Chapter 1

On a hiking trip, we spent the night in a temple. At midnight, intimate sounds from my best friend and my boyfriend woke me.

I sat up quietly and listened.

“You’re the clever one, using a hike as an excuse.”

“I’ve locked the door. She can’t get away. There’s a well outside. We’ll smash her head and throw her in.”

My skin crawled. I slipped behind the Earth God’s statue, lit incense, and prayed.

They didn’t know this was my hometown.

They didn’t know our Earth God was no god at all. He was a ghost.

1

A cold wind swept through after their words, chilling my spine.

Three people, deep in the wilderness, inside a deserted temple at midnight.

People used to say you should never enter a temple alone.

Apparently three was no safer.

They wanted to kill me. That was the real reason they had invited me hiking.

There was no time to be furious about the affair, or wonder why they wanted me dead. My only thought was how to escape alive.

My boyfriend, Lu Xiaoyu, had said he locked the main door before bed. My best friend, Xu Miao, had shut the windows. The only other opening was a large hole in the leaking roof.

The abandoned temple had become a perfect locked room. Any attempt to escape would draw their attention.

One against two, I had no chance.

Was I really going to die?

My heart hammered. Then I caught sight of the statue.

In the moonlight, I could make out its shape.

A squat little old man crouched on the altar. Round face, smiling eyes, a tiny crescent on his forehead. His thick beard trailed to the floor beneath an elaborate red hat.

The Earth God.

Instinctively, I looked at his eyes.

Ordinarily, an Earth God statue had carved eyes. This one had empty sockets, black as holes.

This was the Earth God from my hometown!

Only then did I remember that I had never told Lu Xiaoyu where I came from.

I had not been home in years, and he had driven us along a strange new road. That was why I had failed to recognize it.

If I could just get out of this temple and keep running, sooner or later I would reach a nearby village.

There was only one way out.

But once you summoned the Earth God, sending him away was difficult.

I gritted my teeth and crept past those embarrassing sounds to the statue. From the corner, I took a single stick of incense.

Keeping incense beneath the Earth God’s statue was a local custom, convenient for passing travelers who wished to pay their respects.

Three sticks were an offering. One was a summons.

My grandmother had told me that herself. She had also warned me.

“If you face certain death, offer one stick to the Earth God and silently pray with all your heart. He can do anything. He can solve every trouble. But whether he comes is a matter of luck and fate.”

“Unless there is absolutely no other choice, never worship him with one stick. Easy to invite a god, hard to send him away. Terrible things will happen.”

She had repeated that warning over and over.

Now I truly faced certain death. I could only follow her advice.

Quietly, I lit the incense. Its red ember stood out in the darkness.

Cold sweat ran over me. Eyes closed, hands trembling together before my chest, I prayed silently.

“Earth God, Lu Xiaoyu and Xu Miao want to kill me. I don’t want to die. I want to live. I don’t want to die. I want to live…”

I planted the stick in the burner at his feet.

Grandmother said that if it burned away within a minute, he had accepted my plea. If not, he had refused.

Shaking, I watched it, desperate for it to burn faster.

“Where are you, Xiaochun?”

My boyfriend’s cold voice suddenly rang out.

2

A chill shot down my back. I climbed onto the altar and hid behind the Earth God.

“Xiaochun! Where are you? Where did you go?” Xu Miao sounded frantic.

I crouched, trying to keep myself entirely behind the statue.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. I turned around, and she was gone.”

“Find her. I have a bad feeling. Did she hear us?”

“Look around. She must still be inside. We locked the door and windows.”

My heart lurched.

Soft footsteps were approaching.

I clamped a hand over my mouth and tried to still even my ragged breathing.

After a long time, the footsteps stopped.

Xu Miao spoke again. “Xiaoyu, did she get away? I really can’t find her. Were we too distracted to hear anything?”

“Maybe…”

Just as I thought I might escape, Lu Xiaoyu’s next words made my hair stand on end.

