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Ming Yi never thought he was the type of person destined for godhood.
He was born in a small, easy-to-miss farming village.
His parents weren’t wealthy, but they made sure he never went to bed hungry. They saved when they could, spent when it mattered, and let their son grow in the ways that felt right for him. They loved each other fiercely, and they loved their only child just as much.
Ming Yi grew up wrapped in that warmth, shaped quietly by it. It taught him early that a good life didn’t need spectacle. It just needed care, consistency, and honesty.
He remembered the first time his parents saw his drawings—messy sketches of floor plans, bridges, and careful roof details copied from the buildings around their village. His farmer parents didn’t fully understand what they were looking at, but they still stared at the pages like he’d handed them something precious. They were unbearably proud anyway. Ming Yi was captivated by building long before he knew it was something a person could actually study.
He also remembered the phase of his life when marriage became less of a distant concept and more of a daily topic at home. Once he reached a respectable, marriageable age, his parents never stopped trying to find him a wife. It became almost routine—eligible candidates brought to their doorstep like part of the season’s cycle. The girls around his village, daughters of traders who lingered in the village, visitors passing through that his parents deemed polite and proper enough to consider. It was earnest. A little embarrassing. But always well-meaning.
Ming Yi didn’t reject the idea of marriage itself. One day, he wanted a partner—someone steady, someone who would stay, someone he could build a life with the same way his parents built theirs: mutual support, shared labor, shared devotion. But romance, for now, felt distant. Unnecessary. Not unpleasant, just uninteresting compared to the electric pull of learning something new. So, he met every introduction with polite conversation and gentle refusal.
He was content living a quiet, ordinary life. So when ascension came knocking, of course he was shocked.
Ascension wasn’t an unknown concept to him, just an unreachable one. He’d heard stories of gods and goddesses his whole life: their names spoken in prayers, their temples treated like sacred landmarks, their legends passed around. The villagers talked about them often.
Ming Yi learned early that ascension was rare to the point of absurdity. You needed luck, talent, good fated destiny, or divine favor—usually all at once, stacked in a way that felt almost unfair to the rest of the world. He never reached for it. Never pictured himself standing in the middle of a legend. He did not reject the idea either. It simply felt like a road meant for someone else, not for a boy from a village no one outside the county had ever heard of.
Ascension was warm. Too warm. A light surrounded him completely, blinding, painfully bright. Ming Yi did not pretend he was not afraid. He was.
Then, without warning, the warmth stopped.
The light disappeared. The ground came fast. He landed hard, soaked by freezing water that shocked the air out of his lungs. His whole body felt numb from the cold, and all he could do was stay on the ground, breathing too quickly, trying to understand what had just happened.
He coughed, the force of it making his head spin. The dizziness hit fast, leaving him disoriented. Confused.
Ascension was supposed to be overwhelming, but even someone who had never seen it firsthand knew it shouldn’t feel like falling into ice water and eating dirt on the ground. Ming Yi blinked hard, trying to gather himself. When he finally forced his focus back, he sat up slowly, one hand pushing his wet hair away from his face. His clothes were soaked. His palms were scraped from the fall. Everything hurt in a very mortal way.
When he looked up, a figure in black was already standing over him.
Tall. Silent. Unmoving.
Gold eyes stared down at him without blinking. Long black hair framed a face that was impossible to read. One hand hung at his side, tipped with claws that looked sharp, curved, and dangerous. Ming Yi froze. His breath caught for a moment before logic returned, telling him that fear wasn’t going to get him answers.
“What happened? Who are you?” he asked, voice rough from coughing. “Why did it stop?”
The man only looked at him.
Ming Yi swallowed. His pulse was fast.
The man looked unimpressed. Then, without another word, chains began emerging from all directions, wrapping around Ming Yi before he could fully rise. They tightened fast, locking his arms and pinning him back down, the metal biting hard into his ribs.
“I have a proposal for you,” the man said. “You can accept it, or you can refuse. Your choice.”
“What? Who are you? Let me go this instant!” Ming Yi snapped, struggling against the chains. He pulled, twisted, even braced his heel against the ground to force leverage, but the chains did not give. Not even a little. It was useless.
The man stepped closer, boots sinking slightly into wet soil.
