Chapter Five: Investiture

  Three people came to the front of a courtyard, this courtyard was obviously bigger than the surrounding ones. Su Hu and Su Lao Die were already waiting at the door, seeing the three people, their eyes lit up, they hurried forward, knelt down and paid respects: "Your humble servant has seen the master!"

  In the Daqian government system, ordinary people must kowtow to officials when meeting them. Among officials, those with a difference of two ranks and four levels in their positions also had to kowtow on important occasions. Within two ranks, except for seeing the superior official where they had to kowtow, they could use common courtesy for other interactions.

  Three people were welcomed into the front hall, Su Hu's wife hurriedly served tea and then retreated.

  Lao Dao took a sip of the tea, finding it somewhat fragrant but slightly rough on the palate, not good tea, but rare in these parts. He put down his cup and said: "The county magistrate attaches great importance to this matter, instructing us to investigate thoroughly. Our yamen has examined the corpse and confirmed that it was the work of a malevolent spirit, which has already been eliminated. On our way here, we inspected the surrounding village and found it clean, with no evil spirits lurking about. It seems you can rest easy for a while. I will report this to the superior officials. However, since you have now acquired an ancestral spirit, you will be protected in the future and won't lose out to your fellow villagers. You can consider yourselves fortunate despite the misfortune."

  Su Lao Die carefully attended to him: "Isn't that right, it's just a pity for Village Zheng, he can't enjoy this blessing." As he spoke, he squeezed out a few more tears.

  "Hmm, this time the county magistrate took pity on your village due to its sparse population and granted a favor, exempting your village from corvée labor this year. However, the taxes cannot be waived, so you must supervise carefully and not delay."

  Su Lao Die hastened to kneel down: "Thank you, sir, I will definitely handle this matter well." If Fang Ming were here, he could see that beside the white aura on Su Lao Die's head, there was an additional thread of good fortune. Su Lao Die then knelt down in the direction of the county town to thank him: "Thank you, great lord, for your kindness!"

  The village head is responsible for collecting taxes, which means letting Su Lao die become the village head of Qingyu Village.

  Wang Cunzheng is dead, and Qingyu Village has a new village head. In theory, Wang Qiao should take over, but unfortunately, he abandoned the village last night. Although it's understandable, it's also a great loss of face. On the other hand, Su Hu led the way in carrying the temple into the village, saving the whole village and earning great merit for the village. If Old Man Su becomes the new village head, no one will be able to gossip about it.

  But the village agreed, and the county also agreed. Su Laojie let Su Hu go to the county to report the news, bringing a full 10 taels of silver for greasing palms up and down. Although Wang Ying had some connections in the county, unfortunately, people leave and tea cools, but the Su family's silver was enough, so this village head position naturally fell into their hands.

  These ten taels of silver were not from the Su family, but were written by Fang Ming. Due to Su Hu's actions, his family was closely related to the land god, and it was beneficial for the Su family to become the village head. So he sent seven or eight taels of silver to the Su family through a dream, which was used not only for the other party but also to help himself bribe the government officials, so as not to be treated as an evil spirit. The Su family added some more and made up ten taels, which was enough for use.

  The Daoist priest said a few more words to Old Man Su and then they both came out of the house and arrived in front of the Land Temple.

  He saw the small temple and didn't think it was strange. At that time, the folk sacrificial rituals had not been standardized yet. There were temples, spirit tablets, and earth altars, which he had seen many times before. He carefully examined it again, burned another talisman, and seeing nothing unusual, nodded his head and said:

  "Ah, the ancestral worship is still on, and it's not a ghostly affair, you can rest assured!"

  Then said a few more words with Old Man Su and had the intention of leaving.

  Su Lao Die saw the opportunity and presented two taels of white silver, "Sir, you have had a hard journey, we have nothing to repay you with, this is just a small gift, please accept it!" At that time, even a ninth-grade official's monthly salary was only one tael of white silver. The Taoist priest declined for a few words and then accepted it. He also gave the chief catcher 500 coins, and even the small catchers got 100 coins each. The young man was overjoyed, his face beaming with delight, which made the chief catcher's face turn dark.

