Grandmother Huai had originally intended to use Yu'er and the other female ghosts she had picked up as tools to test the secret art of spirit cultivation she had gained through a fortuitous encounter. She had even planned to devour the yang energy of living beings if the opportunity arose, stealing their vitality through dual cultivation.
If things continued down that path, the story of Nie Xiaoqian from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio might truly play out here in Great Qian.
But in Li Chen's eyes, that would stray from the proper path of the divine Dao.
"Though becoming a god through incense offerings is difficult, it is ultimately a broad, open road. What ordinary people lack is merely the cultivation provisions supplied by incense offerings in the world of the living."
"The state Grandmother Huai and Yu'er are in now should technically be called an intermediate-state body. They have every chance of forging yin spirits through incense offerings and faith. Once they reach perfection, they can transform yin into yang."
"Grandmother Huai accidentally opened the path to divine investiture through the thunderfire heavenly tribulation, and she already possesses a yang nature. Her aptitude is actually exceptional. If she devours too many chaotic energies, she will inevitably pollute herself, and her mind will rapidly degenerate. The losses would outweigh the gains."
But on second thought, he felt this was rather like asking why the starving did not eat meat porridge.
Incense offerings were precious, strictly regulated by the Great Qian dynasty, and beyond the reach of ordinary wandering ghosts.
Any worship outside the official system of divine investiture was deemed illicit. Merely banning incense offerings and forbidding worship was already extraordinary leniency. Anyone who dared openly manifest divine power before the public would only have their cult suppressed and