Beyond the Rules

Deep in the drawer, it lay in silence.

Black, hardcover, without a single word on it. Like a fragment of a tombstone, it sat soundlessly amid the clutter of the battered desk in my shared apartment, buried beneath a stack of outdated circuit diagrams and several programming manuals worn to pieces.

Frowning, I brushed my fingers over the papers and touched its cover. It felt cold, almost ominous, utterly out of place among the greasy keyboard and half-empty energy drink cans.

Who put this here? Some kind of prank?

My fingertip brushed a line of twisted, unfamiliar symbols near the bottom of the cover. The next second, a torrent of information flooded my mind without warning!

[Rules of use]

[1. Anyone whose name is written in this notebook will eventually die.]

[2. While writing, you must picture that person's face in your mind, or it will have no effect.]

[3. ...]

My breath stopped short.

Death Note?

Who hadn't seen that anime? But this...

I yanked it out and slammed it onto the desk. The dull thud disturbed something at the other end of the room.

The shadows writhed. An enormous, warped silhouette emerged from the mountain of dirty clothes piled in the corner. Pitch-black and skeletal, it had a grinning mouth that took up half its face, lined with jagged fangs. It held half a rotten, blackened apple, thick juice dripping onto the floor tiles and leaving disgusting stains.

"Yo. Finally found it?" Its voice sounded like nails scraping rusty sheet metal, carrying an inhuman buzz. "Human expressions... so interesting. Surprise? Fear? Or... excitement?"

It was Ryuk. A god of death.

My heart hammered against my ribs, but not from fear. A searing emotion, hot enough to scorch my insides, exploded up my spine. I stared at it, then whipped my gaze back to the notebook on the desk. On my screen, the latest teaser from an influencer called Brother Dao was still playing on a loop-a trembling tortoiseshell cat dangled by its neck, held up to the camera.

"Rules?" Ryuk crunched into the rotten flesh, splattering juice. "Why not try writing a name? Much more interesting than watching you stare at those boring screens all day." Its scarlet eyes rolled, brimming with mockery. "You humans love tying yourselves up, then dressing it up with a fancy name: 'rules.'"

On the screen, Liu Mingwei-Brother Dao-had a face twisted with sadistic excitement. It grew larger until it filled my vision. Cheers and curses mingled in the barrage of comments racing across it.

Law? Morality? If they worked, how could something like him exist? How could he have so many followers?

This society... really was rotten to the core.

It needed cleansing. It needed an absolute, irresistible power to carry out the judgments written on paper that no one ever saw.

I drew a deep breath and pulled the ominous notebook toward me. My fingertips skimmed its yellowish, rough pages, which exerted an eerie pull, as though hungry to be written on.

The pen hovered.

Liu Mingwei.

The name. And that face... that face immersed in the pleasure of inflicting pain.

The pen touched down and scratched across the paper. The instant I wrote his name, something cold and powerful flowed through my fingertips into every part of my body. A feeling of... truly holding someone else's life and death in my hands.

Almost simultaneously-

A piercing scream suddenly burst from the livestream!

Brother Dao, who had been flailing about just moments earlier, abruptly froze, his vicious grin locking in place. His hand rose against his will, veins bulging, fingers twisting into claws. With terrifying precision that could not possibly have been voluntary, he plunged them toward his own eye sockets!

"Aaargh-! My hand! My... no-!"

Squelch!

The cheap microphone amplified the wet, sticky sound of rupture, making my scalp crawl.

Blood splashed like red paint, instantly staining the lens.

The comments froze for a second, then exploded across the screen!

[Holy shit!!!!!!]

[Is this real?!]

[Special effects???]

[Death Note! It's Death Note! Light Yagami!]

[Divine punishment! He deserved it!]

[Call the police! Call an ambulance! This is insane!]

[A god has descended! The cleansing has begun!]

Amid violent shaking and agonized screams, the feed finally went black.

Only the frantic flood of comments remained, filled with arguments, terror, and fervor.

In the room, there was nothing but my slightly ragged breathing and the grating sound of chewing from the corner. Ryuk gnawed its apple and gave a muffled, strange laugh. "Well, well. What an opening. Much better than a movie."

I ignored it. The blazing fire in my chest burned hotter, almost bursting out of me.

A piece of scum who tortured the weak for attention. Removed.

But it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

A louder bell was needed to wake this world that pretended to sleep.

I clicked open another window. A news alert from three hours earlier: "Wealthy heirs receive suspended sentences in gang rape case, released in court." Beneath it was a photo of the victim's father collapsed outside the courthouse, blood from his battered forehead staining the stone steps. Meanwhile, the presiding judge, Wang Yaoqing, was solemnly explaining the "chain of evidence" and "discretionary considerations" to the cameras.

Law? Justice?

Bullshit.

I licked my suddenly dry lips and picked up the pen again. My fingertips trembled with the anticipation of a feast.

On the yellowish page, the ink of the bizarre description of death following Liu Mingwei's name had yet to dry. I left a blank line beneath it and neatly wrote the second name.

Wang Yaoqing.

Cause of death: myocardial infarction. Time: three tomorrow afternoon, at the upscale sauna club he frequented. Let him feel his heart seized and crushed by an invisible hand amid the extreme heat.

The instant the pen left the paper, an immense, almost shuddering satisfaction swept through me.

"Oh? Another one?" Ryuk tilted its head, narrowing its scarlet eyes. "Hooked already?"

I didn't answer. I tore open the bag of cheap chips on my desk. The crunch rang out with particular clarity in the room.

On the afternoon of the third day, the news alert sounded right on time-[Prominent judge Wang Yaoqing dies of sudden heart attack at a sauna center in the city's south].

The online world fell silent for an instant, then plunged into an even greater frenzy. For the first time, speculation about "divine punishment" drowned out the calls to "respect the dead."

That evening, I picked up the burner phone and entered the number I had painstakingly memorized from the background of a news photo. Send.

[Judgment has finally come.]

Just four words.

The fourth day.

The entire internet erupted. The top ten trending searches went into overdrive. #DeathNoteBecomesReality #JudgeWangsDeath #WhoIsTheJudge #GuessTheNextTarget. Panic and worship collided in every corner of every social platform, tearing every discussion apart. The police held a press conference, their faces grim, their wording stern.

The curtains in my shared apartment were drawn tight, instant noodle cups and snack bags piled around my feet. Screen light washed over my face as countless wild posts about me streamed past.

An indescribable pleasure flowed through my veins.

Then, on the evening of the fourth day, as the sunset stained the sky a dirty orange-red, the burner phone I had tossed into a corner of my mattress suddenly let out a shrill cry.

No number. The screen was blank.

It rang persistently, cutting through the towering waves of online chatter about me with a cold, precise sense of purpose.

I stopped chewing my chips.

Slowly, I swallowed. The corners of my mouth tugged upward despite myself.

Here it was.

Finally, someone other than those useless idiots who did nothing but issue statements.

Someone who could track down a phone that had only ever sent one text... interesting.

I stood, walked over, and picked up the buzzing phone. Its plastic casing was cold.

My fingertip slid across the answer button, and I held it to my ear.

Silence.

First came a stretch of static, as though the signal were desperately unstable. Then a voice spoke. Processed beyond any distinction of gender, its electronic distortion carried clear, almost tangible amusement-and a hint of cold challenge.

"Let the game begin..."

After a brief pause, the voice chuckled.

"...false god."

I licked the chip crumbs from my fingertips and smiled without a sound.

Something in my blood ignited completely.

"Ah," I replied softly into the phone with its blank screen. "Now that's more like it."