The backlash was not immediate. It was a slow, creeping frost. First, Lin Wei's requests for case files began to be "delayed for processing." Then, the access terminals in the public defender's archive would glitch and reset whenever he approached. Xiao Bai's monthly KPI report came back with three unexplained demerits. Lao Jin found a dead, data-scorched messenger bird in his sleeping niche—a classic Diyu threat.
The system itself was turning against them. Not with brute force, but with the cold, impersonal hostility of bureaucracy weaponized. They were being quarantined, starved of information, slowly squeezed.
"They're isolating us," Old Cui rasped in their hidden room. The holographic map of Diyu before him glowed with angry red patches around their known locations. "They can't strike directly—not after your very public wins. So they are building a cage of regulations."
Mei materialized from a shadow, her face tight. "The word is out in the courier streams. 'Case #04512 had irregular data flags.' No one is saying it was rigged, but the whisper is enough. Judges are starting to refuse cases where you're listed as defender, citing 'potential procedural complications.'"
Feng slammed his fist on the table, making the holograms jump. "We need to hit back! Expose something big! The gambling debts of the Head Clerk of the Mortal Bureau! The secret ambrosia distilleries for the elite!"
"And paint an even bigger target on our backs?" Lin Wei's voice was quiet, cutting through the agitation. He was studying the red patches on the map. "They want us to lash out. To become reckless, visible rebels. Then they can justify erasing us as 'system destabilizers.' We don't give them that."
He pointed to a grey, uncharted area between the red zones. "We don't fight the pressure. We flow around it. We find cases they don't see as threats. Cases so small, so insignificant to the powers that be, that our involvement goes unnoticed."
Xiao Bai frowned. "Insignificant cases? How does that help us? We need to progress the counter!"
"It builds a foundation," Lin said, a plan crystallizing in his mind. "A network. Every soul we help, no matter how small, becomes a node. A witness. A source of information. The system ignores the ants until the hill undermines the palace. We become ants."
Cui's milky eyes seemed to focus on the grey zone. "The Warrens," he breathed. "The unofficial sub-basements. Where the souls of broken household gods, forgotten guardian spirits, and botched reincarnations end up. No proper jurisdiction. Cases handled by automated arbiters, if at all. A legal wasteland."
"Perfect," Lin said. "We go to the Warrens."
The Warrens were not a place on any official map. To get there, they followed Mei through a forgotten maintenance duct that emptied into a cavern so vast the ceiling was lost in a haze of stagnant energy and cobwebs of dead code. The air smelled of ozone, rust, and despair.
It was a refugee camp for lost causes. Makeshift shelters built from shattered holograms and discarded memory cores. Flickering spirits huddled together, their forms unstable, their stories incomplete. Automated arbiters—floating, cuboid drones with monotone voices—drifted listlessly, occasionally spitting out a verdict based on ancient, flawed algorithms: "Petition of Wandering Hearth-Spirit #334: Denied. Insufficient devotional energy." "Appeal of Miscast Luck-Sprite #12: Denied. Probability flux within acceptable margins."
This was where hope came to die a second, administrative death.
Lin Wei, with Xiao Bai and Lao Jin in tow, set up a makeshift "clinic" under a crumbling archway. Mei spread the word through the whisper networks. Feng provided a jury-rigged data tap into the arbiters' backlog.
Their first client was the Wandering Hearth-Spirit #334. Its crime? Failing to maintain a "minimum warmth signature" in the home of an elderly mortal who had stopped believing in household gods. The automated arbiter had sentenced it to gradual dissolution.
Lin didn't argue with the arbiter. He petitioned for a transfer. Citing an obscure sub-clause about "underutilized spiritual assets," he filed paperwork to reassign the fading hearth-spirit to a nearby temple's kitchen—a place teeming with belief and need. The arbiter, its logic circuits presented with a valid, energy-efficient alternative, approved. The spirit, a wisp of grateful warmth, streaked away.
3.1/1000. Not a full case, but a fractional credit. The system registered it as a minor administrative adjustment.
Next was the Miscast Luck-Sprite #12, blamed for a minor kitchen fire that was actually caused by faulty wiring. Lin appealed not the verdict, but the calibration of the "Probability Flux Assessor" that had judged it. Using data Feng siphoned, he proved the assessor hadn't been updated in three mortal centuries and was using outdated chance-algorithms. The arbiter, tasked with maintaining its own equipment's validity, was forced to order a recalibration and suspend the sprite's sentence.
