Chapter 2

Over the next half hour, the Alipay notification sound kept ringing. The loose change in the aluminum box in front of the man grew less and less, while the loose change in the plastic box in front of Song Li grew more and more.

A perfect illustration of the saying: money doesn’t disappear, it just transfers.

Not only was there not the slightest displeasure on the man’s face, the corners of his mouth actually stretched into an increasingly wide grin.

During the time that had just passed, the man and Song Li had introduced themselves to each other. Song Li learned that the man was called Zong Xu, twenty-nine this year, no wife and no girlfriend, all alone and living every day by begging. According to him, begging was just a bit unsavory in reputation, but the income was actually quite considerable—for instance, on a normal day he could collect a hundred or so yuan.

But today, probably because he had a Song Li sitting next to him who was outrageously good-looking, he’d already received two hundred yuan in two hours of setting up shop.

To thank Song Li for bringing in the money, Zong Xu decided to bleed a little tonight and treat Song Li to a meal, and also ask Song Li whether he’d be interested in formally joining his team.

Two hours passed in a flash, and the sky over Pingpan Town had gone completely dark. Zong Xu dragged Song Li to a nearby small restaurant. The restaurant sold fast food, twelve yuan a portion, plus a chicken leg. Zong Xu painfully spent a huge sum to add another leg for Song Li. The two crouched on the ground in front of the small restaurant. Zong Xu’s gaze drifted toward Song Li as if by accident, and suppressing the doubt in his heart, he asked with a smile, “Song Li, I see your face is better looking than a celebrity’s. At the very least you could show your face to a talent scout. How’d you end up in this state?”

When they’d introduced themselves, Song Li had only briefly said his name and made up an age, saying nothing else.

But even without him saying anything, Zong Xu pinched his fingers and studied Song Li’s features closely, and realized that this seemingly bedraggled young man was incomparably noble.

Zong Xu had seen many people over the years, and just by reading faces he could tell a person’s character, past experiences, and possible future. But Song Li was different—when he looked at Song Li, he could only see what seemed like a hazy layer of mist surrounding the young man, a mist that isolated his probing and left everything unclear.

Song Li had probably not tasted human food in several hundred years. Although it was just a simple boxed meal, it was still so delicious that his eyes narrowed slightly in satisfaction. Only after gnawing the meat off the chicken leg bone completely clean, not leaving a single shred, did he bring out his all-purpose excuse: “I’m not sure either. I seem to have gone into the mountains, and when I woke up I didn’t remember anything.”

“The mountains?” Zong Xu asked, puzzled. “Which mountain?”

“I don’t know what the mountain’s called either, but it’s pretty close to here, and there was just an earthquake.”

Zong Xu: “Huading Mountain?”

After seeing Song Li nod, Zong Xu sucked in a sharp breath, thinking that this person really did have the face of a noble one—otherwise how could he have walked out of Huading Mountain? He’d heard some relevant information saying that this earthquake at Huading Mountain was because a jiao had turned over in its sleep. Although the area around Huading Mountain hadn’t been affected much, Huading Mountain itself had been split in two.

And Song Li hadn’t died…

Zong Xu stared at Song Li with a complicated expression for quite a while, not even bothering with his chicken leg anymore, and continued asking, “So what are you planning to do now? Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

Song Li gripped his chopsticks tightly and shook his head.

The atmosphere fell silent. Although Zong Xu had seen countless people in difficult, silent, helpless, miserable states, at this moment, looking at Song Li with his eyes lowered and saying nothing, he still felt a bit of sympathy in his heart. He slapped his thigh. “Then for now you can busk and beg with me. Stay with me at night, and once you remember something, you can make other plans.”

Zong Xu noticed.

After he finished saying all this, the young man who had been drooping his eyelids suddenly raised his head, and those beautiful eyes seemed to have been lit up, brightening bit by bit.

Song Li freed one hand to grip Zong Xu’s hand, his eyes full of sincerity. “You’re really a good person.”

Zong Xu: “…Well, you can’t quite put it that way.”

His soft-heartedness had been worn down to almost nothing over the past few years, and even he didn’t know why he felt somewhat special toward Song Li. Probably because the other’s face really was quite nice-looking, and with him sitting at his side, begging was easier.

After the fast food, Zong Xu took Song Li to a different spot—they went to a plaza. At night the plaza had a large crowd of middle-aged women doing square dancing, the music loud enough to shake the heavens. Around them were all kinds of small stalls and vendors, and young people passing by would occasionally stop to take a look, or buy some snacks or trinkets.

Zong Xu and Song Li sat next to an old man selling balloons. Zong Xu had an easygoing, familiar-with-everyone kind of personality and talked a lot. As soon as he started chatting with the old man, he asked with a smile, “Sir, how much are your balloons? Do they make money?”

The old man was also good-natured, not showing the slightest displeasure at the other probing into his income, and said with a smile, “The small ones are ten yuan each, the big ones fifteen. What’s the matter, young man, you want to sell balloons too? Then you can go to the wholesale market and look for a shop called Swallow Wholesale. That girl’s balloon wholesale prices are cheaper.”

