Three rules

Kannazuki watched Ryuk finish the apple, chewing up and swallowing even the core.

"Is your creator called the King of Death?" Kannazuki asked.

Ryuk stuck out his long tongue and licked his lips. His enormous eyes rolled twice, and he let out a coarse laugh.

"Nope." Ryuk flapped his black-feathered wings, stirring up a cold draft.

"I don't know his name, either. In fact, I have no idea what this 'Shinigami Realm' you mentioned even is."

Kannazuki sat on the folding chair with his hands folded over his knees.

Ryuk's answer was unexpected, yet it made sense.

"You don't know about the Shinigami Realm?" Kannazuki asked again, his tone even.

"Nope." Crouching on the computer desk, Ryuk picked up a ballpoint pen and toyed with it.

"All I know is that I was created, then brought this notebook into this world to find you.

Where I was before that, or how I got here, doesn't matter. It's boring.

Or you could say the mission I was created for was to deliver this notebook to you."

Crack.

Ryuk crushed the ballpoint pen, scattering plastic fragments over the desktop.

Kannazuki stared at the fragments.

He was almost certain that the monster before him was Ryuk, the Shinigami from the famous manga Death Note.

His appearance, personality, obsession with apples, and even his catchphrase, "Humans are so interesting," all matched perfectly.

But Ryuk had lost his memory.

No, that wasn't quite right.

Kannazuki's mind raced.

Ryuk hadn't lost his memory.

He clearly remembered being created and knew he had a "creator."

A real Shinigami wouldn't say he had been created.

Kannazuki formed several hypotheses.

First, the so-called "Shinigami Realm" didn't exist in this world at all.

Second, the Ryuk before him wasn't a real being who had crossed over from some parallel universe. He was a "copy."

Third, that so-called "creator" possessed terrifying power.

He had opened a manga, found its premise interesting, then casually conjured up a Ryuk and a Death Note and tossed them into the real world.

He had forcibly given a fictional, two-dimensional concept physical form in three-dimensional reality.

Such power surpassed everything humanity understood about physics, theology, and even cosmology.

Kannazuki had a rough idea of the truth.

As long as I don't say anything, the readers won't know what I've figured out!

Absolute rationality suppressed his desire to investigate.

Kannazuki forcibly cut off that dangerous line of thought.

His current situation didn't allow him to ponder the ultimate mysteries of the universe.

Downstairs, plainclothes officers sent by Chen Lei were still sitting in that inconspicuous black Santana, keeping him under surveillance.

Survival was the first law.

"If you don't know, let's drop it."

Kannazuki stood, walked over to the sink, and washed his hands. "Let's talk about this notebook's rules."

"The rules are all written on the first page." Ryuk grinned.

"I need to confirm some hidden rules."

Kannazuki pulled out a paper towel and dried his hands. "For example, the Shinigami Eyes."

At those words, Ryuk's bulging eyes suddenly glowed red.

"Gah hah hah hah!" Ryuk burst out laughing, his wings beating inside the cramped room.

"You even know about those!

That's right. I have the Shinigami Eyes.

If you're willing to trade half your remaining lifespan, I'll give you the Shinigami Eyes.

With them, you only need to look at someone's face to know their real name and remaining lifespan."

"No, thanks." Kannazuki tossed the paper towel into the trash.

"I just wanted to confirm that the deal exists.

I won't make that trade."

Ryuk's laughter stopped abruptly.

"Why?" Ryuk tilted his head. "A human lifespan means nothing to me, but for you, having those eyes would let you become a true god."

"A god doesn't need to trade his lifespan for power." Kannazuki walked to the window and looked down through a gap in the curtains.

Three in the afternoon. The sunlight was still scorching.

The black Santana was parked across the street. Dark security film covered its windows, but Kannazuki knew at least two people were inside, watching his window through high-powered binoculars.

His phone lay on the desk.

GPS tracking remained on. Background data usage kept climbing.

The police cyber-surveillance unit was capturing his every action in real time.

Chen Lei had cast a net with no gaps.

If Kannazuki went out now and made contact with any target, and that target died shortly afterward, Chen Lei would arrest him immediately.

No direct evidence was needed.

