Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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Tuan Tuanyi really didn’t know how to explain this problem to his master. After feeling embarrassed, he thought it might be easier to just continue drawing talismans.
After being asked his true feelings for no apparent reason, Wei Chengshu still had to climb the ladder and continue cleaning the stone tablet. Seeing Wei Xi’s face full of “My disciples are so lazy”, his face was even gloomier than before. Shu Wanrong also collapsed from her excited state, as she watched Zhao Liang, a loyal believer of Taicang Sect, direct the porters to place the large incense burner where Wei Xi wanted.
There was a stone tablet on the left side of the courtyard gate and a copper incense burner on the right side. It was so inappropriate no matter how you looked at it. Shu Wanrong was about to cry her eyes out. Could it be that the house would have to be haunted by incense and burning candles in the future?
Since Zhao Liang had decided to donate the incense burner, he had also learned a lot about religious sects recently. He knew that different sects worship different gods. So he asked Wei Xi casually, “Xiao Xi, which god does your sect worship? I have donated the incense burner. Do you want me to donate a statue of the god as well?”
Shu Wanrong almost choked when she heard this. Fortunately, Wei Xi rejected Zhao Liang’s kindness before she hung herself: “No, you can’t buy a suitable one outside.”
This sounded a bit strange. Zhao Liang thought, could it be that he had to order it specially? Shuo Zong also frowned. In fact, he felt strange when Wei Xi agreed to the donation of the incense burner by Zhao Liang. The act of collecting the stone tablet could be explained as Wei Xi’s wish for a more glorious appearance for the sect, but the incense burner was used to worship gods. Wei Xi obviously did not believe in any gods. Who did he plan to burn his incense for?
After Wei Xi finished his refusal, he took out a piece of talisman paper with something written on it, chanted a fire-starting spell, and threw it into the empty furnace.
When Shuo Zong was lighting the fire, he saw a little bit of the content on the talisman paper and was silent for a while, then asked strangely: “Is this a birth date?”
Whose birth date? Wei Xi’s own? It stood to reason that burning one’s own birth date in a furnace without gods to receive offerings was not impossible. After all, what was gained was the faith of believers. In the past, gods and Buddhas even used this to ascend to power…
But after Wei Xi finished burning the paper, he clapped his hands in great joy, raised his chin slightly, and said to Zhao Liang with a proud expression, “Okay, this is the birth date of the founder of my sect, Dedao Tianzun. Since you donated the incense burner, you can light the first stick of incense.”
Shuo Zong: “???”
He went through his memories and couldn’t remember where there was a star named Dedao Tianzun. Zhao Liang was a half-baked person, so when he heard this, he was immediately flattered: “That’s great!”
Ordinary people usually went to temples and Taoist temples to buy some blessed incense ash when buying an incense burner, but Zhao Liang forgot about that. After lighting the incense, he saw that the incense burner was empty, so he asked Wei Xi: “I forgot to bring some incense ash with me… Then how can I put this incense in after I light it?”
There was a saying that if the first incense stick was not inserted properly or did not burn out completely, it would anger the demanding gods.
Wei Xi, however, was very casual: “It’s okay, just light it and throw it in, he won’t mind.”
Zhao Liang: “…”
Zhao Liang was a little hesitant. Was it okay to burn incense casually like this? And the incense would definitely not burn out if you just throw it in like this. But seeing Wei Xi’s confident look, he felt that he was definitely not as experienced as the other party. After thinking about it, he still put his hands together, held the incense, and bowed three times devoutly towards the incense burner.
He had not been a believer before, and he really didn’t know the origins of the Taoist deity worshipped by Wei Xi’s Sect, nor did he know what rules to abide by. So he followed his heart and muttered in his heart, “Gods, please bless the believers.”
It was strange to say, the temperature in the capital city was obviously very low in winter, but when he finished muttering these words and bowed down, he felt a warm breeze blowing on his forehead, warming his body.