3.2/1000.
They worked like this for what felt like days. Fixing clerical errors. Exploiting loopholes in maintenance protocols. Appealing to the arbiters' own programmed need for efficiency and internal consistency. They weren't winning dramatic acquittals; they were performing spiritual triage and bureaucratic jujitsu.
And with every fractional point, something changed. The desperate spirits in the Warrens began to look at them not with blank despair, but with a faint, fragile spark. Word traveled. Lin Wei was no longer just the defender who tweaked the nose of high judges. He was the one who fixed the broken clock in the basement.
It was during the 47th adjustment (a salvaged garden gnome spirit wrongly accused of lawn neglect) that the hounds arrived.
They came not as guards, not as Collectors, but as Auditors.
Three figures in severe grey robes, faces obscured by hoods that seemed to drink the dim light. They moved with silent, unsettling grace, untouched by the grime of the Warrens. In their hands they held ledgers that glowed with a cold, white light.
"Lin Wei, holder of Contract AD-1000," the lead Auditor's voice was a dry rustle, like pages turning in a tomb. "Your case activities have been flagged for review. Sub-section 78-C: 'Aberrant Case Pattern Analysis.' Your success rate on micro-adjustments in non-designated zones exceeds statistical norms by 847%. This represents a potential systemic anomaly."
This was Yama Heng's real move. Not an attack, but an audit. A demand to justify his existence by the very rules he was exploiting.
"Statistical norms are based on historical data," Lin replied, keeping his voice level. "Historical data does not account for the introduction of a new, active defender. My presence is the anomaly. My results are the new data set."
"The system is self-optimizing," the Auditor droned. "Anomalies are either integrated or purged. You will submit to a full review of your methodology. All case files, all data sources, all... associates."
Their hooded gazes swept over Xiao Bai and Lao Jin, who shrank back.
Lin's mind raced. A "full review" would uncover Feng's data phantoms, Mei's shadow runs, Cui's hidden archive. It would mean the end of the Vengeance Ledger and him along with it.
He had to give them something. A sacrifice that would satisfy their hunger for order without exposing the core.
"I will submit," Lin said, surprising everyone, including the Auditors. "But the review must be contextual. My methodology is reactive. To audit my work, you must first audit the inefficiencies I am reacting to. I propose a pilot program. Grant me temporary oversight of the Warrens' arbitration systems for one full cycle. Let me streamline their processes, document the flaws, and present a full report on systemic inefficiencies and my corrective actions. Audit the results, not just the agent."
It was a monstrous gamble. He was asking them to give him more power, not less. To make him a temporary warden of the wasteland.
The Auditors were silent, processing. Their ledgers flickered. They were creatures of data and procedure. The offer was unorthodox, but it promised a comprehensive dataset, a clear before-and-after analysis. It was... tidy.
"The proposal has a logical structure," the lead Auditor finally said. "Temporary oversight authorization for Sector Grey-Zeta [Warrens] is granted. One full administrative cycle. A full report on anomalies and optimizations is required upon termination. Failure to comply will result in immediate contract dissolution and entity assimilation."
The lead Auditor extended a hand. A cold, crystalline token appeared in Lin's palm—a temporary authority key.
"Efficiency will be measured," the Auditor stated. Then, as silently as they came, they turned and dissolved into the stagnant air.
Xiao Bai let out a shuddering breath. "You... you just got them to give you control of this place?"
"Not control," Lin said, staring at the token. "A leash. And a ticking clock. They've given me enough rope to hang myself. They expect me to fail, to reveal my methods in the attempt, or to produce a report so damning of myself they can erase me with clean consciences."
He closed his hand around the key. It was cold, but a pulse of energy hummed within it. He looked out over the teeming, hopeless expanse of the Warrens.
"Now," he said, a fierce light in his eyes. "We don't just fix cases. We fix the system. Right under their noses. We show them efficiency they never dreamed of. And we bury our real work in the flood of data we give them."
He turned to his team. "Feng, Mei, Cui. It's time to go to war. Not with threats, but with spreadsheets. We have one cycle to turn this graveyard into a garden. And in the chaos of growth, we plant our seeds."
The counter on his wrist glowed, frozen at 3.47/1000. The game had just changed. He was no longer just a player on the board.
He had been handed a brush and told to paint his own cage. He intended to paint a door.