Chapter 2 foreword

People who understand Chinese, when they see the word "impermanence", they will naturally think of it first. It is an adjective, which means changeable; It was Xunzi who gave this adjective: "The pursuit of abandonment is indeterminate, which is called impermanence." However, "impermanence" is also a noun, a term used by Buddhists, and it is very complicated to explain in detail. Simply put, it is a teaching in Buddhism, which believes that everything in the world is arising and passing away.It is divided into two situations, one is "momentary impermanence" and the other is "continuous impermanence".It is really extremely complicated. Unless you are interested in in-depth study of Buddhism, otherwise, you will know that there are two words like this, which are enough.

Perhaps it is because of the word "impermanence" in Buddhism, so, in many stories derived from Buddhist teachings, there is also the "character" of "impermanence". Chinese folklore, no matter it originates from Buddhism or Taoism, over time, it forms a system of its own, and all the stories happen in this system, such as the Ten Palaces of Hades, the Dragon King of the Four Seas, etc. There is a power of convention in the world. If the person who creates the story leaves this range, it will be difficult to become popular and not accepted by the public. In folklore, impermanence is a ghost, so it is also called impermanence ghost.And impermanence has two, one is black impermanence, and the other is white impermanence.According to folklore, the appearance of these two impermanent ghosts is also fixed.

Mr. Bai Wuchang's face is as white as powder, he wears white clothes, and a white top hat. On the top hat, there are four words written: "The world is peaceful."Holding a white mourning stick, the whole body is white, only the long tongue sticking out occasionally is bright red-this shape, described, is quite weird and terrifying, but as long as you are a Chinese, you will know it when you see the shape: this is white. Mr. Impermanence. As for Mr. Black Impermanence, everything is black in contrast to Bai Wuchang.The four words on the top hat are "get rich at first sight". Naturally, the long tongue that sticks out is bright red.

Who created this kind of shape, and when and what month it started, cannot be checked. And this kind of shape has long been accepted by the people.The two impermanent personalities, judging from their faces, are significantly different; Hei Wuchang has a mournful face, which looks very sad; while Bai Wuchang has a very strange smile, and I don't know what it means.They can be divided into one because it is clear that they want to arrest the soul, and the other may design traps to make people fall into the trap and lose their lives.The responsibility of black and white impermanence is to arrest souls, that is, to take the lives of living people and turn them into dead people, and to bring people's souls to the underworld for processing.

This is another link in a series of Chinese folklore: after a person dies, his soul goes to the underworld, where he is judged by the King of the Ten Temples according to his good and evil deeds in the underworld. When the time comes, we must drink Mengpo soup to wash away all the memories of the previous life, so that we cannot carry them to the next life (so none of us can remember the past life), and so on. Both Hei Wuchang and Bai Wuchang are servants in the Palace of the King of Hades, and their positions are somewhat similar to the servants in ancient government offices.Black and white impermanent colleagues, as well as bull head and horse face, are all yamen servants and arresters. As for the judge, they are the masters in the yamen—the place where the soul is judged in the underworld, and it is very similar to the official yamen in the yang world. It is conceived by the creator according to the situation in the yang world.Black impermanence and white impermanence, when they want to restrain their souls, they don't do it randomly. They don't have the right to make decisions, but only accept orders. The orders come from the king of Hades. The king of Hades has a "book of life and death", which records everyone's name and longevity. A certain person should die at the age of forty-one, and at the moment when he should die, he and Hei Wuchang will be dispatched, and a gust of dark wind will pass by, and such and such person will disappear in the mortal world!

Black and white impermanence is just following orders, and there is quite a procedural imagination in it. If the person who is ordered to arrest the soul by black and white impermanence is someone they like very much, they must not disobey. If Black and White Impermanence hates someone very much and wants him to disappear in the yang world, they have no right to make their own decisions and must obey the orders of the King of Hades. The King of Hades is the absolute authority: "The King of Hades is doomed to die in the third watch, who dares to keep someone until the fifth watch?"

In the same way, if the King of Hades predestined a person not to die, no one can make that person die. The king of life and death is the King of Hades.Although black and white impermanence seem to be very powerful, in fact, they are only the executors of life and death. It is conceivable that there are many situations where the body is involuntary - that is something that no executor can control. something to avoid. Another very interesting phenomenon is that the people who created the image of black and white impermanence wrote the words "the world is peaceful" and "get rich at first sight" on their top hats.What is written in these eight characters is exactly the wish of many people in this world. In a peaceful and prosperous world, to be a rich man. What could be more joyful than this?But the paradox is that no matter who sees black and white impermanence, his soul will go to the underworld. The world is peaceful and not peaceful. Whether he will get rich or not doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, because he has passed away forever!I really like to add some "preface" before telling the story, but I seldom say such a long preface.