Chapter 1

An Ping checked the address in his hand one more time. He genuinely suspected he’d gotten the location wrong.

“Uncle, could I ask you something?” He stood there hesitating for a long while before finally seeking help. “Do you know where No. 3, West Street is?”

“No. 3? Isn’t it right behind you, a little to your left?” The older man pointed at the building across the street. “It’s a huge place! You’re a young lad. How come your eyesight’s so bad?”

An Ping was dumbfounded. The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them. “But that’s the City God Temple!”

“Exactly! The City God Temple on West Street!” The old man gave him a strange look. Noticing An Ping’s school uniform, he paused. “Young man, are you from No. 1 High School? Haven’t classes ended yet?”

“No, the school’s on holiday for a couple of days.” An Ping hurried to explain. “My teacher asked me to deliver some homework to a classmate. He’s been sick recently and hasn’t come to class.” He raised the bag in his hand. It was stuffed full of white sheets, a whole bundle of misery and gloom—all exam papers.

An Ping was the class study representative. Helping a classmate deliver homework was perfectly reasonable. He’d asked for the address online, arranged a time with the person, and hurried over when the appointed time came. Yet the moment he saw the entrance, he’d been left staring in disbelief.

Who on earth lived in a City God Temple these days?

It was now six-thirty in the evening. Normally, classes wouldn’t have ended yet at this hour, which explained why the old man had been looking him over. Perhaps he’d seen plenty of students skipping class to play online games, but never one skipping class to burn incense.

The old man glanced at the exam papers inside the bag. “No wonder. I thought you were carrying a bag of offerings.”

“Not at all, not at all.” An Ping gave an awkward laugh.

Using the B edition of the Wu San exam-preparation books as offerings? Even the gods would probably throw up blood.

“No. 3, West Street. You’ve got the right place.” The old man pointed at the City God Temple’s entrance. “Hurry up and go in. They’ll be closing soon.” Then, looking a little puzzled, he added, “Your classmate lives here? Is your classmate a monk or something?”

An Ping had no idea whether his classmate lived here, let alone whether he chanted sutras…

Seeing that the conversation was drifting further and further off course, he laughed it off. “Thank you, Uncle! I’ll be going now!”

With that, he hurried across the road.

Standing in front of the imposing entrance, An Ping considered the situation from every angle. In the end, he decided to go inside.

Forget it. I already made an appointment. I can’t just go back on my word. I’ll go in and have a look first.

The next second, a head popped out from the ticket booth.

“Tickets for visitors! Fifty yuan each.”

An Ping: “…”

Wait a minute. Tickets to Lingyin Temple only cost thirty yuan, didn’t they, bro?

An Ping stared at the dilapidated entrance in disbelief. The red paint was peeling off in flakes, and the center was plastered with little advertisements for drain cleaning, cheap lock-picking services, and hemorrhoid remedies. And why on earth did he have to buy a ticket just to deliver someone’s homework?

“Are you going in or not? If you don’t, we’re closing for the day.” The ticket seller wore a red armband and launched straight into a rapid-fire sales pitch. “Tickets are fifty yuan! You can’t lose at this price! This temple is several hundred years old. You could chip off a brick and it’d still be worth every penny…”

An Ping really didn’t want to listen to a ticket seller expound on the latest path to wealth and prosperity. But since he’d already come this far, he could only grit his teeth and take out his money.

“May I ask your surname, sir?”

With a sales pitch like that, working as a ticket seller was a waste of his talents. He was born for marketing.

“Ah, I’m just making a living. Scanning a QR code or paying cash?” The ticket seller briskly tore off a ticket and patted the staff badge on his chest. “My surname is Huang. Huang Niu.”

Huang Niu—literally “yellow ox,” but also slang for a scalper who resells tickets at inflated prices.

Well, An Ping thought as he clutched the overpriced ticket in his hand, that certainly made him a scalper.

In a daze, An Ping made his way inside.

Although the City God Temple had a long history, it had neither ancient relics nor any particularly famous legends associated with it. It was practically just an old, dangerously dilapidated building. The courtyard only really came alive during the annual temple fair.

Now, however, the entire courtyard was quiet. A huge ginkgo tree stood in the center.

There was no one around. An Ping immediately felt as though he’d been tricked. But considering how bizarre the entire situation was, perhaps it would have been stranger if he hadn’t been tricked.

He tentatively called out twice.

“Mu… Mu, are you here?”

As expected, no one answered.

An Ping let out a sigh of relief. The anxiety that had been hanging over him finally eased.

To be honest, he really hadn’t wanted to deliver this homework today.

Or rather, he hadn’t dared to.

