Book 1 - Chapter 1

**The Land of the Dead** is the first chapter of the first book of Desolate Era, and the first chapter overall.

## Summary

The chapter starts with a vivid and cruel description of the Netherworld Kingdom. With its inhabitants ranging from tall, powerful-looking demonic soldiers to shrieking ghosts who are being tormented for their impudence and arrogance. We are introduced to our protagonist, Ji Ning. He seems pretty calm for the fact that he is dead, considering everyone else around him is weeping, cursing, roaring in anger as they were beaten. The ghosts in the Neatherworld Kingdom aren't so quick to catch onto them being dead.

After days of walking, Ji Ning was summoned by Lord of Cui Palace, a huge minotaur god (from mc's perspective) on an enormous black cloud with blacklight came to pick Ji Ning up. Ji Ning goes to meet up with Lord Cui Jue, and here the reader learns about Ji Ning suffering from an unknown illness his entire life before dying. Ji Ning looks at a painting of a girl described as wearing a feathered dress and having a smile on her lips that was even more enigmatic than those on the Buddhas in the temples on Earth. This painting mesmerised him to a point that he forgot where he was and what he was there for, until Lord Cui snapped him out of it.

Lord Cui starts talking about our protagonist's past life that he read from the Book of Life and Death. His father was a leading researcher in a bioscience program. His salary was extremely high. His mother was an ordinary teacher. His life would've been quite fulfilling if not for his chronic disease which ate away his life like a child eating a pie. The doctors all said that it would be a miracle if he would live to fifteen or sixteen. This made him unable to do normal things that kids of his age do, like going to school, playing with his friends, walking long hours, etc. His weak body, and being tormented by his illness, caused his childhood to be very lonely. Having the knowledge of impending doom made his life even lonelier.

But despite all of this, Ji Ning never gave up on his life. He tried finding meaning in his life and everything around him. He made use of the resources available around him - books and the internet. These gave him a 'mental world' which allowed him to avoid the fate of having a twisted personality. His heart slowly grew calm, making him more rational in the way he viewed the world. Despite being less fortunate, he showed gratitude for being well off than other kids worse than him. He searched for meaning in his life and wanted to do something before he died. He borrowed a hundred thousand Chinese dollars from his parents and began to do business online. This turned out to be a major success, as he earned incredible achievements. He earned an enormous fortune. He donated this fortune to the less fortunate, wanting to change their destiny, this was stated to be Ji Ning's heart's deepest desire.

Lord Cui emphasied on Ji Ning's selflessness and charity. For his meritorious accomplishment of saving more than ten thousand lives, Ji Ning got the opportunity to reincarnate into the Heaven Realm. Lord Cui explained how only those who accumulate great karmic merit can enter the Heaven Realm. On Earth, it is very hard for one to reach this level. Because of Ji Ning helping all the children who are born pure and without malice, resulting in gim accumulating enormous karmic merit. If he helped the adults, he might've also helped the evil ones which would've resulted in reduction of his karmatic merit. He also mentioned how his karmatic merits prolonged his life to the age of eighteen as he was destined to die at the age of sixteen. Ji Ning was shocked at how it was possible to change fate.

Lord Cui mentioned how he was from the same hometown as Ji NIng but from the era of Sui and Tang dynasties. He gave a brief explanation about the Three Realms in the infinite universe of space-time - the Heaven Realm, the Netherworld, and the Mortal Realms. He stated that in the Mortal Realm, there are over three thousand major worlds and trillions of minor worlds. The three thousand major worlds are all extremely vast. As for the trillions of minor worlds, all of them are much smaller and have much lower populations. Earth was said to be one of the minor worlds. He also explained the Six States of Reincarnation. He spoke about Ni Jing being born into the heaven realm, being born form the essesnce of the nature, as an immaculate lifeform. He can train at an astounding pace and at the age of sixteen remember his previous life again.

Lord Cui was surprised with Ni JIng's insights and perceptions, which are quite high for him being from earth. Lord Cui spoke about Miss Nuwa, the creator of humans. He also helped Ji Ning learn the visualization technique, which will allow one to to train their soul, giving Ji NIng a chance at becoming an immortal. This was a parting gift to fullfill the karmic bonds between them. With this Ji Ning took his leave.

## Major Events

* The protagonist Ji Ning is introduced.
* Ji Ning learns the visualization technique of Nuwa.

## Characters

1. Ji Ning *(Debut)*
2. Lord Cui Jue *(Debut)*
3. Nuwa *(Mentioned)*
4. Pangu *(Mentioned)*
5. Grandma Meng *(Mentioned)*

## Trivia

* The waiting line in the Neatherworld described in the book is **EXTREMELY** long. To such an extent, that it takes nearly days or even weeks to go from the last to the front.
* The ghosts, despite being in underworld after their death can still **DIE** and completely dissipate, if beaten/whipped continuously.
* All souls are dressed in white.
* Men and women have seperate lines. These lines are located in seperate places.
* Ji Ning has saved over then thousand people in his previous life.
* Nuwa has understood 84,000 truths of the world.