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Jiang Cheng’s day is turned on its head when the pawn shop owner calls people to rob him.
It's actually quite funny, how everything led up to this moment. This morning, all Jiang Cheng had wanted to do was start gardening—he’s working on managing his anger, and what could be more therapeutic than gardening? But as soon as he dug his trowel into the dirt in his backyard, he struck gold.
Literally struck gold.
A fist-sized nugget, in fact.
Then he tried digging in another spot and kept striking gold, then another spot with gold, then another spot with even more gold, until he’d made an eight by eight grid of holes in his backyard, ending up with sixty-four giant pieces of gold! However, Jiang Cheng is naturally a skeptical person, so he couldn’t help but feel like this was all fake gold, and somehow his brother flew all the way from wherever he was in China to Jiang Cheng’s little place in American Suburbia just to prank him. Knowing his brother, Jiang Cheng honestly couldn’t say it was that farfetched. Naturally, he would have to go to someone to check.
So that's how Jiang Cheng comes to a shady pawn shop, finds out he currently owns approximately $21 million worth of gold, and also finds out the approximate time of his death, which is right about when the guys the pawn shop owner called beat him to a pulp.
Two big burly men bust out from both sides of the shop. One of them slaps a bat in his hands, while the other pulls the safety lock of his gun. Almost comically, they start slowly closing in on Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng’s eyes pinball between the two men in a panic as he backs up into his bucket of gold. Once the men are in range, they prepare their weapons. Jiang Cheng quickly ducks, shuts his eyes, and covers the back of his neck, bracing himself for impact.
But the hits never come.
Right when he expects the bat to make contact and the gun to shoot, he hears a gust of wind in front of him. He then hears some groans, then another gust of wind above his head, then silence. Jiang Cheng slowly cracks his eyes open. He sees green cloth in front of him. He rakes his eyes up the figure in front of him and sees long, dark brown hair. The top half of the figure’s hair is tied up into a bun adorned with a very fancy hairpiece. The figure turns to look at Jiang Cheng, revealing a soft but masculine face. Jiang Cheng gulps. “W-who are you?”
Jiang Cheng starts to see the man start to smile down at him, but the man quickly covers his face with a paper fan. “Mmm, before I answer that, let’s talk somewhere else? there’s too many bodies here, even if they are unconscious,” the man speaks with a playful tone. His voice matches the glint in his grey eyes.
Jiang Cheng looks around him and finds that the two big burly men who were going to attack him earlier are now lying on the ground, the slight movement of their chests being the only sign of life. He stands up on shaky legs and looks behind the counter—the pawn shop owner is also passed out. Jiang Cheng slowly turns back to the man with the fan.
“Don’t worry, they’ll be okay. I also just remembered you have some heavy luggage with you...” the man gives Jiang Cheng a strange look “—allow me.” The man snaps his fingers, and suddenly they’re in the living room of Jiang Cheng’s home. The man calmly sits down in the couch conveniently behind him, fluttering his fan.
Jiang Cheng whips his head this way and that. How in the world... “W-what- how did we- how are we in my house, we were just at the pawn shop, what—“
“Jiang Cheng,” the man calls, and Jiang Cheng stops, “calm down. i’ll explain if you let me.” In any other case, Jiang Cheng would have probably yelled the man out of his house. However, the shock of almost being attacked and the inexplicable travel to his home keeps him silent. The man continues, “My name is Nie Huaisang, and I’m a god of fortune.”
“You’re what?!” Jiang Cheng blurts out.
“A god of fortune! A fortune god? Whatever, I'm a god that brings good fortune to those I possess.”
“ Possess ??“
“Mm, well, maybe ‘possess’ isn’t the right word, let’s just say... I'm something like your patron god. I preside over your life and lucky things happen to you, like, say... finding a bunch of gold on a random Sunday morning?”
Jiang Cheng’s jaw drops. “That’s- you can’t call it /luck/ if you’re the one that put it there, it’s more like, like, like a gift!”
“Oh, it is a gift!”
if this were a cartoon, big question marks would be appearing over Jiang Cheng’s head. he furrows his eyebrows and feels some irritation bubble up. “Then why’d you use it as an example??”
“Ei, don’t be so particular! Did you not think you were the luckiest person in the world when you found all that gold in the ground?” Jiang Cheng can’t say he didn’t, so he just huffs. the man snaps his fan closed “—see, exactly!”