Under the immense pressure of the serial murders, the police had ample grounds to take him to city headquarters for forty-eight hours of relentless interrogation.

"Ryuk." Kannazuki let the curtain fall. "Can anyone who hasn't touched this notebook see you?"

"No." Ryuk crouched on the desk. "They can't see me or hear my voice.

Surveillance cameras, recording equipment, any technology you humans have-none of it can detect my existence."

"Good."

Kannazuki walked over to the bed and pulled the black Death Note out from under his pillow.

He needed to create a perfect alibi.

An alibi strong enough to completely shatter Chen Lei's chain of reasoning.

He would make the police see with their own eyes that, at the exact moment the target died, he was doing something that made committing murder absolutely impossible.

A time displacement.

That was the notebook's most terrifying hidden weapon.

According to the rules, after writing a name, he could control the victim's actions during the twenty-three days before their death.

Kannazuki opened the notebook to page six.

He picked up the black rollerball pen on the desk.

He didn't write immediately. He sifted through potential targets in his mind.

Kannazuki opened his phone.

He didn't use an encrypted browser or connect to the dark web.

He simply used the phone's ordinary built-in browser to open a local Linhai City news portal.

Kannazuki sat on the folding chair. His phone screen glowed, displaying the local Linhai City news portal.

He needed a new target. One who could perfectly break the logic behind Chen Lei's surveillance.

"Are you about to make your move?"

The coarse voice sounded overhead. Ryuk hung upside down from the rental room's yellowed ceiling, his enormous black-feathered wings folded, his bulging eyes fixed on the black rollerball pen in Kannazuki's hand.

Kannazuki didn't look up. His gaze remained on the screen.

"To make your experiences in this story more exciting, my creator added three rules to this notebook's original rules."

Ryuk released his claws, flipped his massive body in midair, and landed steadily on the computer desk.

Kannazuki's pen hand froze.

That sentence contained an enormous amount of information.

"This story." The creator regarded this as a story.

"Original rules." The creator not only knew about Death Note, but had even modified it.

Kannazuki quickly deduced two definite facts.

First, the Shinigami Realm from Death Note didn't exist.

Second, Ryuk's creator had definitely read the manga Death Note.

Whether for some purpose or purely for amusement, he had forcibly pulled a fictional concept into reality and given it a revised set of rules.

Kannazuki raised his head and looked straight into Ryuk's eyes.

"What are those three rules?"

Ryuk grinned, baring his uneven fangs.

He let out a strange, cackling laugh and leaned forward, bringing his face close to Kannazuki's.

"Want to know? I'm not telling."

It wouldn't be any fun if the readers knew.

Ryuk stuck out his long tongue and licked his lips, his voice dripping with mockery. "Unless you ask whether the readers agree."

Readers?

Kannazuki caught that word.

He didn't consider the meaning behind it. All he cared about were the rules before him.

"Did your creator tell you to hide them?" Kannazuki asked.

"No, he didn't." Ryuk flapped his wings, stirring up a cold draft. "My creator never said to hide those three rules. But my twisted sense of fun...

Makes me want to see more unpredictable turns.

So you can figure them out little by little yourself."

Kannazuki remained expressionless, but the corner of his eye twitched twice despite himself.

That sneaky bastard.

He cursed inwardly. The unknown creator had clearly intended to give him a boost, or some advantage that would help him break out of his predicament, only for this Shinigami's twisted sense of fun to hijack it.

Was this part of the creator's scheme? Had he deliberately given Ryuk this personality to see more unpredictable turns?

No. Kannazuki quickly rejected the thought. Judging by Ryuk's tone and reasoning, the creator had indeed intended to tell him the rules directly.

Ryuk's concealment was nothing more than an unexpected wrench in the works.

Kannazuki looked at Ryuk's eminently punchable face and drew a deep breath.

Not knowing the new rules meant his current actions might trigger a trap.

The notebook's rules were absolute. If he triggered some hidden restriction on killing, he might suffer the backlash himself.

But he had no choice now.

Inside the black Santana downstairs, Chen Lei's watchers had their eyes on his window.

The surveillance network had a lock on his phone's GPS. He had to establish this alibi.

Kannazuki returned his gaze to the phone screen.