Shuwan was still lying on his bed, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. He stared at the cracked screen of his phone. The light from the messaging app seemed to pierce through the shattered glass, illuminating his bruised face. Messages inside the group chat titled “Gods & Fortune Group Chat” kept flooding in like a waterfall, making his phone vibrate nonstop in his hand.
Erlang Shen: “What kind of group is this? Who dared to add me without permission?! How bold of whatever God or spirit did this!”
Chang’e: “Yeah, I was surprised too. I was peacefully feeding my rabbit in the garden when suddenly I got a notification that I had been added to this group.”
Erlang Shen: “Confess already! Who’s the admin?! If nobody admits it before I count to three, I’ll send the Heavenly Hound to track you all down! And if it catches you, it’ll bite your butt clean off!”
Shuwan frowned deeply.
“What kind of nonsense is this group? Are they a bunch of lunatics pretending to be gods? Or maybe some cosplay community that’s way too immersed in their roles?” he thought sarcastically.
His life was already a complete mess. And now he had to deal with weird people online too.
Cai Shen Ye: “Whoa, calm down first, Erlang Shen! Relax, relax... I’m the admin. Hehehe. Don’t be so fierce. I just made this group as a gathering place for the gods and somewhere to share stickers so we won’t get bored in Heaven.”
Rabbit God: “Yeah, my sticker collection has been running low lately. Honestly, I was so startled earlier that I almost dropped my carrot.”
Sun Wukong: “You’re all so noisy! All you do is argue. Especially you, Erlang. You’ve been threatening people with your dog since forever. Hahaha! What a stiff three-eyed god!”
Shuwan could only shake his head at the ridiculous argument. He was about to leave the group, but his thumb froze when he saw the next message.
Kitchen God: “Honestly, I’m not happy about being dragged into this group. It’s interrupting my cooking concentration. Unless... the admin gives out Red Packets as compensation.”
Cai Shen Ye: “Whoa, you want Red Packets too?”
Chang’e: “He’s right. Where are the Red Packets? You can’t just add us into a group for free without a proper welcoming gift. What do you think, @Erlang Shen? There should be Red Packets, right?”
Erlang Shen: “Of course! I want a huge Red Packet! If there isn’t one, I’ll leave this group right now and destroy this app’s server!”
Cai Shen Ye: “Hey, wait! Don’t get angry! Alright, alright... I’ll send the Red Packets now. Just wait a moment. I’m preparing them!”
Shuwan snorted softly. A mocking smile curled on his lips, which still stung from the slap his mother had given him earlier.
“Is he really going to send Red Packets through a chat app? It’s probably just digital money or maybe a fake empty envelope. These people are seriously insane,” Shuwan muttered.
However, before he could finish speaking, the wooden nightstand beside his bed suddenly began to glow.
A soft yet dazzling golden light appeared out of nowhere, enveloping the surface of the small table. Shuwan jolted upright in shock. He sat there stiffly, eyes wide open as he stared at something that had suddenly appeared physically on top of the nightstand.
A red envelope—a Red Packet—with luxurious golden dragon patterns.
“This... actually appeared?” his voice trembled. “Am I dreaming?”
With shaking hands, Shuwan slapped his own cheek.
Smack!
“Ow... that hurts!”
He winced, but a second later, a wide grin spread across his face.
“So I’m not dreaming. This is real!”
Carefully, he picked up the red envelope. The texture of the paper felt incredibly smooth and premium, cool to the touch, and carried a floral fragrance unlike anything he had ever smelled before.
The moment he opened it, his heart nearly stopped beating.
Inside was a fifty-yuan bill.
Shuwan quickly examined the money carefully. He held it against the dim bedroom light and ran his fingers across the surface. Everything looked authentic—the watermark and security thread were all there.
“Oh my God... I must’ve gone crazy... or maybe the world itself has gone crazy,” he muttered in disbelief.
The money had appeared out of thin air right after the admin in the group chat said he would send a Red Packet.
Suddenly, his phone rang again.
A private message notification popped up on the screen. Shuwan immediately opened it. This time, it was from Rabbit God.
Rabbit God: “God... do you happen to have any cute carrot stickers? I really want to collect some. I’ll trade them for photos of the Moon Goddess bathing. Interested?”
Shuwan stared blankly.
“Carrot stickers?”
The offer sounded completely absurd. But after seeing the Red Packet earlier, he no longer dared to dismiss everything as a joke.
Shuwan: “Uh... I don’t have any right now. But if you can wait a bit, I can make some for you.”
Rabbit God: “Really?! Wow, please make the cutest one in the entire universe!”
To prove whether all of this was truly real, Shuwan decided to test it.
He quickly opened a search engine and looked for a cartoon carrot with a cute smiling face and big sparkling eyes. Then he used a sticker-making app to turn it into a chat sticker.
Shuwan: (Sending a dancing carrot sticker)
“How about this? Is this what you wanted?”
Rabbit God: “WOW, THAT’S SO CUTE! Thank you, kind God! As promised, wait a moment. I’ll send the Moon Goddess’s photo now.”
Shuwan held his breath.
Not long after, an image file appeared in his private messages. The moment he opened it, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
On the cracked screen of his phone was a woman whose beauty felt impossible to exist on Earth. The woman—believed to be the Moon Goddess—was bathing in a small celestial lake. The water glowed softly, while her smooth pale back could be vaguely seen behind the thin mist drifting through the air.
Shuwan gasped and hurriedly turned off his phone screen, afraid his mother might suddenly enter the room.
“He actually sent it...” he muttered, his face turning red.
However, suspicion soon crept back into his mind.
“But... what if this is just some illegal group sharing pornographic photos or videos while disguising themselves with the names of gods? There are plenty of syndicates like that these days,” he thought skeptically.
But then his gaze fell once more on the fifty-yuan bill still in his hand.
That money had appeared through supernatural means.
No ordinary criminal group could make a physical object materialize from a phone screen instantly.
Shuwan lay back down on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling while his thoughts swirled chaotically.
The pain in his stomach from Bo’s kick was still there, but now something much bigger occupied his mind.
“Tomorrow... I have to find out the truth for myself at school,” he murmured softly. “Is this group really filled with gods who can bring me fortune... or is all of this just a beautiful dream in the middle of my miserable life?”
That night, for the first time in a very long while, Shuwan fell asleep while holding onto a tiny spark of hope.
Beneath his pillow rested a very real red envelope.
Aksara