Zhao Liang was stunned by the warmth, opened his eyes, but didn’t see anything special.
Wei Xi was also a little surprised when he saw his behavior: “What are you looking at?”
Zhao Liang had no experience in burning incense in Taoist temples, so he had no basis for comparison. After thinking about it, he shook his head and said, “Nothing.”
This was probably the normal feeling of burning incense. There was no abnormal reaction in his body, and the wind made him feel quite comfortable.
Zhao Liang thought so, and after worshiping, he carefully placed the three incense sticks at the bottom of the incense burner. He was a little worried. Would it be okay to place them horizontally without any incense ash? They would definitely go out after burning for a while, which was unlucky.
He was thinking that he should see if there was any suitable Taoist temple nearby and buy some incense ash. At this time, Tuan Tuanyi on the other side received a phone call.
Wei Xi looked at him and saw him say a few words before being handed the phone by his eldest disciple, Tuan Tuanyi, who whispered, “It is Master Kuang from Liandu Temple. He said that the origin of the person who asked for a replacement for Uncle Tan has been revealed.”
Oh, it’s the dual cultivation master!
Wei Xi quickly took it over. He couldn’t neglect this man. He still wanted to explore his dual cultivation skills. “Fellow Daoist Kuang, are you looking for me?”
Kuang Zhiming had been embarrassed by him before, si now he was frightened when he heard his voice. After a moment of silence, he did not dare to make small talk and went straight to the point: “Daoyou Wei, I contacted several Taoist friends from the local Taoist Association to come to Liandu to watch the substitution. Several Taoist friends said that the spells in the substitution looked rather unconventional, not like Buddhist methods, but more like the work of Xiusheng Sect.”
Wei Xi: “Xiusheng?”
He was not familiar with the teachings of other sects. So, he turned to look at his disciples. The eldest disciple Tuanyi was also confused, but the second disciple obviously knew the inside story. He frowned and explained in a deep voice: “It is a new sect that mainly infiltrates the southwest region. Its main method is to teach qigong to believers. It has not been legally recognized by the government.”
“Wow.” Tuan Tuanyi said, “Isn’t this a cult?”
“Yes.” Kuang Zhiming said, “We have already notified the police about this matter. It has come to an end, so I called you to let you know so that you don’t have to worry anymore.”
As he said this, someone seemed to be calling him on the other end of the phone. Kuang Zhiming paused and said, “Wait a moment, Taoist friend. There are believers coming. I will go and ask about the situation first.”
He seemed to be in the Liandu Temple. There was a very noisy sound of voices coming from the other end of the phone. It could be vaguely heard that it was caused by the believers who came into the temple to burn incense. Wei Xi saw that his sect was empty with only one believer burning incense, and he was really envious when he heard it.
However, not long after, Kuang Zhiming, who had gone out to communicate with the believers, came back, and his voice was filled with more complicated words: “Friend Wei…”
Wei Xi: “What?”
Kuang Zhiming: “This believer encountered an evil incident and came to ask for a ritual…”
Wei Xi thought to herself, why are you telling me this? “Huh?”
“…The address he mentioned…” Kuang Zhiming’s voice became more and more entangled, “It’s the unfinished building in Harbour City.”
Wei Xi: “?”
Tuan Tuanyi suddenly remembered and slapped his head and said, “Oh! Master, isn’t that our staff dormitory?”
Kuang Zhiming was speechless after hearing Tuan Tuanyi’s words. The staff dormitory…
Tuan Tuanyi apologized very embarrassedly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It may be that they made some noise when they moved to the new house recently. You know Beijing is so big and everyone lives far away. Some of them even lived in Tongzhou. It’s really impossible to move everything in a short time. I agreed to give them a week of day shift during the internship period and asked them to move carefully and not burn the furniture. I didn’t expect that they still scared people. I’m really sorry. I will definitely call and seriously criticize them. Please explain to that believer.”