“Why is there one stick of incense burning here?”

A deathly silence.

Then a heavy axe crashed into the Earth God’s head.

Half the head broke off and thudded down from the altar. Only half a nose and a mouth remained.

Tears welled in my eyes. I was too frightened even to cry.

“Oh. Missed.” Lu Xiaoyu sounded annoyed. Looking at me, he spoke each word clearly. “I meant to take your head off in one stroke, Xiaochun. That way it wouldn’t hurt.”

My legs had gone weak. Still, I seized a moment of inattention, jumped down, and limped toward the main door.

“You shouldn’t have woken up. We meant you to die in your sleep.”

Xu Miao smiled, then directed him. “Hurry. Don’t waste time.”

I battered the door. It looked old and rotten, but it was impossibly solid. I could not break it open.

“Help! Someone wants to kill me! Help!”

My cries were useless. Nobody would pass this deserted temple in the middle of nowhere.

“Aaah!”

The axe struck beside my ear. One centimeter closer, and it would have severed it.

Xu Miao whined playfully. “You’re terrible at this. How do you keep missing? My turn.”

I turned, dropped to my knees, and frantically knocked my forehead to the floor.

“Please don’t kill me. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. You can be together. I won’t tell anyone about the affair!”

She giggled. “But Xiaochun, only the dead can’t lie.”

Suddenly I felt cold.

Not fear. A physical cold, distinct and piercing.

An icy gust swept through. We all heard a rustle.

Lu Xiaoyu whipped around. “Who’s there?”

Nobody stood behind them. Only rotten wood scattered across the floor and dust swirling through the air.

Xu Miao grew inexplicably panicked. She caught his arm.

“Baby, I’m suddenly so cold. Is it because you struck the statue? Is he angry?”

“Don’t be afraid. I’m here. Let’s kill her first, then worry about it.”

He picked up another axe from the floor and approached.

But from the corner of my eye, I saw that the incense had burned away.

Which meant… I had summoned the Earth God!

3

Whoosh—

The still night erupted into a gale. Kneeling on the ground, I went white.

The Earth God had appeared silently behind them.

He looked at me without speaking, eyes narrowed in a smile. His mouth curved in a perfect, fixed arc.

Trembling, I pointed behind Lu Xiaoyu.

“The Earth God… behind you…”

Lu Xiaoyu spun around. “What the fuck!”

He pulled Xu Miao back a step, wary.

“Where did you come from? We locked the door!”

Still smiling, the Earth God said, “Someone called. I came.”

“Lu Xiaoyu. Xu Miao. You kill for money.”

He barely reached Lu Xiaoyu’s chest. Looking so harmless, he gradually made the man lower his guard.

“What’s it to you?”

Xu Miao tugged his clothes and whispered, “Baby, he’s frightening. Let’s go…”

“Tomorrow, buy a lottery ticket at noon. At six, buy the stock on which you lost a hundred and ten thousand a month ago. At seven, go to the entrance of the Sunset Bar.”

Lu Xiaoyu remained suspicious. “Why should I believe you?”

The Earth God turned his fixed smile on Xu Miao, his voice mechanical.

“Go jogging at five tomorrow morning. At noon, walk to the bridge in the city center. At nine in the evening, call an ambulance for the first elderly woman you meet.”

Clinging to Lu Xiaoyu, she stammered, “What… what are you?”

“The Earth God.” His eyes glittered with apparent sincerity. “You mean to kill for the five hundred thousand in her safe. Follow my instructions, and you can earn tens of millions.”

They exchanged a look. Having their secret exposed made them believe the mysterious Earth God a little more.

Because everything he said was true.

“You must not kill her. Or I will be angry.”

He pointed at me.

Tens of millions without killing anyone. No fear of murder and concealing a body afterward.

If they stopped now, they did not even need to worry about me going to the police. They had not committed any real crime yet. At most, they had cheated on me.

A deal with nothing to lose.