Chapter 65 Consolation
Once Yanluo confirmed that Thanatos had stopped crying, he finally calmed down. His voice was incredibly gentle as he asked, “Do you want to keep exploring? If not, we can head back now.”
Thanatos lowered his head, staring at his own hand.
Only then did Yanluo realize he was still holding Thanatos’ hand. He had been holding it for so long, yet the little reaper hadn’t said a word or tried to pull away.
He cleared his throat awkwardly and quickly let go.
Thanatos’ hand was, indeed, small. Even the bones in his fingers, which Yanluo had seen earlier, were so cute it was almost unbearable.
Yanluo, completely unaware, had already built up a filter so thick that he now found even the little reaper’s bones adorable.
“I’m really sorry about what happened earlier,” Yanluo sighed softly. “I should’ve warned you about the danger of the red spider lilies.”
Thanatos shook his head, understanding it was partly his own fault for being too careless. It was perfectly normal for hell to have protective measures. The gates of the Western hell were guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound, while the gates of the Eastern hell were guarded by red spider lilies. The only difference was that one was an animal and the other was a plant. He had overlooked the fact that plants could be just as dangerous.
“Let’s continue,” he said quietly.
With the little reaper’s words, Yanluo felt reassured and took him on a tour of the entire hell.
But they avoided the eighteenth level, which was too bloody and gruesome. It was best to spare the little reaper from seeing such horrors, although Thanatos was probably used to seeing similar sights in the Western hell, where souls who had committed evil in life were judged and punished after death.
“This is the Yanluo Hall, where I usually handle matters.”
“This is the Home-Viewing Terrace, where there is a pavilion on the top floor. Souls can stand there to look back at their homeland.”
“This is the City of Innocent Deaths, where souls who die with resentment and refuse to reincarnate make their home……”
Yanluo continued to explain in detail, while Thanatos stood at the city gates, lifting his head to study the large characters on the entrance: City of Innocent Deaths.
“Would you like to go in and take a look?” Yanluo asked.
Thanatos thought for a moment before shaking his head. The city was filled with many souls, and their arrival would certainly gather a crowd. Just imagining the scene left him feeling a little suffocated.
Yanluo understood his hesitation. “We can fly up into the sky. That way, we can see them, but they won’t see us.”
While the souls could float about on the ground, they couldn’t fly in the sky of the underworld. The sky above was a deep black, and no matter what might be hidden there, the souls could only gaze up at the endless night.
This time, Thanatos nodded.
Yanluo summoned a dark cloud and stepped onto it. “Come up.”
Thanatos stared at the small cloud. If he climbed onto it, he would be in very close proximity to Yanluo.
He didn’t really mind that thought.
It was just a bit…… embarrassing.
“No need,” Thanatos said.
Yanluo glanced over and saw Thanatos’ back suddenly sprout a pair of massive bone wings.
He whistled like a hooligan. “Cool.”
Hearing Yanluo’s frivolous compliment, the bone wings awkwardly folded.
Yanluo smiled. “Let’s go.” With that, he rode the cloud into the sky.
Seeing this, Thanatos spread his wings and followed.
Once they reached a high altitude, Yanluo halted the dark cloud, and Thanatos folded his wings. From this height, they could see the entire underworld laid out below them.
When looking up from the ground, the sky was a vast black. But from up in the air, everything beneath them was crystal clear.
The underworld was filled with ancient, classical buildings. The grandest and most imposing was the Yanluo Hall. Ghosts, dressed in the attire of various dynasties, wandered through the streets. Shops lined the roads, their owners conducting business to earn underworld coins. Children played and chased each other on the bridges, and the lights of countless homes shimmered brightly, punctuated by the green glow of ghost flames.
Apart from the slightly ominous tone, the scene before them was not much different from the bustling human world of ancient times.
As more modern souls entered the underworld, many of the big names from various industries continued to shine and thrive after death, helping modernize the realm. It was no longer uncommon to see ancient ghosts in traditional attire sitting in cafés, holding smartphones. Of course, these phones couldn’t connect to the human world’s networks, but they could still contact their friends from the underworld.
