Yama Rising

“Triggered by Yanluo Qin's furtive, innermost desires to seek out Lee Jung-sook…”

“Bloody hell…” Qin Ye nearly tore his robes in half when he read this statement.

What is that all about?!

Can you please record things in an unbiased fashion?!

Do you even appreciate the nuances of language?!

How did things suddenly take a turn for the weird? Were all the compliments earlier just to lead up to these deflating remarks?!

Qin Ye read on with gritted teeth, “The S.H.E. trio finally arrived at Hanyang. The first port of call was to seek lodging. Fortunately, the spirit pen knew of one of Lee Jung-sook’s secret strongholds. Why live in hotels when one could occupy an entire building? Besides, it was prudent to minimize their footprint in Daehan.”

“Thus, Yanluo Qin chose to head straight to Lee Jung-sook’s stronghold, and therein lay the first coincidental encounter. Kim Tae-ji happened to have made a trip down to Lee Jung-sook’s building, and was just enjoying a glass of wine on her own.”

“As Murphy’s laws would have it, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Incidentally, my existence is the exact antithesis of Murphy’s law. I’d like to call it the theorem of the Great and Virtuous Xu…”

Hoo… Qin Ye took a deep breath and tightened his grip around his robes so hard that his knuckles went white.

Enough… You call me furtive, and yet you hail yourself as the ‘Great and Virtuous Xu’ even though your name remains undisclosed to the rest of the world?! Can you get any more shameless than that?!

Qin Ye’s heart tingled with pain.

Can you please act with some modesty like the Second King Yanluo that you are?!

“This theorem posits that the less likely something is to happen, the more likely it will occur and give rise to a surprise encounter. After all, coincidences are the occurrences of such improbable events that one does not even address its mind to it or anticipate it. They can appear as far-flung as the planets in outer space, yet everything still comes together to form the completeness of the universe.”

That does make some sense… Qin Ye nodded softly to himself. Unfortunately, the next few words nearly caused him to flip his top!

“For instance… the Hungry Ghost Festival…”

Thud! Qin Ye shoved his robes straight into the dividing wall between cubicles.

Calm down… calm down… What’s the point of getting upset at an inanimate object? This is probably nothing more than the weight of cognitive dissonance telling you that Brother Xu is the dominant one, while you are the submissive one…

Qin Ye spent the next few moments soothing his own emotions and placating his mind. But as soon as he read on, his temples began to throb with pain once more.

“When he first discovers these records and reads it up to this stage, he will experience the weight of cognitive dissonance with the notion that Big Brother Xu is the dominant one, while he is the submissive one… That’s right. Congratulations on the realization. Unfortunately, you will continue to be a plaything dancing about in the palm of the esteemed Second King Yanluo of Hell until you finally gain full mastery over Fate!”

… Bloody hell…

For some strange reason, the golden words on his robes appeared to jump out at Qin Ye as though they were exerting dominance over him altogether.

“But we digress.” These words were like a breath of fresh air that instantly calmed Qin Ye’s mind down, “This was the first coincidental encounter in Daehan. After a period of name-dropping and posturing for the purposes of verification of identity, both parties entered into somewhat constructive discussions. Everything was smooth-sailing, at least until Yanluo Qin accidentally revealed his hidden fox’s tail.”

What the hell… Do you… have a problem with me?

Why does my image slowly appear to be shifting?

“He did not expect Ahn Jun-ho to have passed on. This slip-up on his part triggered Kim Tae-ji to call in her assassins. The fate of her entire family rests in Lee Jung-sook’s hands. Naturally, she was inclined to take out every single person who may threaten Lee Jung-sook’s life… including a certain toad lusting after a swan’s flesh.”

Qin Ye slowly got to his feet.

He pulled Fate out of the pocket of his robe, opened the lid of the toilet bowl, and then held Fate over the gateway to the sewers, “I’ll give you one chance to amend its content.”

No response.

It held fast to its belief that Qin Ye would never dare to flush it down the toilet bowl.

