At Jiangcheng No. 3 High School, it was exactly Friday, the start of the weekend.
At the school gate, students were streaming out in an endless stream.
In the crowd, Lu Chen looked a bit confused and cautiously observed his surroundings, muttering to himself:
“Geez! One second ago, I was still lighting incense and praying in a Taoist temple; how come the next second, I’ve transmigrated to this place?
And this is even a world of national deities, where as long as you offer incense, you can communicate with the gods and receive their blessings?
How can there be such a good thing?”
As this memory surfaced, Lu Chen’s eyes couldn’t help but light up.
In his past life, he had been a little Taoist priest at Qingfeng Temple. Praying and making offerings were already his daily routine.
And the fasting rituals were his specialty.
From his memories, he learned that the profession of a Taoist priest simply didn’t exist in this parallel world.
So, with this identity, doesn’t that mean he starts off with a buff right from the get-go?!
Just as he was muttering to himself, someone tapped Lu Chen on the shoulder from behind.
“Lu Chen, what are you doing?”
He turned his head to look.
A beautiful girl with delicate features and outstanding looks was standing behind him, smiling at him.
— Li Ruoyi.
She was his classmate, and also widely recognized as the school beauty of Jiangcheng No. 3 High School.
Their relationship was pretty good.
But running into the school beauty hitting on him right at the start?
Lu Chen’s heart tightened. He vaguely sensed a familiar, clichéd, dramatic feeling.
Sure enough, as expected, something unexpected was about to happen…
“Ruoyi, what are you doing?”
Before Lu Chen could even open his mouth, a noisy voice sounded from beside him.
A blond-haired guy with an arrogant swagger had already come up to them.
— Song Hao.
Li Ruoyi’s loyal lackey, and also Lu Chen’s classmate.
“I’m not doing anything. I just saw Lu Chen standing here in a daze, so I got curious and asked him.”
Li Ruoyi’s smile faded a little.
Song Hao looked Lu Chen up and down, and was just about to open his mouth to mock him.
But Lu Chen beat him to it, spitting out, “What are you looking at, looking at your dad?”
Song Hao’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You little brat, you dare curse me?”
Lu Chen couldn’t be bothered to waste words. He simply rolled up his sleeves and took a step forward.
Taoists value clarity of thought and action; if they can solve it with actions, they’d rather not argue.
Song Hao was also startled by Lu Chen’s aggressive stance and instinctively took a step back. “You… what are you doing?”
Lu Chen clenched his fists tightly. “What do you think~”
Li Ruoyi quickly tried to mediate. “Alright, alright, stop fighting. Lu Chen, what’s wrong with you? Are you in a bad mood today?”
Lu Chen said coldly, “No. I’ve just hated his guts for a long time and want to beat him up.”
Song Hao stiffened his neck. “Hey, Lu, are you sick? I haven’t done anything to you.”
“Even if you haven’t done anything, I’ll still beat you up.”
“Huh?!”
“Both of you, say less.” Li Ruoyi changed the subject. “Classmate Lu, are you going to the temple? If you are, let’s go together.”
The temple is the place to worship the gods.
Lu Chen had originally planned to go to the temple and give it a try.
But seeing Song Hao beside him, he immediately lost interest.
“Forget it, you go ahead.”
“Ruoyi, if he’s not going, I will. Come on, get in my car, and we’ll go together.”
As soon as his goddess mentioned going to the temple, Song Hao immediately showed off the car keys clipped to his waist.
Li Ruoyi ignored Song Hao. Instead, she looked at Lu Chen with a concerned expression. “Lu Chen, the ‘Degree of Serving the Gods’ competition is coming up soon. If you don’t hurry up and work on it, I’m afraid…”
— Degree of Serving the Gods?
Relevant memories automatically surfaced in his mind.
This thing, to put it bluntly, was an important indicator for measuring the connection between a [Spiritualist] and a [Deity].
The higher the Degree of Serving the Gods, the greater the chance of receiving a blessing, and the closer the relationship with the deity.
In this world of national deities, the Degree of Serving the Gods was undoubtedly the most valuable “diploma.”
If it was high enough, you could have all your needs taken care of, and even enjoy great wealth and prosperity.
You would be treated as an honored guest by the major families.
Of course, the premise was that the deity’s abilities weren’t completely useless.
The only deity that Lu Chen’s original body had ever worshipped was Wenchang Emperor.
His Degree of Serving the Gods was only a pitiful 0.5%.
Theoretically, he would need to pray two hundred times to succeed just once.
Of course, that was only theoretical; in practice, it was extremely difficult to achieve that probability.
And this data placed him at the very bottom of their class.
“Thanks for your concern, classmate Li. I’ll work hard on the Degree of Serving the Gods. If you want to go to the temple, you should hurry up and go.”
Lu Chen thanked her for her kindness.
Li Ruoyi wanted to say more.
But Song Hao urged her from the side, “Let’s go, Ruoyi. This guy obviously has no money. Don’t make things difficult for him.”
Noticing Lu Chen’s glare, Song Hao puffed out his chest and said toughly, “It’s no use glaring at me. Did I say anything wrong? The cheapest ordinary incense stick costs a hundred bucks. How many incense sticks can you afford to burn in a month?”
