The religious beliefs of the Chu people ca in a thousand varieties, with sothing for practically everyone. Especially in the northern frontier, the Five Great Household Immortals, naly the Fox, the Weasel, the Hedgehog, the Snake, and the Rat, were already considered fairly common beliefs among ordinary people.
There were also less common ones. Traveling rchants would worship the Rakshasa Ghost Mother. Those who worked the mountains would worship the Ginseng King. Fishern on the rivers worshipped the Old Dragon King, and nomadic peoples worshipped the Wolf God.
It was an enormously varied landscape of faith but when it ca to officially recognized belief systems with complete theoretical fraworks, those were the Three Sacred Heavens and the Three Emperor Lords.
The Three Emperor Lords referred to the Heavenly Emperor who governed the celestial realm, the Dragon Emperor who ruled over the mortal world, and the Underworld Emperor who resided hidden in the realm of the dead.
The Three Sacred Heavens referred to three ancient sages who had rged with the Dao itself since the primordial age of chaos, known respectively as the Heaven of Creation, the Heaven of Longevity, and the Heaven of Freedom.
The Compassionate dicine Master was the earthly incarnation of the Heaven of Longevity.
According to legend, the dicine Master wandered the four corners of the world, his footsteps reaching across the nine provinces and ten thousand nations. Upon hearing of the suffering of all living beings, he sent down sweet rain as a blessing, driving away disaster and resolving hardship.
Within the territory of Great Chu, simply believing in and making offerings to the dicine Master was not against the law. It was said that in the capital there was even a great temple dedicated specifically to the dicine Master, as well as a community of alchemists who upheld the dicine Master's philosophy of relieving suffering.
All of this was common knowledge about the world that Li Qiuchen had gathered from Zhang Shaoyao's own words.
To be honest, Li Qiuchen found this quite surprising.
Wasn't it said that followers of the dicine Master were like rats crossing the street, with everyone calling for them to be beaten?
Zhang Shaoyao indicated that as a woman she didn't understand the inner workings of such matters, and suggested he could go ask Young Master Tu, who was the professional in that area.
Ask him? That would be the sa as turning himself in.
To say Zhang Shaoyao didn't understand was nonsense. She simply didn't want to say more.
It was the sa mindset Li Qiuchen himself held at this mont. On the surface, the two of them maintained a perfectly harmonious air, but in their hearts there remained just a thin thread of wariness and caution toward each other.
Could anyone who had drawn Tu Feiyun's scrutiny really be an entirely straightforward person?
A crow standing on a pig's back had no business calling the other one black.
So Li Qiuchen shifted his approach.
"If my young miss ever encounters this sort of thing in the future, how should she tell right from wrong?"
"It's simple. Just have the young miss rember one saying: those who believe in the Heaven of Longevity must not seek longevity."
"What does that an specifically?"
"Specifically, seeking the dicine Master's help with illness is fine. Those who seek the dicine Master's gift of eternal life tend to co to a bad end."
Zhang Shaoyao said frankly, "When I was serving the old matriarch in the marquis's residence, a master who ca to lecture on the scriptures once said sothing I found very sensible: the way of heaven is to reduce what is excessive and supplent what is insufficient."
"No matter what it is, it cannot be pushed to the extre or made too absolute, otherwise problems will inevitably arise."
"The longevity arts of the Heaven of Longevity are simply too absolute."
"Young Master Tu is also an absolute sort of person. Just look at him now. Does he still have even a trace of humanity left?"
Li Qiuchen agreed with this wholeheartedly.
The question of the dicine Master's blessings was sothing he actually understood quite well in his own heart.
Once the benefits beca too great, most people found it very difficult to keep a hold of themselves.
The power of the dicine Master's blessing in Zhang Shaoyao was extrely faint, barely perceptible unless you looked carefully.
This indicated that her blessing had been sought through her own incense-burning and prayers. She was not like Li Qiuchen, who had the dicine Master chasing after him and forcing things upon him.
Li Qiuchen was also very curious about information regarding the other two ancient sages, the Heaven of Creation and the Heaven of Freedom, as well as the Three Emperor Lords of the heavens, the earth, and the human realm.
