Xijing, Minister of Rites Yan Guzhi sat with dignity before the main hall of the Ministry of Rites Yamen. Below him sat almost all the officials and minor clerks of the Shanglin Park Bureau, casting all sorts of spells for summoning souls, tracking souls, stabilizing souls, and seeking lost paths, only to fail in their search time and time again.
Yan Guzhi frowned.
More than six hundred provincial scholars had clearly fallen into the Underworld along with the Immortal Bridge Blessed Land, yet there was neither hide nor hair of them. It would be one thing if they were mere peasants, but the crucial point was that among them were high-ranking disciples of Daoist sacred grounds, such as Guo Daozi and Daoist Jin Lu.
More crucially, Zhang You was among them as well!
Zhang You belonged to the Zhang family and was set to inherit the position of sect master in the future. If such a person were to die in this metropolitan examination, his own career as Minister of Rites would also come to an end.
Those two bastards, Xia Fanghe and Xia Shouying!
Yan Guzhi cursed inwardly, urging the Shanglin Park Bureau to think of another way.
The Shanglin Park Bureau managed livestock and sacrificial offerings. Normally, it provided offerings to ghosts and deities and served as the Yang World's official agency for communicating with the Underworld. Its status was low, but its importance was immense.
In ordinary times, the Shanglin Park Bureau used livestock as sacrifices to ghosts and deities, paving the way to the Underworld. Thus, when princes and nobles died and Underworld runners came to take them, they would generally give advance notice, allowing the dying person ten days or half a month to settle their affairs. They could even bribe the Underworld authorities to