Chapter 1: The Bewildered Deity

“Last pull, and it’s Ji Ling again?!”

“Brother Ji Ling, Grandpa Ji Ling, Ancestor Ji Ling—can you please, PLEASE stop showing up?”

“This faithful woman vows ten years of vegetarianism in exchange for Ji Ling never appearing in the card pool again!”

On Miaoshan, in Cloud Marsh Cave, Ji Ling opened his eyes.

A flash of golden light passed through his pupils. He clasped his hands in the One-circle mudra, then lazily lowered them, settling into the Five Qi Returning to the Origin posture.

This was the three hundredth year of Ji Ling’s seclusion.

As an ancient immortal deity, he often went into seclusion for centuries at a time. Having not bathed in three hundred years, his skin felt sticky and uncomfortable. He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid qi and was about to rise to wash up when, in the moment he raised his eyes, his brow suddenly knitted.

—Why had so many wish orbs appeared in his cave dwelling all of a sudden?

Deities could hear the prayers of mortals. When mortals recited a deity’s name, small dandelion-like clumps of light formed around the deity, waiting to be read.

Ji Ling wasn’t a famous deity. Few people even knew his name. In past awakenings, he’d only receive a scattered dozen or twenty prayers. Now there were thousands upon ten-thousands, nearly merging into an ocean of dandelions—a vast, white sea that packed his little cave dwelling to the brim.

Ji Ling frowned slightly. “Could disaster have befallen the mortal world?” he wondered.

In times of good weather and bountiful harvests, praying to gods and Buddhas was just icing on the cake. People were busy with their own affairs and rarely made wishes to deities. Only when great calamity struck, when they couldn’t even keep their pots boiling, would obscure slacker deities like Ji Ling receive so many wishes.

He reached out and touched one of the light clumps.

The tiny soft ball fell into the deity’s palm and scattered into pure white specks of light.

Ji Ling cocked his ear to listen.

A believer’s pained voice rang out: “Brother Ji Ling, Grandpa Ji Ling, Ancestor Ji Ling, I’m begging you—can you please stop showing up?”

Ji Ling: “?”

He reached for a second one.

“Ji Ling, spare me! I did a ten-pull and five of the cards were you. You’re about to overflow!”

A third:

“This faithful woman would rather eat vegetarian for ten years than have Ji Ling ever appear in the card pool again.”

Ji Ling: “…”

The ancient deity stood dumbfounded in his cave dwelling, his expression blank.

He understood every word in these prayers individually, but couldn’t comprehend a single sentence they formed together.

What the hell was a card pool? Was it some kind of… pool? He was clearly in his own cave dwelling, not in any so-called “card pool.” Why did they want him to crawl out of it?

And what was “overflow”? He wasn’t a liquid. How could he overflow?

Ji Ling took a deep breath and looked at the countless wishes floating before him. They all shimmered with soft white light, harmlessly soft as cotton—yet as he held them in his hands, a sudden dread rose in him.

Cautiously, he pinched them, rubbed them, and listened to each one.

“Can Ji Ling just get the hell out of the card pool?!”

“Help! Can I get any card that isn’t him?”

“Any card works, as long as it’s not Ji Ling!”

After more than twenty meaningless laments, he finally heard something useful.

“Ji Ling, retreat retreat retreat! I’m wishing for Bai Ze!”

Ji Ling held that wish in his palm and paused. “Bai Ze?”

Bai Ze—the ancient divine beast, shaped like a white tiger with dragon horns growing from his head—was also one of Ji Ling’s closest friends. Since these prayers mentioned him, if Ji Ling could contact Bai Ze, he might learn where these strange wishes came from.

Ji Ling formed a hand seal with one hand. The mist stirred without wind, condensing into a water mirror before him.

This was the immortals’ voice transmission art—through the water mirror, one could reach whoever they wished to see.

A few minutes later, Bai Ze’s face appeared in the mirror. He was a refined, handsome man wearing strange clothes, with crystal-like lenses perched on his nose. After the two exchanged greetings, Ji Ling shifted slightly, revealing the thousands upon thousands of light clumps behind him.

“I came out of seclusion today and received some… hm, strange wishes. Some of them mention you. Do you know what’s going on?”

Bai Ze looked at the light clumps, pausing strangely for two seconds.

Then he pushed up his glasses, folded his hands on the table, leaned forward, and said gravely: “Ji Ling, have you ever heard of gacha games?”

Ji Ling: “?”