Five minutes later, Qin Ye slowly retracted his hand with gritted teeth - Fine. I’ll tolerate this. It’s practically intolerable, but I’ll still keep tolerating this since there’s nothing I can do about you right now. But you just wait. As soon as I’m properly in charge… I’ll have my ways to get right back at you!

“Obviously, the firearms used by mortal assassins were completely useless against Yanluo Qin. Eventually, Yanluo Qin discovered Lee Jung-sook’s secret room where she performed seances to communicate with Ahn Somi. He performed the ritual and called upon Ahn Somi. Fortunately for him, Ahn Somi couldn’t resist Yanluo Qin’s paper-thin Yin energy, and she inadvertently revealed her true form to him.”

Are you really that hell bent on dissing me?!

“This led to Qin Ye’s discovery of the existence of the second liaison officer. There couldn’t have only been one liaison officer. After all, Ahn Jun-ho had already died as a result of the accident, and no seance could put him in contact with an empty shell of a living dead whose physical body was already buried deep in the ground. Therefore, Yanluo Qin knew at once that there was a second liaison officer, and he could even tell that it was alive.”

“In other words, Yanluo Qin had discovered the script of death as soon as he entered Daehan by sheer coincidence. We pause here to allow the reader to just take in and appreciate the wonders of fate and destiny.”

Fortunately, Qin Ye was already numb to Fate’s propensity to self-aggrandizement. He read on.

“Let us pause for a moment and delve deeper into the minds of the three main parties at this particular moment. Lee Jung-sook had to turn to the underworlds if she was to even come close to the possibility of eternal death. Although the MV Sewol incident triggered a huge disagreement and strained their relations, it was hardly enough to force her to break off all ties. She could hardly care less who it was representing the channel through which they communicated with each other. She knew that ‘Ahn Jun-ho’ was now clearly an imposter. However, she continued to act prudently and carefully because she knew that curiosity would kill the cat. That said, she also knew that the underworld needed her just as much as she needed them. Therefore, she begrudgingly pressed on with their working relationship without looking any further into who exactly it was communicating with her.”

“Meanwhile, Ahn Somi was the nominal daughter of Ahn Jun-ho, and the truth of the matter was that she was an evil ghost. She had never expected Emissaries of Hell to show up at her doorstep so quickly. In fact, she hadn’t even expected to hear from them in the first place! Here, it would be poignant to point out the fact that there was another coincidence of fate at play right here.”

“And this coincidence pertains to Liu Yu.”

“Being finally faced with the prospects of establishing a whole new underworld and fulfilling the dreams that he had held dear to his heart for centuries on end, Liu Yu was filled with such excitement that he began to send out invitations to the surrounding underworlds before the script of death had even come to fruition.”

“Truth be told, there was nothing inherently wrong with what he did.”

“After all, it was necessary to give other underworlds sufficient notice to make the necessary preparations. The more important and powerful the lord of each underworld, the busier their schedule would be. He wanted nothing more than a bright, banging ceremony to declare to the underworlds around him that Hell had finally allowed him to establish his own country! This was incredibly important if he were to go on to interact with others on the international arena. After all, unless Hell gave its nod of approbation, nobody would dare to interact with one of Hell’s vassal states as an independent underworld for fear of straining relations with Hell itself.”

“He had no choice but to do so. Unfortunately, this was where Liu Yu’s inexperience reared its ugly head. He was not aware of the special functions that were unique to all King Yanluos or rulers of an underworld, and his early notification meant that Cathay had plenty of time to react and make preparations for the situation. Naturally, Liu Yu was only emboldened to send his invitation to Hell because of the imperial court meeting he had attended last year. But that in itself was also the beginning of a butterfly effect that was stirring up a storm in later years.”

“And to that end, Ahn Somi was clearly unaware of the fact that she had already been swept into the powerful storm. She was unaware that Hell’s Emissaries had arrived in Daehan, and she naturally saw no need to be vigilant against Lee Jung-sook, even though the last time they had communicated with each other was over a month ago. Unfortunately, their next communication was also Ahn Somi’s fated finale.”

