The Chenghuang Temple in the north of Tuo County is very lively during the day and is the bustling place in the city.
But at night it became gloomy and there were no tourists. Only two strings of blood-red lanterns were hung at the entrance of the temple, illuminating four big characters: Tuo County City God.
The couplets on the pillars are:
"The eyes of God are like lightning, and evil will appear. I know that the dark room is evil."
This is the Chenghuang Yamen, which is in charge of the major affairs of the underworld in this county.
The Great Xia Dynasty implemented a yin and yang bureaucratic system, with yang officials as the mainstay and yin officials as the auxiliary.
Yangguan was under the jurisdiction of the cabinet, and the emperor was in charge of photography.
The Yin official was under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Ancestral Temple, and the late emperor took charge of the affairs.
The government affairs of Tuo County's 600,000 people, such as tax collection, public security and education, water conservancy, agriculture, mulberry production, criminal justice, commerce and trade, etc., are in charge of the county government.
However, the mysterious and shadowy matters such as evil spirits, bad luck and misfortune, life span, good fortune and cause and effect are all under the control of the city god Xuan Qian.
Even if each person's fate, lifespan, karma and blessings are not fixed, the spiritual officer can't change anything. It has little effect on this, and what he can do is actually very limited.
However, the Celestial Empire still established a highly hierarchical, large and sophisticated spiritual official system, which was actually mainly used to suppress evil spirits, monitor the ancient gods, and prevent them from plotting rebellion and causing trouble.
There is another reason that is not stated openly: to suppress speech, intimidate the people, and make them feel awe in their hearts and understand that there is a god with their heads raised.
Therefore, although the common people all know the existence of Master Lingguan, very few have seen Master Lingguan with their own eyes.
This makes the spirit officer still a very mysterious existence in the hearts of the people.
According to the system, Yinsi Lingguan is strictly prohibited from intervening in local government affairs, leaving the temple during the day to manifest, and leaving the jurisdiction.
This is true for the land gods in the countryside, the mountain gods and river gods in the mountains, forests, and rivers, and the city gods at all levels in the city.
Through this kind of ban, spiritual officials at all levels are allowed to abide by their responsibilities, perform their duties, and be worthy of the incense they enjoy.
But I don’t know why, in recent years, the spiritual officials have become more and more slack.
Let's just say that tonight, Tuo County City God Xuanqian did not watch the night, but held a banquet in the temple.
The temple is filled with ghosts, ghostly winds, and shadows, yet it has an aura of majesty and majesty.
"It's time for dinner, gentlemen..."
One after another, the sacrifices containing the power of incense and wishes were brought by the ghost servants of the City God's Temple and placed neatly on the Eight Immortals table under the statue of the gods.
"Use it slowly, gentlemen...the new sacrifices arrived today, the incense is still hot..."
A ghost with a green face and blood-eyed eyes licked his scarlet tongue and said, his voice whimpering intermittently like autumn water blowing through the bamboo in the cemetery.
At the head of the table of the Eight Immortals, there sat a spiritual official in green clothes and black gauze, with a withered face and an eagle nose.
But I saw that although he had a high-sounding appearance, he was shrouded in ghost mist and had the cold and sinister aura of the undead.
He looks like a big ghost, and his illusory body looks no different from his real body.
It is Tuo County that is so famous that the county magistrate has to show courtesy to the City God and the seventh-grade spiritual official Xuan Qian!
Crouching behind him was a huge gray-headed wolf as big as a calf, with frosty teeth like knives and a terrifying and ferocious aura.
There is also a green-eyed black snake with a thick mouth, entangled on his statue, swallowing the letter.
There is also an eerie and ominous strange bird, like an eagle or a dove, standing silently on the temple beam.
Xuan Qian is hosting a banquet tonight. On his left is an old man in a shroud with red lips and fangs, and on his right is a "skeleton child" wearing a child's tiger head hat.
"Two fellow Taoists, it's not respectful to treat you well." Xuan Qian held up a glass of wine and said, "The spiritual wine brewed by Yinde ointment and kind thoughts is very nourishing to the soul and good for Yin and longevity."