  All the way to see off outside the village, waiting for the ox cart to walk far away, Su Lao Die was still in a state of respectful send-off. Until the ox cart completely disappeared from view, Su Lao Die finally let out a sigh of relief, knowing that this matter had been settled. He adjusted his clothes, put his hands behind his back, and slowly strolled back to the village.

  Don't underestimate the village head, this is also a first-class official, working with the tax collector to collect taxes, and they can become rich. The tax collector cleverly creates names, causing the villagers to go bankrupt, and the village head comes to pretend to be a good person, taking advantage of the opportunity to buy land at low prices. This pattern has almost become a fixed rule. The 50 mu of land owned by the Wang family came from this.

  Adding to the disaster last night, out of the 57 households and 312 people in the village, only 35 households and about 150 people are left. More than a dozen households were directly wiped out, so this house and land would be empty. Qingyu Village was built by refugees, if we talk about relatives, it's just the villagers in the same village, after years of intermarriage, they became relatives by marriage. The villagers are cunning, knowing that if they don't act quickly, the government will take over soon.

  At one time, the village was filled with people coming to pay their respects, and the villagers were constantly going back and forth. All of these matters had to go through the village head, so he was able to get a share. These benefits were already quite substantial, and yet they were still enough to attract the envy of Qingxi Township. Fortunately, Old Su acted quickly and used his silver effectively, cooking the meat in the pot until it was tender. If Wang Qiao were not still around, the fifty mu of land would have no owner, and things might have even gotten to the point where people from the county would come to get involved.

  On the ox cart, the grass is long and the swallows are flying on both sides of the road. Everything is thriving, it's really a beautiful spring scene. Xiao Bu was driving the cart in front, Dao Shi saw Xiao Bu's hesitant expression and couldn't help but say: "What's wrong, just speak!"

  The Great Han said: "Sir, I have never heard of this land god's name, and when the villagers mentioned that this spirit has the ability to entrust dreams, it made me feel somewhat uneasy."

  The Taoist priest smiled and said, "Some ghosts have surnames that are actually those of officials who have committed crimes or been driven out by wealthy families. They don't want others to know their true names, so they use titles instead of their real names. There hasn't been anyone with a significant connection to this prefecture who has passed away recently, so it shouldn't be a problem."

  "As for the matter of entrusting dreams, I've also heard that ancestral spirits can indeed carry out such matters in front of the altar, but it consumes a great deal and has many restrictions, and can only be maintained for a short moment, not to be used unless it's an emergency. What nonsense is this about ancestral spirits allowing people to dream for ten years? It's probably just foolish villagers spreading rumors!"

  Actually, I'm still inexperienced and not very clear about this matter, but considering the two taels of silver, it's better to do less rather than more. In any case, it's become a sacrifice to the spirits, can we escape?

  "Would that it were so!"

  Time has flown and it's already April.

  Qingyu Village Grain Beating Ground

  At this time, the land temple has merged with the altar, and incense is constantly burning in front of the temple. Fang Ming sits upright in the great hall, looking at the hall filled with incense and wishes, extremely satisfied. The divine seal talisman inside his body is continuously absorbing and refining the incense and wishes, enhancing his divine power.

  In this world, none of the ancestral spirits have a divine position and cannot refine their divine power. Most of the sacrifices are filled with all sorts of thoughts, causing the divine power to be impure and mixed. The ancestral spirits of the sacrifices are entangled by resentment and cannot leave the altar, which is very troublesome.

  Fang Ming discovered that as long as he became a believer, he would be offered a thread of divine power every day. If he made an offering and burned incense once, another thread of divine power would be produced. However, the amount of divine power one person could provide to Fang Ming per day had its limits, varying from person to person. Children were around three threads, while adults ranged from five to ten threads, with He Song being the highest at ten threads per day. He was also the person with the highest innate destiny in the village, possessing a pure and powerful aura.

