She Can't Hear, but Her Tears

He Zhuoming was especially sensitive to phrases like "granting wishes" and "paying the price." The moment those words left the young man's mouth, her mind—which had been fogged by the oppressive atmosphere of the gambling den—snapped back into sharp focus. She had Lin Qingyun to thank for that; he'd drilled it into her never to make wishes with strange gods.

She clutched her schoolbag straps and shouted back, "I never wished on you! I don't even know you—why are you wearing my friend's face?"

She watched him warily and, thinking herself very subtle, backed away a few steps.

The light here was dim. He Zhuoming saw no candles or lanterns, yet the air shimmered with a faint, cold-toned glow that cast the young man's skin so pale it bordered on blue.

He was still smiling. The long earring dangling from his left ear swayed gently, its pearl glinting with an aloof, pale blue sheen.

The young man paid no attention to what He Zhuoming said, speaking to himself instead. "Play me the piece you practice best. If I like it, I'll let you go. If I don't—hmm."

He tilted his head, still beaming, and sank into thought—but before he could settle on an answer, He Zhuoming shouted, "I'm not playing anything for you! Dream on!"

She was mid-curse when she spun around and bolted, the tail end of her words still hanging in the air as she shot off into the distance.

All that cultivation practice had paid off, at least—He Zhuoming could run fast now. She had no idea which way led out, but running away from the young man, putting as much distance between them as possible, was surely the right call.

Xu Feixian had told her before: whether it was a Corrupted Deity or a True Deity, as long as a person didn't actively make wishes to them or enjoy the benefits of those wishes, there was no need to worry about being attacked. In most cases, gods—be they True or Corrupted—didn't hold clear intentions of good or ill toward people, mortals or cultivators alike. They couldn't directly act on someone; a person had to willingly establish a connection before either side could truly touch the other. Cultivators tended to be careful with their words because they'd all offered worship to True Deities at some point—having that worship relationship and then offending a deity's taboos was asking for trouble. Ordinary mortals who kowtowed to every god and made wishes everywhere didn't suffer such restrictions.

In theory, anyway. But in practice, if a True Deity or Corrupted Deity truly wanted something from a person, a single gentle shove from outside was enough to make most people willingly, passively offer up their wishes.

So He Zhuoming resolved: no matter what that weird thing said, she would never admit to having wished upon it!

She ran and ran, and then she slammed into a flower platform. She clutched her forehead and fell backward, pain making tears spring to her eyes instantly.

The young man sitting on the platform burst out laughing—laughed so hard he bent over and slapped the platform, which boomed like a hollow drum.

He Zhuoming wiped her tears, scrambled up, sniffled, and looked around. She'd somehow ended up back at the flower platform at the end of the gambling hall. Just like the way she'd barged in—whether she wanted in or not, he always found a way to bring her in.

The young man said in a cheerful voice, "I've decided—since you love running around so much, I'll build a wheel. If the piece you play doesn't please me, I'll put you inside the wheel and let you run forever. Fun, right?"

He Zhuoming covered her ears and turned her back to him.

She thought, this monster must be trying to mislead me. If I really had wished for something, and that wish had already been granted, and now it's time to pay the price—there'd be no need for him to waste so many words on me.

Just ignore him. Ignore him. Hold on until the musicians and yamen runners find this place...

He Zhuoming was psyching herself up mentally when an unseen force yanked open her schoolbag. Her textbooks, test papers, pencil case... all of it flew out in a rustling rush, floating in midair around the young man.

He poked at the items with great interest, pulled out a test paper, glanced at it, and muttered to himself, "Can't read this." Then he tossed it aside—the paper shattered into fragments that spiraled down like snowflakes.

He Zhuoming turned and stared, dumbfounded. The young man picked up an English book next, flipped through it, and said, "What are these worm characters? Nonsense." With that, he flung the book aside too. There seemed to be an invisible paper shredder in the air around him—anything thrown in got minced to pieces.

After shredding the English book, the young man turned his sinister attention to He Zhuoming's comic. He Zhuoming jolted, remembering that comic was borrowed from the library. Her mind went blank, and with a shrieking wail she charged onto the flower platform, launched herself into a flying tackle, and snatched the comic from his fingertips. The fragile pages fluttered and scraped against his fingers as he tilted his head, shifting his gaze from those strange oddities to He Zhuoming.

She was clearly terrified of him. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and the first thing she did after grabbing the book was roll on the ground several times, trying to roll back under the flower platform and pretend nothing had happened.

Of course, it didn't work.

The young man crooked a finger, and she rolled right back in front of him—the instant she looked up and saw his smiling face, He Zhuoming started crying even harder.

She couldn't run away, couldn't roll away, and fighting... it was plainly obvious she couldn't win that either.

He Zhuoming thought: I'm doomed.

English book, weekend math paper, I'm about to follow in your footsteps.

The young man looked down at her tear-streaked, utterly disheveled face, but his ears heard nothing at all—for he had never been able to hear any sound.

He was one of the amusements created by a True Deity who delighted in finding entertainment. Because he had been made early, back when the original body hadn't yet been able to stray far from the Divine Palace, he'd been placed in a vast underground gambling den in Moyi. Most of the time, he roamed across the Xia Kingdom, pretending to be a kind, gullible Corrupted Deity who granted wishes to all, then collected the price like a gambling den's loan shark—the casino had taught him many interesting things, and gamblers' fervent desires bred countless wishes that made him stronger.

