After Being Offered to the Evil God, He Comes to My Room Every Night - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Feng Jinxue.

When I was seventeen, my mother sold me to the “Evil God” in the Black Temple outside of town.

The night before she sold me, she cooked me a bowl of egg noodles.

She pushed the bowl toward me, her eyes rimmed with red, yet not a single soft word left her mouth.

“Don’t blame me.”

“If it weren’t for your cursed fate, you wouldn’t be the one chosen to enjoy such a blessing.”

I laughed.

“Pushing someone into a coffin is considered a blessing now?”

Her face instantly turned cold, as if I had pricked a sore spot.

“What do you know?”

“Which family in this town hasn’t given up a girl? It’s your turn now; it’s a debt of fate you must repay.”

I gripped my chopsticks and didn’t move.

I knew why she was in such a hurry.

My half-sister, Feng Xiaodie, was pregnant with the Town Head’s son’s child.

The Town Head’s family looked down on her, calling her filthy, and refused to acknowledge the baby.

Mother was afraid the matter would blow up, afraid my sister would be drowned in a pond as punishment, and afraid she would lose her chance to climb the social ladder.

And I – a burden who had never been loved since childhood – was the perfect sacrifice to plug the hole.

The Black Temple wanted a “bride.”

Every three years, the town had to send a girl there. They said it was to suppress evil, to ensure safety, and to pray for favorable weather.

But of the girls who went, not one ever returned.

Some said they were eaten.

Others said they went mad and threw themselves down a well.

I never used to believe those ghost stories.

Not until I was fifteen, when I saw the previous God-Bride being carried back with my own eyes.

That girl was white all over, like a paper doll soaked through with water.

Her eyes were wide open, and her throat was choked with black mud.

Before she died, she kept clawing at her own neck, wheezing out a single sentence over and over.

“It wasn’t him…”

But she breathed her last before she could finish.

The next day, the townsfolk nailed her coffin shut.

On the third day, they beat drums and gongs in front of the temple, claiming the Evil God was merciful because the well water was clearer than in previous years.

From that moment on, I knew this town was far filthier than whatever was enshrined in that temple.

So, on the day of the wedding, I didn’t shed a single tear.

There were no drums, no guests, and no groom arriving on horseback to collect me.

Wearing a bridal gown so red it bordered on black, I was held down by two men and shoved into the Black Temple outside the town.

The moment the temple Gate closed, the sounds of crying and laughter from outside vanished.

Only the wind remained, rushing in and making the candlelight flicker.

I sat on the bed and waited.

I waited from dusk until the middle of the night, but I didn’t see so much as a ghostly shadow.

Just as I was preparing to lift the veil myself, the edge of the bed suddenly sank.

It was as if something had crawled up, silent and invisible.

In the next second, a pitch-black hand reached out from behind me.

It didn’t look like a human hand.

The knuckles were longer, and the skin looked as if it had been steeped in the night, terrifyingly cold.

Yet, when it touched my face, it was very light.

So light it seemed afraid of hurting me.

Cold sweat broke out across my back instantly.

I grit my teeth and didn’t scream.

That hand lifted the veil for me, then lingered for a moment at the trembling corner of my eye, as if wiping away my sweat.

I stared at it, and suddenly, I wasn’t afraid anymore.

Because if it really wanted to eat me, I would have been dead long ago.

I took a breath and asked into the darkness.

“Are you particularly ugly? Is that why you’re afraid to show your face?”

The air stayed silent for a long time.

So long that I thought I had angered it.

But in the next instant, that hand actually gave my forehead a gentle flick.

It felt like a gesture of helplessness.

Or perhaps, it was as if I had amused it to the point of laughter.

That night, it didn’t touch me any further.

It simply stayed by the bedside the entire time.

When I was so drowsy I could no longer keep my eyes open, I felt something icy gently wrap around my fingers.

It was as if someone, separated by a layer of invisible black mist, was clumsily telling me:

Don’t be afraid.