The Infernal Hells Below

It is important to realise to the people of Ch'in Hell is not evil, nor are all that work or dwell there wicked. It is also the realm of the worthy ancestors.

Hell is an endless maze of caves and chambers and corridors beneath the Earth, but it is still a realm under the rule of the Celestial Bureaucracy. The loyal deities and spirits that toil there are generally the lowest in rank amongst the Divine Bureaucracy, though many are equal in power to even the mightiest in Heaven. Their work is vital to keeping the Wheel of Reincarnation in motion, and promoting the harmonious continuation of the world. Ruled by the Ten Yama Kings, it is in Hell that every mortal is judged at the end of their lives and it is from Hell that the ancestors watch over and protect their descendants.

However, just as on Earth there are traitors and criminals so there are even in Heaven and Hell. These spirits have rejected their place within the proper order of things; base rebels who have turned their backs upon the duties appointed to them. Such spirits seek to usurp their betters and steal their power or simply shirk their divinely mandated tasks. These wicked demons and evil ghosts are almost always a threat to humanity.

Hell is a place of suffering, but it is important to realise that it serves a nobler purpose. Upon death the soul travels down to Hell and joins the enormous queue that wends its way to Yan-lo-wang, the first of the Yama Kings that rule each level of Hell. With the aid of the Book of Life and Death into which is written the deeds of every mortal¹⁾ and immortal and records the fated time of their deaths. Each soul is judged on their deeds.

The most righteous are offered the chance to cross the Golden Bridge to Nirvana and leave the Wheel of Reincarnation. Such people come to Hell less than once in every twelve generations for they have achieved true enlightenment which is the most precious of things. Those whose righteousness is beyond doubt but who have not achieved enlightenment, and those who defer Nirvana for the opportunity to help others, cross the Silver Bridge to Heaven where they are found honourable posts with duties to care for mortals.

The vast vast majority of those who are judged have tainted themselves with sin in their mortal lives, sin which must be shed before they may take another turn upon the Wheel in hopes of reaching Nirvana. The great Yama King weighs their sins and assigns to them a place in one of the Ten Hells and a punishment which equals their misdeeds. Once they have served their time a soul crosses the Bronze Bridge of Rebirth and is reborn upon the Earth.

It is said that since the creation of the world only eight souls have been judged by the First of the Yama Kings to be so wicked that no punishment in Hell could purge the evil from their souls. These eight souls were buried in the forgotten depths beneath Hell so that they would never rejoin the Wheel of Reincarnation and spread their malevolence amongst man.

Each of the dead souls that do not warrant Nirvana nor Heaven, are assigned to one of the Ten Levels of Hell. From the Hell of Grinding Ice in which schemers and those who deceive their elders shiver, to the Mountain of Blades that those who do violence for unrighteous reasons must climb, they find a place. The average time to cleanse a soul of its wrongdoings is twenty-thousand years.

However, the punishment of sinners is not continuous. The spirits who supervise the dead work but a normal day and at the end of the day both dead and their wardens depart. Tongues are recovered from the floor of the Chamber of Tongue Ripping and people climb out of the Cauldron of Boiling Oil. The dead head to their homes in the great towns of Hell, to eat and drink of the food supplied by their ancestors and play games. Few of the wardens are not susceptible to bribery; the fuel beneath the boiling cauldrons can be renewed less often and the ice-fields made more comfortable with a supplied blanket in return for enough Hell Money.

The torments of Hell can, then, be reduced by attentive descendants. If they honour their ancestors and make offerings of food and wine and Hell Money at the appropriate festivals the hard path to reincarnation becomes much easier. In return ancestors will watch over their descendants, gifting them with luck and prosperity. Every home in Ch'in has a shrine to the honoured ancestors in which they are venerated.

The greatest tragedy in Ch'in is for an entire family line to be extinguished. Hundreds or thousands of ancestors will suffer and the dead must starve unremembered.

Although amongst the common people all the spirits who toil in Hell to cleanse the souls of the dead for reincarnation are often named demons, amongst the scholars of such things they are well-known to be merely lowly members of the Celestial Bureaucracy. True demons are those honourless creatures that have set aside their duty to the August Jade Emperor or who have never sought honest work within the ranks of his Celestial Bureaucracy.

These demons must avoid the gaze of the Jade Emperor and the powerful Dragon Censors who zealously audit the lesser gods. They find a hiding place in the maze of Hell, in places where none but they have ever trod before. From there they sneak up to the Middle Kingdom and sometimes even Heaven itself to cause mischief and destruction. Hell is thus truly hazardous because a misstep can bring one into the realms of such evil creatures.

Ghosts on the other hand are those who have not travelled to Hell to be judged or who have fled its judgement. Most commonly they have some great need, some urge or mission that must be fulfilled though fear may suffice. Though there are a few benevolent ghosts the majority are wicked. To be a spirit of the dead outside of Hell is not a natural state, and not one that can be maintained easily. Ghosts are always drawn to the living because they generate no chi of their own and must feed upon that of the vital. Starved ghosts may eventually dissolve into nothingness, but it is wit and intelligence that goes first and so a dying ghost becomes bestial first.

With their greenish-white skin and limbs stiff with death no Hopping Vampire could ever be mistaken for a living person. Hopping Vampires are so named because their legs are so stiff that they must hop to move. Unlike with ghosts the reanimated corpse of a Hopping Vampire is seldom recently buried and so Hopping Vampires are often dressed in tattered clothes many generations out of fashion.

Hopping Vampires are thought to be born when lightning hits a corpse buried at a cross-roads, when a tomb is desecrated, or a pregnant black cat leaps across a coffin. With the soul departed only the most basic elements of the mind are left behind, like footprints in mud. Near mindless the Hopping Vampire hungers for chi and so hunts the living. However, a Hopping Vampire may retain enough of its old memories to head for its home village or remember enough of the lay of the land to avoid hunters.

Hopping Vampires can be stopped, and even controlled, by the application of the proper prayer strips to their foreheads. Otherwise spreading gluttinous rice will slow such a creature and, since they hunt for chi, holding ones breath will render a person invisible to them.