Enshrining the Gods Through Folk Rites: I Claim Divinity Through the People's Faith

Lin Ye, a modern researcher of intangible cultural heritage, guarded the Book of Folk Worship of All Spirits left by his grandfather for fifteen years, only for the museum director to dismiss it as scrap paper and clear it out.

A bolt of electricity pierced his soul, sending him into the Great Yu Dynasty, where he became a scattered folk deity of Mount Deadwood, on the verge of disintegrating.

His divine essence was broken, his incense offerings had ceased, and only three dying old men still remembered him.

In three days, under the full moon, a three-hundred-year-old wolf demon would come to devour his divine essence;

with no incense offerings within three days, his soul would scatter and vanish.

He had no place in the celestial register above, no protection from the underworld below, and even the county yamen could tear down his temple.

In this desperate situation, he opened the Book of Folk Worship of All Spirits, carved into his soul:

Gods are not appointed by Heaven, but established by the people. Wherever people place their hopes, there lies a divine office.

During a hundred-day drought, the Taoist temple's prayers for rain failed. With a wisp of his broken divine spirit, he drew forth the people's incense offerings, and a sudden downpour followed.

When the City God came to investigate, he defended himself with the ancient laws of folk worship, neither humble nor submissive.

When the Thunder Ministry descended, he wielded the people's will as a sword and took protecting them as his path, shaking the laws of Heaven.

Others rely on cultivation, the System, or a celestial appointment from Heaven.

Lin Ye relies only on the people's words: “We believe in the Mountain God.”

From a broken god of Deadwood Mountain, to the principal deity of a county, and then to a Celestial Venerable revered by all the people.

In this life, he will make the world understand:

Where the people's hearts turn, there lies the Heavenly Dao; where incense gathers, there lies the path to godhood!