He was the class study representative, and he got along well with people. He was used to helping his classmates out, so delivering some homework shouldn’t have been a big deal.

The problem was the classmate who had taken sick leave—the person he’d been calling “Mu.”

Mu Geshen. The school bully of No. 1 High School.

Most of what An Ping knew about him came from rumors. He’d repeated three years, had been blessed with exceptional looks and fighting skills, yet had a terrible academic record and poor health. His greatest talents were getting into fights and taking sick leave.

An Ping had heard about Mu Geshen when he first enrolled. They should have been two people who would never have crossed paths, but Mu Geshen had repeated grades so many times that it was practically a legendary feat. Somehow, they’d ended up in the same class.

Three months into the school year, An Ping had barely seen Mu Geshen. He rarely attended classes and was almost perpetually on sick leave, like one of those traveling frogs that disappeared on endless trips.

No. 1 High School was a key provincial school with extremely strict rules. Getting the homeroom teacher to approve a leave slip was harder than getting them to sign an IOU. An Ping had never seen anyone manage to take three consecutive months off before.

During that time, he’d seen Mu Geshen only twice.

The first time, Mu Geshen had been sitting in the very last row, sleeping so deeply that the world could have ended without waking him. When he finally woke up in the afternoon, he was buried beneath a mountain of exam papers. The commotion he made was practically an avalanche.

The second time was at the school gate, where An Ping had stumbled upon Mu Geshen in the middle of a group fight.

It had been raining heavily that day. An Ping had stayed late to ask a teacher some questions and was walking home when he spotted Mu Geshen standing near the school gate in the distance. His school uniform was tied around his waist, and a pile of people lay sprawled at his feet.

An Ping was too far away to be noticed. Mu Geshen apparently hadn’t seen him.

He watched as Mu Geshen picked up several schoolbags from the ground, opened them to check inside, then tossed them aside. At first, An Ping thought the guy was searching for something.

But in the end, Mu Geshen simply took an umbrella, then pulled out a can of Coke. He popped the tab with a sharp pssst.

An Ping was an honest student who devoted himself to his studies. Normally, whenever he heard words like school bully, he chose to steer clear.

But that day, standing in the rain, he’d found himself lost in thought for a while.

Compared with a passionate, torturous love affair with conic sections, getting into a group fight did seem a little cooler.

…On the condition that you ignored the giant Hello Kitty printed on the umbrella.

An Ping had only seen Mu Geshen twice, so he really had no idea what this legendary school bully was actually like. He didn’t dare refuse to deliver the homework, yet he didn’t particularly want to deliver it, either. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have spent ages dawdling around outside the City God Temple without even calling to ask what was going on, only to end up buying an overpriced fifty-yuan ticket like a complete sucker.

He had the willingness, but not the courage.

Delivering homework to the school bully—homework without even an answer key—was probably even more absurd than offering the B edition of Wu San to the City God.

Mu Geshen probably couldn’t be bothered to deal with him. Perhaps he’d just taken a whim and decided to mess with him for a bit. If they never met, that would probably be the best possible outcome An Ping could hope for.

The sun was about to set, and there really wasn’t anything worth seeing in the City God Temple. I’ll just treat this as a little stroll, An Ping thought.

He was holding the bag and preparing to leave when he heard a door in the side corridor creak open.

A sleepy voice drifted out.

“An Ping?”

An Ping jolted. He turned to look at the person behind him but didn’t dare answer.

The other person seemed to have just woken up. He wore a pair of flip-flops, held an enamel mug in one hand, and had a cervical neck pillow caught around his neck. Noticing An Ping staring at him, he yawned and nodded.

At No. 1 High School, Mu Geshen was famous for four things: his looks, his fighting skills, his sick leave, and his repeated grades. His looks ranked first. Despite having repeated three years, he had also managed to retain the title of school heartthrob for six consecutive years.

An Ping had been single since birth and didn’t really understand girls’ tastes. The person standing before him looked half-asleep, dressed like a retired government official, with hair as messy as a bird’s nest. But if they were judging purely by his face, then yes, he really was very handsome.

“Sorry about that. I was sleeping too deeply and didn’t hear you…” Mu Geshen said a couple of sentences, but An Ping didn’t react. “Class rep?”

“Huh? Ah, I’m listening!” An Ping snapped back to attention, looking rather surprised. “You know I’m the class rep?”

“We’re classmates. What’s so strange about that?” Mu Geshen said. “I’ve even seen you cooking malatang in class.”

An Ping’s face turned bright red.

He’d lost a bet with his deskmate and had agreed to help the idiot sneak food during self-study period. Unfortunately, the guy had somehow obtained a self-heating hotpot. The whole classroom had filled with its delicious aroma, and in the end, both of them had been kicked out by their homeroom teacher.

