Chapter 179
Chapter 179
[After Zhu Yuanzhang Arrived in the Underworld – 3]
After teaching Zhu Zhanji and his wife a lesson, Zhu Yuanzhang finally remembered the main event. “Where is Zhu Qizhen?!”
That bastard was the source of all evil!
Wiping sweat, Zhu Di smiled ingratiatingly. “Father, we have fried him for many years…”
The plump Zhu Gaochi only wanted to redirect the battlefield. He pretended to support his grandfather and turned him around. “Our residence is that way. Zhu Qizhen is sealed beneath the cauldron lid. Come, your grandson will take you to discipline that unfilial child!”
Thinking of her son’s suffering, Empress Dowager Sun nearly cried. Knowing Emperor Taizu’s character made her even more frightened, and two sobs escaped.
Zhu Yuanzhang slapped Zhu Zhanji. “Control your wife! Her weeping irritates me! After producing such a son and watching Zhu Qizhen ruin the country, she still has the face to cry?! Had I not gone down and turned the tide, the Mongols would have oppressed the Great Ming. The foundation built across generations would have vanished!”
Zhu Zhanji rubbed his face and slapped Empress Dowager Sun. “Do not spoil an auspicious day for Emperor Taizu!”
Her shoulders shook as she suppressed her crying. Her makeup smeared, her eyes reddened, and a palm print swelled on her delicate face, making her look rather pitiful.
Zhu Yuanzhang only scoffed.
For Zhu Qizhen’s deeds and his mother’s indulgence, both deserved frying. In this life, Zhu Yuanzhang had at least gone down and saved the Great Ming. In the timeline without him as Zhu Qikun, Zhu Qizhen had performed even more spectacularly-the worst among the worst.
Ordinary people learned from setbacks. Zhu Qizhen’s brain might have been stuffed with straw: each setback made him lose more wisdom.
After returning and seizing the throne, he did not hate Wang Zhen for leading him into disaster. He eagerly built him a shrine. He did not hate Esen for capturing him and extorting the Great Ming. Hearing of Esen’s death, he built him a shrine too and mourned bitterly.
The soldiers killed at Tumu stared.
The civilians ravaged by the Oirats stared.
The dead from Beijing’s defense stared.
Yu Qian stared.
Your Majesty, is something wrong with your head?!
No one without a ten-year cerebral thrombosis could do this!
He mourned those who drove him into a ditch, then killed those who saved his inheritance-bringing pain to kin and joy to enemies. Even Qinzong and Huizong found that baffling!
Zhao Gou killed Yue Fei, but at least he did not build shrines for the Jin!
There were no words!
Zhu Yuanzhang’s fury nearly boiled. He strode with murderous force.
Fat, frail Zhu Gaochi struggled to keep up. Zhu Zhanji supported him, then jogged ahead to guide the ancestor.
Entering the residence, Zhu Yuanzhang heard broken screams from a young man. Understanding at once, he narrowed his eyes and followed the sound. At his glance, Zhu Di hurriedly removed the huge vat atop the cauldron lid.
Zhu Qizhen had fried for half an hour. Charred black and barely human, he moaned weakly in the oil, steamed nearly to bursting.
When the lid moved, he felt slight relief and thought Empress Dowager Sun had come to save him. Looking up, he met Zhu Yuanzhang’s icy gaze.
Zhu Qizhen had never seen the ancestor or Zhu Qikun. But he knew Zhu Qikun had died and the entire family had gone to welcome him. Seeing an unfamiliar young man, he guessed the identity and shrieked as though stepped on. “Zhu Qikun, traitorous subject! You dare appear before Us! You…”
Before he finished, Zhu Di seized a sharpened bamboo rod and thrust it straight through him. Zhu Qizhen screamed as Zhu Di roared, “Blind dog! This is Emperor Taizu Gao!”
“What?!” His muscles convulsed. “Did Emperor Taizu not go out? How did he suddenly return?”
