Mountain Spirits

When evening came, fires were lit once again in front of the county office to cook dinner.

An Weiyan did not have to handle any of this rough work. A group of people took care of boiling water and cooking the food.

An Weiyan glanced over. As he was thinking about the town's future plans and pondering its development strategy, he suddenly saw Uncle Fu approach him.

"Sir."

Uncle Fu bowed as he spoke.

An Weiyan still had a very strong impression of this Uncle Fu before him, and he nodded lightly to him.

"What is it?"

"With your disaster relief, sir, we have more or less managed to snatch our lives back. Since you are determined to restore Linbei County, we ought to start making offerings to the Land God again."

Uncle Fu said softly, "Without the Land God's protection, mountain spirits, water ghosts, tree demons, flower sprites, tigers, and evil spirits will take turns coming to Linbei County to eat people."

He had seen An Weiyan leading the people in planting crops and knew that he was unquestionably a good official. He had only just arrived and was already putting this into practice. Knowing that An Weiyan intended to live here for the long term, he had brought the matter up.

An Weiyan's brow immediately furrowed at his words.

Were there that many demons and evil spirits?

"Mountain spirits? I recall that mountain spirits do not have a taste for human flesh..."

An Weiyan looked toward Uncle Fu. He now had some understanding of this world, at least. If one really wanted to get into it...

Mountain spirits seemed to be spirits of the mountain woods, rather than ghosts and monsters that harmed people. As for what they looked like, accounts varied.

Some said mountain spirits had black faces and hairy bodies, and smiled when they saw people.

Others said mountain spirits were goddesses, their voices like pearls falling onto a jade platter, clad in clouds and mist. They liked to drift among the folds of the mountains, and a single smile shone with radiance.

But these were all merely things he had heard. He did not know what mountain spirits actually looked like.

The only thing he knew was that mountain spirits were quite friendly toward humans.

"That was a very long time ago." Uncle Fu sighed, then gave a long sigh as he continued, "Now demons are rising everywhere. This commoner has heard that quite a few mountain spirits have begun secretly eating people."

An Weiyan could not help frowning at this.

Whether what Uncle Fu said was true or not, offerings to the Land God certainly could not be allowed to lapse.

With that thought, An Weiyan asked, "Must we go halfway up the mountain to make offerings to the Land God?"

Hearing An Weiyan's question, Uncle Fu perked up and began explaining.

As it turned out, there was a Land God Temple within Linbei County. The one halfway up the mountain was a land shrine, a branch extending from the Land God Temple, like a fork in a tree's branches.

The main reason for building a land shrine halfway up the mountain was to extend the reach of the Land God's divine power. Otherwise, he could only guard the small area of Linbei County.

And that would not be very favorable for the people of Linbei County.

As the saying went, those who lived by the mountains ate from the mountains. If they went up the mountain without the Land God's protection, mishaps could easily occur.

With a land shrine halfway up the mountain, people were less likely to be carried off and eaten by tigers on their way up, and would not lose their way in the darkness on their way down, or suffer similar troubles.

By now, however, many of the land shrines had fallen into disuse, all because the Land God no longer had enough divine power to extend his reach that far.

An Weiyan nodded repeatedly as he listened to Uncle Fu's explanation.

Then, following Uncle Fu's directions, An Weiyan arrived at the Land God Temple.

The Land God Temple was not far away, though it was five streets from the county office.

An Weiyan had only just arrived before the Land God Temple when the Land God's spirit tablet in front of him began to glow faintly.

"You have come, sir."

It was the same aged voice as before. Hearing it, An Weiyan felt considerably closer to him.

An Weiyan cupped his hands and explained that the people wished to resume offering him incense.

The Land God fell silent upon hearing this. Only after a while did he slowly speak.

"Sir, do you know about the grades of incense offerings?"

After An Weiyan took office here as county magistrate, he had changed how he addressed him as well.

Grades of incense offerings?

An Weiyan was taken aback, then shook his head to indicate that he did not know.

Seeing this, the Land God explained the grades of incense offerings to An Weiyan. Only after he had broken down their ranks in detail did An Weiyan realize that incense offerings involved so many intricacies.

"Then what grade were the incense offerings I gave you before?"

An Weiyan asked about the incense offerings he had previously given him.

"The incense offerings you gave me were naturally excellent, sir. Upper third grade."

The Land God replied, then explained the grades of incense offerings in detail.

An Weiyan sank into thought at these words. There were five grades in total. His village had a long tradition of making offerings to the Land God, though he did not know how many years it had lasted.

And they had produced upper-third-grade incense offerings.

That ought to count as very good, surely?

After all, according to the Land God, even at the Jiang Kingdom's height, several cities had needed to worship together to produce incense offerings of this grade.

His own village did not have a particularly large population to begin with. Being able to produce incense offerings of such a grade was already quite good.

Moreover, according to the Land God, incense offerings also depended on national strength, and whether the country was prosperous and its people at peace.

Huaxia's national strength was among the very best in the main world, and its prosperity and the peace its people enjoyed went without saying.

At any rate, there was no zero-dollar shopping or daily shootings and the like.

If he could get more people to offer incense, he ought to be able to establish a firm foothold in this world.

The only problem was how to get those people to offer incense.

An Weiyan thought for a moment, then asked, "Land God, do you want incense offerings of the same grade as before?"

"To be frank with you, sir, that is indeed the case. The population here is sparse now, and the people lack clothes to cover their bodies and food to fill their bellies. I fear the incense offerings they provide would only be fifth grade."

The Land God sighed. Incense offerings of that sort were truly useless to him, and naturally would not allow him to exercise his divine power.

An Weiyan rubbed his forehead and looked at the people in the distance, inwardly agreeing with him.

True enough. The people here were so starved, and every last one of them was utterly devoid of vitality. What grade of incense offerings could they possibly provide?

"Land God, if you wish for incense offerings of the same grade as those I gave you before, it is not impossible. But I need something before I can get them."

An Weiyan considered the plan in his mind, then spoke.

"What is it?"

Hearing An Weiyan say this, the Land God immediately grew anxious and hurriedly asked.

As long as he could have incense offerings of the same grade as before, anything was open to discussion.

"Could you give me some divine power or something of that sort? With that, I would be better able to get you some incense offerings."

An Weiyan was thinking of getting an invisibility technique or something similar. Then he could go somewhere with flourishing incense offerings and move the divine statues being worshipped there over to the Land God.

The Land God visibly hesitated at this. After wrestling with it for a moment, he spoke.

"I could share some divine power with you, sir, allowing you to tell fortunes for others and divine ill fortune and good. How would that be?"

Uh...

An Weiyan froze for a moment at these words. Could his divine power only do things like that? Could it not perform illusion arts such as invisibility?