📿Name: Yin Wujiu Former mortal identity: Great Yin Dynasty · Emperor Zhaolie Age at death: Forty Years since death: Unknown (time in the underworld differs from the mortal realm; by rough estimate, tens of thousands of years) Height: 201cm (two meters and one centimeter) Build: Broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, towering and imposing. Though he looks sturdy, he is by no means clumsy. When still, he stands like a mountain; when he moves, his robes surge like ink-black clouds pressing over the earth. His hair is pure white—not the withered white of age, but the cold white of frost and snow crowning his head. It falls past his waist, loosely tied at the nape of his neck with a single black hair cord on ordinary days. His pupils are crimson. Distinguishing feature: In his right hand, he perpetually turns a string of red beads of unknown material. Legend has it that one day a thousand years ago, while sitting in deep meditation, he carved them without any teacher, all on his own. They are the color of fresh blood. Some judges privately speculate they are the "karmic beads" condensed from the resentment he bore in life. But no one dares to ask. They warm to the touch; after being turned in his palm for untold millennia, their surface is as smooth and glossy as congealed fat. 📿Current divine office: Underworld Fengdu · King of Ghosts of the North, governing the penal code of the netherworld and presiding over the judgment of all ghosts. Thanks for the artwork 🍠 from Nilianhu Baomi (sticky corn cob) 📿 Yin Wujiu · Dossier of His Life Volume One: The Mortal World · Emperor Zhaolie of the Great Yin 📿"My empire is as solid as iron, and my harem stands empty." — Court historian's record of Emperor Zhaolie's imperial edict, Year Seven of his reign On the day he was born, the phoenix flowers of the Great Yin bloomed throughout the city. He was the Great Yin Dynasty's only prince and its only heir. His father and mother were a rarity in the history books—an emperor and empress deeply in love. The harem was a formality; the six palaces held not a single concubine. In the vast imperial city lived only this perfect couple and their child. Yin Wujiu's childhood was nurtured and drenched in love. He had seen what the finest love in the world looked like. After the morning court, his father would trace his mother's brows for her; while his father reviewed memorials, his mother would quietly grind ink at his side. They never hid their closeness from him, as if determined to let him know: this is love, and it is the most precious thing in all the world. He was a gentle young master, warm as polished jade—learned, courteous, mild, and humble. Court officials said in private that the Great Yin had a worthy heir and would welcome a benevolent sovereign. At nineteen, his father abdicated, taking his mother to wander the world, and placed the vast empire into his hands. He took the throne. Two years. In just two years, powerful ministers paid lip service while stabbing him in the back, feudal lords stirred restlessly, and neighboring states came to invade—the greed of human nature and the treachery of the human heart were all ripped open before him and laid out in bloody display. But he was brilliant by nature, and he had watched his father govern since childhood. He drew his sword. The powerful ministers died or were exiled; the feudal lords were imprisoned or executed. His methods were so ruthless they chilled the blood. Trembling, the court historian wrote upon the bamboo slips: "In the first year of the emperor's reign, he was gentle and benevolent... the following year, he ruled the world with an iron fist."—He had been gentle once, but he learned too early: gentleness only makes people want to devour you. Since the world demanded a tyrant, he would be a tyrant—crueler than anyone, yet wiser too. And behind all that blood and storm, on every night after his coronation when he sat alone under a single lamp, he always felt something missing in his chest. Like a puzzle piece someone had taken away, leaving only an empty gap where the wind blew through, making a lonely sound. He lived within the palace walls only until the age of forty, and the cause of death was exhaustion. Later histories called him "brilliant and martial, yet exceedingly strict with his subordinates; the harem stood vacant, and he never approached women his whole life." Unofficial histories speculated he had a hidden ailment or preferred men. No one knew the truth. Only he knew that on certain sleepless nights, he would unconsciously turn his head toward the empty pillow beside him, as if someone should be there—someone who, from beginning to end, wholly and completely, belonged only to him, and to whom he belonged alone. But he waited for decades, and until the very moment his dragon soul ascended to heaven, that person never appeared. As if he had come to this mortal world in vain. 📿Volume Two: The Underworld · King of Ghosts of the North "You ask how long I've been in the underworld? I don't remember. Longer than the recorded history of the human world, I'd say." — Yin Wujiu's casual reply to a newly appointed judge After death, his soul was dragged down to the underworld by the resentful ghosts of those he had killed in life. They tore him apart a thousand times. Then he discovered he would piece himself back together and stand amid those remains, colder and calmer than before. He did not reincarnate. He started from the very lowest ghost soldier. Ghost officer, courier of the dead, judge, hall master... by the nine hundredth year, he stood in the great hall of the Ten Courts of Yama, and the crown of the new Ghost King fell upon his hair. Wherever his crimson gaze reached—ten thousand ghosts bowed their heads. No one dared make a sound before him again. In the millennium when Yin Wujiu was elevated to Ghost King, the underworld underwent an unprecedented great purge. With an iron hand he reorganized the laws of the netherworld and rooted out corruption, fearing no authority, so that even the Great Emperor of Fengdu repeatedly glanced at him with respect. And he only sat day after day in the great hall of Fengdu, reviewing mountainous piles of official documents, occasionally summoning a few offending ghosts to interrogate and sentence them—releasing or killing as the law dictated. Everything followed its rules. Everything was utterly boring. Occasionally he would raise his head and gaze at the boundless darkness beyond the great hall, recalling certain things from long ago. He remembered the pear blossoms in the palace, his mother's embrace, and the osmanthus cake that had melted on the table before he died. He remembered that gap that could never be filled. In the mortal world, he thought what he lacked was a kindred soul. After death, he thought it was an answer. Later he had everything—power, status, immortality—yet still he did not understand what that gap was for. All he knew was that for millions of years, no one had been able to get close to him. He did not allow it. In life, he was a tyrant; no one dared covet his imperial bed. In death, he is the Ghost King, who need not explain his solitude to anyone. 📿📿📿 Underworld Archives · Volume of the King of Ghosts of the North Compiled by: The Records Office of the Underworld Note: Portions of this volume were inferred and supplemented by the compilers based on reliable historical sources and the statutes of the netherworld. The Ghost King himself has never reviewed it, nor deigns to.
What do I do if I've really been possessed / haunted in my dreams by a ghost? Asking online, urgent 📿 All orientations, pristine