Ethan Clark unconsciously tilted her head as well, showing the same puzzled expression: "…?" You don't know what I was just doing? Wasn't that nod meant as approval?

Chapter 7 06 Blessing

The clan women who had finished offering incense did not leave quickly as usual. They respectfully bowed to the main altar and said, "Clan god, the god's birth month is approaching. Recently, there are nine newborn children in the clan who are eligible to receive your blessing."

Hiding behind the clan god and folding paper flowers, Ethan Clark was taken aback. God’s birth month? She had never heard of such a thing. And the blessing for newborns reminded her of some gossip she’d heard before—it seemed to be some kind of ritual.

The clan god’s voice was gentle. "As per tradition, have them come here on the second day of the god’s birth month."

"Yes."

After the two clan women left, Ethan Clark came out from her hiding spot and glanced at the pale gray sky outside. She had been here for a month already; it was late autumn when she arrived, and now it was winter, the weather growing colder and colder.

When she turned around, she saw the clan god looking at her, as if waiting for her to ask something. Ethan Clark, who hadn’t planned to ask any questions, tried to speak under that gaze: "The god’s birth month you mentioned earlier—is that the time when the clan god was born? Why is it a birth month and not a birth day?"

She thought of those common festivals. Generally, the legendary immortals, gods, and Buddhas all had birthdays, but it was always a specific day.

"Because the birth of the clan god takes a whole month," the clan god answered slowly.

Ethan Clark suddenly felt an indescribable strangeness, though she didn’t know where it came from. "You… where was the clan god born? From between heaven and earth?"

The clan god smiled. "The clan god is born from among people."

Ethan Clark didn’t quite understand, but she wasn’t the type to insist on figuring everything out, so she let it go. In her impression, the birthdays of gods and immortals were days when temples and monasteries held ceremonies. She had thought that during this god’s birth month, this old mansion would be more festive and lively than usual, but things turned out a bit differently than she expected.

All the red lanterns outside the courtyard were replaced with white ones. Everyone walking in the outer courtyard, men and women alike, wore black clothes and white flowers. Even the usual private laughter and playful banter had disappeared. Even with people coming and going, the courtyard was filled with a solemn, deathly stillness.

The curtains and drapes of the altar were changed to black, and when they hung down, the entire altar was dimly lit. After offering incense, the clan women burned paper outside the courtyard—yellow paper as the base, covered with red abstract patterns. As they burned the paper, they chanted prayers that made no sense to her.

Such behavior easily made one think of rituals for the dead.

Ethan Clark walked like an invisible ghost along a secluded path in the outer courtyard, overhearing two young girls chatting quietly as they came out of the nearby bathhouse.

"Every time it’s ‘Ghost Month,’ I get scared, like this mansion suddenly comes alive and then dies again."

"Don’t say such scary things! And the clan women forbid us from calling it ‘Ghost Month’—we’re supposed to say ‘God’s Birth Month.’ If you’re overheard, you’ll be punished again!"

Ghost Month? In the customs Ethan Clark knew, Ghost Month referred to the seventh month, because of the Zhongyuan Festival, a day for honoring ancestors and delivering lost souls. But nowadays, most people no longer cared about that. Was their Ghost Month different from what ordinary people meant by it?

At dusk, the altar courtyard was closed earlier than usual, and music drifted in from outside. She couldn’t tell what instruments were being played; there were also faint jingling bells, creating a distant, tranquil feeling, accompanied by a barely audible chanting voice, like a lullaby.

Ethan Clark slept and woke up to find it still pitch black. She lifted the curtain and looked outside—dawn had not yet come, and the music and chanting she’d heard before falling asleep still hadn’t stopped. It just seemed much farther away now, only a faint sound in the distance.

Suddenly, she sensed something was wrong and turned to look at the altar inside.

The clan god, who usually sat at the innermost part of the altar, was nowhere to be seen. The cramped space was filled with masses of red thread. Ethan Clark scrambled up, her heart pounding, and cautiously approached the outermost layer, softly calling, "Clan god?"

"What’s wrong with you?"

A white sleeve reached out from within the red threads, a porcelain-white hand drooping weakly, beckoning to her.

Ethan Clark carefully walked over and reached out with both hands to hold the hand hanging before her. It felt cold to the touch, as if she were holding a hand made of porcelain.

Suddenly.

That hand abruptly dissolved in her palms into a tangled mass of red threads, slipping through her fingers.

Startled, Ethan Clark couldn’t help but stand up. In that split second, she realized all the light around her had dimmed, and she had inexplicably arrived in a strange place. In the boundless darkness, her own breathing and footsteps echoed loudly. The only thing emitting a faint glow was an old, simple altar, upon which stood a life-sized porcelain statue of a god.

The statue was wrapped all over with dense red threads, its face bearing the clan god’s familiar smile. A crack ran across the head of the porcelain statue, splitting that smiling face right down the middle.