Sanzu riverfront

 According to Buddhist philosophy, the human soul experiences rebirth until it has passed its entire path.

 Before continuing my story, I want to tell you a little about the Sanzu River.  The Sanzu River served those who died and went to a better world.  There were three ways to cross the Sanzu River: by bridge, ford, or swim across it. People who crossed the river over the bridge in comfort and tranquility were very worthy people during their lifetime.  Those who forded across the river, uniformly throughout their lives, sinned and did good deeds.  I want to dwell in more detail on those who were forced to swim across the Sanzu River. Those who were forced to cross to the next world in this way were sinners.  These people committed such bad deeds during their lifetime that now they had to pay for their sins.  All the wealth that they accumulated during their lifetime remained there, in the real world, but here, near the crossing, the soul of such a person was in huge stains of sin that could not be washed away or erased by anything.  Sinners went swimming, but the waters of the Sanzu River are a dangerous place.  The waters of the river boiled and rolled menacingly.  However, this was not the danger that met the sinners who sailed.  Something more terrible was waiting for them in the water.  The waters of the river were teeming with ferocious dragons.  The dragons had teeth like sharpened daggers, and their breath burned like hot steam.  No matter how hard the sinner tries, how fast he swims, he could not avoid meeting the dragon.  Those sinners who were overtaken by the dragon were doomed.  The dragon wrapped its tail around its victim, and dragged it to the bottom with it.  There, at the bottom of the Sanzu River, there were caves where dragons lived.  So, the dragon took his prey and, together with it, sank to the bottom of the Sanzu River.  Maybe you think that the sinner, having sank down with the dragon to the bottom of the river, was dying?
  No.
 We have already agreed that this earthly life is fleeting, and the soul lives, undergoing one after another rebirth, until all rebirths are over.  As soon as the dragon took with him a living soul, which still had the form of a human body to the bottom of the river, the soul began to take on its own form.  Here, at the bottom of the river, it no longer made sense for the human soul to pretend, only here the sins of a person were exposed.  The dragon carried the soul with him.  The dragon caves were a dark place.  The dragons did not need to see, their vision in the dark was replaced by their five senses.  So, here, in complete darkness, the dragon punished the soul of the sinner minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.  The unfortunate soul screamed and strained, but no one was in a hurry to run to her aid.  The dragon tore off piece by piece from the soul with its teeth.  The torture was sophisticated and varied.  So, the dragon burned the unfortunate soul in the steam, tore off pieces after pieces, slashed with claws as sharp as daggers. However, every day the sinner had exactly nine minutes to take a breath and remember why he got into this hell.  If sinners who sin during their lifetime knew, felt and believed what happens to such souls after death, they would probably be corrected during their lifetime and begin to live differently.
 But this rarely happens!
  The nature of man is such that he does not listen to other people's advice, he prefers to go through his sinful path himself and sin again and again.

 The dragons especially hated those people who mocked the weak during their lifetime.
 Sinners who abused children, defenseless women and the elderly were especially punished by the dragons.
 The dragons could not be fooled.  They easily read all the sins and vile deeds from the souls.
 However, sometimes sinners managed to escape punishment.  Such a person could swim across the river, but when he reached the other side, he, however, like all souls, lost his memory and joined the ranks of the staff of the Sanzu River.  However, these were isolated cases.  I will deal with such people in more detail in the next chapter.  The sinners who swam across the Sanzu River and managed to escape the dragon's teeth were marked with the spot of the god.  However, in the memory of the manager of the Sanzu River Embankment, there were only two such cases during his entire time at this place.