The King of Hell Says You Must Live Until the Third Watch [Infinite]

(Originally titled The King of Hell Has Arrived) Part 1: Yan Mi was an unremarkable recent college graduate, trying to transform into a new corporate drone. At the moment, she had zero job offers. Zero offers = no money. With no money, Yan Mi was facing the misery of finding a new place to live. To save money, she settled on an apartment with cheap rent because it was supposedly haunted. Yan Mi: A broke person has nothing to fear. Then she discovered there really was a ghost in the apartment. After being attacked, Yan Mi woke from a coma. Following a battle of wits between a broke person and a real ghost, she discovered that her zero job offers had turned into one offer: she might have found a new career path. Yan Mi asked her new partner and subordinate, "How about we start a fortune-telling business?" Partner and subordinate: "...That won't work. Is the King of Hell going to tell people exactly when they'll die?!" Part 2: In Sanskrit, the King of Hell means "two," because the King and Queen of Hell rule the world of ghosts together. The King governs male ghosts, and the Queen governs female ghosts. She is the "queen" who rules over female ghosts. He handles men's affairs, while she handles women's, hence the name "Two Kings." Over the passing years, order in the Yellow Springs remained unchanged, and there was no longer any need for constant watch. So the two rulers of the Yellow Springs went to sleep, Ox-Head and Horse-Face traveled the world, and Zhong Kui and Meng Po wandered among the living. * At some point, a crack appeared in the boundary between life and death in the human world. Anyone who strayed into it would enter another strange and uncanny world, which humans called the [Otherworld]. The Otherworld teemed with bizarre things, and life and death were unpredictable. People were captured by it, countless lives were lost, and those who survived struggled to escape. Then someone appeared. She brought a strange black cat and went around hawking her services: "Want your fortune told? If the King of Hell says you'll die at the third watch, you won't live to see the fifth! Let me tell you when you'll die." ...Is that supposed to be a nice thing to say? Everyone else: Get lost! Then, amid all the complaints and jeers, she shut down the Otherworld. Yan Mi: Sigh, I barely made any money again. Everyone else: Why can she get rid of every ghost?!! Yan Mi: I'm not getting rid of them. I'm just sending them back into the cycle of reincarnation. Everyone else: ...Is that a warning?! It has to be a warning! ...Fine, I'll get my fortune told. Master, I'll take one reading. Later, everyone realized that as long as a certain fortune-telling master was around, hardly anyone died in the Otherworld, unless they had offended her. Yan Mi: Deaths that aren't part of the plan are forbidden, and those who are meant to die must not be allowed to escape it. Reader's guide: 1. I don't know what warnings to give yet. Hope you enjoy reading. 2. There are countless books on JJ. If it's not for you, just switch to another one. Original blurb: 2020.05.26; blurb added and revised: 2026.2.24; blurb revised again: 2026.4.26 Theme: What goes around comes around.