How to Worship the White-Moonlight God of Murder

[A little bedtime treat, about 30,000 words]

In the first year of the Chaoning era, an assassination forced Zhou He to hide in an abandoned temple. She made do with a night's sleep leaning against a dilapidated statue, and in her hazy dreams recalled a secret she had once read in a hidden scroll as a child.

During the chaotic years at the founding of Southern Tang, a brilliant general appeared out of nowhere. A genius commander, he reclaimed sixteen prefectures in just two years, laying the foundation for the seven kingdoms that would later divide the land.

He was known as the "Iron-Faced Yama, the Young God of Slaughter."

Sadly, he died young.

The people, grateful for his kindness, built temples and gilded statues in his honor, keeping lamps lit and incense burning.

Moved by how he had been born at the wrong time, and mourning his unfulfilled ambitions and wrongful death, Zhou He stood before the ruins and lit three sticks of incense for him.

*

A god who receives no offerings will be forgotten.

The rise of new gods and the death of old ones are both a law of nature and a curse.

Pei Jin'an had once enjoyed an endless stream of offerings, day and night, amid the chaos. In an age of peace and prosperity, he became an old god whom everyone had forgotten.

The temple where incense had once burned without end collapsed on a quiet, rainy night. On a turbulent spring day, it welcomed its final worshipper.

Pei Jin'an did not understand.

Why had someone lit incense and awakened him again?

He lowered his eyes and asked the young sovereign who had offered him incense, "Why have you come to see me?"

Zhou He said, "I have come... to plead for the people."

"To punish evil and uphold what is right."

"May peace reign across the land, and may we welcome a stable, prosperous age."

Pei Jin'an gazed without emotion at the ruler kneeling before him, not believing a word of her explanation. In those eyes she thought he could not see, the word "ambition" was written plain as day.

And he, too, was among her ambitions.

Ambitious young sovereign x young God of Slaughter

1. Both leads are each other's first and only, happy ending.

2. The cultivation realms and other settings follow the novel Deadly Rivals.

Theme: Punish evil, champion good, and stand by justice.