At that moment, separated by a thin water mirror, two ancient immortal deities sat upright with furrowed brows, sighing and nodding from time to time, as if discussing matters of cosmic survival and mortal catastrophe.

Two minutes later, Bai Ze put down his phone: “Alright, now you know what a gacha game is.”

He had just done a ten-pull in front of Ji Ling, pulling four “Ji Ling” cards in a row, then decomposed all four cards right in front of him.

A blue light flashed across the screen, and “Ji Ling” split into pieces, turning into drifting ash.

Ji Ling: “…”

Bai Ze pressed his temples and summarized: “Anyway, the mortal world put out a Chinese-style gacha game called Descent of the Gods, basing its cards on mythologies like the Classic of Mountains and Seas. They set you as a pretty terrible R card and made me an SSR. So players all want to pull me and don’t want you.”

Ji Ling massaged his forehead in pain. “The mortal world really has changed a lot… Bai Ze, if I wanted to go down into the world to gain experience, is there anything I should be careful about?”

After long seclusion, one must enter the world. Cultivation gained in seclusion was dead cultivation. Only by plunging into the human world and experiencing its myriad ways could one truly master their power.

Bai Ze considered this carefully for three seconds, then said: “If you come to the mortal world, don’t come directly. Borrow a body.”

There were two methods of divine descent. The first was direct spirit-body descent. The second was to negotiate with a dying mortal and inherit their body. But most deities chose the first, because the second was too troublesome—and other people’s bodies never felt as convenient as one’s own.

Ji Ling blinked: “Why?”

Bai Ze gave him a look and said darkly: “Because you don’t have an ID card.”

“Times have changed. These days, without an ID card, you can’t take a single step in the mortal world.”

Two hours later, Kangjia Garden, Building 7, Room 302, Jingnan City.

Ji Ling rolled off the bed, bracing one hand on the nightstand and knocking a half-drunk bottle of mineral water to the floor.

The tiny space reeked of alcohol. The white shirt on the body was stained with wine. Ji Ling walked into the bathroom, and when his fingers brushed the wall, damp, peeling paint crumbled right onto his hand.

He hastily wiped at the wine stains and looked around. The bedroom was only a few feet across; the wall beside the bathroom was moldy and gray with large brownish-black spots. On the wall hung a curled poster of six leaping men, with “X-DU” in large letters in the lower right corner.

The owner of this body had died of excessive alcohol. Ji Ling had briefly communicated with him before his soul scattered. According to the boy’s account, he served as “eye candy” in the X-DU Boy Band. Because he was good-looking, the “manager” had forced him to accompany clients for drinks, and it eventually killed him. The boy’s final wish was to terminate his contract with the boy band and escape the manager’s control.

Though Ji Ling couldn’t fully understand what an “X-DU Boy Band” was, or why a living person would be “eye candy,” he subjectively concluded that the boy’s “manager” was something like a “brothel madam,” forcing decent young men to drink and smile for money.

He fumbled around the room for a while and found nothing conclusive.

Modern society had changed too much. The ancient deity lacked common knowledge and was having trouble adapting. So Ji Ling unscrewed the mineral water and, using the same trick as before, tried to contact Bai Ze again.

Water vapor rose, condensing into a silver-white mirror. Bai Ze’s face appeared in the mist. Before he could speak, a loud crash came from the hallway, the door flew open with a bang, and a man in a floral shirt came striding in, tugging at his tie and cursing loudly: “An Jin, you’ve grown a spine, huh? You dare ignore your own daddy’s calls—”

The word “calls” never made it out. He stopped dead, staring wide-eyed at something ahead.

Before him, a mirror floated in midair, refracting an eerie glow. The person reflected in it was neither him nor Ji Ling, but a refined, scholarly man. At that very moment, the man turned his head and stared back at him.

Floral Shirt: “…”

Bai Ze: “…”

Ji Ling: “…”

Floral Shirt raised a hand and rubbed his eyes. Then he rubbed his eyes again.

Ji Ling pressed his fingers together and swept them behind his back. The water mirror turned back into water and splashed to the floor.

After rubbing his eyes, Floral Shirt found the mirror and the man gone. He breathed a slight sigh of relief—but then noticed there was suddenly a patch of water on the floor where nothing had been before.

He stared at the ground suspiciously.

—Was that water there just now?

Ji Ling pointed at the ceiling and explained slowly: “Leak from upstairs.”

He stepped forward, placing himself between Floral Shirt and the water stain, and asked: “What did you need me for?”

This man had keys to the boy’s place and called out the boy’s name, “An Jin,” so the two clearly knew each other.

