Ling — efficacy, numinous power, potency — is the operative concept in Chinese popular religion and it displaces belief almost entirely. A god or a temple is ling if petitions made there are answered; worshippers say so openly, compare temples on this basis, and switch. A newly efficacious deity attracts crowds, donations and branch temples; one whose responses dry up quietly loses them, and temples do decline and close for exactly this reason. Anthropologists working in Taiwan and southern China have documented the dynamic in detail, including the practice of testing a god before committing to it, and the effect of a single dramatic answered prayer on a temple's fortunes. The point of contrast with Western assumptions is sharp: the question a Chinese worshipper is likely to be weighing is not whether the god exists but whether this one works, which is an empirical posture, and it makes the religious economy genuinely competitive.