In the Azure Firmament World, within the Jade Capital’s Azure Cloud Pavilion and the Smoky Haze Cave of Suppression Peak Palace, resided a cultivator. He appeared young, yet was gaunt, his face pale and cheeks sunken. His expression was heavy, burdened by some deep concern.

He sat cross-legged atop a mountain peak, staring at a long, narrow mud tablet. Upon it, as if inscribed with iron nails, was a cryptic prophecy:

His ten fingers were a bloody mess.

Truly, it was a case of nailing it down, quite literally.

For he had just received an exceedingly bizarre divination, the oracle’s message an enigma of fortune and misfortune.

“Three hundred years after the Dao declines, this one shall emerge.”

Alas, despite his repeated and arduous attempts at deduction, he could not replace the word “this” with a specific surname.

Who then was this person? What was their name? Who were they in a past life? To which lineage of the Dao would they belong? When would they descend from the mountains? Were they a harbinger of chaos, an agent of upheaval, or a prodigy destined to bring order to the realm?

Did this foretell a cataclysm the likes of which had not been seen in ten thousand years, a descent into chaos that would sweep across the peaceful Azure Firmament, with this person emerging five centuries hence? Or was it this person’s advent that would trigger a five-hundred-year age of strife?

Could it be the closed-door disciple of Dao Ancestor Mountain Azure, a contingency planned long ago by the foresightful Lu Chen?

Or perhaps the Great Headmaster would return to Jade Capital after five hundred years, to quell the turmoil in the Azure Firmament?

Or was it the ghost cultivator Xu Jun from the Great Tide Sect?

Or even the remnant of the Yong Prefecture Rice Thief lineage, the rising star Wang Yuanlu, poised to become the master of their disparate and complex Dao techniques?

He raised his gaze towards the heavens, lamenting his inability to leave this place.

No, if he were to leave, the celestial order would be instantly disrupted, rendering all his calculations inaccurate, shrouding everything in greater mystery.

With a long exhale, he began to pull the iron nails one by one from the mud tablet, storing them in a cotton pouch tied at his waist. His already mangled fingers bled anew, revealing bone, yet he remained impassive.

Outside this place, such injuries would be of little consequence. But this was the Smoky Haze Cave of Suppression Peak Palace. Regardless of one’s past attainment, cultivation was useless here; pain was the only constant. A single blow could bring a cultivator to their knees. Just recently, someone had been stabbed, their entrails spilling onto the ground, and they had died instantly, despite being a celestial adept in talismans before entering Suppression Peak Palace.

This man, who occupied several mountain peaks, was named Zhang Fenghai, once the certain… nailed-down successor to the Jade Pivot City Lord.

His two elder brothers, Guo Jie and Shao Xiang, considered it a matter of course, as did Zhang Fenghai himself.

Indeed, in the early days, all of Jade Capital and the Azure Firmament agreed.

A Transcendent Realm cultivator at ninety.

Rumor had it that the old City Lord had deliberately overstated his disciple’s age, that Zhang Fenghai had broken through to the Immortal Realm at only eighty-one.

Crucially, Zhang Fenghai was a true master of all things Daoist, proficient in talismans, alchemy, formations, divination, and more. Within the five cities and twelve towers of Jade Capital, in any given discipline, Zhang Fenghai was exceptionally talented.

Furthermore, if Zhang Fenghai had not been secretly instructed by his master to delay his breakthrough, he could have become a Transcendent Realm cultivator at forty, fifty at the latest.

Aside from not being a pure sword cultivator, Zhang Fenghai’s cultivation journey was flawless.

Alas, he encountered Second Headmaster Yu Dou. Zhang Fenghai, who declared his intention to renounce his Jade Capital Daoist status, failed to leave Jade Capital by his own merit.

He was imprisoned in the Smoky Haze Cave of Suppression Peak Palace, a place specifically designed to confine great cultivators. This confinement had lasted nearly eight hundred years.

This was a notorious crucible of immortals, akin to the Literary Shrine’s Hall of Merit in the Vast World, or the Buried Alive Nunnery of a certain lineage in the Western Buddhist Kingdom.

Having spent nearly eight centuries here, unable to cultivate, the only worthwhile pursuit for Zhang Fenghai was to determine what was *not* the Dao, with the hope that consistent denial could lead to the real “Dao”.

