Yama Rising

Qin Ye picked up the piece of paper and took a closer look at it, and his eyes instantly lit up. His heart began to race.

A black-coloured banknote.

The flipside of the note bore Qin Ye’s portrait, and there was even a faint watermark of his silhouette right in the center of the note.

This was the first banknote of the new Hell!

Then, before Qin Ye could even respond to her comments, the note suddenly flew out of his hand and appeared in Arthis’ hand in the very next moment. She studied it carefully and sighed with an exclamation, “It’s indeed exquisitely made. Huang Liangchuan has pulled out all the stops this time. The design is far better than the notes used by the old Hell. That said, you have to think carefully before you set things in motion, because you probably won’t be able to make any changes to it for the next hundred years or so once you implement it.”

“An Abyssal Prefect is an entity that can already influence a province or even a district altogether, and it naturally wouldn’t take more than the flick of a wrist in order to brand a million banknotes all at once. Even if I go all out, I won’t be able to brand more than a hundred thousand notes or two at any one point in time. That might suffice given Hell’s population right now, but I’ll be overwhelmed as soon as Hell’s population size increases. And if nobody’s an Abyssal Prefect at that time, then we might well have no choice but to roll out a fresh set of anti-counterfeiting measures… Hang on, I know that gaze of yours… What the hell are you thinking right now?!”

Qin Ye’s eyes flickered wildly, and he smiled awkwardly, “How’s that possible? Do you really think that I’m such an unreasonable King Yanluo…? Ah-ha-ha-ha…”

With that, she vanished instantly.

I guess I really can’t afford to provoke her… He sighed and picked up Huang Liangchuan’s report once more.

What’s going on?!

“SHIT!!” He cursed at the top of his voice, activated the shard of King Yanluo’s Seal, and then vanished from his room a moment later.

Back at Hell’s Gate, right behind the statue of Ksitigarbha.

Unfortunately, nobody could give him a response. After all, the answer was obvious. Huang Liangchuan sank into the stool beside him and rubbed his temples furiously.

“But we really did encounter a problem.” Huang Liangchuan responded in exasperation, “So, what are we going to do now? How are we going to go on with the production? Where are the materials going to come from? What do you think… Lord Qin is going to say when he finally arrives?”

BOOM!

“I… was wrong…” His mind instantly went blank. Everything he had earlier prepared to say was completely useless in the face of Qin Ye’s fury, and he knew that the best way to pacify Qin Ye was to wholeheartedly admit his ineptitude without qualification.

The entire Hell’s Gate went silent in an instant. The Death Inquisitors seated at the front of Hell’s Gate immediately lowered their voices to a hush, while the Yin spirits approaching them stared apprehensively at the statue of Ksitigarbha. Just like that, there was a protracted period of tense silence, and it took Qin Ye dozens of seconds before he gradually managed to calm himself down. The amount of Yin energy billowing from his seven apertures began to subside. He snorted coldly as he slowly made his way to the annex hall, “Follow me. What are you still doing standing there? Can standing around get us any work done?!”

Back in the annex hall, Su Dongxue sensibly dispersed the rest of the staff the moment she sensed Qin Ye’s explosive fury, clearing out a space so that Qin Ye could take his seat. Arthis was already seated to the side. Qin Ye unceremoniously sat on the throne and knocked lightly on the table. Then, he swept a cold glance at the entire troupe of people following him into the room, before finally speaking in a cold voice, “Speak. What are your thoughts.”

The more he spoke, the more infuriated he got, until he finally smacked the table and shot to his feet. Smack! Yin energy erupted from his body once more, and he transformed into his Hell’s Emissary state in an instant. This time, Huang Liangchuan knew he couldn’t hold back any longer, and he immediately fell to his knees and pleaded with a hoarse voice, “Your Majesty… I didn’t expect it either…”

He couldn’t justifiably pin the blame entirely on Huang Liangchuan either. After all, Huang Liangchuan did tell him that he had no prior experience with the implementation of a monetary system altogether. Besides, he was reestablishing Hell from scratch, and he was most certainly bound to encounter some obstacles and bumps along the way. As a ruler and leader, it was also part of his duties not to condemn his subjects just because of a single mistake.

The annex hall was so silent that Qin Ye’s intense and ragged breaths were clearly audible to everyone. Huang Liangchuan was on tenterhooks, and every second that passed felt like days on end. A full minute later, Qin Ye finally spoke up with a somewhat softer tone of voice, “Get up, take a seat, and tell me what exactly is going on over here.”

In that regard, Qin Ye knew full well that the needless ventilation of his fury wouldn’t go any way in resolving the mess that had arisen.

“Your Majesty, it’s like this.” Huang Liangchuan’s subordinate picked up another black banknote and explained, “We’re currently able to mass produce the banknotes that you see right now. But… even though they appear to be rather exquisite, I’m afraid that they’re not quite ready for circulation just yet.”

“Because of its poor resistance to abrasion.” Huang Liangchuan’s subordinate explained, “We ran an abrasion resistance test on the prototype note as soon as we printed it, only to realize that it breaks down very quickly. This is due to the ordinary paper that we’re printing it on.”

With a bitter expression, Huang Liangchuan continued where his subordinate left off, “I’ve heard of these inks. The production and use of these inks are so tightly controlled by the state that they even send military escorts for the purposes of transportation. Following that, we emboss the sheets, print a unique serial number on each note, and then cut the sheets to shape. I’d initially thought that the paper and ink could be replaced with regular ones. Unfortunately…”

Qin Ye looked at the note. The surface of the note was fuzzy and damaged all around, and it looked almost as though it had been used for several years on end.

“By our estimate, this is how the banknotes will start to look after changing hands only a hundred times.” Huang Liangchuan sighed, “On the other hand, the banknotes from the mortal realm are far more durable, often lasting well more than a year despite the number of times they change hands. Thus… Mr Huang made the decision to halt production.”

He slammed the bill onto the table and swept his gaze across Huang Liangchuan’s subordinates, “You knew that the consequences were dire, so why didn’t you say anything earlier? Did we really have to wait for the commencement of production before these things were disclosed to me? Furthermore, the existence of colour shifting ink and cotton paper must be classified as state secrets, so how did you learn of it? Who exactly are you?”

1. You can read more about the colour shifting ink and cotton paper at the following websites respectively: