Yama Rising

Yin spirits had no detectable shape or form, so if one couldn't detect a Yin spirit's Yin energy, then there was no way they would be able to know where the Yin spirit would appear.

It could be from a mirror, from the tiniest of cracks, or from a shadow, and a shadow was exactly what this one had emerged from.

Is she already here? After a split-second of panic, Qin Ye immediately calmed down.

He couldn't sense the evil ghost's Yin energy, so he didn't know how powerful they were, but now that they were in such close proximity with one another, he was able to immediately determine that this was an advanced Prefect-class evil ghost.

His status as an Emissary of Hell didn't bring him any advantages here, so he couldn't immediately kill his adversary. As such, he had to remain calm and take things slowly. In the instant that the evil ghost's fingers came into contact with his head, he abruptly sprang forward before they could exert any pressure with their hands. At the same time, he swept his Abyssal Prefect's token backward, and he didn't even take a single glance behind himself as he rushed over to the side of the closet.

The sound of sharp nails tearing through the air rang out behind him, and he turned around before laying his back flat against the wall. He then curled his finger and the Abyssal Prefect's token transformed into an umbrella again before flying back to him, but the evil ghost was already nowhere to be seen.

She's still here... Qin Ye inspected his surroundings with a grim expression, and Kwon Kyung-ho and Ryu Changmin had already gathered around him even without requiring direct instruction.

The evil ghost was still present, as evidenced by the asphyxiating aura of freezing darkness in the air.

The electricity had been cut off quite a while ago, and the entire surrounding area was completely dark. Only a faint ray of red light from the lanterns outside was spilling in through the window, illuminating a patch of ground a crimson color. Black and red: those were the colors of death. It was like an omnipresent bloodstained hand that was holding this entire room in its grasp, and the suffocating pressure in the air struck fear into the hearts of even Yin spirits.

"My Lord, this is no ordinary Yin spirit. This is most definitely a special Yin spirit, and a very highly ranked one, at that!" Ryu Changmin said in a grim voice, and as soon as his voice trailed off, the entire room began to tremor and sway violently.

The tables and chairs were all swaying from side to side, and it was as if countless poltergeists had entered the room to wreak havoc with reckless abandon, or as if the entire room was tilting from one side to another. Pieces of furniture were sliding along the ground toward the door before slamming heavily into the door and the windows.

She wants to trap me in here! Qin Ye immediately understood his assailant's intentions.

Strangely enough, he had been scared witless by all of the supernatural phenomena he had encountered earlier, but right now, as he was truly facing an evil ghost, he had become very calm.

The desk was the first to slide toward the door, followed by the bed, then finally the closet. As the closet slid past Qin Ye, his pupils abruptly contracted, and time seemed to have completely frozen in that moment.

There was a dressing mirror on the front of the closet, and Qin Ye's trio was standing face to face with their own reflections.

However, there was also someone else standing behind them.

It was a woman.

Her body was a little twisted, and her hair was completely unkempt and disheveled. She was wearing the dark blue robe of an opera actress, and her face was completely concealed by her hair with the exception of a ghastly white eye. At this point, her head was already nearing Qin Ye's left shoulder.

This figure was far too familiar, it was none other than Chu Renmei! Qin Ye didn't hesitate in the slightest as he immediately squatted down, right before a gust of Yin wind swept through the air above his head. At the same time, all of the furniture had sealed the door and the windows tightly shut.

Silence returned to the room once again.

"What was that?" Kwon Kyung-ho and Ryu Changmin turned toward the dressing mirror with lingering fear in their eyes. Right there, that terrifying figure was standing between the darkness and the eerie red light with her pitch-black teeth tightly gritted together, appraising Qin Ye's trio with a vicious expression.

Crack crack crack... Her head was slowly raised, and her hair parted down the middle from her nose, revealing a deathly pale face. Her face was already beginning to show signs of bloating and rot, as if it had been soaked in water for an extended period of time, and her mouth was full of sharp black teeth that were stained with blood, while blood was also trickling down from the corners of her mouth.