Additionally, using the art of contemplation combined with divination, he created an ethereal, non-existent alter ego, tempering his body, pioneering grand talismans, refining and slaying the Three Corpses, then merging them again, then slaying them once more… such trifles were unimportant.

To suggest that Yu Dou had benevolent intentions, that he was deliberately honing Zhang Fenghai’s sharpness, allowing this “Little Headmaster” to focus on cultivation, reach the Fourteenth Realm, and then reconcile with him… would be a grave understatement of Yu Dou’s indomitable Dao heart.

Yu Dou disdained such things.

And Zhang Fenghai was sincerely grateful that Yu Dou had not, and would not, do so.

Zhang Fenghai lifted his gaze, a wry smile playing on his lips. “Well, I’ve quit drinking. Turns out it’s easy to quit drinking, just don’t have any.”

Besides him, the “Little Headmaster” of Jade Capital, who died quietly here, were two former Deputy Tower Lords of the Twelve Towers of Jade Capital, a Daoist couple. They too had violated Jade Capital’s sacred laws and were personally led into this place by Yellow Realm Head, to contemplate their actions. It was said that among the three thousand Daoists heading to the Five-Colored Heaven, was an Origin Soul Realm leading cultivator from the Azure Lyrics Palace, one of the ancestral homes of the Talisman Sect, named Nanshan. The relationship between them and the Collection Mountain, two top sects, was like the Two Capitals Mountain and the Great Tide Sect. A female cultivator named Youran, and Nanshan, these young immortals were born in the same year, same month, and even the same hour, not a fraction off. It was a match made in heaven. Indeed, in the Yin Prefecture, could not Morning Song and Xu Jun be Daoist companions? Why could not they in this life?

Within the Smoky Haze Cave, everyone was suppressed by the Grand Dao. Cultivators exiled and imprisoned here, regardless of their cultivation or realm outside, were reduced to beings without limit, unable to refine Qi or cultivate without a trace of spiritual energy. All cultivators were returned to their original state, their bodies and souls, once tempered by the spiritual energy, were as frail as ordinary mortals. The only exception was that their pre-determined lifespan was preserved. In short, the passage of time flowed differently here. The human body would still decay, but at a much slower rate.

Surely, this was the work of the Dao Ancestor.
Zhang Fenghai stood up. He had been here for nearly eight hundred years, guarding his small plot of land. Looking out from the mountaintop, shepherd’s purse grew lush and green, stretching as far as the eye could see.

An old man had been helping to tend the waterwheel by the river for many years. Although he claimed to be helping, he was actually relying on Zhang Fenghai, seeking a patron so he wouldn’t be constantly ridiculed, kicked to the ground, and urinated upon.

The old man, who had long forgotten how many years he had spent here, suffered from severe frostbite every winter, his hands bleeding profusely, a truly pitiful sight.

Not long ago, while tilling the fields, he unearthed a broken sword tip and voluntarily presented it to Zhang Fenghai, a kind of offering of rent.

Unfortunately, Zhang Fenghai searched extensively but could not find the remaining parts of the broken sword. Such things depended on fate.

Zhang Fenghai later heard from someone that when the old man found the sword tip, he clutched the ancient relic, its ownership long lost to time, in his withered hands, his fingernails caked with soil. He sat on the ridge of the field, first lost in thought, then softly sobbing, repeatedly reciting a five-character ancient poem. The reason for the repetition was that he would often forget the following lines halfway through. The old man would then raise a hand and strike his head forcefully. Once he recalled a line, he would start again. Perhaps he never managed to recall the entire poem, or perhaps it was precisely because he remembered the whole poem, that the old man, who had been silent for so long, suddenly opened his parched throat and howled miserably, as if being led around like a dog with a rope around his neck was less heartbreaking.

Probably because the old man had once been a sword cultivator.

As for the name of the five-character poem, Zhang Fenghai didn’t bother to ask the person who relayed the story.

There was no need. Zhang Fenghai, who had read an extensive collection of books, could easily guess it.

A dark-skinned, slender woman walked to the mountaintop. She was the one who accompanied the old man on his climb to find Zhang Fenghai. She reached a hand over her head to shoo away some bothersome butterflies. After a long silence, she finally spoke, “What are you thinking about?”

