Tu Bo, unfettered. The old netherworld emissary knew that because Tu Bo was a deity born of Heaven and Earth, much of his conduct was bound by the rules of Heaven and Earth within Youdu: he could not overstep its statutes, and even his growth had to be corralled within the system of Youdu; he could not leap clear of the laws of its Great Dao. He was the incarnation of the Dao of Youdu — though he possessed his own thoughts and awareness, his actions could never escape the bounds of that Dao. "But that little fellow born in Youdu is a different matter. He was the first womb-born being to come into existence in Youdu — unlike Tu Bo, and unlike the little imps, fiends, and demon-gods that took shape naturally there." Tu Bo's voice came from within the holy shrine. The old netherworld emissary turned to look, and there at the shrine threshold sat Heavenly Venerable Yu, gnawing on half a chicken. "He was like me — at his birth, the Great Dao of Youdu laid its laws upon him. At the time, I even thought I was about to gain a younger brother. Only later did I realize it was not so." Tu Bo's third eye glowed with a hazy light, sealing their words within his eye so that none of them could reach the outside. "That little fellow grew at a terrifying pace. And because he was a post-natal being, the Great Dao laws of Youdu held no power over him. Whoever he wanted to eat, he ate; whoever he wanted to beat, he beat." Though Shen Fengqing stopped at no evil, Tu Bo, watching him, found a strange, inexplicable satisfaction in it. Shen Fengqing was like a little Tu Bo; had he grown to maturity, he would have become a full-grown Tu Bo who left no wickedness undone, and so Tu Bo had no choice but to seal him, suppress him, and exile him to the outer world. "But what is even stranger is this: the Shen Fengqing who was sealed, suppressed, and exiled became Shen Mu. Shen Fengqing was merely beyond the control of the Great Dao of Youdu, but Shen Mu has stepped entirely outside it — cultivating divine powers and Dao arts from beyond Youdu!" Heavenly Venerable Yu, who was in the middle of eating his chicken, craned his neck to peer into the shrine and saw that the ox-horned, tiger-headed deity in mid-speech wore a strange expression — plainly puzzling over how Shen Mu could have leapt beyond the Great Dao of Youdu. "My seal turned him into a mortal who could never cultivate. Yet the second consciousness born within that body groped and crawled, rolled and stumbled, and somehow, inexplicably, worked its way around my seal — achieving no small accomplishment with a body that should have made cultivation impossible." Tu Bo went on, his expression odd: "The first consciousness is Shen Fengqing, born of Youdu's demonic nature — like an ancient god, like a demigod, and yet again like a post-natal being. The second consciousness is Shen Mu, a post-natal being through and through. And he is the one who surprised me most." Under Shen Mu's reckless meddling, Shen Fengqing had more than once come perilously close to breaking through Tu Bo's seal, forcing Tu Bo to intervene again and again to repair the damage. Precisely because he understood them so well, of all people in this world, it was Tu Bo who held the greatest hopes for Shen Mu and Shen Fengqing. He wanted to find in Shen Mu a path by which he himself could break his own shackles. To call Shen Mu another Tu Bo, one bound by nothing, was hardly an exaggeration. In Tu Bo's eyes, Shen Fengqing and Shen Mu were one and the same person, not a pair of brothers — even if, to Shen Mu and Shen Fengqing themselves, an elder brother was an elder brother, and a younger brother a younger brother. The younger brother was certain the elder had sins enough to overflow the cup; the elder brother was certain the younger held nothing but a bellyful of wicked schemes. "To break the shackles of my own being, I once tried many roads, and all of them ended in failure. This time is my chance." Tu Bo's gaze was deep and far-reaching. Heavenly Venerable Yu looked at him and felt that his three eyes were like three fathomless abysses, with ripples occasionally rising in their depths. The Jade Lock Pass. A demon-god general led the three-headed, six-armed Shen Mu inward through the pass, sweat rolling steadily down his forehead, for Shen Fengqing's gaze never left the general's head and neck, and it made him deeply uneasy. Again and again his mind conjured the picture of that big-headed doll clutching his skull in both hands and gnawing on it. "How should I address you, Daoist brother?" One of Shen Mu's heads surveyed the surroundings while another spoke to him genially. "Mo Qimi, Deputy Soul-Suppression Envoy of the Jade Lock Pass of Youdu." The demon-god general's eye twitched. "The Divine Son of Youdu never used to have this habit," he thought. "Before, he would start eating without even asking a name. Now he has learned manners — he asks the name first, and then eats..." "And what is this?" Shen Mu pointed at a black stone stele, with perfect courtesy. Deputy Soul-Suppression Envoy Mo Qimi looked at the black stele and said, "This is a Soul-Suppressing Stele, also known as a Karmic Fire Merit Stele. It was refined by Tu Bo from the teeth he shed, and it is used to suppress the demons and heretics imprisoned here. A person of great merit will not be suppressed here; but one steeped in sin will suffer the torment of karmic fire on this very spot. Not a shred of his magic power can be wielded, and his agony is redoubled." Shen Mu cast his gaze about. Karmic Fire Merit Steles such as this one stood like a forest, one every hundred zhang — a great multitude. "Tu Bo had this many teeth?" He was dazed for a moment, then murmured, "Could someone have beaten Tu Bo's teeth loose?" Shen Fengqing was beside himself with excitement. "Tu Bo's teeth are black; mine are white! Look, look!" He opened his mouth, revealing a full set of sharp teeth that gleamed with cold light, and said with glittering eyes, "Mo Qimi, come stand before me, where you can see them more clearly." Deputy Soul-Suppression Envoy Mo Qimi stumbled, then led him into the stone forest formed by the Karmic Fire Merit Steles. Their number exceeded anything Shen Mu had imagined; they walked a long way and still saw no end to them. "There are tens of thousands of these steles. How many teeth must Tu Bo have lost to forge so many?" The deputy envoy glanced at Shen Mu, his heart growing cold. He had assumed that a creature of such monstrous evil, once inside the grove, would certainly be suppressed by Tu Bo's steles — karmic fire coiling around its body, burning it in agony beyond measure. Yet Shen Mu walked through the forest utterly unharmed, and that big-headed doll was even drinking in, with evident relish, the karmic fire that filled the air. The flames came swarming toward him and were sucked into his mouth like noodles, his lips smacking as if they were a delicacy. "Has this brute no weakness at all?" Fear seized his heart. Suddenly, ahead in the forest, a figure was toiling forward with difficulty — a soul wrapped in karmic fire, its face contorted in the flames, its mouth, eye sockets, and ears all turned into black hollows, as though screaming in agony. "This is Heavenly King Yu'an," said the deputy envoy. "Heavenly King Yu'an is an ancient god from a million years ago, a general of the Yulin Guard of the Longhan Heavenly Court, the deity who governs flight. He was originally a great peacock born of Heaven and Earth. Because he delighted in devouring demigods and post-natal beings — he could inhale a million people in a single breath — he committed a great crime. So after his death he was suppressed here at the Jade Lock Pass, and day and night he walks through this forest, enduring the agony of karmic fire. A million years have passed since then. He walks on and on, but no matter how many years he walks, he cannot walk out of the forest. Only on the day his sins are burned away will he step