Not Enough Incense Offerings

The god is gone, but the wishes it owed remain. At No. 7 Willow Lane stands a ruined shrine with only twenty-seven sticks of incense left, burdened by 1,237 outstanding wishes. There is only one person on record who still remembers it. The Shrine Affairs Office is short-staffed, so the temple has been entrusted to Chen Zhao, an unofficial agent, to manage. His first assignment is to settle its debts. But every one of the 312 pages in the temple's incense ledger has had the “Repayment” column cut out. The books say the debts are paid, but it is still raining inside that family's home. He can recite, in front of the creditors, promises the gods made but never fulfilled. There is only one rule: anything he recites becomes his responsibility. The clay statue in the temple never shows itself. It only answers him with a single word when he reads out the numbers. One temple, one neighborhood, one city. Incense has its origins, and every wish-debt has its sum. The accounts can be tallied, but the price cannot.