After reviewing this basic information, Master Gu tapped the holographic screen, and the screen displayed the summary of the ghost doll's previous life: Liu Erwa, born in the summer of 1913 in Earth's N31 temporal line, died in the summer of 1914. Both parents were heroes fighting against Japanese invaders.
At this point, the system also retrieved photos of Liu Erwa's parents. Hao Yun was surprised to see that Liu Erwa's parents looked almost identical to Xiao Yong and Xu Fang. No wonder Liu Erwa had latched onto Xiao Yong and Xu Fang—he must have mistaken them for his parents in their reincarnated form. Hao Yun thought to himself as he continued to examine the information provided by the system.
Liu Erwa's parents were refugees who had been fleeing from the war, helping the anti-aggression army gather important intelligence during their wanderings. During a mission to gather critical military information, their identities were exposed due to a traitor's betrayal, leading to a heavy pursuit by the Japanese invaders.
Caught in enemy encirclement during their escape, Liu Erwa's parents and the reinforcements forced to take shelter in a village found themselves engaged in a fierce battle against the invading army. Ultimately, before the arrival of the reinforcements, they were overwhelmed by the enemy's relentless assault and perished within the encirclement.
Liu Erwa's father fell first in battle. His mother, however, chose to commit suicide by embracing Liu Erwa, who was struck by a stray bullet, to protect the valuable intelligence they had intercepted, as the enemy breached the village.
Seeing this, the four of them fell silent simultaneously. Hao Yun's expression was particularly heavy at this moment because the country he lived in had also suffered from invaders' oppression in history, and countless heroes had sacrificed their lives as a result. Therefore, the plight of Liu Erwa's family easily resonated with Hao Yun.
Dao Lao and the other two divine officials might admire the deeds of Liu Erwa's family. After all, heroes have no boundaries. Whether mortal or divine, acts of sacrificing one's life to bravely resist invaders were worthy of respect and praise.
"It seems you guessed right. This ghost doll indeed experienced unexpectedly severe hardships in his previous life. Now it's certain that it was because of Liu Erwa's unfortunate past that he had the opportunity to be transformed into a jinxed spirit after death," Dao Lao said.
"Transformed? Do you mean Liu Erwa was transformed into a jinxed spirit? By whom? Mold spirit energy?" Hao Yun asked.
"Exactly." This time, it was Judge Yan who spoke up. "Shortly after the end of a mortal's life journey in the mortal realm, the guiding priests of the Underworld will descend to escort their souls, or what we usually call their spiritual bodies, to the upper realm, preparing them for the next journey."
"Of course," Judge Yan continued, "due to some special circumstances, there are indeed many spiritual bodies that still carry the grudges or unfulfilled wishes from their past lives after departing from the mortal realm. In more severe cases, these emotions inherited from past lives can indeed be transformed into malevolent energy. However, such spiritual bodies will be brought back to the Divine Spirit Realm and, under the supervision of the Soul Guidance Management Center, gradually purify all the malevolent energy within them. Therefore, spiritual bodies with strong malevolent energy won't actually cause much harm to the mortal realm."
"Then how did Liu Erwa cause trouble for Xiao Yong and his wife?" Hao Yun asked in confusion.
"Sigh! Due to the limited number of guiding priests, they cannot guarantee that every spiritual body will be immediately escorted to the mortal realm for acceptance after death. This creates opportunities for mold spirit energy to come into contact with spiritual bodies carrying malevolent energy. Particularly for individuals like Liu Erwa, who died due to unfortunate circumstances, their inherent bad luck and compatibility with mold spirit energy make them naturally more susceptible to being targeted by mold spirit energy, attracting it to infiltrate their spiritual bodies before the guiding priests arrive," Judge Yan sighed.
"But wouldn't the guiding priests notice that Liu Erwa's spiritual body still harbored mold spirit energy when they were guiding his soul to the upper realm?" Hao Yun asked, puzzled.