“You’re in no position to give orders,” he said. He crouched slightly, just enough for his eyes to level with Ming Yi’s. “I told you. A proposal. Nothing more.”
Ming Yi glared at him, breathing hard. “Then talk. Who are you?”
“My name is not important,” the man said. “But you might know me as Black Water Sinking Ship.”
Ming Yi went still. He did know that title. It hadn’t been long since wandering Taoist masters and rogue cultivators passed through his village, trading news along with talismans and food. They gossiped about a newborn calamity, a newly risen Ghost King who had clawed his way into the ranks of supreme-level threats. The name Black Water Sinking Ship came up often enough that even people who lived far from oceans repeated it like a warning.
Ming Yi wasn’t a cultivator, but he knew enough to understand the weight of a title like that. If Black Water truly stood on the same level of devastation as Crimson Rain Sought Flower and White-Clothed Calamity, the two most powerful ghosts, then this wasn’t gossip anymore.
This was danger.
The ghost in front of him was barely known in the three realms, still fresh in infamy, still blurry at the edges of rumor. But Ming Yi understood one thing clearly: supreme-level ghosts weren’t something you negotiated with unless you were already prepared to lose.
“What does a Ghost King want with someone like me?”
Black Water observed him in silence, detached, unreadable, and then said evenly, “I need to disguise myself as a Heavenly Official.”
Ming Yi stiffened. “A… disguise?”
“To enter Heaven,” Black Water continued, “I must carry the rank of a Heavenly Official. I am searching for something there. You will be my passage.”
The chains pulled tighter around Ming Yi’s ribs, stealing more of his breath. The air was cold and still, pressing in like a warning.
“In return,” Black Water said, “I swear this. I will not harm you. I will not harm anyone tied to your name. Not your family, not your friends. I swear on it.”
The young official stared at him, jaw tight. He did not know if he could believe the Ghost King standing before him. The oath sounded real. That was what unsettled him the most.
“You will take no punishment for my presence,” Black Water added. “When my mission ends, you may return to Heaven and reclaim your place. You can blame me for imprisoning you if you want. I won’t stop you. Your duties will still be fulfilled. Every responsibility tied to your name; I will carry out. Exactly as required. Without failure.”
The newly ascended God swallowed.
“And your merits will remain yours,” Black Water continued. “Every prayer answered under your name, every act of devotion, every merit earned, goes to you. I take nothing. Not one piece. Even if mortals build temples for you, even if thousands kneel at your altars, their faith will belong only to you.”
He exhaled slowly. The terms were outrageous. Unrealistic. Too good to be true. Did this mean he could lay low, slacken off somewhere, avoid the heavenly court entirely, and still receive every merit born from prayers answered under his name?
Could he really disappear and live quietly while a Ghost King handled his workload, his temples, his reputation, his believers, and even the cultivation credit?
What the hell.
“If you accept the terms,” Black Water continuous, “you may live your life however you want. Quietly. Out of sight. The only thing I require is that you stay away from Heaven. Don’t let my identity be exposed.”
Ming Yi frowned. “Away from Heaven?”
“You cannot return while I wear your name,” Black Water said. “You cannot speak of this pact. Not to gods, not to cultivators, not even to the people you trust most.”
Ming Yi let out a breathless nervous laugh. “So if I accept, I get to do whatever I want, just staying out of sight?” He hesitated, then added, “And you do what you came to do.”
“Yes.”
“And I walk away from this alive, as long as I stay silent.”
“Yes.”
Black Water clicked his fingers. A sheet of paper appeared out of nowhere. The contract snapped open in midair, black ink and clean lines hanging like a document prepared long before this moment.
“Sign it with your blood,” Black Water said. “Once sealed, it binds to your meridians, your cultivation, your fate, and your name.”
Ming Yi stared at the floating pages. “And if I break the terms?”
“You die.”
Ming Yi’s throat went cold. He fell quiet for a moment, forcing himself to breathe past the chains still locked around him. Then, when he finally spoke, his voice came out level, steadier than he expected. He asked, “And if you break them?"
“Then I perish as well,” Black Water answered. “No deception. Same consequence. Equal risk. Fair, isn’t it?”
Ming Yi went rigid. “…That’s insane. This is fucking unbelievable.”
