Death Knocks on Hell’s Door Chapter 62

Chapter 62 Birthday

Yanluo didn’t like Western pastries. They were too sweet and cloying for his taste. So when Thanatos refused the birthday cake, Yanluo simply passed it on to Cupid from Room 202 downstairs, much to the little guy’s delight. As for the rest of the desserts on the table, Yanluo wasn’t particularly eager to eat them either. But wasting food went against Chinese traditional values. Worried that the little reaper might get sick of all the sweets, he took some back from him.

He hadn’t expected to make the little reaper angry.

He even learned how to block people now.

Yanluo found it both amusing and exasperating.

Did he have to be this cute?

At that moment, Thanatos had just blocked Yanluo, only to regret it the very next second.

Because of Yanluo’s “I thought we were already friends” statement, he had started to think of Yanluo as a friend too. That was why those words had stung. Acting on impulse, he had deleted Yanluo from his contacts.

But he had forgotten that Yanluo wasn’t just a friend. He was also his sponsor and landlord.

How could he afford to offend his sponsor?

Blocking him online didn’t change the fact that they would still run into each other in real life. There was no avoiding that. And if Yanluo truly got mad and cut off their arrangement, Thanatos would be left homeless. He’d have to sleep on the streets, under bridges, or on park benches, reduced to a wandering god.

Thanatos let out a silent sigh.

As expected, emotions cost money.

He never should have acted on impulse. Keeping his distance would have prevented all of this. The moment he started wanting more, disappointment inevitably followed.

Would it still be possible to quietly remove Yanluo from his blacklist before he noticed? Thanatos prayed that Yanluo hadn’t realized yet.

Knock, knock—

Thanatos’ hand trembled, his phone slipping from his fingers onto the bed.

Had Yanluo already discovered he’d been blocked? Was he here to demand an explanation?

What should he do?

His mind came up blank. His nonexistent experience in social interactions offered him no guidance for handling a situation like this.

It was do or die. There was no escaping this.

Resigned to his fate, Thanatos opened the door.

Yanluo stood outside, holding a bag of food. As soon as he stepped inside, he said, “Little Reaper, I’m sorry. Here, have your desserts back. Eating them will help you cool off, okay?”

Yanluo’s tone was like that of a parent coaxing a sulking child.

Thanatos froze.

He had expected Yanluo to come demanding an explanation, not to apologize.

Lowering his gaze, Thanatos felt most of his anger dissipate, leaving a little sullen unhappiness.

He had apologized. That was already more than enough.

Humans had never once apologized to Thanatos. To them, the God of Death was the embodiment of evil, deserving of scorn and hatred.

His fondness for Yanluo grew, little by little.

But he still wasn’t completely happy.

After all, he had been sincerely offering his blessings.

Suppressing his frustration, Thanatos turned his emotions into appetite. He sat down and ate in silence.

But even the sweetness of the desserts couldn’t wash away the bitterness of being misunderstood.

Being misjudged by the world was nothing new. He had long accepted that it would never change. But this time, the misunderstanding came from Yanluo, the friend he had only just acknowledged. He really couldn’t bear this grievance.

Yanluo watched as the little reaper devoured his food, barely holding back a smile. “I gave you your desserts back, so can you add me back now?”

Thanatos continued eating in silence, ignoring him.

If he was going to unblock him, it would have to wait until he finished eating. His anger hadn’t completely subsided yet.

Seeing no response, Yanluo chuckled. “Still mad? I didn’t even get upset that you cursed—”

Before he could finish, Thanatos abruptly stopped eating. The anger that had just calmed down flared up once again.

He lifted his head and looked straight at Yanluo. “I did not curse you.”

Thanatos believed his tone had been accusatory and resentful.

But to Yanluo, his voice was impossibly soft, brimming with grievance.

It tugged at his heartstrings.

Thanatos was so used to being quiet that he probably didn’t even know how to raise his voice. What he imagined to be a tiger’s roar was, in reality, the mewling of a kitten just learning to cry.

Yanluo’s heart melted on the spot.

The hurt in his expression didn’t look fake. Thinking it over, Yanluo realized that as a foreign god, Thanatos might not understand the inappropriateness of the phrase “a long life of a hundred years.”

Cultural Ambassador Yan Luo immediately adopted a serious tone for teaching and earnestly explained. “Little Reaper, you probably don’t know this, but while long life to a hundred years can be a birthday wish, it’s usually said to children. In China, when we celebrate an elderly person’s birthday, we use blessings like “may your fortune be as vast as the Eastern Sea” or “may your longevity rival the Southern Mountains.” Just think about it, wishing a one-hundred-year old person ‘a long life of a hundred years’ is like cursing them to die soon, isn’t it?”

