Just as Huang Huai was lost in thought, the formal worship concluded. Father Huang and Mother Huang took the incense and candles Liu Yuan handed them, while Huang Huai and Huang Shan hurried to take some as well.
Beneath the towering, mighty statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan stood more than a dozen smaller statues of him, each about a foot tall.
Among them was one statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan that Father Huang had specially requested and enshrined here after offering a large sum in incense money.
Just to secure this spot, he had to spend at least several hundred thousand yuan every year.
Huang Weimin had struggled to have children. Mother Huang gave birth to Huang Huai prematurely, and it took her two or three years to recover before they had Huang Shan. But because the ordeal had damaged her health, the couple had no more children, no matter how hard they tried.
So Huang Weimin, who had only Huang Huai as a son, truly treasured him as if he were his lifeblood.
Even Mother Huang sometimes couldn't stand how much Father Huang doted on Huang Huai. But compared to Father Huang, Mother Huang was just as indulgent. Fortunately, Huang Huai spent most of every year at Xunzhen Temple, where Great Daoist Master had taught him from a young age. So despite his family's wealth and his parents' affection, he had never developed any bad habits.
Many people now enshrined ancestral tablets in temples and Taoist shrines to pray for blessings. Huang Weimin hadn't enshrined ancestral tablets. Instead, when he sent Huang Huai to Xunzhen Temple on Taihe Mountain, he had also requested a statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan to be enshrined at Guanlin Temple, before the golden statue of the deity, praying that Holy Lord