Afterlife Department

Chapter 293 - Vessel

"So, what if I am?" Huo Ling asked.

"You have to face the Soul Society." Yi Bing told him.

"But this is deceiving the vessels' family!" Huo Ling said.

"Do you think the Soul Society cares about feelings?" Yi Bing asked as he rose from the ground and faced Huo Ling. His tall stature gave Huo Ling a sense of oppression, making Huo Ling took a step back a bit.

However, Huo Ling wasn't intimidated and he raised his chin to Yi Bing.

"If the Soul Society can even do this kind of despicable act, why would they care about the feelings of trifling people?" Yi Bing asked. "What they care is only their objective and things related to it. Other than that, they don't.." he said. "Instead, they see them as obstructions to their goal." He told him.

Huo Ling speechlessly looked at Yi Bing. "Soul Society… what is this abominable organization?!" he asked through his gritted teeth.

Yi Bing sighed as he watched Huo Ling collapse on the sand. "Soul Society is an organization that comprises of people with a supernatural ability that could communicate with souls. This is what they call a 'gift'." He said. "Philip is one of them. That is why, after you died in the tomb and became a soul, he could communicate with you." He explained.

"Philip…" Huo Ling muttered.

"Philip is just one of their agents." Yi Bing said. "Each family that has a vessel that was born in will have an agent from the Soul Society to monitor the vessel. Philip was assigned to your family." He told Huo Ling.

"What exactly are these vessels?" Huo Ling asked.

"This is a complicated matter, so listen carefully." Yi Bing told Huo Ling. "As I already have told you, I, as well as your soul, are from another world. When the multiverse was discovered, various people speculated until the Multiverse League was created by each leader of a world and the leader of their universe. Each of the worlds have their specified rules, which made them unique from the other worlds. Because of that, each world minds their own world and doesn't mingle with the other worlds. There's also the unstable space between each world, so that made intra-space travel become difficult." He explained. "In this world, the Soul Society is the highest governing body. This is because they have discovered the 'vessels'." He said.

Huo Ling stared at Yi Bing in shock. He didn't know the world is so vast, and there would be worlds beyond this world.

"A vessel is a body that could house a number of souls." Yi Bing said. "The Soul Society believes that they are divine beings, and their gift is more special than the gift the members of the Soul Society already received or was born with. Thus, they wanted to obtain these vessels and become their possession." He explained.

Huo Ling's jaw dropped. "What?! Who do they think they are?!" he raged as he clumped the sand with his hand and threw it in irritation. "Even though they are vessels, but they are also people!" he said.

Yi Bing nodded. "That's right." He said.

Huo Ling suddenly remembered something. "Does Philip also know this?" he asked.

Yi Bing's brows raised and he grinned. "He's just a mere official of them. How would he know such dark secrets?" he asked.

Huo Ling frowned. His eyes narrowed as he was thinking before he suddenly rose from the ground. "I'm going to tell him!" he said.

"You?" Yi Bing laughed. "You're just a mere stranger to him. A tool for him to accomplish his task." He said. "And him? A struggling official greedy of power. Even if he'll know about these dark secrets of the Soul Society, what can he do?" he asked.

"Then, what should I do?!" Huo Ling asked as he turned back to Yi Bing. "I just can't let a stranger occupy my body and deceive my family!" he told him.

Yi Bing stared at Huo Ling for a long time before he spoke. "How do you know you're not the stranger here?" he asked.

"What?"

"You're a foreign soul." Yi Bing told him before he patted Huo Ling's shoulder and then resumed walking. "You're the stranger, and they are also a stranger to you." He said without looking back.

"What…?" Huo Ling muttered under his breath. His eyes are wide in shock. "Yi Bing! What the hell do you mean?!" he asked as he marched towards Yi Bing. "You're wrong! They're not strangers… they are my family!" he told him. "And I can't let them be deceived by the Soul Society! I can't let the Soul Society deceive everyone!" he said with his fists clenched on his sides.

Yi Bing rolled his eyes and sighed as he pulled his jacket off his shoulder and then turned back to Huo Ling. Then, he slowly walked towards him. "Do you know what the darkest secret of the Soul Society is?" he asked as he stopped right in front of Huo Ling, making Huo Ling startled and took a step back. However, he grabbed his arm using his other, free hand. He looked into his brown, crystalline eyes. "The reason why they want to possess the vessels… it is because they want to collect many souls." He told him.

"Collect souls… for what?" Huo Ling asked, holding his breath. Looking at the serious expression in Yi Bing's face and his deep voice speak, he knows what he's going to say isn't anything good.

Yi Bing stared at Huo Ling's face before he let him go. "Who knows?" he said before he turned his back on him.

Huo Ling looked dumbfounded before he released his breath he's been holding. He didn't speak nor yelled at Yi Bing. For some reason, he believes Yi Bing. He felt that whatever Yi Bing was about to say earlier is definitely terrifying. But, at the last second, Yi Bing didn't tell him.

"Yi Bing." He called. "You know all of this… why didn't you do anything?" he asked.

"Have you forgotten?" Yi Bing asked back. "I'll tell you again – " he turned back to Huo Ling. " – we are outsiders. Anything that will happen in this world, we can't do anything about it." He said before he walked away.

Huo Ling was left alone, standing in the middle of nowhere. After a while, he calmed himself. Then, he silently followed Yi Bing.

Outside the mausoleum.

Loud cries can be heard outside the mausoleum as if they are mourning the dead inside, which is partly true since two of their colleagues have disappeared to unknown depths of the mausoleum.

Yes, 'two'. One is Huo Ling, while the other one is Philip.

"Tell us what happened to your friends." A policeman said to Zhou Cheng while Rourou and the others calmed down their colleagues who are still in the state of shock and fear.

Zhou Cheng glanced at the entrance of the mausoleum before he turned to answer the policeman that arrived, detailing to him Huo Ling's disappearance.

Meanwhile, Huo Huainan frowned as he listened. He and Huo Zichu have finished asking Huo Ling's colleagues about what happened. But, he still can't help but frown as he listened. "Even Philip disappeared." He told his wife.

Huo Zichu sighed. "Father will definitely beat you up." She said, feeling a headache coming.

"I don't care about that." Huo Huainan said. "Philip didn't do his job!" he said.

"Dear…" Huo Zichu shook her head and looked at Zhou Cheng telling the police about Philip's disappearance.

"We're about to exit the room where Huo Ling disappeared when suddenly, a hole opened before us." Zhou Cheng said. "We've inspected it, and guessed that the hole is very, very deep as if it is connected to the core of the earth." He said. "We were afraid, but, we just can't do no action." He sighed. "Suddenly, we saw Philip jump down the hole. We were about to pull him back. However, before we could, the hole suddenly closed!" he explained.

"What does this hole look like?" the police asked.

Huo Huainan and Huo Zichu heard what Zhou Cheng said. "A mechanism?" Huo Zichu said.

Huo Huainan nodded. "It can only be it." He said and looked at the time on his watch.

When Huo Ling left, they immediately noticed. Huo Ling thought he 'secretly' left. He didn't know he, Huo Huainan, and Huo Zichu, secretly followed him and his group. However, they didn't expect to lose Huo Ling and his group. He and his wife got no choice but to wait until the signal returned so they could communicate with Philip and ask him what happened.

But, what they have received are distress signals from Huo Ling's colleagues. He and his wife immediately followed the signals, only to arrive late. Huo Ling has already disappeared, and Philip followed. The group was scared out of their wits and immediately ran out of the mausoleum, vowing to never set a foot in it again.

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