His voice was gloomy and solid, like a door that had been rusted for many years being slowly pushed open, carrying stale and muddy thoughts.
If a living person hears it, he will definitely have nightmares.
The little-footed ghost who was waiting at the table immediately took up her ghost hooves wearing red embroidered shoes and shuttled among the guests, urging them to drink with a ghostly smile.
"Dad Torma, Master Pipa, please."
A group of newly deceased ghost ladies, dressed in paper skirts, were singing ghostly songs and playing wind instruments with their ghostly shadows swaying in front of His Highness.
Very sad.
The skeleton child chuckled, picked up the wine glass and poured it into the mouth of the fleshless bone. The wine penetrated into the bones without a drop falling.
"Good wine." The skeleton kid said with a crisp voice, "But fellow Taoist Xuan Qian used the yin virtue ointment and good thoughts to brew the longevity wine. Then the good people's yin virtues and good thoughts were not in vain?"
"Isn't it true that good people are good people for nothing and there is no reward? Haha!"
"Master Pipa." The red-lipped and fanged Torma's father gave a bloody smile and said sullenly: "Why do you care about this? Which spiritual official nowadays doesn't appropriate Yinde and good thoughts?"
"With this blessing and longevity wine, I'll just enjoy it and don't want to talk too much."
He is the Hungry Ghost of Sex, a ghost who cultivated with the Yin Yuan of a woman named Hongwan.
It has the ability to plant ghost fetuses. A woman killed by it will become pregnant with its ghost fetus. After three days of birth of the ghost fetus, the woman will die suddenly.
It uses ghost fetuses as blood food and eats its own "children" to practice.
Therefore, the Taoist nickname is Shi Zi Daddy.
"Giggle!" The skeleton child laughed even more wildly, and the sound of bones rubbing against each other filled the hall, making the ghosts "eclipsed".
Although they were newly deceased, they also knew at this time that this skeleton child was a ghost with a well-established background in the county. The ninth young master of the Bone Grave was a man of great virtue.
It is said that this ninth young master likes to suck the bone marrow of living people, and then use the human bones to make pipa, which is called Pipa Boy.
Even the owner Xuan Qian looked unhappy when he heard the skeleton child laughing wildly.
"What's so funny?"
Young Master Pipa stopped laughing, but his tone was particularly gloomy, "How many of the spiritual officials of the Great Xia Dynasty have fun with ghosts like us and call them brothers?"
"If things go on like this, the official system will completely collapse, and the world will become more and more miserable. Isn't this the opportunity we have been waiting for?
"Looking at it from a poor perspective, the fortune of this dynasty is coming to an end, haha."
Although he is a ghost, he calls himself a poor man.
Xuan Qian sneered: "So what? In the Great Xia, a spiritual official will still be a spiritual official."
"Besides, how can the Celestial Empire really collapse if it is so vast? Well, at least there will be a hundred years of national destiny."
The association between spiritual officials and ghosts is of course a crime of collusion between officials and thieves. But if it is really a crime, then I don’t know how many spiritual officials will be questioned, and the law will not punish everyone.
But to say that Xuan Qian is really willing to be brothers with these ghosts and monsters would be an injustice to him.
At heart, he is still an official. He still regards ghosts like Father Torma and Master Pipa as thieves!
"I invite you two to come here today. There is something I need your help with."
"After the deed is accomplished, I will reward you with a hundred souls and ten pots of longevity wine."
After hearing this, Father Torma and Pipa Boy put down their wine glasses together.
Xuan Qian said: "There is a brother and sister named Luo in this county..."
"...But they have already left Tuo County, and I have a ban on them, and I am beyond my reach..."
"...The ghost fetus Luo Li gave birth to belongs to me, and I have other uses for it. The divorced son-in-law will just eat it. His little black dog was originally my pet..."
…
Luo Ning in the carriage suddenly sneezed.
"Who is thinking about me? Xuan Qian?" Luo Ning rubbed his nose and looked in the direction of Tuo County.
It has been one day since I left Tuo County.
Logically speaking, he had left Xuan Qian's jurisdiction, but Luoning was still uneasy and did not dare to be careless in the slightest.
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