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Only now did the scene resolve itself into clarity, revealing a creature sculpted from swirling, luminous white smoke.
A ghost?
The thought sent a glacial tendril snaking down Wei Yuan's spine. This was the "opportunity"? It felt less like a stroke of luck and more like a brush with the spectral. Instinct took over. He spun on his heel, ready to put as much distance as possible between himself and this ethereal being.
"Hold there, young sir—wait!"
The sudden rasp of an aged voice sliced through the air behind him.
Wei Yuan's muscles locked. He froze mid-stride, every nerve ending screaming. Slowly, agonizingly, he pivoted.
The smoky figure seemed to… brighten, an almost palpable wave of relief emanating from it as their gazes met.
"Young man… can you perceive me?" The voice, though old, held a tremor of desperate hope.
Wei Yuan's throat felt like sandpaper. He forced a swallow, striving for a semblance of calm.
This… thing possessed the power of speech, a human tongue.
Perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn't entirely malevolent.
And wasn't daylight supposed to be a ghost's bane? He edged back, planting his feet just beyond the temple's threshold, where the golden sunlight spilled onto the worn stone.
Gathering the dregs of his courage, he called out, his voice echoing slightly in the stillness, "What in the blazes are you?"
His blunt question seemed to elicit a profound reaction from the smoke-creature. A visible ripple ran through its form, like wind through mist.
"I… I am the Earth God of this very temple. My name is Li Fushou." The words hung in the air, heavy with a strange solemnity.
"Earth God? The local Earth God?"
Wei Yuan stared, dumbfounded. The wispy apparition before him was the very deity this dilapidated shrine was built to honor? The irony was a sharp, unexpected twist.
A jolt of realization shot through him. If a genuine Earth God existed in this forgotten place, what did that imply about the grand tapestry of gods and Buddhas he'd always dismissed as myth?
And then, unbidden, the memory of the peculiar, almost innate understanding of the divine he'd recently… acquired… flickered at the edge of his awareness.
Before he could delve deeper into this bewildering thought, Li Fushou drifted closer, a silent, smoky current carrying him to the temple's entrance.
His eyes, two pools of fathomless black within the white smoke, scanned Wei Yuan with an unnerving intensity.
"Strange… utterly strange. You are merely a mortal, flesh and blood. How is it that you possess the sight to behold a divine being such as myself?"
As if Wei Yuan had any answers. His mind was a whirlwind of confusion. But the Earth God's words snagged on something.
"Earth God," he ventured, his voice still tinged with disbelief, "did some… monster truly slaughter the entire village yesterday?"
He pressed on, a flicker of anger igniting within him. "If you are the guardian of this land, its very
Earth God, how could such an atrocity occur on your watch?
Why didn't you intervene?"
He fixed Li Fushou with a demanding stare, awaiting an explanation.
A long, weary sigh escaped the smoky form of the old god.
"That… was no mere monster, young man. That was a Buddha. And when a Buddha hungers for mortal flesh… what power in this realm could possibly stay its hand?"
"What?!" Wei Yuan's eyes widened in disbelief. "A Buddha?"
The image of serene, benevolent figures from temple murals flashed through his mind. These were beings of compassion, saviors of humanity! The idea of one devouring people was an abhorrent contradiction.
Li Fushou regarded him with an ancient, knowing gaze.
"And what, in your limited mortal understanding, do you truly know of Buddhas?
'Merciful salvation' is but a whisper in the wind of cosmic truths.
What else would a being of such immense power deign to consume, if not the very essence of this fleeting world?"
Wei Yuan found himself utterly speechless, the foundations of his understanding shaken.
"So… this… Buddha. Will it return?" The question hung in the air, heavy with unspoken dread.
"Unlikely," Li Fushou murmured, his smoky head shaking slowly, the movement causing the white tendrils to writhe.
"It must have been a transient horror, a moment of divine clarity lost, twisted into an unspeakable hunger.
By now, it should have journeyed far from this forsaken place."
He settled into a cross-legged posture on a seemingly insubstantial cushion of smoke, his gaze fixed on Wei Yuan.
"Young man, what name do you bear?"
"…Wei Yuan," he replied, the word feeling small and insignificant in the face of such revelations.
"Wei Yuan…"
The Earth God's smoky form seemed to dim slightly. "You have arrived at a most… opportune time."
He offered a faint nod. "That wandering Buddha's discordant chant… it has fractured my very essence.
My time in this realm grows short." A deep, spectral sigh echoed through the quiet morning.
So, the local deity was on his deathbed too. Wei Yuan's mind struggled to process the sheer absurdity of the situation.
"I, Li Fushou," the old god continued, his voice a fading whisper, "was once a man of considerable talent. By the tender age of three, I immersed myself in the classics.
At five, I traded ink for iron, mastering the martial arts by eight.
Alas, my mortal journey was cut short by the blade of a bitter enemy, long before I could savor the autumn of my years."
"By the grace of fate, I ascended to become the Earth God of this land, a silent guardian.
But then, a malevolent deity, driven by avarice, plundered my sacred offerings and shattered my main shrine. This humble, forgotten temple became my refuge."
"Never did I imagine such ill fortune as to cross paths with a Buddha adrift in madness… its very presence nearly extinguished my soul entirely."
His dark eyes, like chips of obsidian, fixed on Wei Yuan once more. "You must have felt it too, young man, that oppressive dread? Merely standing in its vicinity… the echoes of its alien chants clawing at your sanity, a phantom pressure behind your eyes…"
Wei Yuan listened intently, a knot of unease tightening in his stomach.
He hadn't experienced any bleeding or ringing, but the sheer wrongness of the previous day still clung to him like a shroud.
He chose not to contradict the dying god. What did he truly know of the effects of a rampaging Buddha?
And besides, this smoky figure, despite his divine title, still felt… unsettling.
"Young man… the threads of my existence are fraying,"
Li Fushou said, his voice barely a breath.
"But our meeting today… it is no accident. Fate has woven our paths together.
I wish to bestow upon you a great boon… an unparalleled opportunity."
Immediately, Wei Yuan's internal alarm bells blared. A "great boon"?
From a dying smoke-ghost he'd just met?
Right. His skepticism was a sturdy shield.
But the Earth God offered no time for argument.
His smoky hand delved into his chest, a shimmering, insubstantial gesture.
He withdrew something that solidified into a small, unremarkable figurine, the color of dried earth, shaped like a traditional seal.
He held it out, his dark eyes pleading. "Can your mortal eyes perceive this?"
Wei Yuan nodded slowly.
"This," Li Fushou declared, his voice gaining a final, resonant strength, "is the Earth God's official seal.
Only one who holds this… can become the new guardian of this land. Only one who holds this… can become the new Earth God."
"....."