"Ah!" Judge Yan sighed helplessly. "It's all because of that divine battle. As a result, there was an unusually large number of spiritual bodies that needed guidance. Additionally, many guiding priests sacrificed themselves in that divine battle, resulting in a severe shortage of personnel for guiding souls, forcing us to dispatch many inexperienced priests to carry out the guidance work. Therefore, it's not surprising that occasional oversights occur in the work of the Underworld."
"In addition, mold spirit energy itself has a certain masking effect on the power of the Divine Spirit Realm. Therefore, as long as Liu Erwa's malevolent energy took precautions to conceal his mold spirit energy in advance, and encountered inexperienced guiding priests, it would be easy to pass the mold spirit energy off as ordinary malevolent energy. Sigh! To put it bluntly, that divine battle is the culprit behind such a tricky situation!"
"What exactly was that divine battle?" Hao Yun couldn't help but ask out of curiosity when Judge Yan sighed at the mention of the divine battle.
Upon hearing Hao Yun's question, Judge Yan glanced discreetly at Dao Lao, then fell into a brief silence. It seemed that he didn't want to mention too much about the divine battle.
Seeing this, Master Gu immediately redirected the topic back to Liu Erwa's situation: "According to the information I've found, in the battle that Liu Erwa experienced, at least hundreds of mortals died. Therefore, based on what Judge Yan just said, it's indeed easy for busy guiding priests to overlook a spiritual body carrying malevolent energy."
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"In addition, there is another piece of information worth noting. Because this ghost doll named Liu Erwa in his previous life was a child, according to the regulations of soul guidance, spiritual bodies like him who died young would be classified as infant souls. He needs to be extradited to a special infant soul management center for follow-up arrangements. As a result, Liu Erwa will be completely separated from his parents after death."
"You see, as a child who was only a year and a half old, Liu Erwa's natural dependence on his parents would become even stronger under the influence of fear after death. So, under such circumstances, when Liu Erwa saw his parents forcibly taken away, he developed extremely strong resistance emotions, resulting in a huge rejection reaction towards the guiding priests' transcendence. Combined with his abnormal death and witnessing the entire process of his parents' deaths, this made Liu Erwa's young spiritual body extremely unstable and dangerous."
Master Gu paused for a moment before continuing, "Due to Liu Erwa's unstable soul, the Soul Management Center had no choice but to let him stay temporarily at the center. They wanted him to let go of his attachment to his past life, then thoroughly cleanse the impurities within him, before proceeding with the next steps for his soul. However, it's possible that during this process, due to our understaffing and excessive busyness, a mistake occurred, allowing the mold spirit energy to help Liu Erwa escape from the Divine Spirit Realm and venture into the mortal realm, causing trouble there."
"Hmph! If I hadn't checked with the fools at the Soul Management Center based on the information provided by Old Dao, those idiots might not have discovered that Liu Erwa's soul had disappeared yet! But I can see that they're all too busy to even know their directions, so even if there's a mistake now, I can't blame them too much," Master Gu said with a tone of annoyance and resignation.
Then, with an expectant look, Master Gu turned to Dao Lao and said, "So, Old Dao, regarding Liu Erwa's matter, I can only ask you to take extra care!"
Dao Lao patted Master Gu's shoulder reassuringly, "Of course. After all, this matter is related to the mold spirit energy, which falls within my jurisdiction."
Dao Lao looked at the holographic screen and continued, "Now, Liu Erwa's situation is basically clear. Liu Erwa was unfortunately born in a chaotic era and was unjustly killed by the enemy at the age of only one and a half. All of this was beyond his control, just a stroke of bad luck. But it's precisely because of this that he attracted the attention of that mold spirit energy and ultimately led to the invasion of his soul by the mold spirit energy. Later, Liu Erwa somehow escaped from the Soul Management Center to the mortal realm, attaching himself to Xiao Yong and Xu Fang, causing them to be unable to conceive for a long time."
