We arrived, and I immediately heard a heavy pounding on the table. Ah! I beheld King Taishan of the Seventh Nether Court, who was filled with towering wrath. He was on the verge of leaving his seat; he stood up and leaned down to shout sternly at the condemned souls: “Audacious condemned souls! Your souls have already descended to the nether realm, yet you still dare to quibble and defend your crimes?! What do you mean by mutual consent, by food and sex being human nature, by relieving worldly afflictions?! This is nothing but utter nonsense. You two were a couple living a comfortable middle-class life on earth with stable livelihoods, yet you spurned honest occupations. For the sake of money, you recruited and deceived innocent young girls and women, getting them to engage in prostitution. This is your first crime. You even schemed to deceive them, luring them into your trap, and then exploited the hard-earned money they made from prostitution. This is your second crime. You deliberately got these young girls and women to take drugs, gamble, drink alcohol and smoke, saddling them with heavy debts so you could control them and trap them in the sex trade. This is your third crime. When they unfortunately became pregnant, you deliberately arranged for them to have abortions, harming innocent lives. This is your fourth crime. All these heinous acts you have committed are utterly shameful!”
Beside King Taishan were two high-ranking officials of the Netherworld. One presided over the Department of Rewarding Goodness. I saw him robed in dark purple-black garments, his features calm with a faint smile. Such a gentle countenance is rare to behold in the realms of hell. All the Netherworld officials I had seen before looked stern, terrifying and very fierce. The other senior official headed the Department of Punishing Evil. Clad in dark green robes, he wore a vicious, wrathful expression, his eyes glimmering with a pale ghostly white light. Just one glance from him made me feel uneasy all over. Both directors wore hats of the same style, matching the color of their robes.
Then came King Taishan’s voice: “Bring forth the Register of Punishing Evil and read it aloud at once.” The head of the Department of Punishing Evil produced the Register — it was incredibly long. With a stern bearing, he began to recite every crime perpetrated by the two condemned souls. Their misdeeds were truly innumerable; I shall recount only a portion for all to grasp their depravity.
While alive, these two condemned souls sought to control young women as tools for profit. They forced these women to undergo repeated abortions and corrupted them with harmful vices. Later, some of these women were taken as wives or concubines by men bound to them by karmic fate. Yet some of the women’s families broke apart because they were unable to bear children. Others endured permanent lifelong ailments as a result of drug use and abortions, such as chronic gynaecological illnesses, central nervous system disorders, numbness of the limbs and more. One woman, driven insane, was cast aside by her husband then abandoned by her family, left destitute on the streets. Countless unspeakable tragedies unfolded from their deeds.
King Taishan commanded: “You two fierce, fanged ghost attendants, hear my order! Take them away immediately, and cast them into the Hell of Roaring Blaze to endure one hundred thousand years of torment first. We shall judge whether remorse stirs within their hearts before delivering a final verdict.” The two condemned souls trembled violently, their bodies shaking uncontrollably, yet it was already far too late.
The Magistrate said: “Condemned souls such as these generally endure torment in hell for an extremely long time. They cannot depart the great hells until every sentient being whom they harmed has fully recovered, and all lingering aftereffects — brought on by their instigation of drug abuse, abortions and the like — have completely vanished.”
Ayù asked the Magistrate: “If certain deeds leave deep, poisonous impressions upon the minds of victims, whose wounds may take many lifetimes to heal completely, does that mean the condemned souls must wait through those many lifetimes?” The Magistrate replied: “That is correct. The recovery period differs for every harmed being, some shorter, some longer. Naturally, shorter recovery times are preferable. Yet some souls cling fiercely to attachments; a single unresolved affliction may take a thousand years to settle. A spirit may linger in a certain realm and refuse to depart, all because of clinging obsession. There once was a young prostitute. She possessed some beauty and fortunately did not fall prey to severe harmful vices, only picking up smoking and drinking. In truth, she disliked these habits but learned them out of occupational necessity. At the instigation and arrangement of the pimp and madam, she underwent six abortions within just eighteen months. Later, a merchant karmically connected to her took her as his wife. The merchant did not know she had suffered six abortions at such a young age. After marriage, lingering complications from the abortions left her permanently infertile and plagued by gynecological illness. Before long, the merchant took another wife to carry on his family line. Overcome with resentment after being cast aside for her barrenness, the woman’s spirit lingered in the ghost realm for a full thousand years following her death. She only departed after encountering the genuine Dharma destined for her.”
The Magistrate continued: “This is merely a simplified account for your understanding. Whenever a condemned soul receives punishment in hell, the fates of all other souls injured by that wrongdoer must be taken into account. Fundamentally, the condemned soul cannot leave hell until every being they harmed — regardless of which of the six paths they presently inhabit — has escaped suffering. No final verdict can yet be made regarding how long these two condemned souls will suffer in hell; their karmic punishment has only just begun.”
“Very well. We shall conclude here for today. Return now.”
“Yes, Magistrate.”