Luo Yuan planted that rose under the corridor pillar on the other side of the shrine, directly opposite it. Planted here, once the rose branches spread out and grew again, one would be able to see the flowers cascading like a waterfall from inside the shrine.

“Er-ge, the clan women said they prepared a new courtyard for me in the outer compound, but I want to live here instead. There are three empty rooms in this courtyard, can I choose one to live in?” After planting the flower and washing her hands, Luo Yuan asked the clan deity on the divine platform.

Although he still looked indifferent, the intimate form of address “Er-ge” gave Luo Yuan a great sense of safety and confidence.

Sure enough, the indifferent clan deity did not ask anything and simply nodded in agreement.

The two clan women heard that Luo Yuan had decided to abandon the comfortable courtyard outside and move into the shrine. They looked at each other, thinking: She clearly looked weak and timid at first, so how does she have so many ideas and such firm opinions? She can’t be controlled at all, and the clan deity even looks completely indulgent, letting her do whatever she wants. At this rate, her tail will be sticking up into the sky sooner or later.

Strangely enough, both of them had read Luo Yuan’s file and knew she had killed before, yet every time they saw her appearance, they felt she was just a harmless woman, and always had the illusion that she would listen to anything they said.

Aside from the time during the first month of the year, today was likely the liveliest the shrine had been, because Luo Yuan was moving in. The two clan women responsible for taking care of her daily life, although unwilling, still dutifully prepared many living necessities for her. The required furniture was also the best available. These items needed people to bring them in, so throughout the entire day, people were coming and going. Even if everyone consciously tried to stay quiet, it still felt noisy and bustling.

The two clan women stood there like supervisors, occasionally lowering their voices to ask everyone to keep quiet. Luo Yuan glanced toward the side that was covered by a curtain — the clan deity, expression cold, giving others the illusion he was angry — then walked over to the two nervous clan women and comforted them.

“No need to be so tense, Er-ge doesn’t mind this level of noise.” If anything, she felt the clan deity actually liked the hustle and bustle deep down, but simply never said so.

Hearing her call him “Er-ge,” the two clan women once again showed expressions like they were about to have heart attacks. One of them even took out a medicine bottle from her sleeve and swallowed a pill. Luo Yuan pretended not to see it. She also didn’t want to constantly provoke these two elderly ladies, but no matter what she did, they were always provoked. Compared to their countless trigger points and bottom lines that could be stepped on so easily, the clan deity… Er-ge was truly much more easygoing.

After a whole day of commotion, a refined and spacious room was quickly arranged. Compared to the clan deity’s shrine, this ancient-styled room was truly one suitable for a person to live in.

“Then please rest, we will take our leave now.” The two clan women saw everything was finally finished and were about to depart when they heard Luo Yuan raise a request.

“May I trouble you to prepare two phones for me?”

Phones? The two clan women froze. They looked at this shrine courtyard that had no trace of modernity at all and asked, “You’re planning to… use a phone here?”

Luo Yuan didn’t expect asking for a phone would shock them so much. She hesitated and asked, “Is there… no internet or signal in here?”

But in the past, when she went out to eat with the clan deity, she had seen others secretly using their phones — there was internet, so coverage should exist.

“You want to use something like a phone right in front of the clan deity?!”

“What’s wrong with that?” She wanted two phones, she even wanted Er-ge to play with her. She had wanted to do this for a long time.

No matter what the two old-fashioned elderly ladies thought, the phones still arrived quickly. Luo Yuan took them into the shrine, preparing to teach Er-ge how to use one, but as soon as the perfectly fine phone reached the clan deity’s hand, it smoked and went black within three seconds.

Luo Yuan: “This phone is broken? Then Er-ge can use mine.”

The cold clan deity rejected her coldly. “No need.”

Luo Yuan realized something and asked, “Could it be… you can’t use a phone?” She recalled those five months — occasionally she played with other people’s phones in secret, and the clan deity would float beside her with a smiling expression, watching her play, never touching the phone himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, he couldn’t?

