Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 141: A Ripple
The hand ignored her completely and focused on pointing the way.
When the little girl approached, it immediately backed away a few steps, continuing to gesture in a specific direction. The girl reacted quickly, sniffled, hurriedly packed the items in her basket, and jogged to follow.
Fang Xiu and A’Shou followed distantly behind. They crossed dense forests and streams, tracking the girl’s footprints through thick mountain mist. After half a day, they finally saw a village.
The little girl wept and laughed at once. But when she turned to look for the hand, it had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.
So she finished the final stretch alone, running toward the familiar village.
By all accounts, it seemed like a trivial supernatural tale.
[Unfortunately, this was not the end.]
Just as Fang Xiu was about to look for another breakthrough, a wave of dizziness hit him.
The little girl running toward the village disappeared, replaced by a middle-aged man. He carried wild fruits and mushrooms in his left hand, a bundle in his right, walking up the mountain path the girl had used to descend.
He passed through mountain fog, crossed the same stream and forest, and arrived at the stone where the girl had offered her tribute. He placed the offerings neatly, then positioned a small porcelain figurine in the center.
It was exactly like the one the girl had left.
“Thank you, immortal, for saving my daughter.”
The man bowed again and again, his voice sincere. “Our chicken ran off into the mountain and got lost. My daughter was sick and had no eggs to eat. I figured she wouldn’t make it… Please, have mercy and help me find those chickens… Please, save her life.”
“Please, I beg you—”
[That little object from last time was quite fun. I’ve placed it on the highest mountaintop.]
[This human makes interesting things and brought new ones too. There’s no harm in helping him out.]
These pure thoughts drifted through Fang Xiu’s mind.
A’Shou seemed unaware, but when she saw the hand reappear, she took a worried breath.
The hand now looked more human. Its skin gave off a soft white glow, and its fingers were long and elegant.
It cheerfully grabbed the little figurine, then pointed in a direction just as it had done before. The villager nearly fell over when he saw the hand but managed to remain standing.
He didn’t even dare pick up the fruit and mushrooms, stiffly following behind. Within half an hour, he found the chickens wandering in the woods.
Just like before, the hand held the figurine tightly, then vanished like smoke. The man stared in shock at the returned chickens, a blush slowly spreading across his face.
“There really is a god!” he shouted with joy, completely elated.
“This is going to be a problem.” A’Shou pinched her brow.
Sure enough, more and more villagers began climbing the mountain.
At the time, the Kui Dynasty was enjoying peace, and the people lived relatively stable lives. The villagers began making wishes one after another. Wild fruits, mushrooms, and porcelain figurines became the standard offerings. Some even decorated the figurines to show sincerity.
But the wishes were humble—mostly trivial things like lost livestock, untreated illnesses, or misplaced belongings. Even the bolder villagers simply offered nice figurines and asked if the mountain held any jade they could sell.
The thoughts behind the hand’s actions remained simple.
It happened to be bored, and the tasks were easy.
Some lost livestock? Just point the way. No medicine? Offer useful herbs. Something misplaced? Provide a clue. These were minute threads of karma, barely worth mentioning. The figurines were becoming dull, but compared to a hundred years of dreamless slumber, this kind of interaction was entertaining.
When their wishes came true, the villagers grew excited.
People from five or six surrounding villages gathered and decided to build a shrine at the mountain’s base to “invite God”. The family of the girl who first got lost was believed to have “divine fate” and was given the honor of sculpting the statue.
But the villagers were simple folk. They couldn’t imagine anything lavish. They merely enlarged the original figurine and copied it as best they could.
The “shrine” resembled an ordinary house without even a name plaque. Inside, porcelain statues of all sizes were arranged, with incense burning constantly on the offering table.
Fang Xiu quietly observed all of this, lightly stroking his stomach where Bai Shuangying stirred within him.
“It’s about time.” Seeing more villagers making wishes, A’Shou sighed softly. “They’ve gotten too close. Mortal ties are forming. A fake shrine like Weishan is one thing, but if a real spirit enters the shrine, cultivators will come to investigate.”
But instead of cultivators, a true immortal arrived.
Late at night, a beam of golden light fell from the sky. An immortal elder descended, with kind eyes, long white beard, and flowing robes that fluttered without wind.
He landed atop the highest peak of the Xushan range. Snow blanketed the ground, and before him were neatly arranged porcelain figurines.
Each figurine had been carefully cleaned of snow, glowing with soft, radiant white. They stood silently in the night, overlooking the entire mountain range.