The newly ascended Earth Master shut his eyes and clenched his teeth. If Heaven discovered this pact, he would be hunted for colluding with a Ghost King. If he refused, the outcome would be just as brutal, just as bloody, only faster.
“And if I refuse?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Black Water crouched slightly, gold eyes locked onto his.
“Well,” he said, “I could kill you here and take your place anyway. Take your name by force. Take your merits. I don’t actually need you alive to do any of this.”
He straightened again, hands clasped behind his back, looking down at Ming Yi with deliberate contempt.
Ming Yi lifted his head, soaked hair dripping, and said flatly, “You Ghost Kings really don’t know how to ask nicely, do you?”
Black Water stared back.
“I didn’t come to ask nicely.”
The newly ascended Earth Master sighed. He knew he had no real choice left.
It genuinely surprised him how completely a devastation-level Ghost King honored his word. Ming Yi lived in deliberate obscurity now, wearing a borrowed face and carrying a borrowed name, staying well outside Heaven’s notice. He no longer had to shoulder the Earth Master’s responsibilities himself. Black Water handled all of it. Every prayer, every temple obligation, every expectation tied to the rank was fulfilled perfectly. The merits arrived exactly as promised, delivered to him daily in amounts generous enough to feel almost excessive.
Money was no longer something he thought about. He did not need to. His devotees never came to the shrines empty-handed. They left offerings out of devotion—food, incense, prayer coins, donations, tributes of all kinds. Everything he owned now was funded by believers who did not even know the real him. What unsettled him most was that Black Water never touched any of it. The Ghost King did not take a single coin, did not claim even the smallest portion, and did not seem interested in wealth at all.
But secrecy had weight. Holding a truth, you can never voice, not even to the people you care for, gnaws at you in ways you do not expect. He felt it most in quiet moments, when there was no one to fill the silence but his own thoughts. Loneliness had become the side effect of survival.
He missed his parents more sharply than he ever anticipated. Sometimes, he slipped back into his home village, the one he grew up in, just to see them. He never approached directly. He only watched from afar. His ascension was no secret to them, his family knew, and the entire village knew. Their pride had been explosive, emotional, almost deafening. They built a grand temple for him after he left, raised with celebration, reverence, and communal effort.
His parents were overjoyed. But they were still mortal. Still aging. Still bound to the natural lifespan of humans. He knew time would not be kind to them the way it would never be unkind to him again.
And that was the part that hurt.
If he had ascended without signing away his presence from Heaven, he could have petitioned for them to serve in the Middle Court. He could have brought them close, given them work near him, given them a place in the same world as their son. They could have built a future side by side.
Now, watching them from a distance, Ming Yi realized something cruel in its simplicity: he had never meant to abandon them, but meaning meant little when the outcome looked the same. They were unharmed, yes. They were safe, yes. The calamity had kept that promise perfectly.
But safety was not the same as staying
And sometimes, that truth sat so bitter on his tongue.
The second time Ming Yi encountered Black Water was a mistake of timing, chance, and terrible luck.
Hearing someone shout his name while sprinting past him was strange enough. Watching that same someone whip around and crash into the man behind him—into his own face, worn like a mask he had surrendered—made the moment outright surreal. He hadn’t used that form in so long that seeing it move, frown, and chew buns without dignity made something uncomfortable twist low in his gut.
“Ming-xiong!” the woman snapped, pointing an accusatory finger. “I told you to wait for me! Why do you keep disappearing? Is that how a best friend is supposed to act!”
And Ming Yi forgot to breathe.
She was… arresting. Striking. The kind of person whose presence demanded attention even when you did not want to give it. She stood in layered green silk, soft, expensive, tailored with the kind of precision no mortal tailor in his village could have managed. Her hair was pinned up in a style that had clearly taken time, effort, and practiced hands. Her makeup was light but deliberate, clean lines, soft color, expertly done. She smelled floral too, a faint sweetness left in the air when she moved. He did not know what flowers, only that the scent lingered long after she passed.
Black Water did not look interested. In fact, he looked bored. He kept eating his buns, gaze fixed forward, jaw moving rhythmically, like nothing in front of him deserved to disrupt his lunch.