Zhu Di was about to explain, but Zhu Yuanzhang stopped him. Rolling up his sleeves, he advanced as if sharpening a blade. “This old man did go out, but none of you could imagine where. I went to the mortal world and became my own descendant. You know the name well: Zhu Qikun, the man who had you flayed and stuffed!”
Everyone else already knew and showed no surprise. Only Zhu Di learned that his father had returned to the mortal world with his memories, and something flashed rapidly through his eyes. The change was too swift, and Zhu Yuanzhang focused wholly on Zhu Qizhen, so no one noticed.
Zhu Qizhen’s expression changed halfway through. When the truth ended, his body-fried to less than half its former size-trembled harder, shedding black crumbs. “Em… Emperor Taizu?!”
“It is Us,” Zhu Yuanzhang said.
Zhu Qizhen’s voice broke. “Zhu… Zhu Qikun?!”
“Also Us!”
Zhu Qizhen wailed. “Why is my life so miserable?!”
He had thought death might let him turn the tables. Instead…
Damn it!
Damn it!!
Damn it!!!
He cursed inwardly three times and was about to beg when Zhu Yuanzhang seized a bamboo pole beside the kitchen and thrust it at him. Zhu Qizhen tried to dodge, but could not escape this battle-hardened ancestor. Agony pierced his heart. With two poles now running through him, Zhu Yuanzhang exerted his arm, lifted him straight from the oil, and dragged him away without looking at anyone else.
An idea turned in Zhu Di’s mind. He hurried after them eagerly. “Father, where are you going? Let me help carry the poles…”
Zhu Yuanzhang handed them over. “Think of a way to teach him a lesson!”
“Father, you were not alone in losing sleep over the Tumu Crisis. As soon as this grandson arrived, I fried him in oil. Over these decades, we have used every punishment imaginable…”
“Then let him experience something new!” Zhu Yuanzhang said.
Zhu Di sensed his father knew a punishment more satisfying than frying. Deeply curious but seeing no explanation forthcoming, he followed silently.
Zhu Yuanzhang asked an Underworld judge for a travel warrant. The judge hesitated. “Emperor Gao, this violates the rules.”
Zhu Yuanzhang kicked Zhu Qizhen on the poles. “The two of us are not going down. Send him!”
The judge knew Zhu Qizhen’s identity. After calculating on his fingers, he nodded. “His sins are enormous. It can be done. The human and animal paths will suffice.” He went to the Hall of Yama to issue the warrant.
Zhu Di increasingly suspected his father’s relationship with the Underworld was more complicated than imagined. Keeping his face calm, he asked quietly, “Father, what do you intend?”
As a soul outside the oil, Zhu Qizhen’s body had begun recovering, though the poles still caused unbearable pain. Amid his screams, he pricked up his ears.
Zhu Yuanzhang looked coldly at him. “You have tried every punishment, and he has grown numb without understanding his fault. Let him become an ordinary commoner and taste mortal life!”
Born an imperial prince, Zhu Qizhen did not grasp the deeper meaning. Zhu Di understood instantly. The Old Master was truly ruthless.
The judge soon returned. Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di carried Zhu Qizhen to the Well of Six Paths, a shaft more than ten meters across and bottomless. Wind howled upward amid ceaseless ghostly wailing.
Zhu Qizhen trembled. Zhu Yuanzhang pinned him down and pulled out the sharpened poles. Before his scream ended, Zhu Yuanzhang flashed the warrant over him and kicked him into the well.
The Well of Six Paths was where souls entered reincarnation after judgment. Three good paths existed-deva, human, and asura-and three evil paths-hungry ghost, animal, and hell.
Zhu Qizhen had not drunk Meng Po’s soup, so every memory remained. For a former mortal emperor to enter the human and animal paths, endure birth, age, sickness, and death, and live beneath others as a beast was tremendous punishment.
His karma was so heavy that even as a human, he would hardly be born wealthy.
As he fell, thousands of bony hands emerged from the walls, nails packed with bloody mud, clawing like vengeful ghosts. He curled desperately, but a withered hand caught him.
When his eyes reopened, he was the son of a peasant family outside Datong.