Zong Xu waved his hand, signaling he wasn’t interested.

Song Li, however, seriously considered it for a moment.

After chatting with Zong Xu for a few hours, his understanding of this world was steadily deepening. He was from the mountains—he had no relatives to turn to, no identification, and no money. Surviving in the vast Huaguo was not an easy thing.

Relatives and identification were both far beyond Song Li’s reach and hard to sort out. But making money was something he could achieve with some effort.

Zong Xu and Song Li stayed at the plaza until midnight. Song Li rubbed his sore butt and followed Zong Xu to his home. The place was rented by Zong Xu, in an old residential building with no elevator, but a full eight stories—and Zong Xu lived on the eighth floor.

Once home, Zong Xu brought over two cups of water and urged Song Li to count the “wages” they’d earned today. Counting it all up, it turned out to be over four hundred.

Zong Xu beamed. “Oh my, sure enough, it takes a handsome guy to get the job done. How about this—tomorrow morning I’ll take you to buy some clothes. These clothes of yours… probably can’t be worn anymore, right? Just wear mine for now.”

Song Li nodded. “Thank you. In the future, if there’s anything you need my help with, you can tell me anytime. As long as I can do it, I won’t refuse.”

Zong Xu pursed his lips at that. “Come on, what could I possibly need? You rest first, I’m going to pay respects to my family’s ancestors.”

Song Li’s gaze followed Zong Xu’s figure, and he quickly spotted several small statues placed at the corner of the hallway. They were all ugly as sin, and Song Li couldn’t recognize a single one. Zong Xu noticed his gaze and thought he was interested in the statues. After finishing the incense offering, he enthusiastically introduced them to Song Li:

“The leftmost one is the Heavenly Worthy, and then respectively the five legendary gods.”

People in Huaguo had more or less heard the related legends, but they all treated those legends as fictional stories. Zong Xu, however, understood that the so-called legends were all facts, and these five gods had all existed. He leaned lazily against the door frame on one side, arms crossed, smiling.

“Speaking of which, since you don’t remember anything, you probably don’t know these legends either.”

Song Li said without batting an eye, “I don’t.”

Zong Xu immediately walked up to him. “Let me tell you. In the legend, tens of thousands of years ago, the spiritual energy between heaven and earth nurtured five gods—three men and two women—and the five addressed each other as siblings. At that time, heaven and earth had just been separated, and chaos was constant everywhere. The five gods took on the duty of handling disasters and maintaining harmony in the world. Over the years that followed, aside from the gods, heaven and earth were split into three parts: the human, demon, and ghost realms. The emergence of the three realms increased the world’s chaos, and it became harder and harder for the five gods to maintain the balance.”

“Later, the demon realm caused trouble, leading countless ghostly souls from the ghost realm into the human world. They wanted to watch humans and ghosts slaughter each other and reap the benefits themselves. When the five gods learned of this, they all took action.”

“In the tens of thousands of years since, major events like that haven’t happened again, but the small frictions between the three realms have been considerable. Fortunately, the five gods have always been there to hold things down, so no one dares act recklessly. It’s just that…”

Zong Xu’s tone shifted, and he narrowed his eyes. “They should all have fallen by now.”

Song Li thought to himself that that wasn’t quite the case yet.

His two older brothers and two older sisters had all fallen. Only he had slept for several hundred years and was still alive.

“Enough of that. The bathroom’s over here. I’ll shower first, then you.”

Song Li nodded.

Only after Zong Xu went into the bathroom did Song Li lift his feet and walk over to the statues. His gaze swept over the five gods one by one, his brow furrowing tighter and tighter, his thin lips pressing flatter and flatter. His eldest brother had never been good-looking to begin with, and this statue had actually captured three-tenths of his charm. But who was who among the other four?

Song Li’s gaze wandered back and forth between the remaining two statues that were clearly male. One of them seemed to have grown sideways, looking like a fat, round blob. The other had a normal build, but had four eyes, two mouths, and two noses.

Song Li: “…”

In the silence, Zong Xu hurriedly came out of the bathroom, saying he’d forgotten that the body wash in the bathroom was used up and he needed to grab a new bottle. Taking advantage of this time, Song Li asked one more question: “Among these five gods, which one is the youngest?”

Zong Xu thought about it. “You mean the one who presides over the constellations?”

Song Li was taken aback. “Constellations?”

“Isn’t the youngest the one who deduces the stars? The one with four eyes and two mouths is him.”

Song Li’s gaze landed on the statue Zong Xu had indicated, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. He shook his head. “Then what about the one who presides over war?”

“This one.”

Song Li looked over and found that Zong Xu’s finger was pointing at the statue that Song Li had just said had three-tenths of his eldest brother’s charm.

Song Li: “…”

He took a deep breath, trying hard to calm himself down. But after Zong Xu once again stepped into the bathroom and closed the door, Song Li couldn’t help but glance at that ugly statue again, and finally, unable to bear it any longer, he slapped it face-down onto the table.

So ugly!

But he was clearly so good-looking!