“Yama Hall…?” she breathed, voice like mist threading reeds—too thin for anyone to catch.
Excitement had blazed when Ling first saw Komachi and those once-only-2D faces; but as Komachi ferried her across, river-cold seeped in. The heat in her skull dropped like cooling iron, embers of thrill dimming, and anxiety rose like a tide against her ribs.
If this Yama Hall truly belonged to the Mystic Realm, then the Yanluo King seated inside wouldn’t be someone easy to sway—more cliff than person, more iron than word.
Feeling first, thought second: her heart lunged to use any means to make the Yanluo King help; reason struck back like a stern bell, warning those means might buy Alicia’s true death.
She shook her head, trying to fling off cobwebs. The gate still stood like a mountain; better to charge the storm and let the future her invent the umbrella.
She reached for the ring at the door, cold as frost, and tapped it against the iron skin.
Clang-clang-clang—metal sang; then a voice answered from within, clear and sweet like spring water over stones. “Come in…”
Ling sighed inside, a stone sinking through dark water. That clean, sweet tone all but confirmed it—the Yanluo King within was likely the one from the Mystic Realm.
Still, a stray doubt flickered like a moth: did the Yama Hall over there really look like this?
With a question no mind could net, a small hand pushed the vast iron door. Light burst like a white wave; when sight settled, the first thing she saw was a girl enthroned at the heart of a golden hall.
Fitting for a Yanluo King, perhaps—her petite, childlike frame made the “luo” feel vivid, cute edged with uncanny steel.
Her face was an ice-carved mask; the lack of expression didn’t mar her beauty, it graced it with a thin band of authority.
“For what do you come?” The girl on the throne let her words fall, each syllable a bead of stone.
Ling dropped to one knee, pride folded like a banner in rain. In this other world, it was her first kneel—to save someone named Alicia.
“I… ask the honorable Yanluo King to save Alicia!”
The Yanluo King rose from her seat. Each step down was quiet night-water, until she stood before Ling.
“My name is Shiki Eiki, Yamaxanadu. Call me Shiki Eiki. Don’t overwork ‘Yanluo King.’ Also: the dead have the roots of their death. The living shouldn’t carve too deep into another’s life and death. Everyone is born to meet death…”
Shiki Eiki slid into a lecture without noticing, words pelting like hail on a tin roof. Her mouth opened and closed at a speed that left a flicker-trace; Ling dared not cut in, sitting seiza, a patient stone in the tide.
Time blurred; Ling felt her spirit slip its moorings, drifting like a kite with a severed string. Her mind went blue-screen, empty as winter sky—until the scolding stopped and the tether snapped back.
Guilt hit first; then she bowed her head again. “Lady Shiki Eiki, Alicia died because of me. I have one request—please restore Alicia’s life. I’ll pay any price.”
Shiki Eiki sighed, a reed bending under wind. She’d already gauged Ling’s power in outline: mana unfathomable in amount, thick as honey in quality, and under those soft fists lurked a force that could punch through Yama Hall in an instant. Now that noble head lowered—someone who’d shelve dignity for another. Such a soul carried the scent of a saint; Shiki Eiki felt real respect warm like tea.
When Ling spoke Alicia’s name, a gentle light crossed her eyes—devotion like a lamp in rain. A friend gone, yet she’d do anything to bring her back; Shiki Eiki appreciated that stubborn weave of feeling.
Then let me sell a favor to this devoted saint, she thought, a small balm against my usual iron.
She drew a mirror from her bosom. The ordinarily stern Yanluo King let a small smile bloom for true-heartedness, and she explained as the mirror caught the hall’s gold.
“This is the Jingpori Mirror. It usually shows the sins of the dead, but it can barely manage the living’s. If it shows no sins tied to you, I’ll help save Alicia. I believe a saint willing to bleed for others shouldn’t carry heavy sin—but we still have to follow procedure.”
The explanation left more mist than map; Ling’s face tightened like a closed fan. Others might not know, but she knew the “self” dressed in this skin.
Before she could speak, Shiki Eiki tilted the Jingpori Mirror toward her. Sins flashed in a dense cascade, like a swarm of blood-red moths. Most lines blazed with deicide and killings, each written in thick red letters that crawled like vine-fire.
Ling lifted her eyes, horror pale as ash; Shiki Eiki’s smile had vanished, her face now under a heavy storm-cloud of gloom.
Crack.
The Jingpori Mirror overloaded—and shattered.
A judge’s tool of the Yanluo King, hardened near to unbreakable—yet it broke under the weight of Ling’s sins, glass surrendering like winter ice to a flood.
“Eiki—”
“Get out!!!”
Shiki Eiki’s roar was a struck gong; a massive repulsive force slammed into Ling and flung her toward the door like driftwood in a wave.
“Wait! Let me explain—”
Bang.
The iron door closed without mercy, sealing her voice like a bottle. It cut off more than sound; it severed Ling’s chance to reunite with Alicia.