Although she wore a wooden hairpin and simple hemp clothing and straw sandals, looking utterly impoverished, colorful butterflies danced around her hairpin.

If it weren’t for years of labor under the scorching sun, which had coarsened her skin, she would surely have been a great beauty.

She was a woman who had voluntarily requested to enter the Misty Haze Grotto of Zhenyue Palace. Initially, Bai Yujing (White Jade Capital) had ignored her request. Later, she committed a forbidden act, which led to her being cast into this place.

This female cultivator, named Shi Xingyuan, had the Daoist name Sheyun (Capturing Clouds).

She had once been a patriarch of the Immortal Staff Sect. It seemed she had come here to find someone. She had both fulfilled and not fulfilled her wish, for the person she sought was already a pile of bones.

After personally burying the remains, since there was no regret medicine to take, she decided to make the best of it, since coming here was not easy, and leaving was even more impossible.

She had no intention of leaving alive, so she settled here. However, to protect herself from humiliation, she sought out Zhang Fenghai, acting as a servant of sorts over the years.

In this place, the old, the women, the weak, to be precise, all faced a pitiful fate.

To survive, especially to live with some dignity, one had to live without any dignity at all.

Zhang Fenghai remained expressionless, as if he hadn’t heard a word.

Shi Xingyuan changed the subject, pointing to the wheat field and smiling, “It looks like this year’s harvest will be at least thirty percent better than in previous years.”

Zhang Fenghai smiled as well.

Two grand cultivators who had once held prominent positions smiled sincerely for the sake of a wheat harvest.

This was unimaginable on the outside.

Besides her, there were many other strange and eccentric individuals here.

There was a short old man, his body riddled with ancient swords, who used some unknown method to prolong his life, managing to outlive many later “juniors” year after year.

He was often cursed as an old beast, likely of demonic origin. The reason no one bullied him seemed to be that the old man could not only take a beating but also fight. He once drew an ancient sword from his body and chopped a “youthful” man into mincemeat, then dismembered the corpse, hanging the arms and legs on bamboo poles to dry, chewing them as jerky when dried.

There was also a young-looking man who seemed to be one of the ancestral founders of the Rice Thief lineage. Over the years, he only enjoyed firing ceramics. Then people would frequently break into his hut, smash everything to pieces, and he would tearfully continue toiling to fire ceramics.

Someone was skilled in water and occupied a large section of the river, making a living by fishing and angling year-round, forming a gang. It started with a dozen or so men and women gathering together, starting families, and branching out. Now the number was nearly fifty, and it was said that they recently planned to build a family shrine.

There was a bewitching woman who had only been thrown into the Misty Haze Grotto in recent years. She had been a Limit Realm martial artist from Zhu Province. In the Blue Nether World, a Limit Realm Qi Flourishing First Layer female martial artist was not particularly outstanding, at most flaunting her power in one province. However, after arriving here, from initially treading on thin ice, she was overjoyed after personally killing the men who came looking for her. Although her physique was no different from that of ordinary secular women, and she could not gather any pure True Qi, she was able to defend herself because of her mastery of killing techniques. This was because her martial arts realm and physique were gone, but certain “memories” remained, allowing her to protect herself. After finding some discarded weapons, she could kill at will. However, she had no intention of taking disciples. Over the years, she had enjoyed keeping gigolos, always coveting Zhang Fenghai, and of course, Shi Xingyuan.

There was a slovenly man with tangled white hair and beard who had once been the “One-Word Teacher,” known as the “Character Thief,” who was adept at subtly altering the secret and precious classic scriptures of the immortal residences and Daoist academies without anyone noticing. Daoist officials would inadvertently go astray because of him. There was a saying on the mountain that monks did not speak of names and Daoists did not speak of lifespan, so there were monks who broke their vows, called “Famous Monks.”

There was also a burly man who liked to run around naked all day, leading a gang of lackeys carrying weapons, and would beat anyone he didn’t like. Aside from a few forces he dared not provoke, the rest, in his words, “are a bunch of useless trash, not even worthy of three moves.” One had to know that back in his hometown, he was only a half-baked Jade Purity Realm cultivator. His first thought upon being thrown in was that he was “fortunate” to be in the Zhenyue Palace’s Misty Haze Grotto. The only thing he could boast about was that he had once chased after Zhu. But the question was, what was there to brag about in winning against the eleventh person in the world, Zhu?
Zhu of Ruzhou, a man confined to this mountain, never prevailed in a brawl, always fleeing, though deliberately slow.

