The black ash of Yama Heng's note still clung to Lin Wei's fingers, a gritty reminder of the promise hanging over him. The message was clear: the next victory would be his last. In the game of Diyu, a warning wasn't a courtesy; it was a declaration of open season.
He returned to the hidden room of the "Vengeance Ledger." The atmosphere was tense. Xiao Bai was pacing, Lao Jin was nervously polishing his old ID badge, and the core trio — Cui, Mei, and Feng — were huddled around a central hologram.
"It's a honey pot," Old Cui said without preamble, his blind eyes fixed on a point in space only he could see. His fingers danced in the air, pulling data streams. "Case #04512. The client: a minor agricultural deity from the mortal realm, the 'Spirit of the West Field Mill.' Accused of 'Dereliction of Duty Leading to Famine and 117 Mortal Deaths.'"
Mei, her arms crossed, snorted. "A field spirit? They don't have the power to cause a drizzle, let alone a famine. The charge is absurd on its face."
"That's the point," Feng chimed in, his young face alight with the thrill of the puzzle. "It's too obvious. The case file is clean, almost sterile. Too clean. The witness testimonies from the village are perfectly aligned, the meteorological logs are damningly precise. It's a masterpiece of falsification. They want you to take it. They want you to see the frame-up and walk right in."
Lin Wei studied the hologram. The spirit, a faint, golden wisp shaped like a sheaf of wheat, looked pathetic and confused in its detention glyph. "Who's the judge?"
Cui's lips thinned. "Yama Ru. A mid-level judge, known for... efficiency. And absolute, unwavering loyalty to the established hierarchy. He has never once overturned a verdict from a superior's office. He is a perfect, predictable cog."
"And the superior who likely ordered this farce?" Lin asked, already knowing the answer.
"The case was forwarded from the 'Bureau of Mortal Liaison and Agricultural Compliance.' A department overseen by... Yama Lun," Mei finished grimly. "It's a gift from your new best friend. A case you can't refuse. A spirit so obviously innocent that failing to defend it would destroy your reputation as a 'protector of the unjust.' And winning it..."
"...would mean publicly humiliating a judge loyal to Yama Lun, proving a case from his department is fraudulent, and making an even more powerful enemy," Lin concluded. "A perfect lose-lose. Or a win-die scenario."
"So, we don't take it!" Xiao Bai blurted out. "We find another case! A quiet one!"
"And show fear?" Lin shook his head. "No. Retreat now is death by a thousand cuts. They'll bury us in bureaucratic sludge until our contract expires. We take the case. But we don't play their game. We change the rules."
He leaned over the hologram, his eyes scanning the flawless, poisonous data. "The case is perfect. Therefore, the flaw isn't in the case. It's around it. Feng, I need you to find the creator. Not the judge, not the accuser. The clerk who assembled this perfect file. Every document has an author ID buried in its metadata, even in Diyu. Find them."
Feng's fingers flew across a haptic keyboard. "On it. Digging through the audit trail..."
"Mei," Lin turned to her. "The famine. 117 deaths. Real people. Their souls passed through here. Find their intake records. I want to know what they actually died of. Not what the report says."
Mei nodded sharply and vanished into the shadows, her form dissolving into the data streams along the wall.
"Cui. Precedent. Find me every case in the last five centuries where a minor nature spirit was held accountable for large-scale mortal disaster. I need the legal arguments used to acquit or condemn."
The old archivist grunted, his mind already accessing the vast, dusty catalogues of his memory and the hidden archives.
Lao Jin spoke up timidly. "I... I might know something about the Bureau of Mortal Liaison. They have quotas. 'Negative event attributions' per quarter. If they don't meet them, their budget gets cut. A famine... is a major negative event. It looks good on their reports to have a cause, a scapegoat."
A motive. Not grand conspiracy, but petty, bureaucratic greed. The most dangerous kind.
Hours later, they reconvened. The pieces were coming together, forming a uglier, more truthful picture than the pristine lie of Case #04512.
"I found the author!" Feng announced, pulling up the spectral image of a harried-looking middle-aged clerk spirit. "Low-level data assembler in the Bureau. Name's Po. He's processed thousands of cases. But his signature is on all the key falsified logs for this one."
"Po..." Lao Jin's eyes widened. "I know him! He's not a bad sort. Deep in debt. Gambling in the soul-lottery. He has a daughter, a little spirit, sickly... needs expensive ambrosia treatments. The Bureau would have leverage."
Mei materialized, her expression grim. "The 117 souls. I tracked 89 of them so far. Cause of death according to our archives: 'Malnutrition due to crop blight.' But cross-referencing with the Pestilence Department logs... a fungal plague swept that region that season. The mill spirit's field was the first infected, but it was a symptom, not the cause. The Bureau's report omitted the plague entirely."
Cui's raspy voice filled the room. "Precedent is clear. In 67% of similar cases, lesser spirits were exonerated if a larger, systemic natural disaster was the primary causal factor. The legal principle is 'Overwhelming Proximate Cause.' The spirit's negligible influence is subsumed by the greater force."
Lin Wei absorbed it all. They had the truth. But truth in Diyu was a weak weapon against power. They needed a tactical strike, not a frontal assault.
