Chen Deng had already reached the end of the immortal path.
After descending to the mortal world, he discovered that people were worshipping him in a temple, and that his statue had made him look three thousand years older.
The face was hardly a match, but at least they had carved his name correctly.
Even more outrageous, someone was invoking his divine decree in front of the temple to have a boy's fingers cut off.
"I never said that."
No one believed him.
So Chen Deng stopped the executioner's blade in midair, then made his statue speak in front of everyone and deny issuing the decree.
He had meant to conceal his identity and see how the mortal world had changed over the years.
Instead, he was first mistaken for a lunatic in his own temple, then went to the south of the city and cooked a pot of porridge for more than two hundred hungry people.
This trip to the mortal world was turning out to be more interesting than he'd expected.
He decided to visit a few more places and see what sort of god people had made of him while he was away.
Gods are judged by mortals