Chapter Nineteen: Murderous Intent

  The summer rainstorm came extremely suddenly, just now it was sunny, in the blink of an eye, dark clouds covered the sun, strong winds howled, and the raindrops poured down with a loud patter, even the big willow tree in the east of the village was bent over, as if it were about to break.

  This is already the third day since Fang Ming returned, and since he set up the reward, various matters have also gradually gotten on track. The yin soldiers practice every day, and patrols are more diligent. According to Wang Liu's private report, the fire-roaming souls are eager to fight, if not for Fang Ming's rules, ordinary roaming souls would not have a first-level reward, it's hard to say that the roaming souls in each village would suffer.

  Fang Ming was very satisfied with this, after all, seeking battle is better than avoiding it.

  In terms of personnel, with the addition of Guo Sheng and He Dong's yiding, it was barely enough to meet the demand, and they were able to register the household registrations and incense records of believers in each village one by one, and get statistics.

  Qingxi Township has jurisdiction over four villages, with a total of 173 households and 864 people.

  Among them, there were fifty-two unbelievers. After all, there are people who eat uncooked rice everywhere, and even if Fang Ming appeared in front of him, he may not necessarily believe in gods.

  Two hundred and twelve shallow believers, these are people who worshiped God in their previous life, not necessarily believing in the land god, but seeing everyone else worshiping, they also worship. Shallow believers basically can't provide any divine power to Fang Ming during major festivals, only two or three days later.

  There are 553 ordinary followers, who are the real followers and also Fang Ming's most precious source of wealth at present. Ordinary followers can provide Fang Ming with a thread of divine power every day, and more during grand festivals.

  There are only forty-seven devout followers, who are the descendants of the priestly clan and can be promoted to temple masters. The current five temple masters are all among them.

  All in all, Fang Ming now has more than 600 strands of white divine power entering his account every day. Unfortunately, with the existence of evil spirits, he first has to return half of it to his followers, and put the rest into the reserve treasury. Fang Ming's current net income is around 100 strands of divine power, all of which are obtained by helping villagers fulfill their wishes. Every day, he uses various divine powers, even though Fang Ming is a godly being, he is also exhausted, and has some thoughts about finding help.

  As for Zhang Dahu of Qingxi Township, there has been no news from him since Zhang Guanjia returned, and it is unknown whether he has given up or has other plans. Originally, it was still possible to check through the followers in Qingxi Township.

  Now, Zhang Huai Zheng releases the news that he does not allow the villagers of Qing Xi to believe in the land god. With one order, all the villagers of Qing Xi abandon their faith, leaving Fang Ming with a bitter smile and a chill in his heart, realizing the influence of human power on divine power. If the county magistrate of An Chang orders the villagers not to believe in the land god, how many followers will he have left? It's really chilling to think about it.

  Just now I used the "Wang Qi Shen Tong" again and found a new discovery. The order has been passed down.

  Thinking of this, she picked up the teacup on the table, took a slight sip, and Pearl, who was waiting beside her, quickly picked up the teapot and refilled the cup.

  Pearl, that was the name of the maid at the time, Fang Ming left her in the territory of the land, responsible for sweeping the hall, but she was clever and after finishing the sweeping work, she took the initiative to come and serve.

  This teapot is also conjured up by Fang Ming's divine power. Although he is a god, he doesn't want to lose the pleasure of being human, so he takes advantage of the thunderstorm to come out and make tea, which is quite interesting.

  He Yaqing arrived and said: "The noble god is having a great time!"

  Fang Ming smiled: "Just stealing a lazy day!" After getting up and greeting, he asked: "Is Mr. He used to living here?"

  He Yuqing smiled wryly and said, "A newly deceased person should be content with just a tile to cover their head. He Yuqing is already extremely satisfied to have a courtyard to live in and people to serve him. If he had more, he would probably bring bad luck upon himself."

  Fang Ming nodded: "Mr. He is content with his life and makes people envy him, please come and have a cup of clear tea!"

