Legend Management Bureau

Du Yu, a 26-year-old state-owned enterprise worker, dies when a runaway truck crashes into the bus he is riding, killing him instantly while everyone else remains unharmed. His soul floats outside his body, confused and alone. Two women in black and white work uniforms arrive in a battered flying minivan—Xie Jin of the Xie family and Fan Xiaoguo of the Fan family, the Black and White Impermanence. They are underworld officials tasked with collecting souls. They explain that Du Yu’s death was actually a wrongful death: the person destined to die was a serial killer named Zhou Zhuangshi, who should have accepted Du Yu’s offered seat but instead moved to the back of the bus to follow a woman who, according to records, should not have been there. Because of this anomaly, Du Yu died in his place. As a wrongful death victim, Du Yu is entitled to two welfare policies: choose reincarnation into a rich or celebrity family, or apply to become an underworld or daytime official.Du Yu chooses reincarnation as a rich second generation, believing he still has attachments to the mortal world. They drive through the air to Fengdu City, crossing the Ghost Gate of the Underworld, a vast ancient city surrounded by the River of Forgetfulness. Minivans like theirs fill the sky, each carrying a pair of Black and White Impermanence. At the gate, they encounter a rude judge in a wine-red robe who claims the wrongful death quota is full and tries to classify Du Yu as an accidental death. Before they can argue, a white-robed scholar appears, holding a large talisman-covered brush. He slaps the judge and declares that wrongful death is wrongful death, and that the Legend Management Bureau has never been abandoned. This is Cui Jue, head of the Four Great Judges and the Civil Judge, manager of the Department of Yin Law.Cui Jue examines Du Yu and becomes strangely agitated. He feels a surge of unfamiliar memories upon seeing Du Yu—something about the nineteenth year of Zhenguan—which puzzles him. He tells Du Yu that reincarnation as a rich second generation would require a wait of 726 years. Then he offers Du Yu a deal: perform a dangerous task for him, and he will use all his connections to drastically shorten that waiting time. Despite Cui Jue’s warning that the task is extremely dangerous and could lead to the death of the living and dispersal of the dead, Du Yu agrees, hoping to return to the human world sooner.Cui Jue orders Xie Jin and Fan Xiaoguo to take Du Yu to a mountain forty li west of the Ghost Gate, known as Yin Mountain or Mount Unreturn, half green and half black. At its foot is a house that serves as the Legend Management Bureau’s underworld liaison office. On the way, Xie Jin receives a phone call from her ancestor Xie Bi’an, the legendary White Impermanence known as Seventh Master. As soon as Xie Bi’an learns Du Yu’s name, he appears in person out of a spatial distortion, still wearing cucumber slices on his face for a facial mask. He stares at Du Yu for a long time, then laughs wildly, exclaiming “Brilliant, Cui Jue, brilliant!” before disappearing again, leaving everyone baffled.The three arrive at the dilapidated cement house at the foot of Mount Unreturn. They find a sign covered in vines reading “Legend Management Bureau, Underworld Liaison Office.” The story concludes with Du Yu standing at this threshold, having committed to a dangerous unknown mission, observed by powerful figures who seem to recognize something in him that even he does not understand.