered her fate to me willingly."

I looked at her coldly. "A thief is a thief, and to claim what is not yours is a transgression. You were the beneficiary, and because of that, another had to bear the burden. Even if someone else agrees to yield their fate, you still violated the laws of the Underworld. You cannot escape your share of the blame."

Quoc Tuyet Thuan nodded slowly. "You are right. I was wrong. Once I descend to the mortal realm, I will perform good deeds and accumulate virtue; I will strive to be a decent person."

A flash of insight allowed me to see the path ahead for her. She would be born into a family of blacksmiths. It would not be a life of extreme wealth, but there would be enough to eat and wear, with a measure of surplus. Her future family would be kind and harmonious, a silent compensation for the lack of warmth she had known. "Go. Reincarnate with care. Do not adopt the twisted nature of your parents."

She hesitated before speaking. "Will you still force them to be my parents?"

I looked at her, silent. Naturally, I held the power to dictate the nature of their rebirth, but I felt no desire to unite them. Tears welled in Quoc Tuyet Thuan’s eyes. "Please, do not make them my parents again. They treated A An so terribly... I am afraid."

I smiled bitterly. Qi Chen and Lou Yan had abandoned their own daughter for the sake of this girl, only to be rejected by her in the end. It was poetic justice.

Cheng Hao delivered the final verdict. Qi Chen and Lou Yan were exiled from the Qi house and condemned to endure the tortures of the eighteen levels of the abyss. The Ten Kings of Yama showed no mercy, ensuring the sentence was carried out in full. Just before their spirits were ground into nothingness, they were cast onto the Wheel of Reincarnation.

Cheng Hao presented their new fates for my approval. Qi Chen was to be born into a gutter as a beggar, born with a crippled leg and a malformed right hand that could neither hold a bowl nor beg for coin. He would suffer hunger for half his life, eventually freezing to death on the twenty-third day of the last month of the year at the age of thirty. Lou Yan was to be born into a washhouse, forced to kneel in freezing rivers to scrub the garments of the wealthy. Her fingers would rot, regrow, and rot again, her nails falling off in the icy water. She would endure this until she went blind at age forty, eventually being cast out by her overseer to perish in a sewer, unnoticed and unmourned.

I gave a curt nod. "Proceed exactly as planned."

Three days later, Cheng Hao came to find me. "Word has arrived from the mortal realm."