Hao Yun nodded in agreement with Dao Lao's summary. However, he raised another question afterward, "So, how did that mold spirit energy encounter Liu Erwa in the first place? Could it be that the mold spirit energy had been lurking nearby when the incident occurred?"
"Well, that's very possible. But it's also not ruled out that what happened to Liu Erwa was already related to the mold spirit energy, so the mold spirit energy happened to appear there. Because the purpose of those mold spirit energies is to spread bad luck in the Divine Spirit Realm and cause trouble. Then, they absorb various negative energies, mainly bad luck, from their victims to enhance their power," Master Gu explained.
"But, this is just our current speculation. We'll have to wait for further investigation to know the specific situation," Master Gu added cautiously.
"However, from the current situation, that mold spirit energy, after attaching to Liu Erwa, neither displayed too terrifying power nor caused widespread harm to the people around. It's likely because Liu Erwa's soul was too weak, preventing the mold spirit energy from fully exerting its power. So, the good news is that dealing with Liu Erwa possessed by the mold spirit energy should not be difficult. Old Dao, you should be able to easily kill him with just a few clicks and capture the fleeing mold spirit energy, right?" Master Gu looked at Dao Lao with confidence.
Upon hearing Master Gu's words, Hao Yun couldn't sit still. So, he interrupted excitedly, "But, from the current situation, the impact Liu Erwa had on Xiao Yong and his wife may not have been his own actions, but rather caused by the mold spirit energy inside him, right? Moreover, although Liu Erwa has the ability to harm others, besides being attached to Xiao Yong and Xu Fang, it seems he hasn't done anything harmful to others, right? Doesn't this indicate that the nature of this ghost child, Liu Erwa, is not inherently evil? Can't we consider a different approach, such as expelling the mold spirit energy from him, to completely eliminate the potential threat he may pose?"
"Directly killing his soul and collecting the mold spirit after it loses its host is actually the simplest and most effective solution. But if we want to solve Liu Erwa's problem by expelling the mold spirit energy from him, it will increase the workload in handling this matter. Moreover, the success rate of doing so is uncertain. If we fail, we will still have to resort to killing Liu Erwa to force the mold spirit energy to appear and capture it," Dao Lao said, stroking his graying beard, carefully considering Master Gu's and Hao Yun's suggestions, while subtly glancing at Hao Yun as if to hear more of his thoughts.
Seeing this, Hao Yun continued with understanding, "Although I am just an assistant to the Mold Spirit Energy Pursuit Officer who recently joined the job and completely unfamiliar with the way things work in the Divine Spirit Realm, this doesn't prevent me from believing that resorting to violence to directly kill Liu Erwa, after understanding his past life, is the only feasible solution to this incident. Because my intuition tells me that Liu Erwa, as a young soul whose mind is not yet mature, probably never had the intention to harm Xiao Yong and Xu Fang. The real negative impact on Xiao Yong and Xu Fang was caused by the mold spirit energy attached to him."
Compared to the almost imperceptible smile at the corner of Dao Lao's mouth, Judge Yan and Master Gu were surprised by Hao Yun's audacity to express his thoughts when meeting them for the first time. After all, these two were the highest leaders of the Thirteenth Realm of the Divine Spirit Realm, and no one dared to oppose their opinions, let alone express their opposition in person. Therefore, while they were surprised by Hao Yun's willingness to express his dissenting opinion, they couldn't help but begin to consider whether Hao Yun's words actually had some merit.
Seeing Judge Yan and Master Gu lost in thought, Hao Yun immediately added, "This Liu Erwa's past life was very pitiful. Not only was he powerless during his lifetime, he could only be at the mercy of the enemy as a child. Even after death, he was forced to become a carrier of the mold spirit energy. However, even with the power of the mold spirit energy, he still didn't take any harmful actions besides attaching himself to Xiao Yong and Xu Fang."
"So what do you mean, Mr. Hao?" Master Gu asked.