Temple Site Selection and a Terrifying Night Patrol

With official certification from Hogwarts's headmaster—Dumbledore—Zhang San's identity as the local earth god, mountain god, and water warden was now firmly established.

As the saying went, inviting a god was easy, but sending one away was hard. Even if Dumbledore regretted it later, he had no authority to strip Zhang San of his divine posts with a single word. Only if Zhang San himself no longer wished to serve could those three positions be vacated.

What Zhang San did not know was that he was the only officially sanctioned ghost cultivator and legitimate incense god recognized by the Chinese Daoist sects. Ghost cultivators and wild gods were not permitted to exist on Chinese soil. Once such things appeared, they would inevitably face frenzied suppression from the righteous path.

But outside China, such things were everywhere. China's mighty influence could only cover the lands of the Nine Provinces; in regions that refused to submit to its civilizing rule, all manner of demons, monsters, ghosts, and freaks could be found.

That was why professions such as exorcists, demon hunters, devil hunters, and blade warriors existed abroad. Where there was market demand, there would be related services.

Divine offices alone were not enough. Zhang Da had also come with the responsibility of establishing a temple for his junior brother. A god without a temple could only be called a wild god, scarcely any better off than a wandering ghost. How could the young Celestial Master allow his own junior brother to remain homeless abroad?

Zhang San was now the earth god, mountain god, and water warden of the Hogwarts district. Building his temple inside someone else's castle would truly have looked like a magpie taking over a dove's nest. Zhang Da was an honest man, so he asked Dumbledore for an open plot outside the castle, intending to build Zhang San's temple there.

Establishing a temple was not as simple as picking a spot and putting up a small house. An earth god's temple had to be built on an earth vein, a mountain god's temple on a dragon vein, and a water warden's residence on a water vein.

Thus, selecting a temple site for Zhang San, who held all three divine posts, was no easy task. The location needed to stand where the earth vein, dragon vein, and water vein converged. Without a certain level of geomantic cultivation, one could never find such a supreme feng shui treasure ground.

Fortunately, among the people who had come to pay their respects, capable Daoist masters were the least scarce. After dinner, everyone took a stroll outside the castle and quickly discerned the courses of the earth vein, dragon vein, and water vein throughout the Hogwarts district.

Some Daoist masters pinched their fingers in calculation, some chanted incantations, and some worked their compasses... like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each displayed his own abilities. In the end, they finally selected the location for Zhang San's little temple.

So while the plot Zhang Da requested from Dumbledore seemed casually chosen, it was actually the optimal choice reached through the collective deliberation of a group of great masters.

With the temple built there, Zhang San could handle all his related duties from within it, whether acting as mountain god, earth god, or water warden.

Remember this: China did not support idle gods. A divine position generally came with a huge pile of work to handle. An earth god was responsible for the fertility of the land and the growth of crops; a mountain god maintained mountain stability, ecological balance, and the order of species; a water warden upheld order in the waters and regulated water resources throughout the river basin.

Fortunately, Hogwarts lay far away in a foreign land, and no immortal would suddenly descend from the heavens to assess Zhang San's work performance. In other words, Zhang San could enjoy the benefits brought by his divine posts without taking on the duties he was supposed to perform.

After all, Hogwarts had gone so many years without any mountain god or earth god working here. Even if Zhang San did absolutely nothing, no one would know he was slacking off.

Without comparison, there could be no elimination. As long as no fellow practitioner showed up to compete with him, Zhang San would be Hogwarts's most diligent god.

The Daoist masters from China did not stay inside Hogwarts Castle. On the open ground outside, they took out the spatial artifacts they had brought with them.

Some lived in small villas, some in courtyard houses, and some in rural compounds. One particularly outrageous Daoist master had even brought an entire temple. Upon asking, they learned that he had truly moved the Daoist temple where he normally cultivated over here. The phrase "leaving one's homeland behind" had become thoroughly real.

After more than forty people took out their artifacts, the open land outside Hogwarts Castle had somehow gained a semi-urban, semi-rural neighborhood. The only thing missing was someone selling jianbing or grilled cold noodles, leaving this temporary residential area a little short on everyday bustle.

