Dusk filtered through the blinds, slicing countless diagonal slashes through the dusty air. Lin Chen sat cross-legged before a cheap folding table, the Death Note spread open, twirling the pen that could decide life and death between his fingers.
"Boring," he muttered.
Ryuk was hanging upside down from the chandelier, munching an apple. At that, he tossed the core neatly into a trash can three meters away. "If you're bored, go get a job."
Lin Chen suddenly sat up straight and pressed the pen to the page. "Let's try something efficient today."
Two swift strokes-
[People from Shanxi!]
"Hack-!" Ryuk choked on apple juice, his wings flailing as he flipped over and crashed onto the couch. "That's not how you use the Death Note!" A thick Shandong accent slipped out uncontrollably.
Lin Chen raised an eyebrow, crossed out the line, and started a new one:
[Fuck you and your 'that's not how you use the Death Note'!] (Even the ink had a salt-and-pepper flavor.)
"You have to picture a specific person's face!" Ryuk lunged toward the table, pounding his claws against the notebook.
The pen moved smoothly:
[Chubby guy with a buzz cut, a full beard, and white socks!]
Ryuk stared at the page as it began to glow and discovered that a guy matching the description really was dropping dead in a gym two kilometers away. "So you do fucking understand what I'm saying!" His wings bristled like a hedgehog.
Lin Chen had already written down his next target:
[People from Xinjiang!]
"I told you, you can't just write down a province!" Ryuk frantically scratched his head, discovering that the notebook had automatically retrieved every citizen whose ID number began with 65.
[Then the three northeastern provinces!] The handwriting swept across the page in wild flourishes.
"Motherfucker!" The notebook's