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When a mortal ascends, they become a god; when they descend, they become a ghost.
Whichever path they are bound to take that leads outside the mortal plane, however long it may take, only leads to the end.
The Dao, after all, is fair.
Gods sit in the Court of Heaven, in their golden palaces, in their statues and shrines and temples, listening to the incessant whines and pleas of their believers for their continued existence for their might and survival are contingent on the faith and worship of their followers. They live above mere mortals, yet gods without men are not gods. They tremble in their core in fear at the power such lowly beings have over them, at the truth that they are at the mercy of men underneath them.
Gods see through many mortal generations but desire and bleed and die no different from humans and cease to be like ghosts.
The Dao, after all, is fair.
Ghosts dwell like gods among mortals, lurking and watching as men go through life and tribulations and pray to their gods who have not the slightest inclination to return their devotions. They burrow in the dark—in the fringes of the Earth, in the prison of shadows cast by what was once their mortal life, in a realm within the realm where their bones and ashes are kept safe. No longer are they human, yet their passion and misery endure in but a different plane.
Ghosts persist on and on and on, beholden to no one but themselves. Like gods, they may cease to be with a flick of a sleeve. Unlike gods, they do not bleed.
The Dao, after all, is fair.
☵
Viscous yet flowing like water, blood is to the body as what the rivers and seas are to the Earth—a curse of devastation if disturbed, but a gift that dictates life if revered. It is the elixir: the hope for the spirit to soar and flourish. Without it, what is left is but a husk—all flesh and bones, heavy and hollow, desiccated to dirt and dust.
To bleed is both mortal and divine: a reminder of whence gods came and what men ought to be.
He Xuan bleeds all through life, seeping through every orifice until the soil upon which the town of Fu Gu stands is doused in red. Rivulets soak the stones, dirt, and grasses that thirst and scream for more than his tears and sweat as he sows and sows and sows—only to reap nothing. Blood carves the earth he walks on as he moves from one wretched path to another: from the examination halls where he is faced with nought but injustice time and time again, to the wealthy family’s mansion where his fiancée and his sister suffer perdition before demise; from the prison where his soul splinters as he is disgraced and starved to the point of vomiting and defecating bile and blood, to their home where his mother breathes her last cold and alone; from the humble shop he runs to aid his father who has to toil away even in old age, to the streets where they are left robbed, trampled upon, and crawling in the mud.
He Xuan bleeds as he is asked but it is never enough. He has been drained and wrung dry that he has nothing more to offer; he is rice paper stretched harshly across a brittle wooden frame, no more than a wisp clinging to a life that does not want it.
Weighed and weighed and weighed and always found wanting.
Every time, more is demanded of him, and he is beholden to fulfil it.
All He Xuan has left are his breath and the blood that has drenched and dried on the rags he wears for robes. Still, he cannot refuse when the limpid autumn water that reflects the golden colour of the season asks for a splash of pure vermillion.
Thus, he cuts a crimson path, butchering and offering those who had wronged him and all whom he loved. Blood pools around him once more, glistening under the harsh light of the moon and the river of stars, as he succumbs to his rage and grief and wounds, as he waits for the net of Heaven to capture him in its mesh.
The lucidity that comes with death shows him not the guardians nor the gates of Diyu. What he witnesses instead is an emissary of Heaven in the form of a callous, white-robed master revelling in the gory tableau of his demise. A mockery of the justice of Heaven, it dispels the fog that has haunted him in life and reveals that the fate that had plagued him and all that he touched was not his own.
In their natural state, all ghosts are mere residues, wispy and gossamer-thin, lingering and holding on to their memories and regrets, without a body and hence unbleeding.
Yet, even after He Xuan is but a life force depleted and ashes and crushed bones, blood keeps pouring from him. It trickles down his forehead and eyes and mouth, from his skin and under his nails, leaving shimmering dark puddles in his tracks. Despite winds and rains, they gather into pools that swirl in reverse—against the movement of shadows on a sundial—swelling and cascading down the terrace where the drunken young master who had taken his fate ascends to the Heavens in his place.
The overflow spreads and floods before seeping deep into the earth and taking root—a tether binding him to the mortal realm; a blood pact with the Earth and the Dao itself. Throughout death it follows him, creating iridescent streams along the roads and paths he traverses; a compeer through the long, agonising periods of wrath and confusion. It accompanies him through the arousal of ghosts as the gates of the City of Gu open once again; when he slaughters his way through Tonglu Mountain and devours every ghoul that reminds him of the master with a visage of cold indifference. He Xuan drowns in its currents that are laden with resentment and sorrow, letting it boil and fill the hollowness to the brim until the Kiln ruptures.
From the bosom of the ancient volcano a Supreme is born, yet a Supreme is nought but a ghost, bound by the thread of the Dao to the laws of its realm.
Every drop is a splinter pulled from his core. Never whole, He Xuan is compelled to fill what is lost, devouring to reclaim what he bleeds. He feasts on the wretched souls that continue to thrive in his hometown of Fu Gu and carves through the monsters and demons that dare to hinder his way, oscillating between hibernation, hunger, and excess, and never satiation. When the worst of starvation growls and howls from within him, he hunts for parasitic ghosts, lunging at all he comes across until he finds the ghoul that haunted and damned him and all he cherished. Never giving it a chance to disperse, He Xuan sinks his teeth into its black cloud of smoke and swallows it whole, containing its spite, malice, and empty words inside him.
Guided by the breaths of the Earth, the crimson tide leads him down to the farther reaches of the South Sea, where the north wind blows and gathers into a calamity. At the end of the world, the waters are deep and black, treacherous in their facade of apathy; the waves and ripples are perceptible only when they glimmer in the moonlight. The darkness swallows the song of storms and conceals the tempestuous surface of the sea: a predator on a hunt staying still and quiet while it waits to devour its prey.
From the depth of its abyss stares back a manifestation with a pair of golden scales for its eyes against skin that is pale white as bone and ash, showing and reminding him of what he has become. It fuels the emanation of his vengeance that floods and drowns the sea with its viscous and turbulent tide, devastating and pulling every living thing that it touches as it sinks.
Only the dead know the agony of death.
And through the waters, only they shall pass.
☵
Ghosts do not bleed.
To bleed is both mortal and divine: a reminder of whence gods came and what men ought to be.
Yet, He Xuan bleeds all through death as he did in life—a vestige of what he was and should have been; a revelation that he is an equal in all ways but state.
The Dao, after all, is fair.