Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Coming out of the room, Xu Wangchuan hurriedly went to find Xu Qingming and his wife. The couple was talking in the small living room, and upon seeing Xu Wangchuan approach, they tacitly stopped.

Xu Zhifei looked at Xu Wangchuan, who was sweating profusely and pale-faced, and asked with concern, "What's wrong? Why are you in such a hurry?"

Xu Wangchuan's lips trembled, and it took him a long while before he finally spoke: "It has come out again."

He dared not mention the name of the God of Joy, only using "It" to refer to the deity, glancing around nervously before continuing, "I just saw It in Xu Muchan's room."

Xu Zhifei's brow furrowed, and she exchanged a glance with her husband. She guided her terrified adopted son to sit on the sofa, gave his hand a reassuring pat, and asked gently, "Could you be mistaken? Didn't the master say that It usually doesn't show itself, and even if It does appear, it's only after midnight..."

Xu Wangchuan shook his head repeatedly. The God of Joy appearing when It shouldn't have had clearly given him a severe fright. He was completely dazed, could barely string words together, and rambled incoherently, "I saw It... Its head was tucked inside Xu Muchan's schoolbag..."

Mentioning Xu Muchan, Xu Wangchuan suddenly clung to it like a lifeline, saying hopefully, "Could It be here for Xu Muchan?"

As long as it wasn't after him.

"Wangchuan!"

Xu Qingming said sternly from the side, frowning at him in disapproval: "Your homeroom teacher told me that your grades have slipped recently, and you've been zoning out in class. Have you not been sleeping well and started seeing things?"

The fear on Xu Wangchuan's face momentarily froze, and he stared at Xu Qingming in a daze. It was a long moment before he managed to say, haltingly, "It's not a hallucination... it really was the God of..."

Seeing him so panicked that he was about to speak the God of Joy's name, Xu Qingming cut him off again, his voice low, and said gravely, "If it's not a hallucination, then It chose to appear."

"Is it Muchan's return that's been affecting you? Forget about your exam scores—you haven't been putting enough care into your recent offerings and worship. Maybe It's displeased, and that's Its way of warning you."

Xu Wangchuan's eyes flickered, and he clenched his jaw.

Xu Qingming had a point—he really had been slacking off on his offerings and worship lately.

Ever since the Xu couple adopted him at age seven and brought him to this villa, the couple had led him in worshipping a deity statue.

Up until he turned fifteen, he didn't really understand any of it—he just figured his adoptive parents were superstitious because they were in business.

After all, plenty of businesspeople were at least a little superstitious—even if they didn't have a shrine at home, they'd donate big money to temples or shell out big bucks to hire masters to check the feng shui.

The only thing that seemed odd to him was that the deity statue enshrined at home was quite different from what he knew as the conventional deity statues.

Most families put their shrine in the main spot in the living room, visible the moment you walked in; richer families might even set aside a quiet, clean room just for worship.

But the Xu family's shrine was in the third basement level.

The whole third basement level was empty except for a two-meter-tall redwood shrine. In front of the shrine was an altar table for incense, candles, and offerings, with a deity statue about a meter tall standing behind the table, draped from head to toe in a red cloth.

When Xu Wangchuan was a kid, he'd once asked his adoptive mother out of curiosity why the deity statue was covered. She told him it was because they worshipped a true god, and mere mortals couldn't look directly at a deity—that would be a grave offense.

She also told Xu Wangchuan very seriously that he must never, ever touch the red cloth on the deity statue.

When Xu Wangchuan tried to ask more, his adoptive mother refused to say anything further, only telling him that he would naturally understand when he grew up.

It wasn't until he was fifteen that Xu Wangchuan learned that the deity worshipped by the Xu family was the God of Joy.

He had never heard of the God of Joy before. Later, out of curiosity, he looked up information about it, only to find that the God of Joy described online was vastly different from the one worshipped at home—they could hardly be considered the same thing.