She pouted. Then kept talking. Loudly. Repetitively. Offended.
Ming Yi kept staring anyway.
Then Black Water turned his head.
Their eyes met. Ming Yi looking into his own face, his own eyes, his own form—only now colder, sharper, threaded through with a warning so clear it needed no explanation.
Don’t get involved.
A warning.
And Ming Yi walked away.
He told himself it was ridiculous to keep thinking about her.
It had been a fleeting encounter, an accidental meeting in a market. Nothing more. And yet her image clung to his mind with a stubbornness he could not shake off.
She didn't even know he existed.
No, she did know.
But not the real him. She knew a lie wearing his face and using his voice, a deception crafted by none other than Black Water Sinking Ship.
What shocked him most was how easily she called that man her best friend, even when the disguised version of him behaved with blatant disinterest, bordering on disdain. The Ghost King had looked bored, unimpressed, mildly inconvenienced by her very existence. Yet she still swung into him, arms wrapping around.
Ming Yi could not comprehend it. How could someone so radiant stand beside someone so cold and unreachable? How could a being who looked almost divine offer familiarity so freely to someone who treated her like a passing irritation?
And, perhaps more dangerously, another thought followed.
That spot in the market should have been his. The one being chased, the one being scolded, the one being embraced, the one hearing her voice say Ming-xiong with fond entitlement. It should have been the true him receiving the warmth, not the illusion of him wearing black robes and eating buns without a care in the world.
The realization twisted in his gut.
Because it was not him. It was the imitation. The false version of his name. The false version of his life. The false version of his connections.
And that longing, sharp and embarrassing in its sincerity, curdled into something uglier. A quiet, simmering resentment that tasted like jealousy and felt uncomfortably close to yearning.
If anyone was ever meant to stand beside her while she stormed through the market like a gust of spring wind, it should have been someone who could look at her properly. Someone who saw all of her, who listened when she spoke, who actually responded. Someone who could answer her smiles with warmth, not silence.
Someone like him.
Ming Yi tried to learn who the woman was.
His first guess was that it must be the Wind Master, Shi Qingxuan.
At first, he thought he had been wrong. In many temples, the Wind Master was worshiped as the wife of the Water Tyrant, an elemental god feared more than he was loved. If she truly were the Tyrant’s wife, there was no universe in which she could run after another elemental master, arms open, voice loud, affection unrestrained. A husband like the Water Tyrant would drown the world in jealousy long before letting that happen.
But the more Ming Yi listened, the more knowledge he gained.
Other temples depicted the Wind Master as a man. Sometimes a woman. Often neither, in a way mortals could not fully understand. Sibling of the Water Master, not lover. Brother or sister, depending on the storyteller. He laughed when he realized that no one in the mortal realm actually knew anything for certain about the heavens. It amused him, briefly, how confidently humans spoke about divine affairs they could never verify. What was less amusing was the quiet realization that even he, a Heavenly Official himself, knew embarrassingly little about his own peers.
Still, one pattern kept repeating.
Earth Master shrines often placed the Wind Master at Earth’s side. Their names were spoken in the same breath in folktales, carved beside each other on prayer plaques, paired in descent stories like an old comedy duo. When the Wind Master walked the mortal realm, the Earth Master was said to follow. When the Earth Master answered prayers, the wind was said to carry his deeds. Two elemental officials constantly linked in stories.
And because of that, Ming Yi concluded once again that the woman had to be Shi Qingxuan, the Wind Master.
Not because the evidence was flawless, but because in every story about the Earth Master, there had never been anyone else at his side. It was always the Wind Master.
And often, he, who was supposed to be the Earth Master, wondered if the Wind Master and he were meant to walk together, not the fake wearing his skin. He felt that fate was a cruel joke, stealing something from him that was precious beyond words.
Maybe they were fated together.
Ming Yi kept following the Wind Master without realizing when it had become a habit. Sometimes, he wished he truly knew her. Not the version of him she called by name, not the ghost wearing his face, but himself. His real voice. His real thoughts. His own, unborrowed existence.
The interest began when he found a small, dangerous courage growing in him, the thought that it should have been him standing at her side.