After all, here, past titles, ancestral mountain lineages, cultivation realms, magical treasures, mystical arts – all were mere illusions.

Some fancied collecting immortal treasures left behind, often of high quality, starting with magic tools, with even a dozen near-celestial weapons.

But what was the point, beyond decoration? Could they be taken away? Meaningless.

Here, arguments, or failed attempts to evade trouble, always ended in scuffles or brawls. Victory favored numbers, brute strength, ruthless tactics, and rudimentary martial skills once scorned. Some attempted rigorous training in combat techniques, hoping for miraculous leaps and bounds. Many tried, but with little success, instant results an impossible dream.

Occasionally, “cultivators” at odds with Jade Capital came to trouble Zhang Fenghai, but all who dared ascend the mountain seeking the “little master’s” demise met their own.

Even the alluring fox spirit, perpetually coveting Zhang Fenghai’s “beauty,” only dared linger at the mountain’s foot. This “swift-footed” expert always abandoned her plans to climb.

Shi Xingyuan sat on a rock, smiling, “I believe you’re the only one with a chance to leave this place alive.”

Zhang Fenghai rarely spoke.

Accustomed to his silence, she continued, “Not because of your status, but because your Dao heart might be most aligned with the Heavenly Will.”

Zhang Fenghai finally spoke, “If I didn’t know a bit of martial arts, I’d probably have a sore rear end every day.”

Shi Xingyuan, unfazed by his vulgarity, was used to such bluntness. The men around her were either silent or brutally direct.

She interlaced her fingers, stretching them behind her head, joints cracking, and casually asked, “If you ever leave, what do you want most? A fight with Yu Dou?”

Zhang Fenghai restrained himself, deciding against calling her an idiot.

She turned, smiling, “Tell me.”

Zhang Fenghai pondered, “A bath, clean clothes. It should be deep winter outside. I’d find a secluded spot to dig for bamboo shoots, winter shoots being richer than spring ones. Heavy snow, then a hearthside, cooking bamboo shoots with thick slices of salted pork, washing it down with homemade bayberry wine. Sated and drunk, I’d fall asleep, snoring loud enough to shake the heavens, with no one to bother me.”

She swallowed, wiping her mouth, “I should have known better than to ask.”

Zhang Fenghai abruptly said, “The old man says you’ve been lusting after me for a while now. True?”

Shi Xingyuan rolled her eyes, “I’ll tear that old geezer’s mouth off when I get back.”

Zhang Fenghai retorted, “He doesn’t fear that. Before you came here, he was force-fed excrement, spraying it from his nostrils, covering his face.”

Shi Xingyuan was speechless.

Zhang Fenghai remained impassive.

Shi Xingyuan said, “Zhang Fenghai, why don’t you make rules for everyone?”

Zhang Fenghai asked, “And then what?”

Shi Xingyuan was silent.

More and more “cultivators” arrived, like caged beasts. Some were tormented to death, but most went completely mad.

For in this Mortar of Immortals, the most terrifying aspect was the futility of suicide. They would invariably revive the next day, unable to escape death.

So, many schemes were hatched, desperate attempts to die through another’s hand, to be killed intentionally, but all failed. They would always revive, as if a celestial judge weighed their hearts.

Those who truly desired death could not find it, while those seeking life might not obtain it.

This was the Mortar of Immortals, seemingly designed to erode all dignity, all semblance of “Dao heart.”

Countless skeletal remains lay scattered, once renowned great cultivators.

Former high-ranking officials from Jade Capital and outlawed cultivators from the fifteen provinces of the world.

Of those living, there were only about three hundred and eighty within this thousand-li land, half of whom were native-born to this place.

Originally a mere “palm-sized” area for cultivators, a few steps across, but now, everyone could only walk, making the territory seem vast.

Less than four hundred people, scattered in all directions, made meetings rare. It was only thanks to this distance that Smoke and Haze Grotto had even a hundred souls remaining.

Shi Xingyuan looked up at the sky, bent to pick up a stone, and tossed it off the cliff, “I’m not old enough, but I heard seniors mention that the battle was Yu Dou’s real claim to fame, though no history records it. Did you ever see any confidential files about it when you were in Jade Pivot City?”

