In July, Guangqing was as hot as the Flaming Mountain. Spend half a day outdoors, and you could lose a layer of skin to the sun.
The Bodhisattvas at Longchan Temple were said to be very effective, and the temple was famous throughout the city. Every year before the college entrance exams, parents brought their children to make a wish. Whether it worked or not, at least it gave them peace of mind!
Lin Baici had done well on this year's exams—he'd really outperformed himself. He didn't know if it had anything to do with the Bodhisattva at Longchan Temple, but he'd made a wish before the exams, so now he had to fulfill his promise!
Three sticks of incense, plus some fruit and pastries, were a must.
Of course, his mother was paying.
Lin Baici had actually planned to secretly pocket a hundred yuan, but his mother had sternly warned him.
You couldn't pocket offerings.
Sigh!
I'm broke!
Without money, I can't afford anything I want.
Lin Baici walked along the pebbled path and glanced back at the distant Great Hero Hall.
How about...
making another wish for wealth?
Would the Bodhisattva think I'm too greedy?
What Lin Baici wanted most at the moment was to become a content creator, film videos, and make money. But he'd uploaded five outdoor videos to Bilibili so far, and all of them together had fewer than a thousand views.
Becoming a creator with a million followers and a monthly income of tens of thousands was still a distant dream.
"You've got to have the right tools to do the job. Maybe things will get better once I upgrade my gear!"
Lin Baici cheered himself on.
Because her son had done well on his exams, Mom Lin had promised to reward him with a new phone.
Lin Baici planned to use the money to buy a GoPro action camera.
As for the phone, he'd make do with his current one. Once he made big money from filming videos, he'd go straight for the latest iPhone.
His stomach rumbled!
A sudden hunger pang interrupted Lin Baici's thoughts.
"Hm?"
Lin Baici raised his fine, slender eyebrows. Like a Lion King that had spotted a plump prey, he immediately looked around.
Had someone dropped something?
Ever since he was little, Lin Baici had experienced this sudden hunger a few times every year. Sometimes, he'd feel ravenous even half an hour after finishing a meal.
He'd thought something was wrong with his stomach, but Mom Lin had taken him to the hospital. The tests showed he was so healthy that, after giving 300 cc of blood, he could have gone straight out to play a basketball game.
One summer when he was in seventh grade, Lin Baici had finished lunch and was taking a walk around campus when he suddenly felt hungry again. A few minutes later, he unexpectedly found a wallet on the Sports Field.
It had more than three hundred yuan inside, along with a pretty upperclassman's student ID and a love letter.
Strangely enough, as soon as Lin Baici checked what was inside the wallet, that inexplicable hunger vanished.
After three experiments, followed by several more similar experiences, Lin Baici had worked out a pattern.
Whenever he suddenly felt hungry, something valuable was definitely nearby.
Without exception.
By now, he'd found several car keys, five phones, a younger schoolmate's tuition money, and, most valuable of all, a gold ring in a landscaped flower bed.
The summer heat was so fierce that even the cicadas sounded listless, as if they were half dead.
Lin Baici felt ravenous.
He was currently in the small square in front of Arhat Hall. The stone paving had been swept clean; apart from a few cigarette butts, there was nothing in sight.
"Probably a phone or a wallet!"
Lin Baici looked up.
Walk a hundred or so steps north and turn left, and you'd reach Guanyin Pavilion. Turn right and cross a covered walkway, and you'd reach the Release Pond.
The Release Pond was one of Longchan Temple's famous sights. In summer, it was covered in lotus flowers, a sea of green leaves spread across the water.
Plenty of visitors came to take photos there and post them on their social media.
With so many people around, naturally, there was a greater chance of someone losing something.
Lin Baici quickened his pace and hurried to the Release Pond.
His hunger was getting worse.
Based on his past experience, that meant he was getting closer to the "lost item."
A large area to the east was covered by a lake blanketed in lotus leaves. He could hear frogs and see koi swimming in the water. To the north stood an octagonal pavilion.
The pond was too big, so Lin Baici decided to check the octagonal pavilion first.
As soon as he climbed the steps and entered the pavilion built atop an artificial hill, his hunger intensified.
Lin Baici rested one hand on the railing and looked out from the pavilion. Before long, he spotted a pink cartoon wallet, about the size of his palm, wedged in a crack between some rocks.
"Found it!"
Lin Baici climbed over the railing and picked up the wallet.
He opened it without a second thought.
Whoa!
There was a thick wad of cash.
Besides red 100-yuan notes, there were also yellow bills with 50,000 printed on them.
Lin Baici knew they were Korean won; he'd seen that kind of banknote in some Korean comics.
Besides the money, there were three bank cards, a passport, a card that looked like an ID with Korean writing on it, and a close-up photo of a girl.
She was stunning.
After checking everything, Lin Baici put it all back in the wallet.
He returned to the pavilion, opened his phone, and started playing a game while he waited for the owner to show up.
About twenty minutes later, a beautiful Korean girl with a stunning figure rushed into the octagonal pavilion, looking anxious.
She kept her head down as she searched all around. It was obvious she was looking for something.
But she found nothing.
"Shibal!"
The girl, whose hair was dyed a pale gold, cursed and raised her foot as if to kick the railing. Then she noticed someone there and lowered it.
"Did you lose something?"
Lin Baici spoke up.
The girl looked about eighteen or nineteen. She had an oval face and a great figure; her skin was especially fair, and her long legs stood out beneath her denim shorts. She was far prettier than those Korean girl-group idols.
Jin Yingzhen understood Chinese. At his words, she immediately looked at Lin Baici. "Oppa, have you seen a pink wallet?"
Her voice was soft and sweet, with a lovely, coaxing quality.
"Is this it?"
