Hold down my conscience.

The mountain god’s statue was in a truly pitiful state.

Granny Tang, who had devoted her entire life to serving the gods, felt a complicated emotion welling up inside her. She wasn’t surprised by the sight—in fact, it seemed almost inevitable. She had watched with her own eyes as the mountain god was swallowed alive by that strange, white-robed old priest. She remembered the god’s pitiful cries, just three faint squeaks, like the sound of a newborn, hairless mouse being devoured alive.

The mountain god had been eaten. That its body remained even partly intact was already a blessing.

“Granny Tang, you should take it away. Our temple does not keep idle gods, and certainly not dead ones,” Chen Huangpi said dismissively, waving his hand for her to take the fox mountain god away.

He had promised to spare the fox mountain god, and he would not go back on his word. After all, he was no longer the naive child of eight, nor the cunning boy of ten, but now a steady and mature nine-year-old. Yes, he was an honest and trustworthy child.

Hearing Chen Huangpi’s words, Granny Tang felt a deep sense of loss, as though searching for an answer with sword drawn but finding only confusion. The mountain god that generations of her people had worshipped had come to such a miserable end. Revenge was out of the question—so how could she face the surviving villagers now?

At that moment, a faint, intermittent, yet unwavering voice sounded in her heart: “Take… me… away…”

Granny Tang was both startled and