  Fang Ming also didn't want to exhaust the pond and fish, so he lowered his divine decree, restored the grand ceremony on the 1st and 15th of each month, and let everyone do as they pleased at other times. He knew that there had been too many manifestations recently, which was not good for the influence, so after tidying up the sacrifices, he stopped entrusting dreams, devoted himself to studying and observing, operating divine power, and accumulating experience.

  Through research, it was found that the god and the pre-life enterprise are very similar. The believer invests divine power in the deity, and the deity provides protection to the believers. In the previous life, shareholders invested money in enterprises, and enterprises distributed dividends to shareholders. If a believer can only offer five strands of divine power every day but wants the god to spend ten strands of divine power to fulfill their wishes, it is like a company's debt growth exceeding its financial growth, eventually going bankrupt. The god will suffer great loss of divine power and be on the verge of falling asleep.

  So it's essential to clearly mark prices for the faithful, and deduct one point from the transaction for every unit of divine power spent by the followers. If too much divine power is used, it will lead to bankruptcy; if too little is used, the gods won't be effective, and the number of followers will decrease.

  Fang Ming is now like this, seeing how much divine power the believer gives him, he will convert about half of the divine power into protective energy and give it to the believer; the rest is stored and accounted for. For other requests from believers, it depends on income and expenses. For example, if they ask for a cure for six domestic animals, the exorcism ritual requires five strands of divine power, so he will charge six strands. After the believer saves up six strands, he will perform the ritual for the believer and earn one strand of divine power. Unless it's an emergency, he won't make special arrangements, and when there are urgent expenses, he'll give him credit first and let him pay back slowly later.

  This way, an account can be formed. After careful calculation, the daily pure income is approximately twenty-five strands of white divine power. The total pure profit in the account now is about five hundred strands of divine power, which is a force that can be used at will. There is also a reserve fund of about one thousand strands of divine power, which is always ready to be used by the villagers as they wish and cannot be easily used. Finally, there is the divine power absorbed and refined from the entire altar last time, approximately three thousand strands of divine power, which is a windfall that makes him overjoyed.

  Actually, all the divine power is in his body, gathered into a big ball, and it's up to him how to use it. If he encounters danger himself, then it's still up to him, three or seven or twenty-one, as much as he has, that's how much he uses. Only with this method, can he operate for a long time, constantly expanding. Also, with this constraint, he can control his subordinates, establish a system, and after making up his mind, follow this program.

  Having this idea is a great enlightenment. In his past life, he was an employee of a state-owned enterprise, and no matter how much or little he did, he received a fixed salary, so he had no motivation. Now, he is the boss of a private company, earning as much as he works, without having to pay taxes, and can do as big as he wants, everything belongs to himself.

  At once, I made up my mind to gather ghosts, recruit dark souls, spread faith, expand the enterprise, no, make the divine position bigger and stronger, establish a system, for me to use. As soon as this thought emerged, I felt a great surge of energy, and without hesitation, I left the temple.

  Now the Qingyu Village within a radius of ten miles is all his territory, unfortunately last time's big sweep cleared out all the ghosts, not even half a ghost can be seen now, so he came to the border with Dachang Village.

  Fang Ming looked at the invisible boundary in front of him, gritted his teeth, stepped across it, and suddenly felt a slight weakening of his connection with the land temple gods. However, this didn't hinder anything major, so he burst out laughing and gained new insight. In his past life as a land god, he could also leave the border to wander around, but there were restrictions from the Heavenly Court. If he slightly crossed the boundary, he would be caught by the day-and-night roaming gods and questioned for his crimes. Therefore, it was passed down to later generations that land gods could only operate within their own jurisdiction, what a ridiculous mistake!

  It also imposes a major restriction on itself.