My Portrait Was Enshrined in the Mountain God Temple - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Xu Zhi.

Twenty-four years old, buried in debt, my job gone, my apartment forfeited-I was being driven to the brink of insanity.

Three days ago, to escape the debt collectors, I hopped on a night bus to a neighboring city.

Halfway there, the bus ran into a landslide. The road ahead was blocked.

The driver, unwilling to deal with the hassle, dumped all the passengers at the foot of the mountain. He told us there was a village ahead and that we could find a place to stay if we walked.

I dragged my luggage and started heading into the mountains.

Darkness fell quickly.

There was no signal in the mountains, the GPS failed, and the rain came down in increasingly heavy bursts.

The people I’d been walking with had long since scattered. I was the only one left, wandering further and further off course until I finally spotted an old temple halfway up the mountain.

The plaque above the temple doors had partially fallen off, leaving only the word “God” visible.

I didn’t want to go in at first.

But the rain was too heavy, my shoes were filled with mud, and if I stayed out there any longer, I really would freeze to death.

It was dark inside the temple.

A statue of the Mountain God sat on the altar. The clay body was badly peeling, but the face remained intact.

I didn’t dare look closely at first.

It was because the statue looked too real.

It didn’t look like a clay figure.

Instead, it felt as if a real person were standing on the altar, eyes cast down, watching me.

There was an old woman in the temple as well.

She was huddled in a corner by a fire, her hair completely white, her back severely hunched, and her body wrapped in a gray cloth jacket.

When she saw me enter, she glanced out the door first, then at me.

After looking me over, she let out a sigh.

“You came after all.”

At the time, I just thought she was old and senile.

I asked her if there was a way down the mountain nearby.

She said there was.

But then she added that I couldn’t leave tonight.

“When it rains, the mountain closes its gates.”

I didn’t understand what that meant.

But I was too exhausted to even bother asking. I just wanted to endure the night in the temple and leave at daybreak.

That first night, I dreamed of a man.

He stood in the snow, dressed all in white, holding a lantern. The flame didn’t flicker at all.

I couldn’t see his face clearly.

I only heard him calling a name.

“Ah Zhi.”

I didn’t realize he was calling me at first.

Not until he approached and reached out to touch my face.

His hand was freezing.

As if it had just been pulled out of water.

I snapped awake.

When I woke up, the sun wasn’t out yet, and the fire in the temple had died.

The old woman was sitting beneath the statue, staring at me without blinking.

It gave me the creeps. I asked her what she was looking at.

She said it was nothing.

“Just seeing how many more days you have to live.”

I’ve always had a bit of a temper, and hearing that, I nearly lost it right then and there.

But back then, I had no money, nowhere to go, and I didn’t dare truly fall out with an old woman in the mountains.

I endured it.

The next day, I tried to head down the mountain.

After walking for an hour, I somehow ended up right back where I started.

The temple door was the same door.

The moss on the stone steps, the broken half of a flagpole by the entrance, even the plastic water bottle I’d tossed by the door yesterday-nothing had changed.

Refusing to believe in such nonsense, I tried again.

I still came back.

By the time I returned for the third time, my legs were weak.

The old woman sat on the threshold, looking at me like one looks at someone who was destined to lose.

She said it wasn’t that there were no paths in the mountain.

“It’s that it won’t let you leave.”

I cursed her for being superstitious and crazy.

But after I finished shouting, my heart went cold.

If it were just a matter of getting lost, how could I have circled back to the exact same spot three times?

By the third day, the rice in the temple was almost gone, and the rain still hadn’t stopped.

I was just weighing whether to take a risk and force my way down the mountain when footsteps suddenly echoed from outside.

They were very light.

Like someone stepping through the rainwater, walking up the stone steps one pace at a time.

I stood up instantly.

In these three days, this was the first sound I’d heard other than myself and the old woman.

The wind blew the temple door open a crack.

A man was standing outside.

He was dressed in white, holding a black umbrella, the hem of his robes so clean they weren’t touched by a single speck of mud.

His features were delicate, the bridge of his nose high, and his face was so pale it looked as if it hadn’t seen the sun in years.

He stood there, watching me for a long time.

As if he were confirming whether or not I was still alive.

Then, he spoke.

“Xu Zhi.”

“Come with me.”