Huangvale, a remote and ordinary mountain village in Northwest State.
The village is surrounded on all sides by steep mountains. The mountain roads are so treacherous that even motorcycles can barely pass, so to this day, the village still doesn’t have electricity.
There are just over 120 households in the whole village, with a population of around five hundred.
Unlike other villages, Huangvale’s fertile land means that as long as you’re a bit hardworking, food and drink are never a worry. Since most of the young people here have little education, nearly all of them stay in the village instead of leaving to work elsewhere.
As a result, this is a truly self-sufficient village. Only when they need essentials do the villagers hike for hours through the mountains to buy supplies at a market town dozens of miles away.
At the entrance to the village stands a rundown earth-god shrine.
Years of neglect have left the shrine overgrown with weeds. The statue of the Land God is streaked with rust, and both arms are covered in cracks, looking like they might fall off at any moment.
But when the world’s spiritual energy suddenly erupts, the battered Land God statue bursts forth with a ring of greenish light. The cracked arms miraculously heal, and even the rusty surface is renewed, as if freshly painted.
At the same time, the statue’s eyes emit a faint, eerie green glow.
After a while, the green light fades and the statue returns to normal.
As night fell, Old Liu returned from weeding, carrying his hoe and puffing on his pipe. Passing by the earth-god shrine, he glanced at the Land God statue and stopped in surprise.
He walked this way nearly every day and knew exactly what the statue looked like. Just that afternoon, when he went up the mountain to weed, the statue was still a wreck—so how did it suddenly look brand new just a few hours later?
As Old Liu stared curiously at the Land God statue, its eyes suddenly flashed with a faint light, but the glow vanished in an instant.
The next moment, a strange impulse came over Old Liu. He picked up his hoe and started clearing weeds around the shrine.
After more than ten minutes, Old Liu had cleared all the weeds around the shrine. Suddenly he snapped out of it, startled—Why did I just start weeding here out of nowhere?
Though puzzled, Old Liu didn’t dwell on it. He slung his hoe over his shoulder and headed home.
Because the village still has no electricity, everyone goes to bed early.
At nine in the evening, when nightlife in big cities is just starting, every villager in Huangvale is already asleep.
While they slept, none of them noticed that the Land God statue at the village entrance was quietly radiating a gentle greenish light, blanketing the whole village.
At six the next morning, with the sky still gray, Old Liu woke up to find his wife missing from their bed. He figured she must be up making breakfast.
He got dressed, pipe in mouth, and headed to the kitchen, only to find it cold and empty—no sign anyone had started breakfast.
"Wife! Where’d you run off to so early in the morning?"
Old Liu raised his voice, calling out.
"Why are you yelling like it’s a funeral at the crack of dawn, old man!" his wife’s voice came from outside, and then she walked in from the courtyard.
"Where’d you go so early?" Old Liu asked.
"Lord Landy came to me in a dream last night, so I went to the shrine to burn incense and paper offerings!" she said, heading into the kitchen.
"Lord Landy really appeared to you in a dream?" Old Liu looked strange—he’d dreamt of Lord Landy himself just last night.
"Of course! Not just me—Chen’s second daughter-in-law, Old Lady Zhang from the Zhangs, and a whole bunch more!" She rattled off a string of names.
Hearing that so many people had received dream visits from Lord Landy, Old Liu’s expression grew even stranger. Could it be that Lord Landy really manifested?
Thinking this, he strode outside.
"Where are you going?" his wife called after him.
"I’m going to check out the earth-god shrine!"
Old Liu answered, quickening his pace. Soon he reached the village entrance and saw that the usually deserted shrine was bustling, with the scent of incense drifting from afar.
"Old Liu, you’re here to burn incense too?"
A skinny, slightly hunched old man in his sixties grinned, showing a mouthful of big yellow teeth.
"I heard Lord Landy’s shown a sign, so I came to take a look!" said Old Liu.
"That’s right! Word is, everyone in the village got a dream from Lord Landy last night!" Ma the Hunchback said mysteriously.
"You dreamt of him too?" Old Liu asked Ma the Hunchback.
"Sure did!" Ma the Hunchback nodded. "Isn’t it strange, though—why did Lord Landy suddenly show up like this?"
Old Liu puffed on his pipe a couple times, feeling a vague sense of worry. He couldn’t tell if Lord Landy’s appearance was a blessing or a curse.
All day long, everyone in Huangvale buzzed about Lord Landy’s miraculous appearance.
Meanwhile, families who didn’t have incense or joss paper at home planned to walk to town together to buy some. (Note: Incense and joss paper are traditional offerings burned at Chinese shrines to honor gods and ancestors, symbolizing respect and prayers for blessings.)
Inside a hidden, mystical space connected to the Land God shrine, there was a dilapidated divine residence.
Seated cross-legged inside was a short old man who looked almost identical to the Land God statue. His face and body were covered in cracks, but as waves of incense energy—a spiritual force generated by worshippers burning incense—flowed into this space and he absorbed them, the cracks on his body slowly began to shrink.
An hour passed.
The short old man stood up and muttered to himself, "This little bit of incense energy has only repaired one percent of my divine body—nowhere near enough. Looks like I’ll have to send more dreams to these villagers. Ideally, they’ll slaughter some livestock as blood offerings to me, their god!" (Note: Blood offerings—animal sacrifices—are a traditional ritual in some rural Chinese folk beliefs, believed to strengthen a deity’s power.)
That night.
The villagers of Huangvale were visited by Lord Landy in their dreams again—this time, every single villager was summoned to the village threshing ground in a shared dream. (Note: In Chinese folklore, deities can communicate with mortals by appearing in their dreams, often delivering warnings or commands.)
Lord Landy first praised those who had worshipped him, then criticized those who hadn’t, warning that he would punish villagers who showed disrespect. (Note: The threat of supernatural punishment for failing to honor local deities is a common motif in rural Chinese tradition.)
He then made a request: tomorrow, the villagers should slaughter three cows, five sheep, and twelve chickens and ducks each as offerings to him. (Note: Such animal sacrifices are believed to please local gods and bring blessings to the community.)
The next morning, Huangvale was bustling again.
Before dawn, villagers flocked to the Land God shrine; those without incense at home formed groups to head to town and buy it together.
"Hey, Sanwa Huang, what's wrong with you? Are you sick?"
Old Liu was also heading out to worship Lord Landy. Just as he stepped outside, he saw his neighbor, Sanwa Huang, leaning against a tree, gasping for breath.
Sanwa Huang was a tall, strong man—1.85 meters, a top farmhand, and a retired soldier. Two years ago, he came back from service and married a local girl; now he was the father of two.
But today, unlike his usual self, Sanwa looked extremely weak, staggering as he walked.
"Lord Landy blamed me for not worshipping him and punished me!"
Sanwa spoke weakly. Two nights ago, he’d also received a dream from Lord Landy, but as a former soldier, he didn’t take it seriously. He’d even stopped his wife from going to worship.
Last night, Lord Landy singled him out in the dream and criticized him. When he woke up this morning, he felt completely drained of strength. Even his wife was sickly and still lying in bed.
Even though he didn’t believe in gods and spirits, this time he couldn’t help but believe. He planned to borrow some incense from a neighbor and go apologize to Lord Landy at the shrine.
Old Liu was shocked. In his dream last night, he remembered Lord Landy specifically calling out Sanwa Huang for criticism. Was Sanwa’s sudden weakness really the Land God’s doing?