“I saw no such books. I read all the books in Jade Pivot City before I was thirty.”

Zhang Fenghai shook his head, paused, and smeared mud on the wounds on his hands, slowly saying, “But I saw it with my own eyes, using a kind of ‘spirit walk,’ more stable than astral projection. It was a lost art, something I figured out from the books, and then I witnessed the entire battle.”

In the earliest days of Azure Sky, there were not the fourteen provinces, or the nineteen as the commoners called them, but fifteen.

Yu Dou, leading all the officials of the Jade Capital, and summoning all the Daoist officials in the world, rushed to that provincial battlefield.

The scale, the impact, the tragedy of the war, far surpassed the later Pingcang battle in Yong Province.

Above the layered seas of clouds, along the border of that province, perfectly encompassing the land,

countless Daoist officials wore azure robes.

Like azure cranes.

A flock of azure cranes.

The end result was a true “landfall” of a province, creating the massive lake of today.

Legend had it that a prophecy circulated long ago: “When a province loses its Dao, then there shall be a Landfall.”
Later, the Azure Mystery Realm, effectively diminished by the loss of a province’s worth of land, truly saw the arrival of a wandering Taoist named Lu Chen. Grand Hierarch Kou Ming himself escorted Lu Chen into Jade Capital, where he eventually became a disciple of the Tao Ancestor, holding the position of Third Hierarch. Subsequently, Lu Chen erected the City of Nanhua.

After roughly describing the battlefield painting to the woman beside him, Zhang Fenghai explained, “The reason for such a brutal conflict is that one province had essentially become a single entity. More precisely, it was that Extra-terrestrial Fiend, said to possess the power of a Fifteenth Realm cultivator, who somehow managed to slip from the Outer Heavens into the Azure Mystery Realm. The province’s living beings, along with its mountains, rivers, and all inanimate objects, were all a part of it.”

Shi Xingyuan was shaken by what he heard, suddenly furrowing his brow. “Where was the Tao Ancestor?” he asked.

Zhang Fenghai replied, “It seems he went to the Outer Heavens. The Tao Ancestor is seeking enlightenment on the path of the Tao.”

Shi Xingyuan’s expression was peculiar. “So, I’m that formidable?”

Zhang Fenghai stood up and offered a Daoist salute. “Welcome, Tao Ancestor.”

A young Taoist appeared out of thin air, nodding with a smile. He turned to look at “Shi Xingyuan,” and a blurry-faced, ethereal “cultivator” floated out of him.

The Tao Ancestor smiled gently. “Zhang Fenghai, you will participate in the upcoming Three Teachings Debate. If you win, you will be allowed to leave the rolls of Jade Capital; if you lose, I shall have your winter bamboo shoots stewed with meat and drink it with wine.”

Zhang Fenghai saluted again. “I humbly accept the decree.”

Shi Xingyuan looked at the “young Taoist,” his lips trembling, unable to utter a single word.

The Tao Ancestor chuckled. “Alright, Lü Bixia, no need to hide. You will accompany Zhang Fenghai and Shi Xingyuan as you all depart this place. From this moment forward, you are restored to freedom.”

Shi Xingyuan felt a splitting headache. After a moment, his eyes gleamed with newfound brilliance, and he asked, “What is the price?”

The Tao Ancestor inquired, “Who do you think you are speaking to?”

In the next instant, Lü Bixia, a scattered immortal on the candidate list for the Azure Mystery Realm, a peak Ascension Realm cultivator residing within Shi Xingyuan’s soul, was inexplicably thrown out of the Smoke Haze Cave in the Suppressing Mountain Palace, landing on the border of Jade Capital. She lay in the dust of the road, unable to rise for a long while.

In the blink of an eye, Zhang Fenghai and Shi Xingyuan stood beside Lü Bixia.

On the mountain peak, the Extra-terrestrial Fiend sighed. “You are still more powerful.”

The Tao Ancestor crouched down, gently flipping over the clay tablet. The nails were gone, but the marks remained.

The Tao Ancestor stood up, and the clay tablet turned into a pile of dust.

“Alas, too late again.”

The Extra-terrestrial Fiend glanced at it, mocking. “Last time it was me; this time, all under Heaven were deceived by that embroidered tiger. Afterwards, I must deduce how it was accomplished.”