Lin Baici took out the wallet and handed it to Jin Yingzhen.
Her face matched the photo on the ID inside perfectly, so he was certain she was the owner.
"That's it!"
The moment Jin Yingzhen saw the wallet, she snatched it from him. After checking that her passport and ID were still inside, she patted her chest and let out a long, deep breath.
Losing the money was a small matter. Losing her passport and ID would have been a huge hassle.
Having done his good deed, Lin Baici prepared to leave.
He hadn't handed the wallet over to the scenic area staff because he was worried some of the money might go missing. Then he'd have no way to explain himself.
These days, it wasn't easy to be a good person.
"Oppa!"
Seeing that the handsome young man—good-looking enough to take center position in a top boy band—was about to leave, Jin Yingzhen hurried after him and stood in front of him, bowing again and again.
"Gamsahamnida! Thank you!"
Jin Yingzhen didn't just thank him. She opened the wallet, grabbed a wad of bills without even counting them, and held them out to Lin Baici in both hands.
"It was nothing. You don't need to pay me!"
Lin Baici refused.
He hadn't realized she was such a rich girl, handing out money without batting an eye.
"Oppa, please, you have to take it!"
Jin Yingzhen urged him. She was about to force the money on the young man—and ask if he'd be interested in going to Korea to train and debut as an idol—when she saw him suddenly look up, his face full of shock as he stared at the sky.
Jin Yingzhen looked up too. The color drained from her face.
"A... a God Ruins?"
A meteor streaked down toward Longchan Temple, trailing a long orange-red tail of fire.
BOOM!
There was no violent impact. Instead, a vast cloud of Black Mist surged outward like a tsunami, swallowing all of Longchan Temple.
Thirty years ago, a meteor fell, and a God Ruins appeared.
A god emerged from within and fed on humans.
Since then, Blue Star had been plagued by a new kind of natural disaster.
Countries had tried every possible way to intercept these meteors, but all their efforts had failed.
Fortunately, the meteors that brought God Ruins numbered only a few to a few dozen each year—not enough to destroy the world.
The largest God Ruins to date had swallowed a third of Kangaroo Country's territory. Not one of its eighteen million citizens had survived!
Lin Baici had woken up from hunger!
He opened his eyes to find Black Mist shrouding everything. Visibility was less than ten meters.
The Korean girl was lying beside him, unconscious.
"Hey, wake up!"
Lin Baici grabbed Jin Yingzhen by the shoulders and shook her hard a few times.
Right!
Call 110!
Lin Baici hurriedly pulled out his phone, only to find that it had shut down at some point and wouldn't turn on.
He was about to shout for help, but suddenly closed his mouth.
What if...
I attract a monster?
The authorities forbade ordinary citizens from discussing anything related to God Ruins, so Lin Baici's knowledge of them was limited to rumors.
Some people said that besides gods, there were monsters inside God Ruins.
Anyone trapped in a God Ruins became their prey.
"We have to get out of here as soon as possible!"
Lin Baici shook Jin Yingzhen hard.
Just as he was about to slap the Korean girl awake, Jin Yingzhen came to.
"Ah!"
Jin Yingzhen cried out in pain. It felt as though her brain were being churned by a propeller; the pain was unbearable.
[Fresh ingredients. Thanks to years of working out, the meat is succulent and packed with protein. Charcoal grilling is recommended; add plenty of cumin!]
What the hell?
Lin Baici jumped at the sudden voice in his head. He was sure the girl in front of him hadn't said those words.
"D-did we get trapped in a God Ruins?"
Jin Yingzhen trembled all over and instinctively clung to Lin Baici.
[The prey is afraid. This will make it secrete a large amount of hormones and lower the quality of the meat. Kill it immediately to preserve the ingredients' best flavor!]
What are you?
Lin Baici asked silently, but no one answered.
"Oppa, we have to destroy the God's Remains right away, or we'll die!"
Jin Yingzhen stood up and looked around.
"The God's Remains?"
Lin Baici frowned. It seemed this girl knew something about God Ruins.
"When a meteor falls to the ground, it creates a mist. The area covered by the mist is called a God Ruins."
Jin Yingzhen explained, "There are God's Remains inside a God Ruins—the corpse of a god. They radiate a mysterious energy that contaminates everything around them!"
"Go on."
Lin Baici listened intently.
"You know about nuclear radiation, right? The radiation from God's Remains is ten thousand times more terrifying! Do you feel dizzy, nauseous, and like you're going to throw up? Those are symptoms of contamination!"
Jin Yingzhen knew that as time passed, the symptoms would become more and more terrifying. First, people went mad; then they gradually lost their human form and became a mindless lump of rotten flesh.
"..."
Lin Baici wanted to say that he didn't.
Apart from the unbearable hunger, he didn't feel anything unusual!
"Anyway, if we don't destroy the God's Remains soon, we'll be contaminated!"
Jin Yingzhen was so miserable she wanted to die. Aish, I just came out for a vacation!
Why did I have to run into a disaster like this?
"Can't we just escape the God Ruins?"
Lin Baici didn't understand.
"See this mist? It's like a maze. Until the God's Remains are destroyed, the mist won't clear!"
Jin Yingzhen gave a bitter smile.
Her brother was a God Hunter, so she knew quite a few confidential details.
Lin Baici wanted to ask for more insider information, but a crisp Wooden Fish sound drifted out of the mist.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
"Run!"
Jin Yingzhen's face changed dramatically. She sprang up to flee, but a three-meter-tall Dark Buddha Statue had appeared behind them without either of them noticing.
"My Buddha asks you: are you sincere?"
The Great Buddha lowered its eyes, its wrathful gaze fierce as a vajra's. The Brahma Sound wasn't loud, yet it could shatter a person's heart.
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