As a ghost, Zhang San did not need to eat or sleep. Thus, during the long night, he voluntarily took on the task of catching students sneaking around after curfew.

Night roaming at Hogwarts was practically a traditional student pastime passed down through the generations. A student life without sneaking around at night was incomplete, and a student life without ever being caught sneaking around at night was even more incomplete.

Therefore, Zhang San's initiative in adding "beautiful memories" to his classmates' campus lives was truly "moving enough to shake heaven and earth," earning him greetings from his fellow students that were equally "fragrant as birdsong and flowers."

Just imagine this scene: in the dead of night, only ancient torches illuminated Hogwarts Castle's corridors, their flames flickering uneasily against the walls. You walked alone through the dim hallway, needing to guard against old Filch on patrol while also avoiding the professors on night duty.

The people in the portraits on the walls had long since fallen asleep. An owl's ghostly green eyes flickered beyond the window, intermittent dripping echoed from the washroom, and the shifting staircases let out deep rumbles as they turned.

Just as your nerves reached their limit, some old bastard poked his head out from the wall and floated right in front of you. Surely, being the refined and easygoing person you were, you would kindly inquire after this ghost's entire family tree and enthusiastically converse with him in elegant British profanity.

Whenever Zhang San drifted away in satisfaction, the corridor would be left filled with a chorus of mothers being invoked.

It was not that he refused to act like a human. It was simply that ghost cultivation manuals followed no ordinary path. The cultivation method of the Yin Gathering Formula in the Nine Nether Soul Refinement Chapter involved drawing in moonlight essence, earthly yin energy, and the negative emotions shed by living beings to condense soul power. Moreover, all three had to be absorbed, or the nutrition would become unbalanced.

After all, ghosts were not exactly things of the living world. If Zhang San wanted to cultivate, he could only stop doing human things. Hogwarts's brothers and sisters would just have to suffer a little.

Moreover, if Zhang San wanted to absorb moonlight essence or earthly yin energy, he needed to leave the castle. Unfortunately, his little temple had not yet been built, and the moment he passed through the castle gates, the soul-reaping envoy lying in wait would take him away. So if he wanted to stabilize his soul body sooner, he could only take a little negative emotion from Hogwarts students who were so fond of wandering around at night.

Children's souls were the purest, and the negative emotions they shed were practically supreme tonics for ghost cultivators. After frightening several unlucky students who had been out after curfew into tears, Zhang San's soul body became much more solid. He no longer looked as flimsy as he had at the beginning.

Although he felt rather sorry for the frightened students, Zhang San still managed to persuade himself. He had appeared to uphold Hogwarts's rules and discipline, helping students eliminate the bad habit of sneaking around at night. He deserved everyone's understanding and forgiveness, and should receive the school's rewards and commendation all the more.

That was right—long live school rules, and Zhang San was innocent!

After a night of chaos and uproar, Zhang San let out a satisfied belch. He only hated that Hogwarts had too few students. If he had frightened eight hundred or a thousand people last night, the negative energy he absorbed would have been enough to restore him to the initial stage of Qi Refinement.

As the morning sun rose, the old Daoists performed their morning rituals in their respective rooms. Each sect's morning ritual differed, so everyone recited his own scriptures, taking care not to interfere with one another.

After breakfast, yesterday's Daoist music troupe seamlessly transformed into a construction crew. They took out blue bricks, tiles, mortar, and all manner of tools that they had long prepared in their storage bags. After tidying their topknots and putting on hard hats, they looked exactly like professional construction workers.

Zhang San was stunned. Were Daoist masters really this versatile? Not only could they sing, play, blow, and perform, they could also plaster walls, lay bricks, tile roofs, and raise beams... If wireless communication had been more advanced in this era, Zhang San would have wanted to ask them to put up a signal tower on the neighboring hill.

Sure enough, one could not judge people by appearances, just as the sea could not be measured with a bucket. Daoists of the new era were all working people.