Yama Rising

“It is our responsibility to check your notes after classes.” Zhou Xianlong explained expressionlessly, “Everyone, our visit to the Insignia University isn’t a pleasure trip on public expenses. If you can’t even be serious in class, how are you going to teach your own students later on? Those who’ve failed to take proper notes today shall be penalized with the deduction of one teaching credit. We’ll have such spot checks from time to time in future.”

Five minutes later, Qin Ye and Lin Han stormed out of the lecture hall gnashing their teeth and grumbling incessantly, “S9527! I’m serious this time. I’m going to cut off all ties with you!”

Just like that, they continued to exchange complaint after complaint with each other over lunch. After lunch, Lin Han made a call and kept his phone, “Alright, I’ve made the arrangements. You go by yourself. I’m not accompanying you today.”

“I’m all about efficiency.” Lin Han responded disdainfully, “Three years ago, one of the old design professionals in the Soaring Dragon Developers purchased a haunted house, and he paid me two hundred thousand to dispose of the problem for him. I’ve just contacted him. There’s no need to visit the design institution. Large construction companies like the Soaring Dragon Developers generally have their own design departments. You can go straight to them.”

No… in fact, the entire cohort played by the rules. Everyone took notes and listened wholeheartedly, and they even managed to glean several insights as a result.

The Soaring Dragon Developers wasn’t located in downtown city. Their headquarters was based in Mount Tai City’s tech park, and it was in charge of their various offices located all over the four provinces around. The taxi drove for thirty minutes before it finally arrived at their destination.

“Mr Qin, what a rare sight! It’s truly our honour to have you here.” Sun Kangliang greeted Qin Ye warmly with a handshake, “You could’ve just called if you needed anything. There’s no need to have to go through the trouble to make this trip down.”

The world of adults was far too tiring.

“Mr Qin sure is humorous.” Sun Kangliang laughed as he led Qin Ye up a flight of stairs and entered an empty elevator. Then, with a hushed voice, he continued, “You’d earlier mentioned that you’ve got something to discuss with our design department?”

“I’ve got some groundwork to discuss.” Qin Ye glanced at Sun Kangliang, “Are you interested?”

“Approximately five square kilometers of development works. I’m hoping to come up with a design drawing.”

Five square kilometers… isn’t a small locality!

There was no need to be too eager to discuss the development works. Otherwise, there was always the danger of influencing negotiations on the price of future works.

Both men rode the elevator all the way to the sixth floor.

The entire room was very quiet, and one could only occasionally hear someone whispering something to others. Qin Ye had already earlier informed Sun Kangliang of the employee he was looking for, so Sun Kangliang immediately made a call as soon as they arrived on the sixth floor. Seconds later, a thin man with greying hair who was approximately fifty years old walked out of the office space.

“You must be Mr Qin, right? Mr Lin has already made mention of you.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette and gesticulated at the discussion room nearby, “Shall we talk over there? Please let us know what instructions you might have. We will fulfill it no matter how troublesome it might be.”

Qin Ye didn’t force the issue either. Sun Kangliang didn’t hide his intentions to curry favour with Qin Ye. Given the present era they were living in… Provincial capital Mount Tai City was still doing fine with relatively few reports of supernatural incidents. But that didn’t change the fact that everyone had a yardstick in their heart. Experts like Qin Ye were invaluable, while the drawing fee of several hundred thousands was simply money.

The group entered the discussion room. These were cubicle-type rooms with typical sofa sets placed before a tempered glass tea table, with pots of green plants around. It was simple, but effective. It couldn’t be described as exquisite, but it was far from being ugly.

Old Li pondered about it with furrowed brows. Several seconds later, he eased the tense expression on his face and responded, “It’s difficult… Let’s say we have ten thirty-storey buildings in each neighbourhood, each of which houses fifteen households per floor, with an average of three in each household, we’re talking about housing 13,500 persons in each neighbourhood. But… the total space occupied would span one hundred thousand square meters.”

“Why’s that?” Qin Ye furrowed his brows. He had wanted to construct a massive district once and for all. That way, he could shelf all issues pertaining to the exploding Yin spirit population for some time and revisit it only later on.

Wrong… Without the existence of the six paths of reincarnation, there was simply no way for Qin Ye to control the Yin spirits’ minds. As long as they retained the memories of their past lives, they would know frustration and exasperation. Under such circumstances, it would be considered decent if he could even motivate the Yin spirits to work two-thirds of the day. Therefore, he revised his estimate to completing the development of one neighbourhood in one year and four months.

How many Yin spirits enter Hell every year? And do I have to run everything by myself? Is the future Yama-King going to double up as a real estate agent now?

Old Li began to draw on the piece of paper once more, “Think about it. If everything was built up, where are the roads going to be? Roads are things that are commonly seen across all construction projects. But it is precisely because of their ubiquitous nature that most newbies end up taking them for granted and underestimating the amount of space to be allocated to such infrastructure. In practice, roads generally take up a third of the space in any development. This means that the final built up area will be a third smaller than the total land space available for development.”

Qin Ye mulled over these things. After a long time, he responded, “Then… what if I decide to construct everything like ancient cathayan buildings?”

Silence.

That’s right. He was considering whether to reestablish Hell with a mix of ancient cathayan architecture and modern day architecture. But he quickly disposed of that idea.

How could he just incorporate a modern high-rise building and destroy the homogeneity of the realm like that?

Ancient Cathay is ancient Cathay! That was the style that best represented Cathay after all! It was pointless to blindly pursue globalization. This was by no means just any other city on the ground. This was Hell - Cathay’s Hell! There was no need to vie for any rankings in terms of globalization efforts! Furthermore, if the former King Yanluo was able to construct Hell eons ago with the limited technology he had access to, Qin Ye refused to believe that he wasn’t able to do so with the aid of modern day technology!

Old Li deliberated for several moments before responding, “Four-storeys.”

Without further prompting from Qin Ye, he explained, “This is approximately the footprint of one of the larger buildings these days. When it comes to the ancient cathayan style, we need to pay particular attention to one thing - magnificence.”

“Why don’t antique decors look good in modern day homes? It’s because the modern day homes are too small.”

Then, almost as though filled with excitement, his pen strokes grew heavier, “Therefore, if I were to design a neighbourhood with that style in mind, a single floor of the building would house at best six to seven households. After all, the fundamental purpose of high-rise buildings is to maximize land use by housing the most number of people within the smallest amount of space. Unfortunately, such concepts have no place in the principles which undergird ancient cathayan architecture.”

He was now facing yet another huge problem.

If he wanted to pacify the citizens of Hell, the first thing he had to do was to construct his residential districts.

But given what Old Li had just mentioned, he… had no choice but to go down the path of a high-end boutique ancient cathayan residential development!

1. A legendary tower/pagoda in China that was built and destroyed twelve times since 223AD