Unfortunately, Zhang Shaoyao was unwilling to talk at length on those subjects.
The days that followed settled into a fairly uneventful rhythm.
Boss Tang focused on his own business affairs. Zhang Shaoyao taught Wulala to read and write at ho. Li Qiuchen took the list she had drawn up and went out to buy what was needed.
Having no prior experience in such matters, he only understood how badly he had underestimated things once the list was in his hands.
The expenses of a wealthy young miss turned out to be astonishingly large. Clothing, shoes, and socks, rouge and costics, hair ornants and jewelry, all needed to be prepared in multiple sets. There were things for wearing at ho, things for going out, things for formal occasions, and things for casual leisure and entertainnt.
According to Zhang Shaoyao, all of this was normal expenditure, without even a hint of extravagance or waste.
The four arts of zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, along with brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone. Zhang Shaoyao said that a girl from a proper household didn't need to pursue dedicated mastery of the four arts, but she needed to be familiar with them. Not that she had to beco a master calligrapher, but at the very least she couldn't be producing chicken scratch.
Various silks and satins, sachets and jade pendants, mahjong tiles, card gas, tea and pastries, vegetables and fruits. A young miss from a proper household would have been exposed to all of these from childhood, but Wulala's awareness of them was completely blank.
The only things she knew were what lay beneath the ground.
The two hundred taels of silver were spent within a matter of days, and Li Qiuchen had no choice but to go back to Boss Tang for more funds.
Boss Tang remained as generous as ever, handing over another two hundred taels without even asking why.
Wulala was a child of intense curiosity. When Zhang Shaoyao explained all these new and unfamiliar things to her, she listened with total concentration and could rember every single word without missing one but when it ca to reading and studying, things fell apart. After reciting her lessons for a short while, she would go glassy-eyed and start to drool.
Fortunately, Zhang Shaoyao had ample experience in managing children, and with Li Qiuchen keeping Wulala company in her recitation, the efficiency of the learning was at least maintained.
It had to be admitted that this child was genuinely intelligent.
Reading and writing were indeed more difficult for her, but when it ca to arithtic she showed a natural talent, grasping things the mont they were taught and even drawing connections between related ideas on her own.
On the tenth day of the first lunar month, Liu Po, along with sister-in-law Xiulan and Liu Er, moved the whole family to the county seat.
Zhang Shaoyao had been worried about having too few people in the household. After consulting with Boss Tang, she kept the whole family on at the residence.
Together with the family of three that Li Qiuchen had found at the labor market, a husband and wife and their young girl, the various positions around the household were finally properly filled.
The little girl was slightly younger than Wulala, well-behaved and sensible, and was just right to serve as Wulala's personal maid. Since the courtyard had wintersweet trees growing in it, Zhang Shaoyao gave her the na Lai, after the wintersweet blossom.
On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, Boss Tang's trading house officially opened for business.
Tang's Trading House dealt primarily in rare tals, stones, and accompanying gemstones that were specialty products of the Border Wilds.
Yun County was famous for its well-developed mining and slting industry, though that reputation dated back several thousand years.
The great mine pit still produced output today, but the yield was nowhere close to the scale of several thousand years ago. At present, roughly half of the related businesses in the county were like Boss Tang's, importing mineral products from the Border Wilds to be slted or further processed here.
It was much like the hairy crabs given a wash in Yangcheng Lake.
The Rakshasa ghosts spent most of their lives deep underground and were skilled in excavation. Their mining thods were primitive, but there were certain places where outsiders simply couldn't go except through them.
Boss Tang's advantage over competitors in this line of business lay in the fact that all his goods ca from Mirror Sea, which was essentially the capital region of the Border Wilds, making the quality of the minerals exceptionally high.
And he also had a special channel of access.
He had made considerable sacrifices to secure that channel. He had even produced a child in the process.
Ordinary people simply didn't have that kind of capability.
On the very first day of business, the first custor to co through the door was the very person none of them wanted to see, Tu Feiyun.
The man even ca with a proper flower basket in hand, putting on a very presentable front.
Boss Tang's face was sweeter than honey. His heart was running wild with curses.
[NEXT CHAPTER]
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