Night Hacker

Bright and early, the clear sound of reading aloud rang out from the Mingxing Street Wenhe Pavilion.

While the students attended their morning classes in the study hall, Gu He, Lorna, Pandora, and Lu Jiu gathered in the main hall to listen to Master Wei answer questions. Gu He wanted to know how a moral educator viewed the fact that their profession system belonged to the Ghost Mansion.

"Judging by oracle bone scripts, in the earliest days of Dongtu civilization, gods were gods and ghosts were ghosts. The two were never conflated," Master Wei said.

"The character for 'god' originates from shen, meaning lightning. shen represents nature's lightning, the forces of nature itself.

"The character for 'ghost' is composed of 'human' and 'field.' The 'field' component is a variant here meaning 'big head.' A person with a large head depicts the state of a human after death—that is a ghost.

"Later, when the altar radical was added to shen, it became the modern character for 'god.' Through sacrifices, humans could invite these natural forces into their bodies. When the forces of nature took possession, a god appeared. Adding that same radical to 'ghost' meant inviting the dead to appear, allowing the living to converse with the deceased and with their ancestors."

Gu He listened while sipping his morning glass of goji berry water.

This was already their fourth morning since the three of them had arrived at Dongtu Street.

Over the past few days, he had occasionally listened in on Master Wei's lectures, finding them incredibly helpful. No matter who Old Fan was, he certainly hadn't been a good teacher, but Master Wei genuinely cleared up many of his doubts regarding the transcendent realm.