This was its own world, a home for the souls of the departed. Their lives had ended in the human world, but here, in the underworld, they began a new chapter. It wasn’t a place of death, but one full of vitality.
“The underworld and the human world look almost the same,” Thanatos murmured. “They’re quick to accept new things.”
The Greek underworld also had Elysium, where carefree souls lived. In Greece, there was no soup like Granny Meng’s soup. When souls first arrived in the underworld, they would miss their loved ones in the human world, but before long, they would make new friends in the paradise. Years later, when old friends from the human world arrived in the underworld, their bond would not be as close as the one they shared with their new companions.
Once upon a time, there had been a couple deeply in love. Thanatos had taken the soul of the dying girl. When they parted, her soul was filled with sorrow, unwilling to leave, while the boy stayed by her body, devastated by grief. This was the scene Cupid had witnessed, and at that time, the little god thought Thanatos was heartless.
But Cupid did not know the sequel to that incidet. The girl, after entering Elysium, spent a few years mourning her lost lover. Then, she fell in love with another soul. The boy, heartbroken for years in the human world, eventually married a beautiful woman and spent the rest of his life with her. When they both arrived in Elysium, they unexpectedly became neighbors to the girl and her new husband. Neither recognized the other.
The only one who remembered their past love was Thanatos.
There were many such stories in Elysium.
Life was unpredictable. Everything in the world changed and faded. Nothing could last forever. Not life, not love. People always quickly accepted the inevitable and started new lives.
In a way, it was for the best. Constantly dwelling on past pain wasn’t healthy. But as a god who was eternal and had witnessed everything, Thanatos couldn’t help but feel weary and melancholy at times.
At first, Thanatos’ words seemed to be merely a comment on the modernized facilities of the underworld, how ancient ghosts had learned to use modern products. But Yanluo, as Thanatos’ closest “confidant,” understood that there was more to it than that.
Yanluo said, “Humans are remarkably adaptable creatures. No matter how much they mourn when they graduate high school, they soon make new friends in college. After they start working, their social circle shifts again. A few years down the road, they might even forget the names of their high school classmates. Things they once thought they couldn’t live without, things they believed would be impossible to forget, fade away with the passing of time.
“The same goes for souls. When they first pass away, they cling to the mortal world, reluctant to leave. But with time, they gradually grow accustomed to the underworld, no longer yearning for the world they left behind. They no longer need Granny Meng’s soup to forget. The memories fade on their own.
“They don’t truly die. They just complete life’s graduation.”
Yanluo turned to Thanatos. “And you are the one who hands them their graduation certificates.”
Some souls might have only lived for a few short years in the human world, dying unexpectedly, but they spent millennia in the ghost city. For them, the underworld was their true home.
Death, too, signified a new beginning.
Death was the graduation of life, and the God of Death was the one who issued the diploma.
This was the first time Thanatos heard such words.
But hearing this perspective made him feel much lighter.
“Zeus once ordered me to kill Sisyphus,” Thanatos suddenly spoke up.
The sudden change in topic caught Yanluo off guard, but he still adopted a listening posture.
To his surprise, this conversation seemed to be opening up the little reaper’s heart. Yanluo had heard the story of Sisyphus from Poseidon before, but now, he wanted to hear it directly from Thanatos.
“Zeus kidnapped a river god’s daughter, and Sisyphus told the river god where she was. That angered Zeus, and he ordered me to take Sisyphus’ soul.” Thanatos spoke in one breath, then paused, his voice lowering.
“I didn’t think Sisyphus was wrong, so I didn’t kill him. Sisyphus tried to trap me with a trick. I saw through his plan immediately, but I still let him bind me.” Thanatos’ voice dropped even further. “I did it on purpose.”
Yanluo had already suspected as much. He finished the thought for him. “Because you didn’t want to see more death in the world. You thought you were the cause of it all, so you took the chance to let yourself be captured.”
Thanatos turned to look at Yanluo, recalling Bai Wuchang’s words: “If anyone can truly empathize with you, it is not us. It’s King Yan.”
In that moment, he truly believed it.
“Yes,” Thanatos admitted quietly. “I was locked for ten years. I could’ve broken the chains at any time, but I didn’t. At first, when people discovered they couldn’t die, everyone was overjoyed. I thought this world would indeed be better off without me.
