Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Jiang Lai, and I am the last Head Priestess of Qiyun Shrine.

The shrine is pitifully small: one Main Hall, two side rooms, an old ginkgo tree in the backyard, and three stray cats that treat the place like a cafeteria. Offerings have been dried up for three months, and my bank balance has dwindled to four digits.

So, early this morning, I dragged out a small chalkboard and used chalk to scrawl a line of large, crooked characters.

“Qiyun Shrine Grand Reopening. Pray for romance and get a Protection Charm. Second one half off.”

But instead of an ancestor crawling out of the woodwork, someone actually moved in next door.

The man stood at my gate with a suitcase, his gray trench coat so clean it looked like it didn’t belong in this old alley. “Are you open?” he asked.

I immediately stood up straight. “We are. Romance, protection, academics, career-discounts available for bulk orders.”

His gaze fell on the small chalkboard. He paused for two seconds and then, surprisingly, gave a soft hum of acknowledgement.

“Can I pray for any wish?”

I rolled up my sleeves. “Sure. Start by telling me what you want.”

He looked at me, his expression almost excessively serious.

“I want to be a normal person.”

The courtyard suddenly fell silent.

Even the tabby licking its paws on the wall stopped and looked up at him.

I doubted my own ears. “What?”

“A normal person,” he repeated. “The kind who gets hungry, gets tired, gets sick, grows old, and dies.”

These days, I’ve seen people come to the shrine to pray for promotions, for sudden wealth, or for an ex to come back-but someone asking to be a normal person was a first.

I held it in for a long time before saying, “That wish of yours… is impressively back-to-basics.”

He didn’t seem to catch the teasing in my voice, only asked, “Can I pray for it?”

“You can pray for it, sure.” I handed him an Ema. “Whether it works is another story. The shrine’s been underperforming lately, so we don’t make any hard guarantees about results.”

He took it, his fingertips brushing the back of my hand-cold, not like a living person.

“Name?” I asked offhandedly.

“Li Jichuan.”

He held the pen and quietly wrote on the back of the Ema. I was about to sneak a peek, when the three cats suddenly all leapt off the wall and swarmed around his feet, meowing in unison.

I was still staring, dumbfounded, when he’d already flipped the Ema over and handed it to me.

Only one line was written on it.

“I wish that in this life, I shall no longer be a god.”

I stared at those words, and an unprovoked chill crawled up my spine.

That was when the wind suddenly picked up. The old Wind Chime in the corner of the yard rang out together with it, and even the incense ash on the altar lifted and fluttered.

I cleared my throat and forced myself to hang the Ema up. “Alright. Qiyun Shrine has accepted your request. As for whether it comes true-depends on whether you’ve been building up virtue in your day-to-day life.”

He lifted his head and actually smiled, just a little.

“It’s fine if it doesn’t work,” he said. “The fact that you were willing to take it is already enough.”

That evening, he put fifty yuan into the Donation Box, turned around, and went back next door.

It was my first offering in three months.

Clutching that fifty-yuan bill, I stood in the doorway and watched him for a long time, thinking this new neighbor might genuinely have something wrong with his head.

But that night, when thunder detonated overhead, I finally realized-the problem wasn’t his head.

It was where he came from.