“D-don’t, don’t! Stop right there!” He hurriedly changed the subject and handed over the bag. “The teacher asked me to bring this to you. We have a couple of days off, so there’s quite a lot of homework.”

“Thanks.” Mu Geshen took the bag and glanced inside. “Whoa. Two days’ worth of homework is more than I get from a whole month of sick leave.”

An Ping had wanted to say, You’ve got even more in your desk… but swallowed the words before they could escape.

Then he watched as Mu Geshen walked into the incense hall and gave the bag a casual shake. The exam papers came fluttering out and landed straight in the merit box.

An Ping stared in shock.

What on earth is this guy doing?

“Donating merit, of course.” Mu Geshen seemed to have read his mind. He spoke with exaggerated theatricality. “This is a City God with class. Even the incense offerings are infused with the fragrance of knowledge.”

An Ping had no energy to criticize his recital-like delivery.

“No, but, Mu, this is homework…”

He stopped halfway through his sentence. Forget it. Trying to explain homework to a school bully was like trying to teach mathematics to Thanos.

“Since you’re already here, want to offer a stick of incense?” Mu Geshen asked.

Unlike the aloof and distant impression he usually gave off, he was relaxed and casual, seemingly not difficult to get along with at all.

“It’s a temple that’s been around for hundreds of years, after all. You might as well make the most of your visit. They charge an entrance fee whenever you come in normally.”

An Ping was at a loss for words. “I already paid the entrance fee. Fifty yuan.”

Mu Geshen blinked. “Student tickets are half-price.”

An Ping: “…”

“You probably got ripped off by a scalper.” Seeing An Ping’s expression, Mu Geshen burst out laughing. “How about this? I’ll give you a stick of incense for free. The City God oversees a hundred lifetimes of human affairs. You can pray for anything you want. You won’t lose out.”

Mu Geshen brought over some incense.

On the altar in the main hall stood a clay statue of the City God. Its face showed neither joy nor sorrow, and most of the painted colors had peeled away, leaving it looking battered and destitute, full of holes and scars.

An Ping muttered inwardly, thinking he’d just make a casual wish for academic success.

Then he heard a sharp clink beside him.

Mu Geshen had somehow produced several coins and was tossing them in his hand.

“Sincerity makes prayers come true,” he declared with absolute conviction. “You just threw in so many exam papers. The City God must have heard you loud and clear.”

There were so many things wrong with that statement that An Ping silently closed his eyes in despair. Still, he thought carefully for a moment and made a sincere wish.

Before he could even open his eyes, Mu Geshen suddenly asked, “Class rep, whose safety did you pray for?”

An Ping jumped. “How do you know what I wished for?”

“I calculated it.” Mu Geshen pointed at the few coins on the offering table. “At first, you wanted to pray for academic success. Why did you change it to praying for someone’s safety?”

Calculated it? An Ping’s mind filled with a stampede of wild horses. How? By plugging numbers into trigonometric formulas?

“Don’t panic. I don’t eat children.” Mu Geshen pointed at the three sticks of incense in the burner. “The middle one snapped cleanly in half. That’s a terrible omen. Your face looks quite auspicious, so this kind of incense shouldn’t have burned that way. Whose safety did you pray for?”

“Why don’t you calculate it yourself?”

“I’m not a god.” Mu Geshen waved a hand. “If you don’t want to tell me, fine. But I recommend finding someone to take a look at your situation. This temple has all sorts of problems. Its good omens might not be accurate, but its bad omens are definitely reliable.”

This was the first time An Ping had encountered something like this. His immediate reaction was disbelief, so he answered casually, “Find what kind of person? A fortune-teller? The city’s been cracking down on street vendors lately. The fortune-tellers who used to set up stalls have long since disappeared. Do you have anyone to recommend?”

“I do.” Mu Geshen pointed at himself. “Me.”

An Ping: “…”

Honestly, if Mu Geshen’s last two statements hadn’t been so uncannily accurate, An Ping would have thought the school bully had lost his mind. He had a perfectly human face, yet he couldn’t say a single sensible thing.

“I’m not going to ask anything unnecessary. It’s not as if I’m asking you to let me copy your homework.” Mu Geshen handed him the coins he’d been holding. There were seven fifty-cent coins.

“How about this? Try tossing them a few times.”

An Ping looked down at the three yuan fifty in his hand. “What does this mean?”

“The wish you just made was a very ominous one. Something unclean might have attached itself to you. If you toss coins now, your luck will definitely be terrible.” Mu Geshen gestured for him to throw them. “Go ahead. Every single toss will land tails.”