So he began to look for more stories about the Wind Master. At first, it was interest. Over time, it grew into something else. He needed to understand her. The more he searched, the more he found. Accounts of kindness, warmth, generosity that seemed effortless, almost innate. Mortals spoke of her like someone they could trust with their grief and their small hopes. It surprised him how easily her legend inspired affection instead of fear, where most gods were revered through dread.
Many of the stories spoke of her beauty and her grace, noting how every prayer was equally important in her eyes. Whether a believer was rich or poor, she never abandoned them. And it intrigued him.
He caught himself wondering again. If he had been the one in Heaven, walking beside her, carrying out missions under his own name, answering prayers with his own hands, would things have been different? Would she have liked him? Would they have become close, the way she was with the fake him? Would she have been happier?
He did not know when it happened. When admiration became something heavier. When her name stopped being just a title and started feeling personal to him. He never knelt at her temples, never lit incense in devotion, never called himself one of her followers. Still, the thought of her kept returning to his mind.
He remembered when his father told him that someday, he would find someone he fancied, someone who would never leave his thoughts. He never thought himself prone to romance, yet here he was.
More than that, the stories about her gave him something to hold onto. Not a grand purpose, not divine motivation, but a reason. A small one, perhaps selfish, but a reason nonetheless. That someday, when the pact finally ended, he could return to Heaven, reclaim his title, and stand near her. Not as a ghost, not as a lie, but as himself.
He knew he was not her devotee.
But some days, it felt like he was halfway there without noticing the road that led him.
And the hope of returning, of finally taking his place beside her properly, became the only thing pushing him forward now. He cultivated quietly. He waited quietly. He lived quietly.
He wondered, more often than he cared to admit, what would happen when Black Water finally finished his goal and shed the borrowed skin. Would the Wind Master be heartbroken? Would she grieve for someone who had never really been there?
Then came the question he dreaded most.
Would she accept that he was the real Ming Yi, not Black Water at all? Would she believe him if he told her? Or would she look at him like something rotten wearing something sacred? Would disgust cross her face before he even had the chance to speak his name properly?
The thought sat heavy and bitter in his chest.
He hated it. He hated how much it mattered to him.
But he could not stop wondering. He could not stop following either.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Black Water snapped at him, his voice sharp and cutting. He stood in his true form, terrifying and handsome in his own way. His gaze was glacial and unblinking.
“Are you trying to expose yourself? Why do you keep following Shi Qingxuan?”
Ming Yi bowed his head slightly. “Lord Black Water… it’s been a while.”
“Don’t dodge.” His tone cracked like a whip. “Answer the question.”
The chains around him rattled in warning, even though they were not there now. The threat lingered all the same.
“Did our pact not clearly tell you to stay out of Heaven’s sight?” Black Water shouted, fury rising fast. “Did it not tell you to keep your distance? Stop following them. Stop praying to them. Do you want them to realize something’s wrong? Do you want them to start asking questions?”
Ming Yi stiffened. “I’m not trying to—”
“You are,” Black Water interrupted, his voice booming through the hall. “And you’re terrible at hiding it. Do you want them to notice? Do you want them to figure it out? Do you want them to look at you and know?”
Ming Yi shut his mouth. His jaw clenched. He did not answer.
Because he already knew the truth.
And so did Black Water.
The Ghost King let out a sharp, mocking laugh, low and insulting.
“You are trying to sabotage our agreement,” he said, stating it as fact, not accusation. “After all this time, I have kept my word. Not once have I pushed Heaven’s responsibilities onto you. I answer every prayer. I uphold every duty. And in return? I hand you your merits and your wealth without taking a single thing for myself.”
He scoffed and turned away, pacing a few steps before glancing back over his shoulder, gold eyes cold and gleaming.
“And I even let you live comfortably. You never starve. You never suffer.”
The Supreme Ghost huffed, irritated, already walking away. “Stay out of this. And don’t test me again.”
Another pause. The air suddenly felt heavy.
“And don’t you dare go near Shi Qingxuan,” he said poisonously. “Not even a single step closer.”
He did not wait for a response. He did not need one. The warning had already landed.
He was angry. Angry at himself for swallowing the insults instead of throwing them back at Black Water. It wasn’t like he had wanted the pact in the first place. Sure, the deal let him live freely, quietly, without pressure or expectation, but freedom felt useless when it came at the cost of the one thing that pulled at his attention the most.