"Feng, can you create a... ghost file?" Lin asked. "A duplicate of the case, but with our evidence embedded in a way that looks like it was always there? A 'corrected' version?"
Feng grinned, a wild light in his eyes. "A data phantom? To slip into the main archive just before the hearing? Risky. If caught, it's erasure for me. But... yes. I can make a seed. It'll look like a standard system auto-correction based on newly discovered cross-departmental data."
"Do it. Mei, you need to get that seed into the central relay node for Courtroom 14, where Yama Ru presides. At exactly 07:48:03 court time, during the automated data refresh."
"I'll be a speck of dust in the vent," Mei affirmed.
"Lao Jin, Xiao Bai. You're with me. We're going to pay a visit to Clerk Po. Before the trial."
Po was found in a dimly lit canteen for low-level spirits, listlessly stirring a bowl of congealed memory-gruel. He looked up as Lin Wei sat opposite him, flanked by Xiao Bai and Lao Jin. Fear flashed in his eyes, then resignation.
"I wondered when someone would come," he mumbled.
"We're not from the Bureau, Po," Lin said quietly, showing his defender's seal. "We're from the defense. For the mill spirit you helped frame."
Po flinched as if struck. "I didn't have a choice! They said they'd cut off my daughter's treatment! They said it was just a minor spirit, no one would care..."
"We care," Lin said, his voice leaving no room for doubt. "And we have the evidence to prove the fraud. Including your signature on every falsified document. When this unravels, who do you think they'll throw to the hellhounds? The high-ranking official who ordered it? Or the indebted clerk who did the paperwork?"
Po's spectral form trembled. "What do you want from me?"
"Two things. First, your testimony. Not in court. A sealed deposition, to be released only if I... fail to win the case. An insurance policy. Second, the name of the person in the Bureau who gave you the order and the data to falsify."
Po looked from Lin's implacable face to Lao Jin's sympathetic one. He crumpled. He gave a name — a department head two levels above him. And he recorded the deposition into Xiao Bai's disk, his voice a thread of shame and despair.
They left him to his cold gruel. They had their pawn, their insurance, and their target.
The day of the hearing arrived. Courtroom 14 was austere, smaller than the grand halls, filled with the whispers of lesser spirits and bored minor functionaries. Judge Yama Ru was as advertised: a block of stone with eyes, moving through the procedure with robotic efficiency.
The prosecutor, a sleek spirit from the Bureau, presented the flawless case. The famine, the logs, the testimonies. The mill spirit, in the defendant's dock, emitted a faint, terrified shimmer.
When it was Lin Wei's turn, he stood. He didn't start with grand accusations. He began with a dry, technical question about meteorological data calibration standards. Then another about the chain of custody for village spirit testimonies. He led Yama Ru, a creature of procedure, down a rabbit hole of bureaucratic minutiae. The judge, confused but adhering to protocol, followed.
Then, at 07:48:03, Lin paused. "Your Honor, if the court will permit, I would like to request a moment for the system to sync the latest inter-departmental data revisions. I believe there may be relevant updates pertaining to regional ecological reports for the period in question."
Yama Ru frowned but gave a curt nod. The courtroom's central hologram flickered. For a split second, the data streams danced erratically. Then they settled. The case file now had new, highlighted appendices: Pestilence Department logs confirming the fungal plague. Statistical analyses showing the mill's output was statistically irrelevant to the regional food supply. The "Overwhelming Proximate Cause" precedent, cited and linked.
The prosecutor stared, his smugness evaporating. Yama Ru's stony face showed the first crack — confusion, then dawning irritation as he processed the "new" information that the system was telling him had always been there.
"The evidence before the court," Lin said, his voice calm and clear, "now shows a catastrophic natural plague as the primary cause of famine. The accused, a minor field spirit, lacks the capacity to cause or prevent such an event. The original charge is not merely unproven; it is based on a critical omission of fact. I move for immediate dismissal."
Yama Ru was trapped. The data in his own system contradicted the prosecution. To rule against it would be to defy the very system he served. His loyalty was to the process, and the process had just been hacked.
He glared at Lin Wei, sensing the manipulation but unable to pinpoint it. With the grating sound of stone on stone, he spoke. "The... updated evidence is noted. The charge of 'Dereliction of Duty Leading to Famine' is unsustainable. The case is dismissed. The spirit is to be released and returned to its post."
The gavel fell. The mill spirit burst into a shower of grateful golden light. Lin's wrist burned. 3/1000.
But as he turned to leave, he saw the prosecutor whispering furiously to a messenger. The message would be on Yama Heng's desk within minutes. He hadn't just won. He had cheated. He had exposed a fraud by committing a subtler, more daring one.
He walked out of the courtroom, the taste of victory ashes in his mouth. He had avoided the trap by springing a better one. But the cost was invisible. He had made an enemy of a by-the-book judge by corrupting his book. And he had shown Yama Heng that he was not just a persistent insect, but a cunning one.
The hunt was no longer a promise. It was now an active pursuit. And in the shadows of Diyu, the first real hounds would soon be unleashed.