Yanluo continued, “I’m tens of thousands of years old, so old that even I can’t remember my exact age. When you wished me a long life to a hundred years, weren’t you basically saying I’ve already lived too long?”

Thanatos was stunned.

……Was that really how it worked?

If that was the case…… then he really had chosen his words poorly. Yanluo hadn’t misunderstood him. It was him who misunderstood Yanluo.

“I’m sorry,” Thanatos murmured.

“It’s not your fault, Little Reaper,” Yanluo said. “The Chinese language is vast and complex. It’s normal to use it incorrectly. Besides, today isn’t even my birthday. The cake was just meant to be eaten, nothing more. I’ve been around for so long that I don’t even remember when I was born.”

Thanatos: “……”

So he had been wrong again.

How many times could one die of social embarrassment in a single day?

Thanatos wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

“But,” Yanluo added, the corners of his lips curving into a smile, his voice warm as a spring breeze, “I still appreciate your blessing. Living too long has its downsides. I’ve long forgotten my own birthday, and it’s been ages since anyone wished me a happy one.”

Yanluo decided on the spot. “How about this? Since I’ve long forgotten my real birthday, from now on, today shall be my birthday. Let it commemorate the day I received birthday wishes from Little Reaper.”

As he spoke, the Judge’s Brush materialized in his hand. With a single stroke, he inscribed a new entry into the Book of Life and Death:

October 1st – Birth of Yanluo, King of Hell.

Golden threads of karmic power flowed across the page, turning ink into reality. From this moment forward, Yanluo’s birthdate was officially recognized by the Heavenly Dao of the East.

Thanatos stood frozen.

His embarrassment faded, replaced by disbelief and a faint palpitation in his chest.

Barring accidents, gods were immortal, and the day of a god’s birth was the most important day in a god’s life.

And yet, because of a simple happy birthday from him, Yanluo had really set his birthday to today?

Wasn’t that…… a little too impulsive?

A casual remark he had thrown out without a second thought had now become something meaningful.

“Little Reaper, as it happens, today is also China’s National Day. You picked a great day for me.” Yanluo set down his brush. Looking at the newly written words, he smiled. “An entire nation celebrates.”

“What about you, Little Reaper?” Yanluo asked. “You celebrated my birthday, so I should celebrate yours too. When is it?”

Thanatos shook his head.

He hadn’t forgotten. He just didn’t want to say.

As a second-generation god, he might have looked young, but in truth, he was tens of thousands of years old, older even than the third-generation god, Poseidon.

In the beginning, when gods first created humans, they were granted immortality. But in time, humans began to see themselves as equals to the gods, even daring to overthrow and replace them. Their defiance incurred divine wrath, and their fate was rewritten. From that moment on, death came into existence, and Thanatos was born.

The other gods stood high above, looking down upon humanity as insignificant insects. But Thanatos walked among mortals every day, witnessing their joys and sorrows, their fleeting triumphs and inevitable losses. In the end, it was the God of Death who empahatized with them the most.

His birth marked the beginning of human suffering. That was why no one worshipped him, no one offered sacrifices in his name, and no one celebrated his birth.

Thanatos himself also believed that his birth was nothing to celebrate, anyway. It was not an important matter.

The only reason he even remembered was because he had a twin, Hypnos, the God of Sleep. They were born on the same day, both ruling over the end of human life. But while sleep was gentle, death was feared. The God of Sleep could also give humans beautiful dreams, so he was very popular with humans.

On their birthday, humans would make offerings to Hypnos, thanking him for the gift of peaceful slumber. Thanatos, on the other hand, received nothing.

Although Hypnos always shared his offerings with him, Thanatos knew that they had never been meant for him.

Yanluo asked, “You forgot too?”

“My birthday isn’t worth celebrating,” Thanatos replied quietly.

“How could it not be? The birth of all things carries meaning. It deserves to be celebrated.”

Thanatos fell silent.

Does my birth have meaning?

He thought back to the ten years he had been imprisoned by Sisyphus, and the chaos that had unfolded on earth in his absence.

Yes, it did have meaning. That was when he had truly understood his purpose, the reason he continued to carry out his duty without fail.

But…… was that something worth celebrating?