Kuang Zhiming thought, if I explain, they will probably be more scared, right? Then he felt something was wrong: “Your group… your group of employees moved during the day?”
Tuan Tuanyi: “Ah! That’s not certain. It would be immoral if we move at night and scare people off the night shift.”
Was it moral to ask more than 200 ghosts to move to the city center? Kuang Zhiming had a lot of complaints but nowhere to vent them. His voice thus became weak: “… I think you should ask again. This believer encountered problems at night.”
Wei Xi frowned, wondering if these newly recruited interns knew the rules!
He immediately signaled the only believer to stay outside, and then led his disciples into the house to call Uncle Shen. The new employees who had just joined the company were currently in the internship period, and before they were assigned to their posts, they were all under the jurisdiction of Uncle Shen.
Uncle Shen climbed out of the phone, holding up his long hair. Upon hearing this, he immediately expressed his feeling of injustice: “Impossible! I divided them into eight project teams. The moving matters were all supervised by the team leaders themselves. The results were directly related to their quarterly performance, so they took it very seriously. Moreover, they have only been moving the offerings they received during the day recently. They haven’t been assigned rooms to live in yet. In addition, they are new employees, so I hold training mobilization meetings for them at night. Every ghost has to sign in, so it is impossible for them to be absent.”
Uncle Shen climbed into the phone room and went back to the office and brought back the sign-in book. Wei Xi opened it and saw that it was exactly as it said.
Since no one was absent, then who scared the believer in Liandu Temple late at night?
“No!” Wei Xi closed the sign-in book, frowned and said seriously, “This concerns the reputation of our company. We can’t just take the blame like this.”
So he called Kuang Zhiming back and asked Uncle Shen to explain to the other party in person.
Kuang Zhiming listened to the ghostly voice coming from the receiver: “………………”
According to Wei Xi, this was the manager of their human resources department… The personnel composition of Taicang Sect was really… so strange…
Uncle Shen was a seasoned veteran in the workplace. He refused to take any responsibility and argued into the phone: “Master Kuang, although our company is just starting out, our employee management is absolutely in place. If you want to see evidence, you can chant a spell into the phone and I’ll crawl over to show you our sign-in book. There is absolutely no one missing.”
Crawl over there… Kuang Zhiming silently held the phone farther away from his ear: “No, no need, I trust Friend Wei.”
“That’s good, that’s good.” Uncle Shen laughed sinisterly, “Thank you for your trust in our company. When I’m free someday, I’ll definitely treat you to tea.”
Kuang Zhiming listened to his polite words and remained silent for even longer this time.
Kuang Zhiming no longer doubted his company’s intentions, but since the call had been made to him, Wei Xi decided to take his disciples to check out the situation with the other party. This was mainly because he heard from Kuang Zhiming that the believers who had come to Liandu Temple were the developers of the unfinished building, which made them the landlords of his employee dormitory. He had seen in the entrepreneurial guidelines compiled by Tuan Tuanyi that small start-up companies should maintain a good relationship with landlords.
When he was going out, he happened to run into Uncle Zhao who was also about to leave. When Uncle Zhao heard that he was going to perform a ritual, he did not dare to delay him and walked out of the yard side by side with Wei Xi.
Before leaving, he subconsciously glanced at the incense burner at the gate of the courtyard and paused.
Huh?
In the empty incense burner, the three incense sticks he had originally placed horizontally had not gone out halfway but were instead all burned out.
Uncle Zhao was quite surprised. How could it burn out even if it was placed horizontally like this? Perhaps in response to his gaze, a familiar warm breeze blew the incense ash towards his face and across his shoulders.
Uncle Zhao felt so relaxed by the incense blowing that he turned his head and watched the incense ash being blown past him and drift in the direction where Wei Xi left.
He sniffed the faint fragrance lingering in the air and couldn’t help thinking, this was what it felt like to burn incense to pray to the gods.
It seemed that although the enlightened deity worshipped by Wei Xi’s Company was not very famous, he may really be quite effective.
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