Online sources said the God of Joy was a term from traditional Five Elements theory, appearing in the Eight Characters fortune-telling and Qimen Dunjia systems—a technical term in the study of destiny based on birth dates.

There were also legends that during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, there was a Hui merchant named Cheng Shangfu who once gifted a woman named Ai Ji to Ge Cheng. Ge Cheng refused to consummate the relationship with Ai Ji, and after ten days, having learned her address, he prepared a dowry and sent her back home, arranging for her to marry a suitable person.

Ai Ji was puzzled, and a Taoist nun comforted her, saying: "Ge Cheng is not a man—he is a deity."

Later, when Ai Ji married, Ge Cheng sent two lanterns as wedding gifts to add joy. Afterward, Ai Ji gave birth to twins, and from then on, every Spring Festival or Lantern Festival, she would bring a group of joyful children to pay respects to the God of Joy.

Later, when common folk held weddings, many would buy lanterns and pay respects to Ge Xian.

Worship him in life, worship his grave in death.

And so Ge Cheng became the God of Joy.

But the God of Joy worshipped by the Xu family clearly had nothing to do with these legends. Sometimes Xu Wangchuan even secretly suspected it was some kind of evil deity, similar to the Southeast Asian "little ghost" or "black Bodhisattva."

However, his adoptive parents were very adamant that the God of Joy would bless the Xu family with prosperity and freedom from disaster, so they needed to worship devoutly every five days.

When Xu Wangchuan was still young, the couple would lead him in worship. Now that he was older, the duty of worshipping the God of Joy every five days had been completely handed over to him.

Xu Wangchuan had grown up worshipping it and was long accustomed to it. Worshipping alone hadn't seemed like a problem.

But on the fifteenth day of the month two months ago, when he went to the basement to worship the God of Joy as usual, as he was leaving, the corner of his eye caught sight of the red cloth on the deity statue being slowly lifted up by a pair of hands.

The hands were as white as A4 paper, with long, crooked fingers and four or five knuckles—clearly beyond the realm of human anatomy. Xu Wangchuan was startled and whipped his head around, but the red cloth was still properly draped over the deity statue's head.

Except, for some reason, the red cloth had slipped back a bit, revealing the area below the chest, which from the front looked rather like a red bridal veil.

At the time, Xu Wangchuan thought he had seen things due to staying up late and not sleeping well, so he didn't think much of it. He stepped forward, pulled the slipped red cloth back into place, and left.

This had originally been a trivial matter, but after Xu Wangchuan dreamed of that pair of strange hands lifting the red cloth for several consecutive nights, and heard a voice calling his name from the basement when he got up to use the bathroom at night, things took a different turn.

In a panic, he told his adoptive parents about the basement incident and the recurring nightmares. Suspecting that he had offended the God of Joy, they specially invited a master to come and take a look.

At the time, the master had comforted him instead, saying that the God of Joy was very pleased with him and had deliberately manifested to show its favor.

Seeing that Xu Wangchuan was still afraid, the master added that deities and mortals did not communicate with one another—the God of Joy would only manifest after midnight. As long as Xu Wangchuan went to sleep before midnight, he could avoid the God of Joy.

Even if he happened to encounter it, there was no need to be afraid. Don't look, don't listen, don't respond—pretend everything was normal, and the deity would not cast its gaze upon him.

Afterward, following the master's instructions, Xu Wangchuan went to bed early every night and indeed stopped having dreams.

Sometimes he would still wake up in the middle of the night and hear the calling from the basement, and occasionally there were strange dragging footsteps in the hallway outside his door, but he never investigated, and things had remained peaceful until now.

Until today, when he suddenly saw the red-cloth-covered God of Joy inside Xu Muchan's bag.

As if hearing that faint calling again by his ear, Xu Wangchuan's body trembled, but upon meeting his adoptive father's stern gaze, he ultimately didn't continue. Instead, he lowered his head submissively and said, "It might be the pressure from studying lately. I have been a bit anxious and not sleeping well, so I was negligent during worship. Next time I'll confess my fault to It and won't make the same mistake again."