  Mr. He raised the teacup to his lips, took a sip, nodded slightly, and seemed to be savoring it greatly. Then he shook his head, furrowed his brow, and fell into deep thought. Fang Ming looked at him with some puzzlement and asked, "Why are you like this, Mr. He?"

  "Let the gods see my smile, He Xiang has always been fond of drinking tea, but since becoming a ghost, it's been over a decade since I last brewed any. Now, even as a ghost, I can use tea, and I'm truly overjoyed... This tea from the gods is excellent, the water quality is superb, not inferior to Ling Lu. As for the tea leaves, I apologize for my lack of skill, unable to discern their quality. Thus, I ponder, feeling ashamed... He Yuqing got up to apologize, then sat back down, took another sip, and his eyes narrowed slightly, a sense of leisure and tranquility emerged."

  Fang Ming couldn't help but smile wryly. He could only be considered a superficial connoisseur, whereas someone like Mr. He had an air of elegance that was deeply ingrained in his bones. Not everyone could possess this quality, it required being from a noble family and having been nurtured for decades to even glimpse a fraction of it. As for the rest, it depended on one's innate talent. At that time, there were also famous tea connoisseurs, but unfortunately, they weren't something that this small county could have.

  After chatting with Mr. He for a few more sentences, I learned that the so-called Ling Lu is specially collected at dawn to collect dew drops. According to the object of collection, it can be divided into rose dew, green leaf dew, apricot flower dew and so on. However, when it comes to making tea, the best is the tea flower dew from the original tea tree...

  As soon as he mentioned this, He Yuqing's eyebrows danced with excitement, and Fang Ming was tongue-tied. With his divine power to purify water, it was naturally extremely pure, not inferior to Ling Lu. As for the tea leaves, they were Tieguanyin, which he often drank in his previous life, so it wasn't strange that He Yuqing couldn't recognize them.

  Jian De He Yu Qing slightly satisfied, then said: "I have a matter to ask Mr.! I hope Mr. will not hesitate to inform me!" At this time, Fang Ming's expression was extremely serious.

  He Yuqing suddenly came to, his heart wryly smiling. At home, everyone knew that when the old master was tasting tea, he hated to be disturbed, and it was rare for someone not to know better than to commit this offense. It had gradually become a habit, even his wife and several sons wouldn't dare bring up anything at this time. But now, of course, was different. His expression unchanged, he smiled and asked: "I wonder what the honorable god wants to know?"

  At this time, Fang Ming stood up and gazed into the distance. Through the sky curtain above the law domain, he faintly saw dark clouds densely covering the sky, with raindrops as big as beans continuously falling down. Fang Ming's voice also seemed to become gloomy. He let out a long sigh and said: "If I were to rebel, would it be any different from Li Hei Bao?"

  "Bang!" Just then, a loud thunderclap fell from the sky, and He Yuqing was startled. The teacup in his hand fell to the ground, making a "crash" sound, and the tea water also splashed all over him. However, He Yuqing didn't care about that anymore, and exclaimed in shock: "How can the Honorable God say such things?" Fang Ming's power was something He Yuqing had only glimpsed, but he knew it was not to be underestimated. Not only were his subordinates fierce, but more importantly, he had both literary and military talents, and had established a system. This made him much stronger than Li Hei Bao.

  He Yuqing knew in his heart that if Fang Ming rebelled, it would almost be a small half of the Ghost King. The Wen Chang Fu, an entire prefecture, would almost inevitably fall into war and chaos. In the midst of the chaotic army, even the He family might not be able to protect themselves.

  Again, in conjunction with Li Hei Bao of Linjiang Prefecture, the ghost king of a foreign state intervened, and the ambitious people from various places in Wu State also took advantage of the situation to take action. After all, there are many clever people, one place is chaotic, and two places are born out of chaos, that's when it starts. At that time, Wu State will inevitably fall into war, although the imperial court can still dispatch heavy troops to quell it, but also at a huge cost, Wu State, nine out of ten houses empty.