Thanatos wasn’t sure. He had never celebrated his birthday before.

But Yanluo had said he would celebrate it for him.

A strange, unfamiliar anticipation stirred in his chest. After a long pause, he finally gave in. “October 15th.”

Yanluo’s eyes curved into a smile. “Then our birthdays are pretty close.”

They finished the last of the desserts together. Maybe it was the warmth of the moment, or maybe it was the lingering joy in his heart, but Thanatos found that the sweets tasted even better than when they were freshly bought that afternoon.

When Yanluo returned to his room, Thanatos pulled out his phone and quietly removed him from the blacklist.

Aside from that, there were two new notifications.

Fan Wujiu and Xie Bian had sent him friend requests through the apartment’s group chat.

Thanatos knew they were the Black and White Impermanence of China, responsible for guiding souls to the underworld. They lived downstairs in Room 201. He had seen them around before.

But he was never good at making conversation, so they had never spoken.

Still, since they had taken the initiative online, it would be rude to ignore them.

Thanatos tapped Accept.

No message came right away.

He wasn’t sure how to start a conversation, so instead, he scrolled through their Moments feed to get a preliminary understanding of the Black and White Impermanence.

Yanluo rarely posted anything, so his feed was completely empty.

But the Black and White Impermanence’s pages were lively, filled with endless photos of the two of them together.

The pictures were intimate. They were holding hands, hugging, or kissing. There was even one of Bai Wuchang sleeping peacefully, a faint kiss mark visible on his pale neck. Judging from the angle, it was undoubtedly Hei Wuchang who had taken the photo.

They looked like a young couple in love.

Bai Wuchang’s posts were fairly normal. But Hei Wuchang was utterly shameless, a hopelessly obsessed husband.

Out of every ten posts, eight were selfies of the two of them together.

The remaining two?

“Xiao Bai isn’t home. I miss him.”

Thanatos: “……”

He scrolled in reverse order. The older photos were at least a little less intimate, but they were still all selfies, selfies, and more selfies of the two.

Although cameras and smartphones were relatively recent inventions, gods had their own ways of preserving images. Now that they had phones, they could transfer those memories into their Moments feed, arranging them in chronological order as if they had always been there.

Thanatos had no intention of eating dog food and was about to exit when he suddenly saw a piece of text.

Yue Fei, born in the second year of Chongning during the Northern Song Dynasty, died in the twelfth year of Shaoxing during the Southern Song Dynasty. A brilliant military strategist and an undefeated general of the Yue Army, he was a hero in the resistance against the Jin Dynasty. Falsely accused by the corrupt Qin Hui and a cowardly emperor, he was wrongfully executed in prison. When we came to take his soul, we asked if he had any regrets.

Yue Fei replied: “I regret that the Humiliation of Jingkang remains unavenged. The traitors live, the enemy still stands, and the people still suffer. I only wish to serve my country again in my next life.”

Lao Hei and I bowed deeply before him. We, too, were born in the Song Dynasty and have always respected him. King Yan granted him an audience, and in his next life, he shall be a hero once more.

But I felt sorrow and anger. Why must good people suffer unjust ends? Why must their lives be cut short before their wishes are fulfilled? I didn’t want to take him.

However, the world is impermanent, and not everything can be perfect. As the embodiment of impermanence, I should understand this.

Thanatos scrolled further.

Li Qingzhao, born in the seventh year of Yuanfeng during the Northern Song Dynasty, died in the twenty-sixth year of Shaoxing during the Southern Song Dynasty. She was a renowned poetess, unmatched in talent.

She lived a life of turmoil, wandering from place to place. On a drizzly day, she passed away alone in her home. When we came to take her soul, she asked, “Is my husband, Zhao Mingcheng, well in the afterlife?”

I checked the Book of Life and Death and replied, “He has already reincarnated. He has yet to marry. Perhaps you may reunite in your next life.”

Then she urged us to hurry. She could not wait to see him again. I understood her. After all, when Lao Hei died, I couldn’t bear to wait either. May they find each other again and never part.

Thanatos paused.

He continued scrolling.

Beyond the endless selfies, the Impermanence Immortals’ feed was filled with records of their work. Many of the names were familiar to Thanatos. He had read many Chinese books, so he knew these were figures who had left their mark in history. When he read about their life stories, he still felt pity and injustice. If he had personally come into contact with them, he would not know how much more unbearable these feelings would be.

These were not just names in ink, but also souls that have been summoned by impermanence.

They had once lived. They had once bled.

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