Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Li Jichuan had a very strange way of sweeping the floor.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how; he was just too serious about it.

I had never seen anyone sweep fallen leaves with such a solemn sense of ritual, as if he were performing a sacrifice to the heavens. Three cats circled around him like inspectors.

Leaning against the corridor while sipping soy milk, I watched him for two minutes before I couldn’t help but speak up. “If you keep sweeping like that, I’m going to think your next step is to perform a funeral rite for them.”

Li Jichuan paused his movements and looked back at me. “Didn’t you say I had to work to pay off my debt?”

“I didn’t say you had to sweep the leaves with such a sense of karmic merit.”

He didn’t seem to understand. He lowered his head and swept again.

I suddenly felt like laughing.

Yesterday, this man looked like he was on the verge of death, yet today he was honestly working as a laborer at my place.

At ten in the morning, I wiped the small blackboard again and propped it up by the entrance.

Li Jichuan stood to the side, watching.

“Pray for romance, get a free Protection Charm,” he read aloud slowly. “Second one half off.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Do shrines also do ‘buy one, get one’ discounts?”

“Would you rather pay my rent for me?”

He fell silent.

I clapped my hands in satisfaction. Just as I was about to head back to draw a few more Protection Charms, the sound of a child crying suddenly came from the entrance.

I looked up and saw Xiaoman from the neighboring alley standing at the gate, wiping away tears, her nose red from crying.

“Sister Jiang Lai, my Nian Gao is missing.”

Nian Gao was the orange cat she raised. It was as fat as an orange rice ball and had even come to my place to steal dried fish a couple of days ago.

I quickly knelt down. “When did he go missing?”

“Last night,” Xiaoman sobbed. “I searched for so long. Mommy said he probably ran away on his own, but he never goes that far.”

She looked like she was about to cry again. Clutching a piggy bank in her arms, she added in a small voice, “I have money. Can I make a request here?”

My heart softened instantly.

This was likely the first official client since Qiyun Shrine reopened.

Before I could decide how to respond, Li Jichuan had already walked over from behind me. He didn’t kneel; he just glanced at Xiaoman and then at the empty cat bowl in the corner of the yard.

“He hasn’t gone far,” he said.

I was stunned. “How do you know?”

“The sound of a bell.”

“There’s no bell…”

I stopped mid-sentence.

It was very quiet outside the courtyard, but when I settled down to listen closely, there was indeed a very, very faint tinkling sound drifting from the back alley.

Li Jichuan had already turned to head toward the back.

I quickly pulled Xiaoman along to follow him.

At the end of the back alley was an abandoned tool shed. The door was half-ajar, and the inside was pitch black. As soon as Xiaoman called out “Nian Gao,” a thin meow immediately came from inside.

The orange cat was indeed there.

But he hadn’t hidden in there on his own; his leg was caught by an old wooden plank. Next to him was a collapsed iron rack that would come crashing down if he moved even slightly.

Just as I was about to step forward, Li Jichuan reached out and stopped me.

“Don’t rush.”

His voice was very low, as if he were afraid of startling something. In the next second, those precariously balanced planks seemed to be propped up by a light breeze, unexpectedly shifting an inch to the side. I took the chance to crawl in and pull Nian Gao out.

Xiaoman cried as she hugged the cat, her tears and snot rubbing all over my clothes.

“Thank you, Sister. Thank you, Brother.”

I looked down to check Nian Gao’s leg; it wasn’t anything serious. Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Li Jichuan suddenly looked at the cat in Xiaoman’s arms and asked something bizarre.

“Did you secretly make a wish last night?”

Xiaoman froze, her eyes darting away guiltily.

“I… I just said one thing. I hoped Mommy and Daddy would stop fighting. If they were still going to fight, I wanted Nian Gao to take them both away for me, so they wouldn’t fight at home.”

As she spoke, her voice grew smaller and smaller.

Only then did I realize what had happened.

A child’s wishes are the most direct, and also the easiest to go astray. Nian Gao had likely heard her crying in the middle of the night and slipped out through the window on his own.

Li Jichuan looked down at the cat, his expression somewhat faint.

“He went in your place,” he said. “But that’s not how you make a wish.”

Xiaoman sniffled. “Then how should I wish?”

I knelt down and patted her head.

“Wish for something that others can actually achieve,” I said. “For example, hope that Mommy and Daddy can speak nicely to each other today. Or, hope that you have the courage to tell them that you don’t like it when they fight.”

Xiaoman thought about it and nodded.

After returning to the shrine, I drew her a very ugly cat-paw Protection Charm. She stuffed all twenty yuan from her piggy bank into the Donation Box. When she left carrying Nian Gao, she even turned back to wave at us.

The sound of the money falling into the box was a crisp, clear clink.

I stared at that twenty yuan, almost crying like a loser.

“See that?” I patted the Donation Box. “This shrine is officially open for business today.”

Li Jichuan stood nearby, his gaze falling on that cat-paw Protection Charm.

“You clearly didn’t use any spells,” he said.

“Who told you a shrine can only rely on spells?”

“Then why is she at peace?”

I thought about it and answered honestly.

“Because someone heard that she was sad.”

The courtyard fell silent for a few seconds.

Li Jichuan didn’t say anything else, but when he put the broom back against the wall, his movements were much gentler.

When I closed up for the evening, I found a carton of warm milk next to the Donation Box.

I didn’t need to ask to know who put it there.

Carrying that carton of milk, I suddenly felt that taking in a god might not be such a bad deal after all.