“But then, the human population kept growing. Babies were born every day, but no one ever died. Food, water, and land became scarce, and people began fighting over limited resources. They killed each other, even waged wars, all to kill more people. But I wasn’t there. Those who were mortally wounded couldn’t die, and they couldn’t be healed. They lived in agony every day.” Thanatos spoke slowly, unwilling to relive that kind of hell in the mortal world.
“……So, I broke free from the chains and took those souls away.”
The Greek myths say that Zeus sent Ares to rescue Thanatos, but in truth, by the time Ares arrived, Thanatos had already broken his chains and left on his own.
Ares, unwilling to miss the chance to earn credit, never explained that Thanatos hadn’t been rescued by him. Besides, Thanatos was always silent and never corrected the misunderstanding.
“When I returned to the underworld to face King Hades, he told me that being locked for ten years was Zeus and Sisyphus’ fault, not mine. I wanted to say no, that I deliberately went on strike, and that the consequences were my fault, but King Hades did not allow me to say it. I understand now. King Hades knew I’d done it on purpose, but he protected me.”
Yanluo could understand Thanatos’ internal struggles. Hades, too, must have known Thanatos’ fears. But Hades wasn’t one for psychological counseling. He allowed Thanatos to go on strike for ten years, letting reality teach him the true meaning of death, and in the end, didn’t blame him.
But Thanatos had blamed himself for a long time.
“You’re right,” Thanatos said, his voice growing softer. “The human world is like a school. There are always new students arriving, and some always have to graduate. If they never graduate, the school will not be able to accommodate so many students, and the whole school will collapse. Separation is inevitable and necessary, but I can never bring myself to face it…… I’m afraid to face it.”
Perhaps it was his deep sympathy for Yanluo’s situation that caused Thanatos to stop hiding his feelings. Without realizing it, he ended up sharing so much. Perhaps he also wanted to comfort Yanluo.
But it was unclear who was comforting whom.
Yanluo fell silent for a moment.
Thanatos suddenly felt a wave of embarrassment. Opening up like this was a huge test for him. The God of Death, who lacked security, had exposed his vulnerability to Yanluo. When Yanluo didn’t immediately respond, Thanatos almost wanted to awkwardly backtrack and say, “Forget I said anything.”
But before Thanatos could retreat back into his shell, Yanluo spoke. “Wait a minute, let me count how many words you’ve said. You might get a discount on your rent.”
Thanatos: “……”
The joke worked. In an instant, the awkwardness evaporated, and Thanatos felt less uncomfortable.
“You fear seeing the scenes of parting, which is why you didn’t want to integrate into the human world, preferring to stay forever in the darkness of the underworld. But you still took on your responsibilities, didn’t you?” Yanluo said gently. “You uphold your duty, even though it is something you fear most. You are not weak, you are strong. So why not take a look at the things that aren’t so scary? If you see more of the world, you’ll realize that beyond parting, there is reunion, and beyond sadness, there is happiness.”
“But even reunions eventually lead to partings. People don’t like to see the God of Death in the human world,” Thanatos replied.
“Humans are also afraid to see me, but I still turned my shops into a nationwide chain,” Yanluo said.
Thanatos: “……” He really wanted to ask how that was even possible.
Yanluo continued, “No matter how others see you, the human world itself is worth listening to, seeing, and loving. You chose not to engage simply because everything eventually fades away, but even pantheons can collapse. Does that mean our existence now is utterly meaningless?
“You know, in our line of work, we often put in great effort without receiving much appreciation. The reason I persevere isn’t because humans like or dislike me, nor is it because of the things I wish to see or avoid seeing happening in the world every day. As long as what I do is meaningful and aligns with the responsibilities I must bear, I should not fear the consequences of my actions. Even if the world sees it as flaws, I know it is my glory.
“So, Little Reaper, why should you feel inferior or afraid? You should be confident and proud. Your existence has great meaning. The human world needs you. When you hide from it, it feels neglected, too. It also wants to show you how beautiful it is.”
If you enjoy this novel, support the Translator ginevre on her ko-fi account :))