“Well, who said I needed a god of fortune anyway?!” Jiang Cheng asks.
“The Heavens did. Your life is so unnaturally full of strife—your parents are divorced and you blame yourself for it, you’re living alone because both your siblings are married and living with their spouses, you have unbridled rage stemming from an inferiority complex—the list goes on! So once you resolved to better yourself, the heavens sent me to give you some more luck in your life! that way, you’re more likely to enlighten yourself and have a better life!”
Jiang Cheng blinks. He felt “unbridled rage” at first, hearing all of his biggest flaws, but then he hears the bit about resolving to better himself… Does that mean… “You mean, when I stopped praying for things to get better, that’s when… ‘The Heavens’ finally sent me something?”
“Yes! If you wanna know why, just know it’s, uh, something something human will something something… I, err, didn’t really pay attention during orientation…”
Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow. He couldn’t have gotten a more competent patron god, could he?
“Then, if you’re supposedly already giving me good fortune, then why’d you give me a gift, huh? Shouldn’t I just, like, I don’t know, happen upon a trashed winning lottery ticket or something because of a stroke of luck or whatever??”
“Mm...” Nie Huaisang looks down and opens his fan back up, covering his face again. “Well, as your patron god, I’ve been presiding over your life for a while now and... well, you’re a very intriguing human. Very… enticing… So much so that I’ve, uh... fallen in love with you… so the gold was like… a courtship gift.”
Jiang Cheng stares blankly at him. “A… a ‘courtship’ gift?”
“Is that not the right word? Oh, dear…” The fluttering of Nie Huaisang’s fan gets faster.
“N-no, it’s- I think it’s the right word, just… you’re… in love with me?”
“Quite…”
“Why?”
Nie Huaisang tilts his head. “Why not?”
Jiang Cheng scowls. “You said it yourself, my life sucks and I’m… I get angry too easily and I’m not, like, emotionally available or whatever, so…”
Nie Huaisang shifts his fan down, as if to seem more open. “All of that may be true, but… Jiang Cheng, you’re very earnest, and that paired with your heart of gold makes you a good person. For example, what were you planning to do with all of that money?”
Jiang Cheng thinks about it. $21 million… That’s too much for any one man to have. He’d probably split the money evenly so he and his siblings could keep... $7 million each? But that’s still too much. He’d probably buy a reasonably sized house—as opposed to renting like he is now—put at least $1 million in his savings, then donate the rest to some charities or something. He tells Nie Huaisang just as much.
Nie Huaisang laughs behind his fan, “See? You’re not greedy, and you’d even give up more than half your wealth to others. It’s because you’re naturally this selfless and honest that I want to court you—” his eyes seem to shift colour for only a second “—unlike you, I am greedy, and I’d like you all for myself.”
Jiang Cheng is speechless. His cheeks warm at Nie Huaisang’s words. He stutters to respond, “Um, well, uhm, uh…”
Nie Huaisang giggles and closes his fan. He leans back against the couch and taps the fan against his lips. With a slight smirk, he asks, “Jiang Cheng, will you allow me to continue courting you?”
Jiang Cheng gulps. “I think… you’ll have to keep trying…”
“Eh?” Nie Huaisang’s eyebrows raise “—What does that mean?”
“It means… I’m not going to fall- err, reciprocate... your feelings with just one act, nevermind anything beyond that. I barely know you, so… So it means that you have to… keep trying to make me… you know…” Jiang Cheng covers his mouth with his hand, wishing he had his own fan to hide how red his face must be.
Nie Huaisang beams at Jiang Cheng. “Does that mean you want more gifts? And here I thought Jiang Cheng wasn’t a greedy human…”
“I-I’m not!” Jiang Cheng tries to defend himself, “I just mean… you should know what I mean!!”
Nie Huaisang lets out another giggle and opens his fan again, this time fanning himself and letting his smile show. “I do. From now on, Jiang Cheng, I’ll make sure to win your heart.”
“You can certainly try…”
Jiang Cheng has to wonder how on Earth he was lucky enough to have a wealth of gold and a literal god declaring his love for him. Perhaps that’s what The Heavens had in mind for him. Or, this is some crazy dream. Either way, Jiang Cheng looks forward to spending the rest of his day with the mysterious god of fortune that is Nie Huaisang.