Slam! She slammed her hands viciously onto the ground, smashing countless cracks onto its surface. At the same time, she declared in a raspy voice, "Die... All of you must die! All those who have wronged me... who have hurt me... who have deceived me... All of you must die!!" [In the movie, "A Wicked Ghost", the antagonist, AKA the ghost, was an opera actress who had been framed as a lecherous whore and wrongfully executed by her village. In vengeance, her ghost slaughtered the entire village, and that's where her obsessive urge to exact revenge against all those who have wronged, hurt, or deceived her comes from.] 

Her voice grew louder and louder as she spoke, and at the end, it had become so high-pitched that the cracked mirror exploded into smithereens, raining down glass shards all around the room. In the dim shadows, countless sharp black claws emerged, as if several dozens of Chu Renmeis were grabbing toward him at once!

"This isn't an illusion! What powerful Yin energy!" Kwon Kyung-ho exclaimed as he hurriedly slammed his palms onto the ground. The sea of blood of MV Sewol appeared once again in the Huang Clan's earthen building, and the deathly pale ghost hands of dozens of deceased students reached out to grab at the oncoming black shadows from all directions.

However, those pale ghostly hands instantly fell away upon contact!

The powers of an Abyssal Prefect and an Anitya Hellguard were simply incomparable. Countless ghostly claws continued to approach Qin Ye amid ghastly shrieks, yet all of the ghostly claws soon stopped in their tracks, even though Qin Ye hadn't done anything.

This was Ryu Changmin's special ability: Untouchable Love.

However, even this special ability of his was only able to stop the oncoming ghostly claws for an instant.

In Daehan, Infernal Judges were already the most powerful beings of the underworld, but in Cathay, Infernal Judges were a dime a dozen.

Whoosh! Around a dozen of the black ghostly hands dissipated into Yin energy, but the rest were still traveling directly toward the vital regions all over Qin Ye's entire body. He took a deep breath, and the Abyssal Prefect Umbrella abruptly sprang open. However, at the same time, a burst of sharp pain speared into his glabella immediately following which, an overwhelming sense of peril welled up in his heart and he reflexively turned toward his left.

There, he discovered that Chu Renmei's "breathtaking" face was already resting on his shoulder.

Inky-black blood was trickling out of her mouth and down her rotten skin and flesh. The nauseating smell directly assaulted Qin Ye's nostrils, and in that instant, their eyes met.

She put on an expression that seemed to be a smile, although it was far more hideous than even the ugliest of grimaces, and in the next instant, she bit down onto Qin Ye's shoulder with all her might.

"How dare you!!" Qin Ye let loose an enraged roar as he gathered all of the Yin energy in his body onto his shoulder. A loud crack rang out, following which Chu Renmei shot back in retreat while howling in agony and holding her hands over her mouth. However, Qin Ye's clothes had also been torn open, and a circle of deep tooth marks had been imprinted around his shoulder.

Chu Renmei's howl was extremely piercing, and her head had already tilted to an impossible angle as she cast a stunned gaze toward Qin Ye. "You... You don't have it!"

"Fuck off!" Qin Ye thrust his umbrella directly toward her glabella, and in the instant that the tip of his umbrella came into contact with her, Chu Renmei vanished into a cloud of Yin energy.

She left? 

Qin Ye inspected his surroundings with an incredulous expression while the sense of peril in his heart slowly faded away.

It seemed that she really was gone.

"My Lord..." Kwon Kyung-ho turned toward Qin Ye and asked, "Did you sustain some type of injury to your legs? Why are they trembling so much?"

"Shut up! You don't know anything!" Qin Ye turned around with an embarrassed and enraged look on his face. "That was the embodiment of my childhood trauma, do you understand? I'm still a human! A human! Just because I've already died once doesn't mean I'm not scared of death anymore! Just because I've received injections in the past doesn't mean I'm no longer scared of needles!"

Were these evil ghosts always this terrifying? It seemed that Chu Renmei was completely outdoing her evil ghost brethren in the looks department!

Qin Ye took a moment to compose himself before taking out his phone.

There was no signal and the time displayed was 2 AM.

He couldn't even be bothered to drag his bed back to its original spot as he laid down onto it. However, he didn't sleep. Instead, he fell into deep thought.