  Fang Ming smiled and looked at He Yuqing, whose face had turned pale, already knowing the answer. He also saw that the pearl had fainted to the ground, and couldn't help but smile, thinking that the imperial court still had some prestige left. He comforted her by saying: "It's just casual talk, they won't really take action." In his heart, he added: "But it can't be guaranteed in the future."

  He Yuqing's eyes were fixed, and he said: "Why did the respected god play this trick? You should know that a great ability has one word and one deed, with the aura of the universe, it is easy to create many things!" But his voice still trembled.

  Fang Ming said, "The way of Qi Yun seems to be related to the aristocratic families as well. I will have to ask for your guidance later." He paused and continued, "I have already made an enemy of Zhang Qingyun, the ancestor of Qingxi Village. A few days ago, you also saw him. If we drag this on any longer, I'm afraid a big change will occur. Why not take the initiative first!"

  He Yaqing let out a sigh of relief, but after thinking carefully again, he broke into a cold sweat and his body trembled uncontrollably.

  He also understood that the ancestral spirits wanted to destroy the temple, which was an irreconcilable and deep-seated grudge. Fang Ming's killing intent had already been stirred up, and it wasn't something he could be persuaded out of.

  But Fang Ming killed Zhang Qingyun, and the superiors came down to investigate. What he said was that Fang Ming's original background was a bit unclear. If the superior had come more forcefully, there would have been a dispute between the two. Whether Fang Ming killed the messenger here or the messenger went back and framed Fang Ming as an evil spirit, Fang Ming would really only have one way to go - rebellion.

  Of course, it is also possible to persuade Fang Ming to leave here, but this is not something that Mr. He can persuade, let alone ask someone to give up their own foundation and escape without a fight, which is basically who persuades whom to death.

  After some thought, he couldn't say anything and remained silent for a long time before squeezing out a sentence: "Please consider it carefully, Your Excellency!" After all, there was still the White Cloud Temple in Wu Prefecture.

  Fang Ming's mouth curled up in a bitter smile, he had never thought it would come to this, but unfortunately, the other party was already prepared to make their move. Although he didn't know what it was, his intuition could clearly see that a dark and ominous energy was brewing in the direction of Qingxi Village, with intentions of harming him. It seemed that over the past few days, they had also been investigating and gathering information about Fang Ming's background, and were now ready to strike at any moment.

  But Fang Ming didn't regret it, after all, even if he bypassed Qingxi Village and went to another village to develop, what then? He still wanted to move up, the city was a pass that had to be taken, not to mention the other two villages were far away. The three villages were located in Anchang County's triangle, and each village basically interacted with the upper township more often. Fang Ming's foundation was here, there was no other way to go!

  By doing so, it can also test the county's reaction to his future plans, which has a great reference value. Moreover, he has also arranged He Song as a chess piece, but it is unknown whether it will work or not.

  If everything develops in the worst possible way, it may only be possible to rebel, but at this time, it is not in line with the times and will definitely fail. Fang Ming has arranged a backup plan to protect himself. But even if he changes his place and hides for dozens of years until a new dynasty replaces the old one, he still cannot avoid the county town, which is the most basic core of human moral system, and the development of the Taoist way cannot be separated from there.

  The matter has been decided, looking at the wind and rain in the sky, I feel that it's still not enough, I really want to shout: "Let the storm come more fiercely!" But thinking of the master's dignity, I endured it, drank the tea in one gulp, and didn't care about He Yaqing, turned around and walked out with big strides.

  In front of the temple, Wang Liu Lang and Xie Jin stood solemnly, each with two fires behind them. Even when the heavy rain poured down, they didn't flinch in the slightest.

  Fang Ming came out, and everyone paid their military respects: "Greetings, milord!"

  Fang Ming looked up at the sky and laughed loudly, saying: "This feeling, this scene, makes me really want to go out and kill a few people! Are you willing to accompany me?"

  All dark troops knelt down: "Yes!"

  PS: Thank you for the reward from my proud and understanding friends