The clan women were completely unaware of the extra flowers on the altar; only Family Deity, seated on the altar, would occasionally gaze at those two ordinary flowers. They would usually wither after a day or two, but before they wilted, the person who quietly placed them in the vase would replace them with fresh ones.

Compared to the expensive, carefully cultivated and selected fruits beside them, these were truly shabby offerings.

Ethan Clark felt very ashamed of her “offering borrowed flowers to Buddha” behavior. The flowers were picked from the roadside, the glass bottle was a small drink bottle taken from the kitchen—she was too embarrassed to call it a gift, so she silently mixed it in with the other fruit and pastries as an offering.

Facing a god, as an ordinary person, she was always fearful. But on the other hand, the god always appeared gentle and harmless, and she could only rely on him. She was often deceived by his human-like appearance, thinking he was just a boy about the same age as her younger sister.

She had already been led by the sleeve by Family Deity to eat many times, and Ethan Clark could now face it calmly. Most of the time, they would avoid the cafeteria when it was crowded, but occasionally they would fail to miss the rush, so Ethan Clark would carry her food and shrink into the room with the fewest people—this time, there were only two others eating inside.

The two elderly clan women would drink tea and chat after their meal, and Ethan Clark listened to their conversation as she ate.

“These past couple of days, when I went to the shrine to offer incense to Family Deity, I seemed to smell something foul.”

“I smelled it too, faintly. What’s going on?”

“I wonder if that escaped sacrificial offering from before died in some corner of the courtyard and started to rot, so there’s a bit of a stench?”

“That’s possible. After hiding for so long, it’s about time to starve to death. We’d better follow the smell and quickly find the body to deal with it.”

“The smell is near the shrine. Could that person be hiding under the shrine?”

“How could an ordinary person not fear Family Deity? They must be crazy.”

Ethan Clark ate silently, feeling as if these two old ladies were talking about a mouse that had died in some corner of the house.

And then… she stretched out her arm and sniffed herself. It really did seem a bit smelly, which was quite embarrassing. She had thought about bathing, but there was nowhere to bathe in that courtyard, and she could only leave the courtyard if accompanied by Family Deity. She didn’t dare trouble Family Deity, so she kept putting it off.

But now, if she didn’t clean up, she’d end up stinking up Family Deity himself.

“Bathing?” Family Deity seemed to have just been reminded, and said with a smile, “Yes, humans need to clean their bodies.”

Seeing that Family Deity wasn’t bothered by the trouble, Ethan Clark felt relieved. Family Deity floated ahead, and she followed behind, finding a bathhouse. The bathhouse in this residence, like the cafeteria, looked ancient and elegant from the outside, but inside it was built to modern standards and comfort, with more than a dozen partitioned shower rooms and a bath pool.

Finally being able to take a proper hot shower was indeed wonderful, though the process was nerve-wracking—not because Family Deity was floating nearby, but because halfway through, other people entered the bathhouse, and she finally realized this was the men’s bathhouse.

She was in the innermost stall, and people entered the neighboring stalls, chatting as they washed. The men seemed to be the ones responsible for guarding the shrine courtyard. Though they appeared cold and stern on the surface, they were surprisingly chatty while bathing.

Ethan Clark listened as they talked about everything from shift rotations to where to go for fun after their leave, and then the conversation turned to Family Deity.

From the bits and pieces she’d overheard in the courtyard over time, Ethan Clark already knew that Family Deity was the clan god of the The Foster Family family. The The Foster Family were a large and prosperous family blessed by a god, and these people had all been selected from within the clan. Except for the two clan women, everyone else rotated in and out periodically.

“I heard from the clan women that this time, the awakened Family Deity has a very gentle temperament. Even when Brian Foster and Eric Foster made such a big mistake and neglected the sacrificial offering, he didn’t strip them of their surname, just sent them to the outskirts.”

“Then our term as guards should be pretty easy—at least no one will die.”

“The group from two years ago had it rough. The Family Deity who woke up then was cold and ruthless. Any The Foster Family clansman who made a mistake during his awakening met a bad end—even two guards died because he caught them misbehaving. And that one was especially fond of ‘punishment.’ The babies sent to the main house for ‘blessing’ that year will probably all grow up to be ‘severe officials.’”

“Speaking of which, there was another time. Do you know Great-Uncle Jason Foster? He’s now the chief adjudicator, known as the ‘walking code of law.’ They say the year Great-Uncle was born, the awakened Family Deity was especially strict and cold, so the children blessed by Family Deity that year were also affected. They revised the laws, and all the cases Great-Uncle judged as an adjudicator, the criminals all received the harshest punishments.”

Ethan Clark listened to this gossip, her head lowering further and further. These people didn’t know that while they were gossiping about their Family Deity, Family Deity himself was sitting on the partition above the next shower stall, listening quietly with a gentle smile.

Glancing up slightly, Ethan Clark saw the white sleeve of Family Deity hanging down, and hurried up her washing.