Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Gao Ming had thought that as long as he avoided touching those murky, filthy thoughts, he could pass safely through this memory. But he soon discovered a problem: those thoughts did not belong to the Future God. They came from living people tormented by fate.
Faced with destinies they could not change, faith and gods became their refuge. This was not an excuse to escape, but a way of convincing themselves when they had no other choice.
The more of those thoughts he absorbed, the more the karma and desires of the masses gathered within him. Gao Ming's vision gradually extended beyond the haunted house. Every believer's eyes became his own.
It was at that moment that Gao Ming realized he was not in reality. This was a settlement built deep within the shadows. Apart from a few places near the settlement, negative emotions from the real world had accumulated everywhere. All manner of bizarre things were born within them, and a thick, lingering fog shrouded the land.
Old, dilapidated buildings stood everywhere. There were no stars, moon, or sun in the sky, only enormous floating ruins and temples to calamity gods that radiated an oppressive presence. Only at noon on the day when yang energy was strongest each month could the villagers see the sun that belonged to them—the real world reflected on the other side of the sky. There was light and warmth there. Even at night, it blazed with lights. No lingering negative emotions accumulated there. The entire world was enveloped in goodwill, while all its deepest despair fell into the shadows.
Everyone in the settlement longed to reach the world beyond the sky, but compared with that unattainable dream, surviving until tomorrow