Yao Shen looks out at the unassuming bathroom door with huge trepidation.

It seems he won\'t have any choice but to go through the door, but his mind feels as if it\'s underwater, woozy and slow with the weight of the new information swimming inside it.

What does the ghoul mean, Yao Shen is a Ghost King? Or used to be, at any rate?

How does that even happen?

How does one stop being a Ghost King?

The ghoul boy lets out a put-upon sigh. "I can see you\'re having a mental breakdown, but we don\'t have time for this."

"So sorry to inconvenience you," Yao Shen says, biting out the words.

"Stop stalling and get on with it," the ghoul says, tapping his foot impatiently.

Taking a deep breath, Yao Shen reaches for the door handle and twists it, opening his non-descript bathroom door into the alley leading to the bustling street.

The ghoul pushes him forward before Yao Shen can dither in the doorway some more, trying to buy himself more time.

The first thing he notices about Youdu is the smell. It smells like a festival, like Tomb Sweeping festival to be more precise. It immediately transports Yao Shen back to his childhood, whenever his parents managed not to fight for long enough to take him to see the festival decorations in the evening.

Those have always been some of his fondest memories, the times his parents pretended to be a family long enough for the three of them to have any semblance of fun before it all dissolved into another screaming match.

Now he\'s examining all those memories under a different lenses.

What does it mean for him the he was apparently a Ghost King?

Could the little ghoul have it wrong?

"This way," the boy says, pulling Yao Shen along by the hem of his shorts.

Yao Shen looks all around him in wonder. The streets are roughly cobbled, and packed with cheerful people, some of them look no different from any living person Yao Shen might see in the human realm, some of them are missing limbs and hideously disfigured to the point of having only a mass of twisting viscera in place of a face. Some of them carry their entrails in their hands, or wrapped around their shoulders like scarves.

No one seems bothered by this, and the awfully maimed people go on with their business as if it\'s nothing.

Between the colourful inhabitants and the towering wooden buildings -- which look like someone stacked pavilions from different time periods on top of each other and built a crooked skyscraper of wood and oiled paper windows -- Yao Shen doesn\'t know where to look at.

"I didn\'t expect it to be...so lively," Yao Shen says, flinching at his choice of words.

The ghoul boy gives him an odd look. "You think people stop being people after they die?" he shakes his head, brimming with condescension. "Everything that lives must one day die. Why would something so common be bad?"

That sounds like something too profound to come out of the mouth of a creature who looks like a baby.

Yao Shen is sorry he said anything. This is too much questioning of his worldview for a day.

He has no idea where he\'s going, but clearly the ghoul has, because he walks with purpose through the bustling streets. Avoiding crowds, peddlers, vendors and terrifying looking creatures with ease until finally reaching a narrow building that resembles a generic provincial administrative building in many a period drama, excluding its towering height.

Yao Shen makes his way inside following the ghoul, feeling extremely out of place.

He\'s led to an ample room where three people, two men and a woman are lounging in long couches, a cloud of cloying sweet smoke enveloping the scene as the three watch a variety show on a huge flatscreen mounted on the wall in front of them. An entire wall of sliding doors is open, letting in the night breeze and the refreshing scent of a small courtyard outside.

The image is so surreal it gives Yao Shen vertigo.

"He\'s here," the ghoul says, addressing the three people who have yet to notice their presence.

From what he has seen, most of Youdu\'s inhabitants favor robes as their clothing of choice, even if they don\'t seem to be following any specific fashion trend of historical standard, with many colors and fabrics not existing at the same period in time -- the result is an eclectic mishmash of ostentatious robes that wouldn\'t look out of place in a palace intrigue drama. These three are no different.

The first to turn to them is a man with an achingly beautiful face and a head of loose silky black hair. He turns around on his sofa and gives Yao Shen a curious look over the armrest. When he gets up, his flimsy, glittering purple robes slide down his shoulders, exposing most of his chest.

Yao Shen notices he\'s barefoot, his slender white feet completely naked, no socks or slippers in sight

"He looks the same," the man says, pulling the long curtain of his hair to the side.

The woman is the next to rise, bringing her long pipe with her, she wears an elegant, form-fitting floor-length qipao, the slit on the side going up almost to her hip. Her hair is pinned up in artful curls, framing her doll\'s face and peach blossom eyes.

She smirks when she sees Yao Shen. "He still looks as if he can\'t tell beans from wheat."

The last man to rise from his sofa towers over the other two. His features look severe but lovingly sculpted, the sheer height of his cheekbones alone is intimidating, to say nothing of the grim line of his thin lips. His dark hair is pulled up into a neat queue on top of his head, and he wears very proper court official robes, complete with a chest insignia denoting a rank that Yao Shen has no means of identifying.

"Took you long enough," he says giving Yao Shen a long look of appraisal that makes him feel wholly inadequate.

The barefoot man fans himself, the delicate calligraphy across the arch of it reads, \'golden branch, jade leaves\'(1).

He smiles at Yao Shen. "It only took him some 5 or 6 reincarnations, but he\'s here now."

Yao Shen blanches at those careless words.

The man gives Yao Shen an appraising look from above his fan. "It\'s time to fix the mess you made with Xin Hulei all those years ago."

Stammering, Yao Shen asks, "What mess?"

"Letting him live when you should have killed him," the serious looking man says, scowling.

The woman laughs, the long slender pipe still held firmly between her slim fingers. "That\'s a great euphemism for letting him fuck you stupid." She takes a drag of her pipe, smoke billowing around her in a thin column. "You know, we had to kick down the doors to one of Fragrant Peony\'s rooms to find you?"

Yao Shen immediately remembers his dream, Xin Hulei between his legs, unwrapping him like a gift.

"Oh," is all the can say to yet another mind-blowing revelation being piled up on him like discarded clothing on a hanger.