How Had It Come to This?

(This book has been adapted into an animated comic series. Search for: My Godfather Is the Thunder Ancestor.)

By the time Wen Ning carried the last chair into his shabby little storefront, the back of his shirt was wet enough to wring out.

It was an old, run-down little unit in an urban village. There was no air conditioning in the sweltering heat, just an electric fan mounted on the wall, wheezing away as it struggled to turn its head.

Wen Ning had just finished a call with his landlord, who had gone from calling him Boss Wen to young Wen.

"Young Wen, things aren't easy for me either. You're two or three months behind on rent. I can't keep taking the hit, you know. Plenty of people want this place."

Wen Ning put on an apologetic smile.

"Yes, yes. Just give me a few more days, Uncle. I'll have the money."

He knew he was in the wrong. The storefront might have been shabby, but the rent was cheap. Yet however cheap it was, he still couldn't afford it with his pockets completely empty. If he didn't come up with something soon, he would be sleeping on the street next month.

Wen Ning was twenty-six that year and had been out of university for just under two years.

Two years earlier, he had graduated from a second-tier university with a degree in marketing. Anyone familiar with the major knew what that meant. It sounded impressive, but after graduation, you either ended up doing customer service for an online store or hosting livestreams.

After graduating, Wen Ning had rented this ten-square-meter storefront on the street behind his university and opened his agency.

His dreams had been grand; reality had been harsh. Back then, he had been full of ambition, swearing he would build a career for himself here.

But over two years, he had gone from recruitment and property sales and rentals to handling paperwork, occasionally standing in line for elderly people to collect free eggs and earning thirty or fifty yuan a job.

Just that day, the agency's last employee had packed up and bailed.

Yet in the middle of this little company that looked ready to fold, a divine statue stood polished and spotless. It wasn't the God of Wealth he worshipped, but the Celestial Venerable of Universal Transformation by the Thunderous Voice of the Nine Heavens.

Wen Ning had known this statue since childhood. This was his godfather. Whether the deity himself acknowledged the relationship or not, Wen Ning had been calling him his godfather for over twenty years.

The story went back a long way.

Wen Ning had been frail and sickly when he was born, making constant trips to the township clinic. Colds and fevers were routine, and even a little exposure to the wind could leave him coughing for half a month.

His family had been frantic. They had tried every rural folk remedy they could find: herbal medicines, medicinal plasters, burning mugwort. Almost none of it had worked.

Then Lame Fang, the village diviner, said the child lacked a powerful protector in his destiny. He needed a godparent to keep things under control.

By then, Wen Ning's parents had almost given up hope that their child would survive. If there was any chance at all, they might as well try.

There was a temple behind their village, said to date back to the Ming dynasty. It was dedicated to Grand Preceptor Wen Zhong. Though it never drew many worshippers, its incense had never stopped burning.

Taking Lame Fang's advice, Wen Ning's mother chose an auspicious day, brought incense, candles, and spirit money, and carried Wen Ning to the temple, still wrapped in his swaddling clothes.

That was how Wen Ning became Wen Zhong's godson. Strange as it sounded, after that, his health really did improve day by day, and he stopped making constant trips to the hospital.

Growing up, Wen Ning had been a real troublemaker. He climbed trees to raid birds' nests, waded into rivers to catch fish and shrimp, and scaled walls to steal dates from people's courtyards. There was hardly a prank he hadn't pulled. Whenever the villagers mentioned him, they shook their heads and said he must have been a monkey in his past life. He never stayed quiet for a moment.

But Wen Ning knew where to draw the line. He never dared act up in front of his godfather, even though he had no idea whether his godfather actually existed.

Whenever he entered that temple, he behaved himself and kowtowed three times, knocking his head firmly against the floor.

Wen Ning simply felt there was something different about that statue. Whenever he visited, its eyes always seemed to be watching him. Not glaring fiercely, just giving him a warning look, as if to say, Behave yourself, brat.

Later, when he started middle school, Wen Ning boarded on campus and only went home once a month. After getting into the county high school, he returned even less often. Then he made it into a university that was neither particularly good nor particularly bad.

The statue in his shop was one Wen Ning had made a special trip to his hometown temple to bring back when he graduated. No matter how hard the past few years had been, he never missed his morning and evening incense offerings or his three kowtows at dawn and dusk.

While Wen Ning was still lost in his memories, his phone lit up again. It was a message from his landlord, just one sentence.

"Young Wen, next Monday at the latest, or I really will have to change the locks."

He opened his banking app and checked his balance: 223.70 yuan. Never mind the rent—it was a few dozen yuan short of even buying a high-speed train ticket. Yet it was everything he had.

Two years out of university, and he had achieved nothing. His girlfriend had left, his company was about to close, he couldn't pay the rent, and he had barely two hundred yuan left in his pocket.

After tidying up, Wen Ning lay straight down on the folding bed in his shop. At twenty-six, he should have been in the prime of his life, yet he felt as though he had already reached the end of a dead-end road.

Go back home? But how could I face anyone? How could I go home when my life's turned into this fucking mess?

Keep hanging on? But I can't hang on anymore.

Wen Ning closed his eyes. In the darkness, he suddenly blurted out, "Godfather, I think your son really can't make it this time."

The moment he said it, Wen Ning laughed at himself. It had been over twenty years. If his godfather really existed, would he have ended up like this? Surely he would have asked the God of Wealth to make him rich.

But Wen Ning still needed someone to pour his heart out to.

"Godfather, come on. I'm your godson, aren't I? Pull a few strings and help your son make some money."

"You must be on pretty good terms with the God of Wealth."

"If this keeps up, I really will have to go back home."

"Man, this is too hard."

At that point, Wen Ning could no longer keep his emotions in check, and he lit a cigarette.

He talked for quite a while in the dead of night. Finally, unable to stay awake any longer, he lay back down on his folding bed.

Just then, the burned-out column of incense ash on the offering table silently broke apart and fell onto the tabletop, forming an impossibly perfect circle.

The statue of the Celestial Venerable of Universal Transformation by the Thunderous Voice of the Nine Heavens sat in the center. In daylight, it looked like an ordinary wooden carving, but now its eyes lit up.

Within the half-closed carved eyes, the pupils slowly turned, their gaze passing over the incense burner on the offering table and settling squarely on the face of Wen Ning, who lay sprawled on the bed.

A deep voice sounded in the empty room, like muffled thunder rolling in from far away, or someone sighing right beside your ear.

"What is there to seek in the wealth of the mortal world?"

Wen Ning rolled over, still snoring.