But recently, he'd played too loose and been hooked by the Demon Suppression Bureau's sting operation, then besieged without mercy by the Pear Garden musicians the Bureau had summoned. Though he was a puppet crafted by the Pear Garden's Earth Immortal, the Pear Garden musicians showed him no leniency. In the eyes of the Pear Garden, only the original body and the blind man guarding the Divine Palace were their objects of worship; a puppet the Earth Immortal had released to run wild was no different from any Corrupted Deity outside.

He'd been badly wounded in the siege, so he simply fled back to the Divine Palace to hide and recover.

During the Day of Divine Celebration, the original body was in council with the other True Deities, and the blind man would stick to the depths of the Divine Palace without moving an inch. His omnipresent perception wouldn't detect a puppet lurking in the palace—such inability had nothing to do with strength; it was like one drop of blood in a body being unable to sense another drop.

Besides, even if the blind man knew of his existence, as long as he didn't harm anyone in the palace, the blind man would ignore him.

Because the blind man couldn't see anyway!

So the puppet's original plan was to lie low in the palace's outskirts for the entire Day of Divine Celebration, recover, and only go out to play once fully healed—and if he got beaten half to death, he'd never come back. But soon he discovered something very amusing: these people were placing bets on the arena matches!

How fun. How entertaining. Humans would go out of their way to find things to gamble on even when there was nothing to wager. So he casually gave things a little push, and within two or three days, he'd collected over a hundred wishes and several dozen souls—profit with zero capital. A windfall.

Those wishes sped up his wound recovery, and the betting area happened to be close to the Dao Lord of the Two Principles' temporary shrine. With the real owner absent, the puppet had time to spare, so he casually moved in and took over the shrine. He let the lotus roots in the pond rot, let the ants hollow out the camphor tree, and used Liang Yi's talismans as corner weights for the gambling tables...

Many people came to the temporary shrine to make wishes every day. Though the puppet couldn't hear, a single glance told him what the kneeling worshippers were wishing for.

So boring. So dull. He wanted to kick their butts—huh? Someone's wish was to become really good at playing the flute???

The puppet sat up from his reclining position, opened his eyes, and borrowed the deity statue's sight to glance down below. He saw a young girl burning incense with devotion.

The first time he saw her, the puppet felt nothing much—didn't even remember what she looked like. Mortal appearances were just a layer of skin to him; strip away that outer shell, and everyone was just a mass of red flesh and white bones.

But he granted her wish.

Because he suddenly wanted to hear the sound of a flute.

Only after granting the wish did the puppet remember he couldn't hear at all. That belated realization kindled a sudden fury in his gut—he felt mocked. No one could mock a gambling deity's avatar. That infuriating little girl had to be punished—and severely!

So he brought the girl before him, which led to the present moment.

Now a new problem had arisen. Honestly, this girl could cry. He hadn't even done anything—just played a tiny joke on her—and already she was sobbing like he was about to kill her.

Smiling, the young man cupped her cheeks and squeezed them inward. "Stop crying. I'm so kind, so good to you. You should be smiling at me."

The tears on her cheeks smeared across his fingers and palms, their wet, slippery skin rubbing together. He Zhuoming's eyes were squeezed shut, and she half-suspected he was trying to crush her skull, so between sobs she kicked him hard in fright.

And he actually got kicked away.

The young man—who'd seemed all-powerful, whether Deity or Corrupted—toppled backward, rolling away like a ball, thumping and bumping.

He Zhuoming froze. After a long moment, she hiccuped in dazed confusion and muttered, "D-did I do that?"

The young man rolled a few times, then sat back up like a roly-poly toy, still beaming at He Zhuoming. She shuddered under his gaze, hugged her comic tightly, and scooted aside, while sneaking a glance at her own feet out of the corner of her eye.

The young man rubbed his stomach, his smile drooping, and sighed. "You look horrible when you cry, and you're so annoying. Don't cry anymore when there's nothing wrong."

Of course, a little girl's kick couldn't send him rolling. He just thought it might make her stop crying. The first sob had been amusing, but as her tears kept falling, he began to feel restless and uneasy. Though he couldn't hear her crying, her tears seemed to flow across Tang Shuyu's heart, flooding him with the awful sensation of being caught in a winter rain.

Hearing this, He Zhuoming wiped her face with her sleeve and pressed her lips together, saying nothing.

Meanwhile, she touched her cheeks with lingering fear. They still hurt a little; the feeling of his fingers digging into her flesh lingered... Well, at least her head hadn't been crushed. Thank goodness!

Hugging the comic, He Zhuoming couldn't help glancing at the rest of her belongings still floating in midair. She was terrified he'd get angry at being rebuffed and toss everything else into the 'invisible shredder.' And now that she'd cried and cooled her head, even if he shredded her math book, physics book, and chemistry book, He Zhuoming felt she didn't have the courage to dive in and snatch them from the tiger's jaws a second time.

But the young man didn't reach for the books again. He stared at He Zhuoming for a while, then suddenly smiled and said, "You hate the wheel? Fine, no helping it—I'm just that kind of pushover, always granting people's wishes."

"Since you hate spinning wheels so much, let's switch it up. Write out your name for me."