It was not, “Three hundred years of Tao’s decline to find such a lord.”

Rather, it was, “Five hundred years of Tao’s decline to find the Chen lord.”

Zhang Fenghai was still young, his Dao cultivation insufficient, but it was no small feat that he managed to calculate so much.

The Tao Ancestor said indifferently, “Amusing, is it?”

The Extra-terrestrial Fiend immediately became cautious and fearful, then erupted in maniacal laughter, before returning to calmness, finally sighing with emotion. “How difficult it is to seek enlightenment on the path of the Tao. Are you planning to violate the pact between the three of you, to take action at the last moment, or will you disperse your Dao and completely disregard the affairs of the world?”

The Tao Ancestor smiled. “Yu Dou has seen grander spectacles before.”

The Extra-terrestrial Fiend nodded. “Indeed.”

What did it matter to be at odds with all under Heaven? As when Yu Dou sat before the chessboard for the coin toss, he picked up a black piece.

In Yuzhou, a small border country, in a remote county within the Yingchuan Prefecture, stood an old Daoist temple named “Spiritual Realm.” It was quite ancient, built on a small hilltop—in reality, just a slightly larger mound of earth. Some years ago, an unprecedented blizzard struck, collapsing several rooms of the dilapidated temple. After the temple’s Abbot Daoist, Master Hong, pleaded and begged for funds from all directions, besides rebuilding the damaged rooms, he found there was some money to spare, so he renovated the temple inside and out. He also applied gold leaf to the clay statues of the two ancestral founders enshrined within. This made the Abbot quite pleased, and he would go to the foot of the mountain every day to gaze at the entirety of the temple from afar. He thought what a grand temple it was, with ancient trees providing shade and newly built ancestral halls engraved with ancient seal script, old locust trees planted along both sides of the paths.

This Spiritual Realm Temple had nothing remarkable about it. In the local county gazetteer, one could search back and forth, but it was difficult to find an old Daoist immortal with whom to claim kinship.

The temple was too small, to the point that only the temple’s Abbot, Hong Miao, possessed a formal Daoist ordination certificate, and Abbot Hong was an outsider. In fact, tracing back three hundred years, the successive Abbots of the temple had all been wandering Daoists, who would leave without hesitation as soon as their terms were over, regarding serving here and sitting on the back benches as something to be dreaded. The spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth was too thin in this place; it was simply not suitable for cultivation. Wanting to become a Daoist official, and how to get promoted once becoming one, was simple in some ways. First, one relied on one’s realm, becoming a Qi Cultivator; second, one relied on scholarship, able to be ordained; third, one relied on family connections, where as long as one was willing to spend money, there would eventually be avenues to be found. Likewise, the situation of a temple was similar. Therefore, the temples in each prefecture tended to be that the great temples grew ever larger in scale and prosperity, while the small temples grew ever more desolate and difficult to maintain. And this Spiritual Realm Temple was a “neither here nor there” case. It relied on a mountain, but in this plain region, the poor temple stood alone on a small mound, and only a few dozen steps of mountain path were needed to reach the summit.

The secondary imperial examination was also in a similar state. Not to mention Jinshi laureates, for the past two or three hundred years, there had not even been a Juren graduate. As for whether it was two hundred or three hundred years, who would bother to remember such a thing? It was not something to be proud of. No one knew whether it would be the Daoist officials or the imperial examinations that would break the drought.

In reality, the current Abbot of the Spiritual Realm Temple, Hong Miao, was not young. Although he looked to be around sixty, in truth he was nearly a hundred years old, and yet he was still only a candidate for a Daoist official. But such matters were family scandals and should not be aired. One only needed to know in one’s heart. Generally, the Abbot Daoist in charge, whether big or small, was a title that every temple would have. But the position of Abbot was not a permanent one, and some Abbots would concurrently hold the position in several temples. These were invariably highly accomplished true men within the country, the kind of esteemed figures who could behold the Emperor’s face.
According to a hoary saying amongst the elders of the Daoist temples, we of the Daoist faith possess palaces, temples, and shrines aplenty, yet never do we call them ‘temples’ (寺), a term favored by the Western Buddhist kingdoms. Furthermore, the abbot elders of our Daoist abodes share a title with those of the Western Buddhist realms. Similar to the “ten-direction” and “lineage” monastic forests, both monks and Daoists possess analogous tenets. Of course, the title of ‘abbot’ is more commonly associated with the Buddhist clergy. But what does it matter? Did we not also claim the title of ‘Daoist’ (道士) after some contention? Should a curious youth within the Daoist temple inquire, “Daoist? Were we not always Daoists?” they would surely be met with a scolding: “What do you know? Such secret matters are only revealed when your ancestral tombs emit auspicious smoke, and you ascend to the position of a Daoist official!”