That day, Liang-shi’s Qi Ji said their clan deity was working. Since he worked, he must face computers and phones — how could he?

She voiced her doubt, and the clan deity replied, “I am different from them. Whatever one gains, one naturally loses something.”

As Qi Ji had said, he was the most special of all clan deities. Not knowing the taste of food, unable to use such precise modern devices, feeding on evil to live, turning himself into history, guarding the family for a long, long time… all of these were his own choices.

“Then I’ll play and let Er-ge watch. Whatever you want to see, I’ll tap it for you.” Luo Yuan lifted her phone and smiled gently, revealing a trace of the clan deity’s former appearance. She treated herself like a phone stand, wanting only to bring a little joy to the person she loved. If she could add some simple happiness to his long, unchanging life, that would be enough.

The clan deity gazed at her. His cold face, distant as if rejecting her from a thousand miles away, clearly spelled out refusal but the words that came out of his mouth were: “Snake.”

(TL: So he’s a tsundere now)

Luo Yuan was not surprised at all. She skillfully searched for the game download. “Er-ge really does like watching this.”

She was very patient, especially toward someone important to her, willing to do anything for him. The divine platform had steps; the clan deity sat at the very top, and Luo Yuan sat just below him. It looked as though she were sitting in his lap. When the clan deity lowered his head, he could see the top of her head and the game screen she held in her hands.

The sound effects of Snake echoed inside the ancient shrine — childish and cheerful tones repeating over and over. But the one playing and the one watching did not find it dull. Luo Yuan was no longer human now and did not feel tired. She played Snake deep into the night. She could keep a round going for a very long time, and whenever a round ended, she would lift her face to check whether the clan deity was getting bored.

Look once, continue playing. Look again, continue playing.

“Er-ge has been watching me play for so long, you’re still not tired of it?” She lifted her face again to ask. The clan deity’s cold hand landed on her head; cold like his expression, yet Luo Yuan clearly felt he was urging her to start another round.

Luo Yuan suddenly wanted to imitate his little bit of mischief. She exited the game and tapped into another one. “Let’s look at a new game. There are lots of games, we can look at each one. Maybe Er-ge will like one.”

She tapped into a gacha¹Gacha (ガチャ ): A game mechanic where you spend in-game currency (free or paid) to draw random characters, items, or cards. It’s named after the Japanese capsule toy machines gacha-gacha, where you twist the knob and get a surprise toy. game, newly released and very popular. Not long after entering, she was dazzled by the overwhelming number of features. She actually didn’t like playing games that much; she couldn’t understand why modern mobile games had so many functions packed into one.

“Mm… let’s just draw cards directly then.” Even if she didn’t understand, she would never show weakness in front of her Er-ge, who was many, many, many years older. She went straight to the gacha section.

She tapped once, saw the character that appeared, and a finger reached in beside her cheek, lightly tapping the graceful, floating-haired character on the screen.

“Er-ge is asking who he is? Let me check the introduction… Mm, a god controlling wind? And this one is a food god? Heart-throbbing pika-pika… uh…” Luo Yuan exited the game. She felt it was better to just play Snake.

But the clan deity, who had been fine with just Snake before, now seemed to have discovered that other mobile games were also interesting. He reached out, lightly tapping the other icons on the screen as if wanting to see more. Luo Yuan could only accept her fate and open them for him, suddenly feeling like she was teaching a ninety-year-old grandpa how to use a smartphone.

“This one is a payment app, this one is for reading novels, and this is a social platform app… hm? These two clan women are already added here?”

Luo Yuan stared, surprised, at the avatars labeled with the clan women’s names. She explained to the clan deity, “With this, you can type or send voice messages. You can also make real-time calls and video calls — it’s just like being face to face. Er-ge, do you remember? We saw a little girl doing a video call with her family before.”

The clan deity’s finger began tapping again.