“She was discovered. Even then, she failed to notice the gravity of the situation because she was still unaware of the exact identity of the other party who had seen her. Moreover, she felt safe with Marquis Rumyantsev at the helm. At least, that remained so until Yanluo Qin knocked on her door.”

“Credit where it was due, Yanluo Qin has slowly begun to seize the initiative ever since the Hungry Ghost Festival. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that he was not the most intelligent leader, and was even by nature a coward.”

The gaze in Qin Ye’s eyes grew cold and frigid at once.

He nearly couldn’t resist the urge to flush the robe down the toilet bowl at once!

“This was what separated him from the truly outstanding Second King Yanluo of Hell. This was also why the Second King Yanluo is dominant, while the Third King Yanluo was fated to be submissive. Cutting to the chase, the moment when Yanluo Qin and Ahn Somi crossed paths was also the apogee when all of the coincidences came together.”

“Rumyantsev also discovered the existence of an Emissary of Hell, and he reported it accordingly.”

“However, the Russian Underworld was clearly far more adept in international relations than Liu Yu could ever be. It immediately dawned on them that the appearance of an Infernal Judge of Hell meant that they had already attained their objectives - what need did they still have of the Hanyang Underworld?”

“Thus, an interesting twist occurred.”

“It is pertinent to point out right now that what you are about to read next is not a coincidence in and of itself. Rather, it is more accurate to describe it as an inevitability resultant from a confluence of precursory causes and coincidences.”

“As far as the Russian Underworld is concerned, the ability to communicate directly with Hell is far better than speaking through Liu Yu as a conduit. Why should one owe a favour to a mere vassal state when they can ingratiate themselves to one of the top underworlds in the netherworld?”

“Thus, as soon as they learnt that Ahn Somi was likely to disclose Mukov’s identity, they chose not to alert Liu Yu to the same, but instead planted Brain Mites in several mortals to keep under close surveillance Yeouido, the place of residence of No. 2.”

“Unfortunately, there is no way to tell what the Russian Underworld is about to do, because the contemplations of an entire underworld is quite different from that of an individual emissary. Their considerations extend well beyond personal gains. Thus, they did not overtly search out the location of Yanluo Qin.”

“Let us pause again and delve deeper into the minds of the three main parties at this particular moment once more.”

“Liu Yu’s story has crumbled, but he doesn’t even know it yet. He had personally made the butterfly effect at the imperial court meeting last year that triggered the mighty storm to which he is currently at the mercy of. He would never expect to be cut out of the script of death in such an abrupt and discreet fashion. The Yin Chik-ha of ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’ was a role that can be played by almost anybody. Liu Yu was hardly a chosen one as he thought.”

“The Russian Underworld had gleaned a thing or two about the truth about Hell from their brief encounter with the Emissaries of Hell. This was something of an epic-scale that concerned international relations. If the right opportunity arose, they certainly would not hesitate to send their armies marching into Cathay. Meanwhile, even though such a possibility had in fact occurred to them, it had completely slipped their mind that Hell would in fact covet the myth and miracle fabricated by Tsar Arturo.”

“Is that even possible?”

“The answer is a resounding yes!”

“Yanluo Qin, the incumbent Third King Yanluo of Hell, was no different from a hungry dog clinging on to every piece of meat that it could find. The Russian Underworld had only overlooked such a possibility because they could not even begin to fathom the current state of weakness of the new Hell…”

Very good… Hungry dog… Qin Ye made a mental note of the infractions against him and stashed it away for a later day.

“The perspectives of the parties had clearly given rise to a blind spot that one Mr Dogballs decided to lap up happily. What happens next? Stay tuned for the installment of the series!”

Bloody hell!!

Qin Ye nearly flipped.

NNRRGHHH!!! To think that you would go from calling me the esteemed Third King Yanluo of Hell to a mere Mr Dogballs…

And why isn’t there anything else apart from this?! Is that all your analysis contains?! Do you know what kind of review you deserve?!

Xu Yangyi, I demand to know what the meaning of this is! Why couldn’t you just finish writing the entire story and let me know how it ends? How can you just write half of it and leave me in the lurch like this?! Do you know what death by a thousand cuts means?!