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The Crow God
An old crow nests in Stone Gate Town's great locust and caws the night before any disaster. The watchman Old Qin reads its alarms and saves the town from fire; after his death his nephew Young Qin scorns it, until a snowy night the crow's frantic caw reveals bandits at the pass, and the town ambushes them. The crow vanishes with the thaw. The town carves a nameless stone crow at the tree. The Chronicler: the crow cried not doom but 'wake'.
The Silkworm God
All in Cocoon Bridge Town rear silkworms and honor the Horse-Head Maiden. Diligent Widow Zhou keeps the old rites and her cocoons come heavy; young Qian Gui scorns the offerings to save coin, and his cocoons come hollow. A dream shows him the goddess asking if she covets his meat. He mends the shrine, keeps the rites, and his silk thrives. The Chronicler: the goddess punishes a slack heart, not a thin gift.
The Snail Maid
The orphan Xie Duan finds a great green-gold snail and keeps it. From then on his stove is lit and his floor swept when he returns; he hides and sees a water-robed maid step from the shell. She is sent by heaven to tend his kitchen, but seen, she must return; she leaves the shell, which ever holds a little grain in lean times. He never marries, keeps the shell, and lives out his days. The Chronicler: the poor lack not wealth but warmth.
The Bridge God
A rickety wooden bridge spans the Green Creek gorge, guarded by a clay roadside god. On a stormy night the old porter Teng is warned in a dream that the bridge will break; he wakes the village, and the faithful are saved while a heedless merchant is lost. The Chronicler: the god was a man's refusal to be careless with other people's lives.
The Tea God
In the Cloud-rest Mountains an old keeper tends wild tea that opens only for a quiet heart. A greedy merchant finds it bitter; a poor failed scholar finds it sweet. The Chronicler: the leaf is the same; what is sour or sweet is the drinker's own mind, not the cup.
The Peach Demon
In the Shen garden an old peach tree blooms with a nightly red glow. When A-qiao's husband is lost on the river, her three years of waiting scatter half her soul; the tree-spirit gathers it and keeps her company to the end. The Chronicler: what the world calls foolish devotion is often the only thing that keeps a garden — and a memory — alive.
The Willow Spirit
At a bend of the Qing River an ancient willow holds the dike and shades the Zhou ferry family for three generations. A timber merchant tries to fell it for planks; his tools fail, his cargo sinks, and a feverish dream shows him the tree-spirit's grievance. The Chronicler: the merchant saw timber, not roots — and a dike without roots loses its boats.
The Money God
At the west market gate a clay Money God sits in a roadside niche with a tiny scale, said to weigh not men's wealth but their greed and honesty. Each coin tossed in is weighed by night; the greedy find their gains leaking away, the honest find small mercies multiplying. An old shrine-keeper says he is no god but a balance, and keeps silent. The Chronicler: the scale in a man's heart needs no priest.