These so-called “elders” of the Spirit Realm Temple were, in truth, but two individuals, both lacking official Daoist certification. One was a part-time temple warden who, it was said, secured his position and meager salary by having his ancestors donate several acres of fertile land to the temple. After all, even mosquito meat is still meat. The other was a ‘Daoist’ serving as both guest master and receptionist. As for the esteemed Abbot Hong, he was a man of many talents, even handling the abacus as the temple’s accountant.

Throughout the various counties of the nation, the majority of Daoist temples, large and small, were built by the government. The aspects that could truly be compared were three: whether they were “imperially sanctioned,” for only a temple bestowed by the Emperor could bear the inscription “imperially sanctioned” upon its mountain gate plaque; the number of Daoist officials they housed; and their sustenance, that is, the prosperity of their incense offerings, the abundance of generous benefactors, and the multitude of pious men and women. In the Azure Sky realm, monastic forests were typically of grander scale and housed more Daoist officials, as they nominally belonged to all Daoists of the realm and possessed no private property. In a sense, they could be understood as belonging entirely to the Jade Capital.

Early this morning, Abbot Hong had once again gone for a stroll down the mountain. The snowdrifts outside were deep, but the scenery was quite picturesque. The old Daoist, with his hands clasped behind his back and his form stooped, slowly ascended the mountain, his face etched with worry and his sighs long and heavy.

To produce a genuine Daoist official in this remote, impoverished region was as difficult as ascending to the heavens!

The Daoist temple was so small that one could see the main hall upon pushing open the main gate. Apart from the bell tower and drum tower, there wasn’t even a two-story building to be found.

It was truly impoverished. The wealthy had a thousand ways to live well, while the poor had only one way to suffer.

Yingchuan Prefecture governed five counties, with a total of three government-built Daoist temples. Logically, the Spirit Realm Temple should not have such meager incense offerings. The problem was that comparisons were odious. The Daoist temple in the neighboring county, blessed with good fortune, had ancestors who had once been wealthy and had constructed a Qiu Ancestor Hall. It was said to house a government-commissioned, officially carved copy of the Daoist Canon. As a result, pilgrims from this county were willing to travel the extra distance to burn incense there.

For the past few years, Abbot Hong had been preoccupied with the thought of one day helping the Spirit Realm Temple construct a Hall of the God of Wealth.

Therefore, the young Daoists in the temple had heard tales of the old Abbot mentioning this matter in his sleep.

Including Abbot Hong Miao, there were only six “resident Daoists” in total, as Liu Fang, who nominally held the position of temple warden, did not reside on the mountain.

Hong Miao entered the Daoist temple and found only the cook, Custodian Chang Geng, in the kitchen. As for the others, he wouldn’t bother with them. They wouldn’t rise until the sun was high in the sky, not one of them diligent or quick. The old man in the courtyard had rung the morning bell earlier and, presuming he had nothing better to do, was sweeping the ground, as the temple’s wood rations were fixed. Upon seeing the old Abbot, he greeted him, clutching his broom, stomping his feet lightly, and rubbing his hands together to warm them. The only advantage of the small Daoist temple was the abundance of official titles to choose from. Chang Geng had been one of the Spirit Realm Temple’s few generous patrons in his youth. A glance at the accounts revealed that he had donated nearly three hundred taels of silver to the temple and had also gifted it many books, though Chang Geng insisted they were merely lent, worth at least seventy or eighty taels of silver. This chaotic account, a legacy of the previous Abbot, allowed Chang Geng, whose family had later fallen into decline, to bring a poor relative and scrape by here. Otherwise, securing the position of a “resident Daoist” with a monthly salary would not have been an easy matter, as there were many within the county who sought to leverage their connections to enter the Spirit Realm Temple.