The night was cold and moonless, but the velvet sky was studded with stars.
Only the man sitting on the red bridge's railing didn't notice their splendor. His gaze was focused on the rushing waters beneath his bare feet.
The long curtain of his sleek black hair whispered against his back with the chill wind. Despite the cold, the man was wearing only thin under robes, loosely tied. They gaped open around his throat and neck, exposing his protruding collar bones and a sliver of heaving chest.
He had run all the way to the red bridge, barefoot in the middle of the night, his mind finally made.
His expression was serene despite the weight of his decision. It was clear by the pallor of his skin and the thinness of his limbs that he wasn't well and hadn't been for a long time.
His fingers tightened on the railing. He was tired of enduring. That was all he had done in the past ten years, and now he had finally reached his limit.
The sound of the rushing water thundered like the beat of a thousand horse hooves. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine himself disappearing under the stampede, crushed into fine dust until there was nothing of him left.
He wondered what had taken him so long.
"I should have gone with you," he told the waters below. "Maybe we could have reincarnated together. Now it's probably too late."
The river didn't have a reply for him, but the man still felt that something malevolent lurked in its inky depths. This was a river that knew only despair, by now it must feed on it.
The knuckles of the man's hands were growing white from how hard he was holding onto the railing.
He felt no fear, only immense, suffocating, regret.
"I'm sorry," he said, closing his eyes against the tears threatening to spill, and then let go.
His grip on the railing slackened and he let himself tip forward until gravity got its way. He plummeted down into the rushing waters and was submersed at once.
He didn't fight the water's chilling grip and surrendered himself to the grasp of its twisting currents.
It shouldn't have surprised him that it hurt.
Birth was a painful process, why should death be any different?
---
He was led into a poorly lit judge's chamber by a creature he couldn't immediately identify. There were flickering candles on heavy iron stands in every corner of the room, caked with layers of wax, accumulated over centuries.
Against the wall facing the door stood an imposing dais, carved out of dark, lacquered wood, engraved with terrible scenes of torment and pain. Behind the judge's chair a large painting took over the entire wall, a delicate composition of an impossible city with towering buildings, smoking spires, and ghostly apparitions making merry in front of an outdoor food market.
In the judge's chair itself sat a man with a dark beard and angled, bushy eyebrows. He had on a judge's hat and wore gold and black robes.
His lined face was unfriendly. "Do you know why you're here?"
"No, but I assume I died."
The judge grunted noncommittally. "Do you remember anything?"
He shook his head.
The judge grunted again, his displeasure palpable. "Your name is Xie Bian."
Xie Bian nodded; it wasn't as if he could tell the judge otherwise. He didn't even remember what he had been doing before the little creature with a monkey's face and a lion's mane had escorted him into this room.
"Did I commit any grave offences in my previous life?" He couldn't stop himself from asking. The judge was looking at him so severely that Xie Bian thought he had offended him personally.
The judge grunted again and gestured vaguely. "Let's forget about all that."
Forget about it? Wasn't it the whole point of Xie Bian's presence here? Wasn't this man one of the Underworld's judges, responsible for judging mortals for their actions when alive and mete out punishment or rewards, accordingly?
Xie Bian had no memories, but it wasn't as if his basic understanding of the world had deserted him too.
"Uh, your...uhm, excellency, forgive me for asking, what am I doing here, then?"
The judge rose from his seat, his golden robes unfolding behind him like a cape. With each step he took down the dais and towards Xie Bian his appearance seemed to subtly change. The severe lines of his face softened until they were gone, his bushy eyebrows became neat and tidy. His beard vanished, revealing the austere line of his thin lips.
When he came to a stop in front of Xie Bian, he no longer resembled an imposing middle-aged man, now he looked like an exceedingly handsome, unfriendly young man.
He looked Xie Bian up and down before saying, "I thought you'd be taller."
"Uh, apologies for not living up to his Excellency's expectations..."
The judge cleaved him with an unimpressed look. "Enough with 'your excellency' this and that. We don't stand on ceremony here in the Underworld. I'm Yanluo."
Xie Bian's eyes widened to the size of small moons. "Your Majesty, King Yanluo?"
Yanluo scowled. "What did I just say about ceremony? Mortals call me King, here I'm just a judge like nine other fools."
"But aren't you the ruler of the Underworld? And I thought it was the ten Kings of hell?"
Even though he no longer looked like an austere disciplinarian, Yanluo's glare was no less menacing now that he was a young man. "Do you ever tire of asking questions?"
Xie Bian remained silent.
Satisfied that he wasn't going to say anything else, Yanluo flicked out his long sleeves with a sigh. "To answer your question: you're here to be my general."
"A general? Was I a general when I was alive?"
"No, and that's irrelevant. Like everything else you've said." He massaged his temples. The conversation had taken its toll on his limited patience.
"There's another general, besides you. I'm going to take you to meet him. He won't like it. All of this would be much easier if you still had your memories!"
Wisely, Xie Bian held back from pointing out: 'I thought the whole point of dying was that I was supposed to forget.'