His words made Floral Shirt’s momentum surge back. Back on familiar ground, he grabbed Ji Ling’s wrist and started dragging him out without explanation, cursing: “Four calls this morning, not one answered. Listen, An Jin, do you not want this job anymore? Don’t forget you signed a full twenty-year contract with me. With one word from me—”

So this was the “brothel madam” manager.

Ji Ling was yanked into a stumble but quickly steadied himself. He stopped walking and said flatly: “Where are you taking me?”

Floral Shirt was walking along when the pull in his hand suddenly turned heavy—as if he weren’t dragging a frail youth but a thousand-pound iron block. He tugged again, disbelieving. It didn’t budge.

He looked back incredulously, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that An Jin would resist. His voice rose: “An Jin, are you refusing the toast and choosing the forfeit? Do you want this month’s performance bonus or not?”

Seeing Ji Ling as immovable as if he hadn’t heard, Floral Shirt threw off his hand: “An Jin, you know our pay rules. If you don’t drink tonight, then yesterday’s drinks were all for nothing.”

This was Floral Shirt’s way of controlling his employees. They were a small, broke company with limited cash flow, squeezing wherever they could. For bottom-tier idols like An Jin, there was no shortage of ways to dock pay. And An Jin had signed on for twenty years—unless he could pay an astronomical penalty, if he didn’t obey, he could forget about working in this industry.

Ji Ling paused.

Yesterday’s drinking session was the one that killed the original body.

When Ji Ling possessed the body, his stomach was still cramping. He hadn’t seen what the boy had endured, but he could imagine what a drinking party that kills a person looked like—some filthy, vile affair.

Floral Shirt saw him stop and thought Ji Ling had finally caved. Satisfied, he said: “Now that’s more like it.” He pulled a business card from his pocket and tried to stuff it into Ji Ling’s hand: “This is that boss’s info. Get familiar with it and come with me now, or you know the consequences.”

But Ji Ling didn’t take it.

Instead, his hand bypassed the card and grabbed Floral Shirt precisely by the collar.

Floral Shirt: “?”

A second later, pain exploded in his shoulder, and Ji Ling tossed him out the door as casually as he might throw out a bag of trash. The motion was so relaxed and effortless that Floral Shirt’s hundred-plus pounds seemed no heavier than paper.

Floral Shirt was momentarily terrified and about to curse, but when he looked up, Ji Ling was leaning against the doorframe, watching him with a faint, unreadable smile.

Ji Ling smiled: “Go on, what consequences? I’m listening.”

Floral Shirt looked at him, a flicker of fear crossing his face.

He still had that quiet, pretty appearance, but his brows and eyes were somehow cold and distant. Now he looked over with that faint smile, a pale golden light brewing deep in his pupils—as if with one more word, he’d toss Floral Shirt off the building.

Floral Shirt’s legs went weak. He grabbed Ji Ling’s wrist with a trembling hand. He didn’t understand how the timid, cowardly An Jin had suddenly changed so completely, but he forced himself to play tough, blustering: “An Jin, I’m your manager! Don’t forget how many years of contract you signed with us!”

When Ji Ling didn’t react, Floral Shirt’s face turned red with urgency, and he was about to start shouting abuse when Ji Ling suddenly loosened his grip and set him down.

Floral Shirt stumbled back two steps, only to be yanked forward again. Then Ji Ling extended one finger and pressed it against the pocket on Floral Shirt’s chest.

The finger was ice cold, as if the next moment it would pierce straight through to his heart.

Floral Shirt’s adrenaline spiked—but then Ji Ling’s finger hooked and pulled out the business card.

The card was printed on black textured paper, looking expensive. In the center, in gilded regular script, were the words:

Wang Chengxuan, Director, All Hearts Network Co., Ltd.

Ji Ling read it silently: “All Hearts Network?”

He thought: What a coincidence of fate—I found them without lifting a finger.

There were countless companies in this world, and Ji Ling knew none of them. But this one, All Hearts Network, he knew.

On that ridiculous gacha game, during Bai Ze’s decomposition of the four “Ji Ling” cards, Ji Ling had clearly seen this company’s name. According to Bai Ze, All Hearts Network made the game—and was the culprit behind all those absurd prayers Ji Ling had received.

He pinched the card and looked up at Floral Shirt: “So the one we’re entertaining tonight is this Wang Chengxuan?”

Floral Shirt eyed him warily: “Y-yes.”

Ji Ling tucked the card back into the manager’s pocket and smiled: “Alright. I’ll be at tonight’s banquet, right on time.”