Xu Qingming nodded with satisfaction upon hearing this, and his tone softened considerably: "It's nothing serious. The deity protects the home and household—it's not some ghost or spirit. Don't make such a fuss over nothing."

Xu Wangchuan forced a smile and said, "I understand, Dad. I'll go back to my room, wash my face, and calm down."

Xu Qingming watched his retreating figure, and the fake smile on his face immediately faded. His brows knitted tightly as he turned to whisper to Xu Zhifei: "Look at Wangchuan's state—he's badly frightened. It doesn't seem like he just saw things."

"Is it because Muchan has returned that It..."

Xu Qingming clearly had reservations and didn't finish his sentence.

Xu Zhifei looked hesitant: "It's been so many years... and besides, isn't Wangchuan here now? Muchan doesn't have to worship the deity, so how could it have any effect?"

Xu Qingming's eyes flickered, and he sighed, saying, "I'm just worried that Muchan was born to bring bad luck to the Xu family. He's never been like other kids, not since the day he was born—always talking to himself at home, and then he went and ripped the red cloth off in the shrine... If it weren't for that, why did the business suddenly start going downhill?"

"Later, we had no choice but to send him away. If that master hadn't told me I'd never have another kid, I wouldn't have been so worried about handing this big family business over to an outsider, and I wouldn't have even thought about bringing him back."

Xu Zhifei shot him a reproachful glance and muttered sullenly, "Well, he's not your flesh and blood, so of course you don't care. You only remember that Muchan uncovered the red cloth and the business plummeted—why don't you remember that when business was good, it was because of Muchan too?"

At the mention of the past, Xu Qingming's face twitched with discomfort for a second. In the end, he didn't argue further with his sulking wife, but said, "I don't think it's necessarily because Muchan came back. Maybe it's because Wangchuan wasn't sincere enough when worshipping the god, and that's why this happened. Once he goes and makes amends, it should be fine."

Seeing him back off, Xu Zhifei didn't push it further. Though the couple sat on the same sofa, each harbored their own heavy thoughts.

At eight o'clock, Xu Wangchuan knocked on the door, saying he was ready to leave and that Xu Muchan should get ready.

Xu Muchan opened the door to let him in, then turned to rummage through the wardrobe, planning to change clothes.

Xu Zhifei had prepared plenty of clothes for him—the closet was packed, every piece feeling like top-notch material. But since Xu Muchan couldn't see, he naturally had no way to choose. Fortunately, Xu Zhifei, considering his blindness, had thoughtfully matched tops and pants into full outfits and hung them together, so he could grab them easily.

Xu Muchan casually took out a set and asked Xu Wangchuan, "Is this okay to wear?"

Xu Wangchuan said it was fine, and Xu Muchan went to the bathroom to change.

When he came out in his new clothes, Xu Wangchuan's eyes flickered. As they say, clothes make the man—the timid country kid, now decked out in designer threads, suddenly looked every bit the young master of the Xu family.

Xu Wangchuan's gaze lingered over the boy's overly refined facial features, reluctant to admit that Xu Muchan had been blessed with a strikingly handsome face.

Blood is thicker than water—Xu Zhifei was a beauty, and Xu Qingming had a dignified, scholarly look, while Xu Muchan had perfectly combined the best features of both parents, surpassing them both.

He was tall and slender, probably around 1.8 meters, with fair, smooth skin, delicate brows, and beautiful eyes. His facial features were more sculpted and refined than Xu Zhifei's, and with his untrimmed black hair reaching his shoulders, an uninformed observer might first mistake him for a girl.

However, his dull, vacant blind eyes tempered the impact of his looks. Perhaps because of his blindness, Xu Muchan always carried a timid, cowering demeanor that made him seem overly docile and easy to push around.

The corner of Xu Wangchuan's mouth twitched. Without reminding him to change into shoes that matched his new outfit, he directly pressed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him forward, saying, "This outfit suits you well. Let's go—Mom and Dad are already waiting in the garage."