Lu Chen’s face darkened, but he couldn’t argue.
Compared to Song Hao’s and Li Ruoyi’s families, his family’s financial situation was indeed a bit worse.
Seeing Lu Chen’s embarrassment, Li Ruoyi quickly pushed Song Hao to leave. “Alright, alright, you can take me to the temple. Lu Chen, see you next week then!”
“Okay, see you!”
Lu Chen waved his hand.
“Hey, Ruoyi! Which deity are you going to worship?”
“Wenchang Emperor, of course. I plan to raise my Degree of Serving the Gods to 3% today.”
“How much offering money have you prepared?”
“Five thousand.”
“Five thousand? Then maybe you can do it!”
Listening to their conversation as it gradually faded away and became indistinct.
Lu Chen secretly relaxed his other clenched fist.
What Song Hao said was right. He was indeed short on cash.
The Degree of Serving the Gods, in essence, was the degree of spending money.
The more you spent, the higher your Degree of Serving the Gods, and the greater the chance of “winning the lottery.”
The key point was that offering incense wasn’t cheap. The cheapest incense stick cost a hundred bucks.
And the most expensive merit incense was so rare it was practically unavailable on the market.
Lu Chen sighed and pulled out his last hundred yuan from his pocket.
“That’s just enough to buy one stick of incense. Looks like I’ll have to walk to the temple.”
“The closest temple to the school is a forty-minute walk.”
“I’ll probably get there after Li Ruoyi and Song Hao have already spent their money and left.”
Without further hesitation.
Lu Chen set off for the temple.
Along the way, Lu Chen also thought about which deity he should spend his hundred bucks on.
Wenchanger Emperor was one of the most worshipped deities because he was in charge of academics.
Anything related to “studying” could be offered to him to pray for blessings.
Therefore, he was also one of the most worshipped deities among students!
But right now, Lu Chen felt that studying could wait a bit. It wouldn’t hurt.
Because he had a more urgent need!
— Money!
“This original body’s family is way too poor. They can’t even afford to eat meat. If I could pray for wealth, wouldn’t that be more practical than praying for academic success?”
Rubbing his empty, growling stomach, Lu Chen decided to use his hundred bucks to worship the God of Wealth first.
He would first test whether what he had learned in his past life could be put into practice here.
If it worked, Lu Chen desperately hoped to pray for some unexpected windfall to buy some meat to take home!
After all, the original body hadn’t eaten meat for a month and was already malnourished.
……
Forty minutes later.
Lu Chen arrived at the temple, panting heavily.
He looked up and saw four large golden characters on the plaque — Zhao Family Temple.
“I didn’t expect that in this world, temples are privately controlled by the major families. Even if these families have no other industries, they can still make a huge profit just from the incense offerings every year.”
Lu Chen couldn’t help but envy them. “If only I could own my own temple someday. Then I’d really be set.”
Even at this hour, after school had let out, there was still an endless stream of worshippers inside the temple.
It was even more bustling than a shopping mall.
Looking around, some people were happy, some were sad.
Some people were even sitting at the entrance, crying bitterly, full of regret, cursing themselves for spending too much money.
Lu Chen shook his head and sighed. “It looks like a temple, but to put it bluntly, it’s a huge casino.”
Just then, a snippet of conversation reached his ears, catching Lu Chen’s special attention.
……
“Ah, it’s really hard to get the God of Wealth to respond. I’ve burned incense hundreds of times, and my Degree of Serving the Gods has already reached 2%, but still not a single response.”
“You’re only at 2% and you’re complaining? I’m at 3%. I burned incense five hundred times in one day, and I still didn’t get anything.”
“What! Five hundred times in one day and you still didn’t get anything? How much did you spend on incense?”
“Nearly fifty thousand! Ten of those were high-grade incense sticks!”
“Whoa, fifty thousand?! You’re way too hardcore! But even with that, you didn’t win. You’ve got some bad luck.”
“Ah, I guess the God of Wealth is just too rich and powerful. He doesn’t care about our meager offerings. Let’s go, let’s go.”
……
Listening to the conversation of these two disappointed worshippers nearby.
Lu Chen stood still, frowning slightly.
“Five hundred times and still no luck? Then won’t my hundred bucks be like throwing a meat bun to a dog — gone for good?”
Thinking about it, it made sense.
The God of Wealth in this dimension was also one of the deities with the most incense offerings.
Although that person just now spent fifty thousand, which seemed like a lot.
But compared to the truly wealthy.
Fifty thousand was just a drop in the bucket.
Those major families probably offered tens of millions or even hundreds of millions every single day.
Comparing the two, if you were the God of Wealth, which one would you favor?
The answer was obvious.
“It seems that having a deity with abundant incense offerings isn’t entirely a good thing. With my measly single stick of incense, hoping to succeed on the first try is a bit of a pipe dream.”
For a moment, Lu Chen also hesitated.
His hundred bucks was just an attempt, after all.
But honestly, Lu Chen certainly hoped for a sure hit.
Given his family’s financial situation, he really didn’t have much money to waste.
“Wait a minute!”
Just then, an idea suddenly popped into Lu Chen’s mind.
“Since the major deities have plenty of incense offerings and don’t lack worshippers, why should I fixate on them? Why don’t I… build up a less popular shrine?”
