It’s raining in the Southern Wasteland.

The rain fell on the tiles of the ruined temple, but the sound was not like rain, but like a handful of coins being dropped into an empty bowl.

Xu Huanshan squatted at the door of the temple, holding an oil-paper umbrella with three holes in it in his left hand, and holding an abacus in his right hand.The abacus was old, the beads were shiny from being touched, and there was a piece missing from the corner.The temple is also old. The door god has lost half of his face, the rain god has a broken hand, and a few wet weeds have grown out of the incense burner.

There is a wooden sign hanging on the temple door.

There are four words written on the sign: Lingyu Shenjun.

There is also a line of small words below: Full of incense, protect one party.

Xu Huanshan looked at the words and smiled softly.

"Full of incense?"

He reached out and picked up a handful of ashes from the incense burner, put it under his nose and smelled it.

The ashes are cold, and there is no residual fragrance of desire in them.Not to mention the abundance of incense, this temple even has to leave hungry when mice come.

There were three people standing outside the temple.

One is Li Zheng from the town, one is a civil servant sent by the county government, and the other is a minor official from the Nanhuang Branch of Tianyiyuan.The three of them were all wearing coir raincoats, and their faces were uglier than the statues in the temple.

The clerk of Tianyiyuan urged: "Xu Huanshan, please hurry up. You are not allowed to smell the ashes when cleaning up the temple. This abandoned temple must be filed away before midnight tonight."

Xu Huanshan didn't raise his head, he just moved the abacus beads.

"What's the hurry? The dead rush to be reincarnated, and the living rush to close the case."

The literary official frowned: "Be careful. This is a temple."

Xu Huanshan raised his head and looked at the broken-arm statue.

"If God were still here, he wouldn't let his temple leak like this. If God were not here, even if I cursed a few words, it wouldn't hear it."

The expression of the clerk of Tianyiyuan darkened: "You are just a temporary debt collector, not a bookkeeper. After checking the deficit, the temple will be closed as usual. Don't ask questions that shouldn't be asked."

Xu Huanshan smiled but did not answer.

Debt collector sounds like an official, but is actually not much higher than a handyman.Specialized in cleaning up bad debts for abandoned temples, ruined clans, and broken sects.When a god dies, the temple property needs to be cleared; when the sect is destroyed, the spiritual field needs to be sealed; when the rich family loses their incense, the unpaid deeds need to be filed away.

The most unpleasant jobs in the world are those of debt collectors.

Because they always look for account books among the dead, dig out IOUs from the bellies of gods, and calculate interest on old things that living people don't want to mention.

Xu Huanshan has been working in this business for three years. He has learned nothing but one thing.

The cleaner the ledger, the more dead.

He walked into the temple holding an umbrella.

The Rain Temple is not big, with a front hall for worshiping gods, a well in the backyard, and two side rooms on the left and right, one for stacking incense and candles, and one for praying in the temple.Now half of the wing has collapsed, the wellhead is covered with bluestone, and Miao Zhu hanged himself behind the statue three days ago.

People in the town said that Miao Zhu committed suicide out of fear of crime.

This is because this temple manages the rain praying ceremonies of seven nearby villages and collects incense money, rice, and livestock every year. However, during this year's severe drought, not even a drop of rain came down.The people of Qi Village were so angry that they were about to destroy the temple, but Miao Zhu died.

At this point, the case should have been simple.

The temple is inactive, the incense is cut off, the temple blessings misappropriate the offerings, and people commit suicide out of fear of sin.Tianyiyuan closed the temple, the county government filed it away, and the people cursed it, and then it passed.

But as soon as Xu Huanshan stepped into the temple door, he heard the sound.

Not the sound of rain, not the sound of wind.

It is the sound of turning the pages of a debt deed.

Wow.

Wow.

Page after page, like someone flipping through a damp account book in the dark.

Xu Huanshan paused.

A very faint gray light appeared in his eyes.

A ruined temple is still a ruined temple, rain is still rain, but deep in his sight, the entire temple statue has been peeled off a layer of skin.Fine black writing appeared in the cracks in the wall, on the beams and pillars, at the bottom of the incense burner, and in the belly of the statue.

That's a debt mark.

Everything in the world will leave traces of debt as long as it has been borrowed, owed, taken, or repaid.

Ordinary people cannot see it.

Xu Huanshan can see it.

In other words, you can hear it.

Every debt has a voice.

Some people's debts are like cries, some sect debts are like the sound of swords, some dynasty debts are like war drums, and some gods' debts are usually like the small crackling sound of burning incense.

But the sound in this rain temple is wrong.

It's not like incense.

It's like a dead man gnashing his teeth.

Xu Huanshan put away his smile, walked to the incense table, stretched out his hand and knocked on the table.

Boom.

Empty.

He knocked a second time.

Boom.

Still empty.

When the third blow fell, a very light echo suddenly came from deep in the table.

despair.

Like nails on the coffin board.

Outside the temple, Li Zheng took a step back in fright: "What, what's wrong?"

Xu Huanshan asked: "How long has this incense case been left untouched?"

Li Zheng swallowed: "Twenty years at least. The old temple Zhu refused to let it be moved, saying that this is the place where the Rain God receives incense, and whoever touches it will lose his life."

Xu Huanshan nodded.

"Then he's right."

The clerk's face turned pale: "Can you really shorten your life?"

Xu Huanshan pulled out the knife from his waist, inserted it into the gap of the incense table, and slowly pried it open.

"It's not like I touched Zhe Shou."

The wooden board tilted up with a clang.

A rotten moisture rushed out.

Xu Huanshan lowered his head and looked in.

There is no money in the incense case, no account books, and no embezzled offerings.

Just a stack of handprints.