The family was desperately poor. His coarse-featured parents labored all day. Though eldest son, he received no special treatment. At four or five he gathered beans in the fields; later, he learned farm work.
They owned no ox. His father pulled the plow now; one day Zhu Qizhen would.
His entire life was visible at a glance.
He knew torture, not hardship. Unable to escape, he remembered he could read and hoped to earn food in the city. He secretly packed a bundle and entered Datong-only to be struck by several rich young men on horseback.
The collision was not enough. Finding it unlucky to encounter such a pauper, the youths spat on him and ordered servants to teach him a lesson. The beating broke countless bones. Zhu Qizhen vomited blood and died.
“They killed someone in the street! Is there no law?!”
His ghost floated free, furious and venomous, wishing to chase and devour their flesh.
Bystanders murmured, “Another one beaten to death.”
“Dead is dead. Those are sons of the Wang Family. Their uncle enjoys imperial favor. Even princesses and nobles bow to him!”
The words struck Zhu Qizhen like a blow to the head. Before he could breathe, another reincarnation began.
This time he entered a prosperous family. His father passed the examinations and became a minor official. Their home was harmonious and pleasant until Zhu Qizhen turned nine. His father remonstrated frankly and offended Wang Zhen, Eunuch Director of Ceremonial. Framed and imprisoned, the entire clan was condemned.
Zhu Qizhen sat dazed on the steps while savage officials confiscated their home. His father was imprisoned, his mother had killed herself, and the rest were dragged with him to the execution ground. His uncle wailed, “Is loyalty to the state a crime? Heaven, open your eyes!”
The executioner’s blade fell, spraying blood across Zhu Qizhen’s face.
Grief and resentment tangled in his heart.
The blade rose again. His head fell, eyes refusing to close.
He became a frontier soldier killed in battle, a border civilian slaughtered in a raid, a pretty peasant girl seized for the eunuch faction’s pleasure, and a capital soldier swept to death at Tumu Fortress by a foolish emperor…
After dying countless human deaths, Zhu Qizhen finally escaped that despair and became an animal.
He felt satisfied and relieved.
Relieved his ass!
As a human, he could at least speak, move, and communicate. As an animal, he truly stood below people, meat upon another’s chopping block.
Zhu Qizhen became a chicken.
A cook slit his throat and hung him upside down to bleed.
She vaguely heard him order an assistant to wash mushrooms. “This is an imperial dish for the Duke of Wei. Stay alert and prepare it properly!”
His wings trembled weakly as cold swallowed him.
Before death, she thought: Oh, the Duke of Wei. Yu Qian.
He died with open eyes.
Zhu Qizhen became a duck.
The same cook gave him the fatal cut and hung him to bleed. “Clean the oven. Today’s imperial dish for the Duke of Wei is roast duck!”
Yu Qian again.
As his blood slowly drained, Zhu Qizhen thought Yu Qian ate quite a varied diet.
He became a goose.
The cook killed him for stewing in an iron pot-another imperial meal for the Duke of Wei. A goose was larger than a chicken or duck, so bleeding took longer.
Was the emperor not afraid Yu Qian would develop high cholesterol?!
Zhu Qizhen became a sheep.
Led numbly toward the imperial kitchen yard, his desire to live overcame long fear and the numbness of repeated death.
The familiar cook held the familiar knife.
Damned Yu Qian had been granted a whole roast lamb!
Eat, eat, eat! Eat yourself to death!
They tied him to a tree while the cook sharpened his knife. Something rubbed against the cook. He looked and saw the sheep.
The cook turned away and continued sharpening.
The sheep rubbed him again.
Perhaps sensing death, it wept hot tears and pleaded with its eyes.
The cook stroked its head. “Cold? Do not worry. The oven will be warm!”
Zhu Qizhen fell silent.
The cook resumed sharpening. Again, something nudged him. The sheep knelt on both front knees like a person, tears flowing as it begged for mercy!
Unmoved, the cook turned back to his blade. “That no longer touches me. I have killed chickens in the imperial kitchen for more than ten years. My heart is as cold as my knife!”