So, Who is Zhong Kui?- [Black Myth: Zhong Kui] -黑神话：钟馗

Well, they’ve done it again. 

Game Science, the studio behind Black Myth: Wukong, just dropped a teaser for their next game: Black Myth: Zhong Kui. If you haven't seen it, go watch the video. 

TRAILER: BLACK MYTH | ZHONG KUI

A couple of lowlifes hiding out, their hushed conversation cut short by the earth-shaking tread of something massive. Peeking out, they see two colossal, ogre-like demons hauling an enormous sword. Following them, astride a monstrous tiger, is the man himself. 

So, who the hell is he?

Music: Destiny

Zhong Kui, the Demon Queller.

Zhong Kui is the King of Ghosts in the Chinese mythological pantheon. His origin is a story of profound injustice. He was a mortal scholar of supreme intellect who achieved the highest possible score in the imperial examinations. This rank, the Zhuangyuan 状元, was the pinnacle of academic achievement. When presented to the emperor, however, he was denied this honor solely because of his grotesque appearance. 

In response to this rejection, Zhong Kui took his own life at the palace steps. Extremely enraged, Zhong Kui died by suicide by continually hurling himself against the palace gates until his head was broken. 

His story did not conclude with his death. In the underworld, the celestial bureaucracy and its judge, Yanluo Wang, recognized the waste of his talent and the righteousness of his grievance. He was given a posthumous commission: the title of Demon Queller. His role became the hunting and subjugation of all malevolent spirits, for which he was given command over a legion of 80,000 demons.

The popularization of his cult grew during the Tang Dynasty. A story concerning Emperor Xuanzong recounts the emperor suffering from a malady. He dreamt of a large ghost capturing and consuming a smaller, troublesome demon. The larger ghost named himself as Zhong Kui. Upon waking, the emperor found his illness had passed. He commanded his court painter, Wu Daozi, to create a portrait of the entity from his dream. This image was then used as a protective talisman, establishing a tradition of placing images of Zhong Kui on gates and doors to ward off evil.

The iconography in the teaser is consistent with his mythology. The demons are his servants. Of the man, the legend himself? His expression is one of forbidding grimness. An educated guess based on the narrative pattern established from Black Myth Wukong itself (and its treatment of Wukong, Bajie, Erlang Shen etc) is that Zhong Kui's story will be recontextualized and he would be given great amount of agency in this new retelling so we see things from his perspective- or take on a role of a figure that will get close to him and found out the full picture of what we traditionally (thought) we knew.

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