Yama Rising

It wasn’t well decorated. In fact, the entire coffee shop was in heavy disrepair. Old school movie posters were plastered all over its yellowish walls, while the old wooden boards of the floor reeked of the peculiar dingy stench of old coffee stains. The dusty overhead lights were dim and yellow.

The man probably never expected someone to even enter the shop. He immediately switched off his mic, “What do you want?”

Qin Ye didn’t respond. Instead, he simply rubbed his hands as he glanced around, before asking, “Is this coffee shop open twenty-four hours?”

This baby isn’t happy.

“No.”

“No.”

“This is a coffee shop…” The attendant’s eyes glanced at his phone and saw that others had already begun hurling all forms of allegations at him. He gritted his teeth and barked, “Shrimp noodles, gala noodles, huainan beef soup, we’ve got everything.”

I’m going to lose soon at this rate!

You can say that the quality is poor to the extreme!

“Give me a bowl of shrimp noodles.” As soon as Qin Ye saw the attendant switch off his phone, Qin Ye immediately placed his order.

The attendant swallowed his words and glared at Qin Ye. Brother… that’s antisocial behaviour… are you messing with me…

“I’ll have two taels.” Qin Ye smiled as he searched for table number four. The attendant turned around and yelled into the kitchen, “Two taels, shrimp!” Turning around, he noticed that Qin Ye was just about to take a seat at table number four, and he immediately yelled at him, “You can’t sit there!”

“Why not?”

“But he isn’t here yet, is he?” Qin Ye smiled and took his seat. He suddenly discovered that this attendant was rather cute and adorable.

Dong… Just then, the door opened with a soft sound. The attendant gasped and sprang back behind the counter.

Creeaaakk… With a cringeworthy creak, the door opened slowly, and a strange-looking man walked in.

He didn’t appear too mobile either. Relying on the support of a walking stick, he slowly made his way over towards Qin Ye.

“I saw a new reply today.” The tall man stood with his back against the light and pointed at the seat across the table, “Please, have a seat. It’s on me today.”

Interesting.

It was as though he were a walking corpse hidden under the skin of a living person.

“You seem to have been… waiting?” Qin Ye was the first to speak up.

The man slowly set down the walking stick and picked up the glass of water. However, he didn’t drink from it. After catching his breath, he finally responded several seconds later, “That’s right… I’ve been waiting.”

“My name is Li Jiankang, and I’m forty-eight years old. I live here at the Tianxi Seafood Market.”

There were several people searching high and low for the mysterious 40 teaching credits right now. Since Qin Ye had already taken the lead, he didn’t mind doing everything in his ability to stay ahead.

“This is something that only happened this year…” After a long time, Li Jiankang finally began, “I live by myself in the Tianxi Seafood Market. There aren’t many residents left in the vicinity because of the nearby demolitions works.”

The glass in Li Jiankang’s hands rattled slightly. He drew a deep breath and continued hoarsely, “I didn’t notice it immediately. But then, it went on everyday for the next ten days or so. It would just sit outside the door, refusing to enter the house. Then, at approximately 11.50 p.m., it would begin meowing and crying persistently.”

Splash… His hands were now trembling so much that water had even spilt out of the glass. He set down the glass and leaned back into his seat to contain his shivers.

He closed his eyes and raised his head slightly. Yet he continued to grip tightly to the armrests on his seat as though he were a taut bow, “I still remember vividly what it looked like that night… Its entire body was hunched, and its hair was all standing on end. It glared at me cautiously with its green eyes, and it slowly approached me, step by step…”

He suddenly shot up from his seat and stared at Qin Ye as though he were a fraud, “Do you know something? Jingle Bells was practically acting like a frenzied beast. I-I had a feeling that it didn’t intend to bite me in the first place. Rather… it was aiming its fangs at something else… something right next to me… something right by my side!”

He was panting hard by now.

Li Jiankang’s tone of voice had escalated so much that it was well over an octave higher than what it had begun with. After a protracted pause of approximately ten seconds, Li Jiankang raised his right hand and pointed to his glove. His voice had softened once more, yet there were still traces of breathlessness in his speech, “The bite was so deep that it left a scar on my hand. I had no choice but to go to the hospital. But I usually deliver my goods from midnight to 5 a.m. everyday, so I had to trouble a friend to help attend to my shop…”

Qin Ye lifted his eyelids and twirled a pencil casually on the table, “He’s dead?”

Seconds later, Li Jiankang finally muttered, “He’s dead.”

“Bitten to death…” Li Jiankang’s body shuddered uncontrollably. He wrapped his arms around his body tightly and continued trembling, “It’s definitely a case of an unnatural death… The bite marks on his body can only have been left by a massive, vicious beast. But, guess what…”

“It’s… it’s caused by a person!!”

Li Jiankang shrieked at the top of his voice. It was evident that his emotions were running wild. The attendant had already slipped away as soon as Li Jiankang had started his spiel, and the only two remaining in the entire coffee shop were the two who were seated at table number four right now. Li Jiankang’s voice reverberated throughout the coffee shop and lingered in the air.

“Was there anything else?” Qin Ye probed further.

He pointed to his own neck, “Half of his neck was gone… but, there was no blood…”

It was clearly daytime, yet Li Jiankang was shivering like a sieve. It was almost as though… there was someone staring at him from behind. He pulled out a silken scarf and wiped off the sweat from his forehead. Qin Ye tapped his fingers on the table, “Do you have a wife or children?”

“Have you asked anyone else for help before?”

1. This is a popular mystery/deduction game where players have to find the werewolf hidden among the villagers and lynch him before he kills everyone else. There are also other characters with power like the oracle, who has the ability to see a character’s role.