My name is Shoushan — Keep-the-Mountain — and I keep the mountain god's little shrine. One room, one statue. The incense money doesn't stretch to roof repairs; when it rains, the god's shoulders get wet. I tell him: bear with it — this year the people come first, your roof next year.
Thirty years of keeping this shrine, and I keep a ledger — not of donations, but of the mountain's rules. Half came down from my grandfather; half I bought with my own skin:
Don't call names in the hills. If you must hail a companion, wait for open ground. Something out there learns.
Don't answer at night. If your name is called after dark, don't reply. Once you answer, it knows the name is yours.
Meeting a xiao, don't meet its eyes — and don't bolt either. Back away slowly, toward the light.
Never more than three. From one spot, take no more than three herb plants. The mountain gives; take three parts, leave seven.
I copy these rules onto a wooden board by the shrine door. Anyone going in can read them, free. People call it superstition. I say: spend one night in those hills, then come back and tell me which rule was superstition.
This plague year, two new rules went up on the board. More people stop at the shrine to rest, and I take them all — the shrine door is never locked. Lock it, and the night traveler has nowhere left to go.
Is the mountain god real? I don't know. I only know this: while I keep this little shrine and the rules on its board, more of the people who go in come back out.
That's enough. As for real or not — ask him yourself.