Taking advantage of the fact that those people were still in the bath and hadn’t come out yet, Ethan Clark quickly changed into a clean bathrobe and slipped out, once again grabbing Family Deity’s sleeve and following his lead back. The corridor she had walked through the first time she came here was still shrouded in the same dim light, but she no longer felt afraid—in fact, she even wanted to chat.

“Do you fall into slumber every once in a while?”

Family Deity smiled and nodded.

“And each time you awaken, do you display a different personality?”

Family Deity smiled and nodded.

“Do you remember what happened before?”

Ethan Clark fired off three questions in a row, her soft footsteps echoing alone in the corridor.

Family Deity finally stopped just smiling and nodding. His tone, like the setting sun, slowly sank: “Family Deity never forgets anything. Every family’s shikigami is like a family chronicle and genealogy that grows ever more bloated.”

Ethan Clark was surprised. “Every family… Does that mean there are other Family Deity besides you?”

Family Deity tilted his head, his smiling expression like a mask frozen on a statue. He said, “This world is not as simple as ordinary people see it.”

The wind howled through the corridor, through her empty bathrobe, making her feel a bit cold.

Yes, only now has a corner of this hidden world’s true face been revealed to me. Ethan Clark didn’t try to ask any more related questions. She saw a cluster of blooming chrysanthemums by the path, picked two stems to take with her, planning to replace the soon-to-wilt flowers in the shrine.

“Why do I feel like the offerings we’ve replaced lately are sometimes a little less than before?”

“And that faint stench is gone too.”

“The hidden offering still hasn’t been found. Just where did it die? Did we miss it, or has Family Deity already taken care of it?”

“To have Family Deity personally handle such trivial matters—how shameful for us.”

Ethan Clark heard the two shrine maidens’ routine complaints, but felt nothing at all. She would leave right after eating. She lived in this old mansion like a living ghost. Compared to how she was frightened by them at first, she now thought it should be the other way around—if she ever revealed herself, she’d probably scare those two shrine maidens instead.

Several young girls learning from the two shrine maidens seemed to be in training as the next generation of attendants. Although the shrine maidens emphasized that serving Family Deity should be their sole purpose in life and hoped the successors would focus on learning, there were always two who weren’t very serious and would sneak off to play on their phones.

Ethan Clark hadn’t seen a phone in a long time. Once, she happened to catch the two of them playing on their phones and couldn’t help but go over to take a look. Family Deity followed her lead as well. Ethan Clark leaned over next to the two girls to peek at their screens, while Family Deity floated nearby, watching.

The two girls were playing a game. Ethan Clark had never played it, but she remembered her younger sister seemed to have played this game before. Watching the two girls, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of closeness.

The game was well-made, and the two were focused on controlling their characters in battle. After watching for a while, Family Deity asked, “What is this?”

“It’s a phone. They’re playing a game,” Ethan Clark replied hesitantly. “If you’re interested, you could have the shrine maidens offer up a phone.” She said this with a bit of selfishness—having been away from her familiar life for so long, she wanted more contact with the world she knew.

Family Deity’s tone was calm: “Family Deity does not favor any particular thing.”

Ethan Clark: “……” That sounds so familiar.

So, he won’t ask for anything, but if something is placed in front of him, he’ll accept it—is that what he means? Ethan Clark guessed, drawing on her experience communicating with her teenage sister.

Should she say that Family Deity is like an old man who doesn’t know how to ask for things and just waits for others to guess, or like a teenager who wants something but won’t say it out loud and waits for others to figure it out?

Although she didn’t get a phone, during her daily trips to the outer courtyard, if she paid attention, she could spot quite a few people secretly using their phones—making calls, chatting, reading news, playing games. Every time Ethan Clark saw this, she would tug on Family Deity’s sleeve; if she could pull it, it meant Family Deity allowed her to go over and watch.

He allowed it every time.

Through this, Ethan Clark finally felt connected to the real world again. Sometimes, the push notifications that popped up on those phones even included things she was familiar with.

Unbeknownst to everyone in the old mansion, Ethan Clark and Family Deity had seen almost everything on their phones. So, some secrets had nowhere to hide. For example, there was a male guard who, behind his wife’s back, was simultaneously involved with several lovers.

The man put down his phone to fetch something. Ethan Clark stood to the side, looking at the phone with a hesitant expression, glancing at Family Deity as if she wanted to say something but held back.

Family Deity smiled and nodded.

Ethan Clark instantly felt that Family Deity understood what she was thinking and was even giving his support. So she picked up the phone, quickly added the man’s wife and all his lovers into a group chat, shared all the chat screenshots, and before the man returned, swiftly put the phone back where it was.

After doing all this, she looked at Family Deity and couldn’t help but smile.

Family Deity still wore that unchanging smile, but after a while, he tilted his head in slight confusion, as if to ask, “What are you doing?”