"I don't have it? What does she mean by that? What could she be looking for on my shoulder?" Qin ye murmured to himself as he stared up at the dark ceiling, "Could it be that she was looking for a birthmark? Could it be that she's actually my sister?"

Kwon Kyung-ho and Ryu Changmin's mouths immediately gaped open in alarm upon hearing this.

What kind of demented thought process was this?!

Qin Ye didn't say anything further as he carefully pondered each and every one of Chu Renmei's words and actions. It was clear that she had already noticed him as soon as he entered the earthen building. The first attack she had unleashed onto him was directly toward his head from behind, while the second attack had been aimed at his shoulder.

Head... Shoulder... Something I don't have... 20 minutes later, Qin Ye abruptly sat bolt upright on his bed, looking as if he had just been struck by an epiphany, and he indicated for Kwon Kyung-ho to come to him.

"What is it, My Lord?"

Qin Ye looked directly into his eyes with a serious expression and instructed, "Blow me."

Kwon Kyung-ho: "!!!"

"M-M-M-M-My Lord, s-surely that's not appropriate... At the time of my death, I-I-I was only a 13-year-old child! You can't ask me to do something like that..." Kwon Kyung-ho cast a horrified glance between Qin Ye's legs, then turned to Ryu Changmin with an expression conveying a desperate plea for help.

Surprised Pikachu.JPG

"What are you looking at me for? You were at least a teenager, I was only an infant! I'm the true child here!" Ryu Changmin was also absolutely terrified. 

Setting aside the fact that I don't want to do this, even if I wanted to, there's no way your burly spear will fit in my pretty little mouth! I... I just can't do it!

"Get your heads out of the gutter!" Qin Ye snapped, "I'm telling you to blow on my shoulder!"

"My Lord, don't you think we're too close to one another right now? Separation and distance make the heart grow fonder..." Kwon Kyung-ho was frantically trying to talk his way out of this.

Who do you think you're trying to fool? Blow on your shoulder?! Nice try, My Lord, but I'm not falling for that! 

"I get what you're asking, My Lord!" Right at this moment, an enlightened look suddenly appeared in Ryu Changmin's eyes. "You're talking about the three fires of life, right?"

Qin Ye nodded in response before curling his finger, and Kwon Kyung-ho, having realized his mistake, hurriedly rushed over to Qin Ye in an attempt to redeem himself before blowing vigorously on his shoulder.

The gust of Yin wind expelled by Kwon Kyung-ho ignited a small flame on Qin Ye's left shoulder, but the flame remained completely stationary!

It was like a fake flame, having been completely unaffected by the gust of Yin wind.

"I see." Qin Ye heaved a faint sigh. "Back when I received the previous King Yanluo's inheritance, I heard that I'm not the only living Emissary of Hell in history. In contrast with normal Emissaries of Hell, the three fires of life that we living beings possess can never be touched. In fact, we can't even sense it ourselves. What Chu Renmei was saying is that I don't have the normal three fires of life! The first time, she went after the flame on the top of my head, but I was quick to dodge, so she immediately switched her target to my shoulder instead. I see now..."

He stood up and began to pace side to side in the room. Several minutes later, he stopped before turning toward the pair of evil ghosts. "But the question is why is she doing this?"

Ryu Changmin was rather perplexed by this question. "What do you mean by that, My Lord? Isn't it very normal for evil ghosts to try and snuff out their target's three fires of life?"

"It's not normal in this case!" Qin Ye countered with a cold smile. "Think about it, what kind of evil ghost is Chu Renmei? She was wrongfully killed and her body was thrown into a lake. After that, she returned with a vengeance and killed all 66 of the residents in her village. Would an evil ghost like her go to the trouble of trying to snuff out my three fires of life? Wouldn't she devour me as blood food instead?"

Indeed, this was very much against her style...

"Then what do you think she was trying to do, My Lord?"

Qin Ye pondered the question for a full 15 minutes before concluding with absolute confidence. "She wanted to possess me rather than to kill me. However, the question that arises from that is why does she want to possess someone?"