He wanted to know more about them. He wanted to understand them, even just a little. And the wanting itself felt like a trap.
The thoughts came too often now. Too loud. Too impossible to shut out.
What if Shi Qingxuan preferred the fake him more than the real one? What if she liked the ghost wearing his face better than him, the original man behind the name? The idea made something ugly twist in his stomach.
He laughed under his breath, humorless.
Isn’t that funny? he thought.
Isn’t it ridiculous?
Except the punchline didn’t make him laugh. It just made him feel smaller. And angrier.
Almost four hundred years had passed. Four hundred. The number felt unreal every time it crossed his mind. He cursed under his breath, irritated. How long was Black Water’s goal supposed to take? What in Heaven could possibly require this much time, this much silence, this much waiting?
Ming Yi wandered alone now. His parents had been gone for years—decades— centuries, long enough that the ache felt familiar, duller, but still there. He no longer felt the pull toward engineering either. The spark that once kept him up at night sketching beams and bridges had faded somewhere along the road, forgotten without ceremony.
He drifted through coastal villages these days, moving from one to the next without purpose, without attachment. He found himself standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, staring down at the waves far below. The wind was strong, loud. He didn’t care enough to remember the place’s name.
Then, in the corner of his eye, movement.
A black figure. A pale green one.
He recognized them even at a distance.
They were walking along the beach below. The one in green twirled once, twice, shamelessly happy, holding onto the arm of the man in black. He was laughing, bright and loud, while the other looked uninterested, almost irritated. And yet… there was a softness in his eyes that felt real. Subtle, but there.
Ming Yi stared, stunned. Unbelievable. Could Black Water’s face really soften like that? Could a ghost morph his expression into something so gentle, or were his eyes tricking him into seeing what he wanted to see?
The pair stopped. The one in green sat down on the sand without warning, tugging the man in black down beside him like it was the most natural thing in the world.
They kissed.
The moment was sudden, unmistakable, impossible to deny.
Ming Yi froze.
It felt like watching a scene he had no right to. Two figures locked in a world that didn’t include anything else. Not Heaven. Not missions. Not pacts. Not consequences. Just them.
His throat tightened painfully.
So this was it. This was why Black Water had taken so long.
None of this had ever been part of their agreement. Not even close.
Something hot and sour twisted in him, sharp and humiliating. He cursed the Ghost King again but with real anger sitting behind every word.
It was supposed to be him there.
It was supposed to be his arm she clung to. His name she yelled across markets. His face she chased. His place beside her on missions and sands and stupidly soft moments.
Not a ghost wearing his skin.
Not a lie shaped like him.
He swallowed hard, fists clenching at his sides.
It was supposed to be him.
He swore he would confront the Ghost King of the South Sea. He would find him, and he would ask about the pact—how it had stretched far too long, what had delayed it, and what exactly Black Water had meant when he promised Ming Yi could return to Heaven and reclaim his place.
He knew he still wasn’t anywhere near a Supreme’s level. All the merits he’d quietly collected over the centuries, all the cultivation he’d gained, none of it came close. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe otherwise.
But jealousy, envy, and hatred were sharpening inside him every day. Eating him alive, louder and harder to ignore.
So when he arrived in Ghost City, he didn’t come with a plan. He came to drink. To get drunk enough that his thoughts might finally shut up for a few hours.
That was when he saw him.
Black Water was there. Sitting in a restaurant with Crimson Rain Sought Flower.
Ming Yi seized the chance and listened in, careful, silent, unnoticed.
And then he heard it.
Black Water’s goal had never been something noble, or academic, or even curious.
It was revenge.
Revenge against the Shi brothers.
Ming Yi went cold. Shocked in a way he never felt before. His mind blanked, scrambling to catch up with the words he’d just overheard.
Did that mean everything Black Water had done was a lie to the Wind Master? Using his face, his name, his identity to deceive the one deity Ming Yi had come to care for more than he ever expected? To fool the only God he found himself thinking about, the only one who mattered enough to hurt over?
He needed to stop this. He needed to protect Shi Qingxuan. He needed to find a way. Any way. Even a bad one.
And Ming Yi was willing to take the risk.