The elder looked at them for a long time, his expression subtly sorrowful.
He bowed deeply toward the mountaintop.
“I implore you to reconsider. Please do not respond to the shrine anymore,” he said, voice dry and hoarse.
No answer came, only the wind brushing over the porcelain.
“We immortals are mortals who ascended to immortality. We know human nature. But you, born of heaven and earth, are above it all. If you insist on meddling in the mundane, suffering will follow…”
Still there was no reply. The elder sighed again and bowed once more.
“Human affairs are complex, and hearts are fickle. Mortals may seem powerless, but we depend on their devotion. If you sever ties with them, both Heaven and the Underworld will struggle.”
Even after those final words, only the cold wind answered him. Not even a fingertip emerged in reply.
A’Shou was stunned.
To ghost immortals like her, immortals were supposed to be a tier above. She had never seen one act so politely, offering only verbal persuasion to an evil spirit. The treatment was absurdly respectful. She couldn’t think of anything to compare it to.
But Bai Shuangying was clearly summoned by the Underworld. He had to be an evil spirit—like fishing by the sea, one might catch small fish, shrimp, even deep-sea creatures, but catching a bird would be absurd.
She couldn’t understand why a righteous immortal would speak so gently to an evil spirit.
No matter how she strained her memory, she couldn’t recall any notorious evil spirit residing in Xushan. Her mind felt shrouded in mist, like a veil had been drawn over it.
At the same time, Fang Xiu listened to the cold wind—
[Those humans were crying so bitterly, it was hard to ignore. It’s just helping find things, nothing serious.]
The thoughts murmured on, never acknowledging the immortal as anything important, as if he were just an old deer passing by.
[Now that they’re praying at the base of the mountain, I have to go to them. The figurines are pretty, but there are too many. It’s getting dull.]
[…Still, humans don’t live long. A few more years won’t hurt.]
The thought moved smoothly and lightly, like a beast rolling lazily before returning to sleep. Fang Xiu understood easily—
Human affairs were too petty, and the offerings no longer exciting. But the shrine was new, and people were still thrilled. The owner of these thoughts… Bai Shuangying…had no desire to cut off contact just yet.
Mortals died quickly. Once this generation passed, there’d be no more interference from the heavens. Having decided that, Bai Shuangying saw no need to respond further.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as he’d hoped.
……
In the blink of an eye, time shifted. More than a decade passed. The generation hadn’t yet died out, but the shrine had already changed.
Seeing how effective the shrine was, people stopped asking for small things. They began to request bountiful harvests and long lives.
The shrine brought prosperity, and the porcelain offerings were replaced by golden statues. The villagers believed this was the sincerest way to worship.
[My Xushan has never lacked gold.]
[Porcelain is born of clay and far more precious than gold. Mortals truly lack discernment.]
The thoughts muttered in Fang Xiu’s mind. [I really don’t like those golden statues.]
Despite the complaints, Bai Shuangying still responded to the people.
But “bountiful harvests” required him to manipulate wind and rain, and “long life” meant interfering with life and death.
Such things involved meddling with heavenly karma. Much harder than finding a lost item. And in return, all he got was cheap gold. Bai Shuangying found it dull—like paying a copper coin to have someone labor for a day. Who would agree to that?
So he began to slack off. If the task was too much trouble, he simply lay around in the mountains, ignoring the golden offerings altogether.
If he didn’t accept them, he had no obligation to fulfill the prayers. A fair trade, nothing more.
He never expected mortals to get angry.
One day, after sleeping in the mountains for a week, he woke to torrential rain. The fields were flooded, and seven or eight people had drowned.
After more than a decade of perfect weather, the villagers erupted with rage. Those who lost crops cursed at the fields. Those who lost loved ones wailed at graves. Others stormed the shrine and smashed the porcelain statues, loudly accusing him of neglect.
This made Bai Shuangying even more uninterested. He stopped responding to anything, not even the simple “find this” requests, just silently watching the humans with growing disinterest.
When they realized their prayers no longer worked, the villagers were shocked and angry.
Some demanded the shrine be torn down. Others, afraid, offered compensation. They argued for days.
While Bai Shuangying was still weighing whether to abandon the whole thing, an unusual human arrived.
He was a man in his prime, armed and armored, clearly of high status. He led hundreds of people into the small village at the mountain’s foot.
At his arrival, the villagers immediately dropped their arguments and knelt to the ground.
“Long live the Emperor—!”
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