Luo Yuan opened the app to show him, but accidentally pressed the video call button — and the other party answered almost immediately. On the phone screen appeared a clan woman, sleepy and groggy. It seemed she had woken up to drink water and hadn’t checked who was calling, glancing over casually.

“……”

The screen showed Luo Yuan and behind her the expressionless clan deity, with the shrine glowing red in the background. The elderly woman froze, fully awake. The cup in her hand fell to the ground with a loud crash. (TL: LMAOOO I would have a heart attack)

“Sorry, I pressed it on accident. Please rest well.” Luo Yuan quickly hung up the video call. She lifted her face to look at the clan deity, then suddenly burst out laughing.

“Hahahahahahahahaha!” She collapsed into the clan deity’s arms, her forehead pressed against his stomach, laughing so hard her whole body shook.

His cold hand pressed against her cheek. “Mischievous child.”

Luo Yuan’s laughter turned into muffled giggles as she buried her face in his embrace. She thought, if he weren’t wearing that mask, Er-ge’s face right now would definitely be smiling too. He would be laughing with her.

In that same position, she continued showing the other apps on the phone to the clan deity.

“This one is for food delivery, everything here is food and drinks… See, there are all kinds of food.” Luo Yuan casually scrolled, planning to exit, but a hand touched her face, so she had to stop and carefully scroll through the options for the clan deity behind her.

The clan deity examined the items closely, quite interested. He tapped on one of them. “Eat this.”

“Er-ge can’t eat though, right?” Luo Yuan was helpless. “You mean me? But we’re surrounded by forest. There are no shops nearby; everything is outside the delivery range. And it’s already late at night. How about… I eat it tomorrow instead?”

“This one.”

“Alright, I’ll eat this too. I’ll add them all to favorites.”

After she favorited a whole pile of random takeout items, the clan deity finally allowed her to exit the app. Luo Yuan exited, then opened a music app and casually played a popular love song.

Normally this song should sound fine, but in this environment — the slightly plaintive, sorrowful female voice paired with the red glow and everything inside the shrine — it somehow felt like background music from a horror movie. And the clan deity showed no reaction at all.

Luo Yuan remembered how the grandpas and grandmas in the neighborhood used to love listening to opera, so she played an opera piece. But the drawn-out, wailing tones, in this atmosphere, made it feel even more like a horror movie.

The clan deity said, “I have heard this before.”

Luo Yuan: “Er-ge has heard this type of opera? When?”

The clan deity: “Some time ago.”

Luo Yuan guessed, “Fifty years ago?”

The clan deity held up three fingers.

Luo Yuan: “Thirty… three hundred years?”

Finally, she switched to comedic crosstalk. That did it — in the back-and-forth teasing banter of the two xiangsheng²Xiangsheng — a traditional Chinese comedic performance art featuring rapid-fire dialogue, wordplay, and humorous banter between two performers. performers, the eerie, mysterious atmosphere of the shrine was completely destroyed.

Unexpectedly, the clan deity rather enjoyed listening to the xiangsheng. But the phone battery died, so they couldn’t listen for long. Naturally, the shrine had no place to charge anything.

Luo Yuan set down the phone. “This phone is out of battery. We’ll charge it tomorrow and listen again.”

Right after she spoke, a cold hand touched her face.

Luo Yuan: “…Er-ge, it’s three in the morning. Do you want me to go out right now to find a place to charge the phone?”

───♡───

Early the next morning, one clan woman said to the other: “Last night, madam video-called me. I saw her and the clan deity.”

The elderly woman sighed. “You’re under too much stress, that’s why you had such a strange dream. A lot has happened lately — get a doctor to check you, maybe run an exam.”

Footnotes

• 1
  Gacha (ガチャ ): A game mechanic where you spend in-game currency (free or paid) to draw random characters, items, or cards. It’s named after the Japanese capsule toy machines gacha-gacha, where you twist the knob and get a surprise toy.
• 2
  Xiangsheng — a traditional Chinese comedic performance art featuring rapid-fire dialogue, wordplay, and humorous banter between two performers.