Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Behind the colossal statue, it turned out, was an office.

Senior Leader sat behind it. His hair was half gray, his face thin and refined, the very picture of a standard intellectual.

“It’s not that I like it. It’s just…” I shook my head.

“It just feels kind of strange.”

“Strange how?”

“Gods can be beheaded too?”

He nodded slightly. “Naturally. Just like the title of this painting: Doom of the Gods.”

As if weighing his words, he slowly explained, “Even in myths, gods slaughter one another. After all, only the victor can seize the one true fruition.”

As he spoke, he leaned halfway out from behind the desk, his expression intent. “Look carefully. What else do you notice?”

Under his guidance, I looked at the painting again.

The colors were dark and gray. Even the blood spraying from the beheaded god was gray. But amid the vast, oppressive swaths of paint, there was a little girl dressed in red.

She was hiding behind a reef, like a single drop of blood splashed there.

He pointed at her. “It is worth noting that even during the Doom of the Gods, we humans still play an important role.

“After all, the god who attains fruition will lead the followers under His command to ascend to heaven with Him.”

Awed and confused, I said, “So?”

“So…”

Senior Leader’s gaze turned hard and cold. “Anyone who sabotages this war is a traitor to all humanity. People like that, we generally call…

“Sinners.”

He was speaking, but his eyes were fixed on me, as if I were the sinner he was talking about, the one who deserved to be cut to pieces.

Under that burning stare, I was beginning to feel at a loss.

Then Senior Leader suddenly laughed. “Don’t be nervous. It was a joke.”

Since he laughed, all I could do was force a laugh along with him.

He leaned back in his chair and asked me in a kindly tone, “By the way, the item I had Xiao Luo retrieve earlier-where did you put it?”

I froze for a moment before I remembered. He meant that divine statue.

Where had I put it?

Seeing that I couldn’t recall no matter how hard I tried, he gave a faint sigh.

“Xiao Su, have you watched the surveillance footage?”

I had to admit, that painting had dealt me a massive psychological blow. I was out of it the entire way home.

When I got back, the living room was lit with the same warm, dim yellow light as always. Pei Yu was still busy in the kitchen. Wisps of steaming vapor dampened his sleeves, revealing the faint lines of his arms.

That thick, ordinary warmth of daily life pulled me back to the human world in an instant.

I collapsed onto the sofa and couldn’t help complaining to him, “Maybe I need to see a therapist.”

Not far away, he answered.

“Mm.”

With that response, my mood improved considerably.

I was just about to make an appointment at a hospital when, in the next second, I received a call from an unknown number.

After I picked up, Senior Leader’s anxious voice came from the other end. “Xiao Su! You’re in great danger right now!”

“What?”

“I’ve watched the surveillance footage. You’re the one who took that statue away!”

How was that possible?

I denied it instinctively. “I didn’t!”

His voice rose. “Don’t rush to deny it! I’ll send you the video in a moment!

“But you must listen carefully to what I’m about to say!

“There are many bizarre things in this world that we cannot understand… They can affect our cognition through logic itself, making you feel that everything is perfectly reasonable!”

He spoke urgently and quickly. I knew every single word, but strung together, I couldn’t understand what he meant.

“No, what exactly are you trying to say?”

Senior Leader took a deep breath, then suddenly lowered his voice. “Xiao Su, I know all of this is hard to accept.

“How about this? Answer one question first…

“Has there been an extra person in your home recently?”

An extra person?

Pei Yu instantly came to mind.

Noticing my abrupt silence, Senior Leader pressed on. “Don’t you think that person is a little strange?”

Strange?

Now that I thought about it, he was.

For example, the steamed buns he made were always cold. For another, he always slept on the wall. And for another, he seemed never to have gone outside…

Wait. Slept on the wall?

Was that something a human could do?

At that thought, my heart lurched.

A chill shot straight up from the soles of my feet, and my heart nearly leaped out of my throat.

But the voice on the other end grew even more excited.

“You’ve realized it too, haven’t you?

“Don’t doubt it. I’m talking about him!

“He is that divine statue!”

I noticed that his way of referring to that strange thing had changed-from “he” to “He.”

Doubt had already taken root in my heart, but I still refused to admit it out loud.

“Why should I believe you?”

He sighed. “No matter what, you must hand Him over to us!”

The call was cut off.

Very soon, a surveillance video was sent over.

The footage showed me lifting the red gauze, glancing at the divine statue beneath it, and then, dazed and muddleheaded, stuffing it into my arms. After that, I brought it home.

That was why I, an atheist, had started worshiping a Bodhisattva of unknown origin.

Why I had enshrined “Him” on the wall.

Why I had stayed with “Him” day and night.

Why I had even used that money of unknown origin to gild “His” body in gold.

A strange, heavy pressure expanded outward from my heart, so intense it felt like it would tear my chest open.

Unable to control myself, I looked toward the kitchen. Wherever my gaze fell, the dim yellow light, the faint sound of water blanching, the rustle of steam, the footsteps pacing back and forth across the floor tiles…

All of it vanished in an instant.

The light. The mist. The sounds.

And the person who had been by my side all this time.