"Can you get it done or not? The day before yesterday, your master already tidied it up, why are you still fussing with it now?"
Xu Qing, like an air conditioner installer, turned around and stared at Song Cai for a moment.
When the latter frowned and looked uncomfortable, Xu Qing posed a soul-piercing question: "You washed your face the day before yesterday, so you're not going to wash it today? How about you do it?"
Song Cai felt embarrassed and chose to leave him alone.
After driving away the irrelevant people, Xu Qing calmed his mind, and the pages of the Sutra of Salvation began to turn in his brain.
...
Landlord Liu, whose original name was Liu Fuchun, was originally a small temple priest in a poor village. He could only earn a meager income when worshippers came to offer incense or fulfill vows.
Until one day, the young lady of the Li Family, who owned a cloth shop, passed by the small temple in a carriage and offered incense to the deity.
As the temple priest, Liu Fuchun fell in love with the young lady at first sight, captivated by her legs, her hips—everything about her enchanted him!
He wanted to pursue the young lady of the Li Family but, being poor and without a background, how could he win her heart?
What should he do?
Liu Fuchun tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep. Finally, he decided not to follow divine suffering any longer and threw himself into the mortal world.
Perhaps because he had served the deities in the temple well over the years, Liu Fuchun's luck wasn't bad. As soon as he left the village, he encountered a wandering Daoist.
The Daoist saw his potential for cultivation, and after much persuasion and trickery, managed to take him as a disciple and brought him to the mountains.
At first, the wandering Daoist taught him two skills: the Spirit Crane Body Nourishing Skill and the Four Seasons Qi-Introducing Technique.
Though Liu Fuchun practiced for two months, he was always distracted, thinking about the young lady's legs, her hips...
On the third month of practice, the wandering Daoist suddenly called him over, sighed, and said their master-disciple relationship was shallow. As a disciple, his mundane desires hadn't faded, and even with a heavenly cover, it would be difficult to keep him.
But for the master's sake, the Daoist taught him one more skill that could bring him wealth and prosperity in the mortal world, called the Civil and Military Divination Skill.
This was a geomancy and Feng Shui art, using civil techniques to improve fortune and home luck, and military techniques to alter landscape formations and geographical positions, channeling water to enhance fortune in his Yin and Yang residences.
With this secret technique in hand, the first thing Liu Fuchun did after descending the mountain was to redirect the water channels of wealthy landlords to his home. After saving up some money, he also added protective items, like fortune-bringing beasts and the Wealth-Attracting and Treasure-Collecting Twin Pi Xiu, getting a full set of anything useful...
In just two short years, with luck on his side, Liu Fuchun achieved academic success and became a county magistrate.
But what he didn't know was that the art of geomancy and Feng Shui highly valued one's fate and cultivation. If one's cultivation was shallow and fate insufficient, even if wealth and glory were gained through this method, unknown future costs awaited.
When Liu Fuchun gained an official position, he sought a matchmaker to marry the cloth shop's young lady, Li Xiangyun, whom he had fallen in love with at first sight.
At this time, Liu Fuchun was full of pride and satisfied with everything, except for the fact that he had no offspring.
What should he do about this? The first solution Liu Fuchun thought of was to change the Feng Shui layout. But no matter how he changed it, Li Xiangyun's belly remained unresponsive.
Liu Fuchun, plagued with doubts, began to suspect his wife had some kind of infertility issue.
So he took Li Xiangyun to seek medical advice and divination everywhere, even entertaining the idea of taking concubines.
Curiously, after he mentioned taking concubines, within two months, Li Xiangyun was pregnant.
Liu Fuchun thought nothing of it, attributing it to divine favor seeing his sincerity!
As time passed, the Liu Family's young master, pampered by his parents, grew up indulging in vices and oppressing the innocent.
As the saying goes, not teaching a son is like raising a donkey; not teaching a daughter is like raising a pig.
Liu Fuchun felt this wasn't right and started strict discipline. To have more time to educate his child, he resigned from his official post and moved to Linhe to engage in commerce, becoming a wealthy landlord.
The scribe who had resigned with him became the steward of the Liu Mansion.
Thereafter, Liu Fuchun focused entirely on his son's education. However, every time his son made a mistake, before he could scold him, his wife and steward would stop him.
Over time, the child became even more unruly than when Liu Fuchun was a county magistrate.
But, as the saying goes, each generation has its own fortune. By the end, Liu Fuchun was exhausted and decided to indulge himself instead of controlling the rebellious son.
He spent his days playing chess and teasing birds, and his nights at courtyards listening to songs with his business friends, living blissfully like a deity!
Later, he lavishly spent money to redeem Su Hongxiu, a popular girl from Cuiyun Building, taking her into the mansion.
At this point, Liu Fuchun had completely forgotten his master's warning, believing that even with sparse cultivation, he could still bear the fortune Feng Shui brought and there wouldn't be any so-called cost?
Xu Qing saw nothing unusual here, but just as he thought the Civil and Military Divination Skill had no side effects, landlord Liu's life suddenly came to an abrupt halt one day!
And it halted in a very physical way!
That day, landlord Liu heard that a new bathhouse had opened in Shitang, and it was cold, so he took his wife, son, and loyal steward to have a bath.
At the bathhouse, Li Xiangyun found a private room, attended by a maid for her bath. Landlord Liu, the steward, and his son took a big pool, thinking they hadn't been so close for a long time, and now they could sit naked in the pool, scrub each other's backs, chat, and bond.
But unexpectedly, as soon as the steward Song Cai took off his clothes, landlord Liu's expression changed drastically!
He stood up out of the pool with a splash, disregarding his dignity, and angrily shouted, "Song! How dare you seduce my wife, making me raise your son for so many years! I'll skin you alive!"
Song Cai, having been a scribe, reacted quickly—
He had the same peach blossom-shaped birthmark on his butt as young master Liu, a matching pair, unmistakably!
In those days, adultery was a grave crime. Seeing landlord Liu truly enraged, Song Cai decided to finish him off by drowning him in the bathhouse!
Young master Liu was watching and couldn't let that happen—it was his own father!
But just as he tried to intervene, Song Cai stopped him, "Don't come over, I'm your real father! Look at the peach blossom birthmarks on our butts, your father couldn't have children, your mother knew all this!"
"If we don't kill him today, what good can come of it once the truth comes out?"
Hearing this, young master Liu stopped.
Not his real father? Then it's fine!
So, landlord Liu was drowned in the bathhouse. When the government officials came to inquire, young master Liu and steward Song Cai both insisted he was killed by a ghost!
In Liu Mansion's mourning hall, beside the heavy nanmu coffin, Xu Qing took a while to digest the shocking revelation.
The scandal was huge; it almost choked him!
Who could have thought landlord Liu, having had a smooth life for so long, would meet such a fate in the end.
This final blow was even more shocking than a thunderbolt!
But it couldn't be blamed on anyone else. As the saying goes, even a virtuous official can't resolve domestic affairs, and even deities can't escape mortal misery.
If Liu Fuchun had followed the wandering Daoist and cultivated earnestly, staying away from the mortal world, none of this would have happened...
At this moment, the Sutra of Salvation completed reading the life events and pronounced the body evaluation: Top Grade Human.
The reward was a mid-grade human Civil and Military Divination, and a top-grade human Qi Observation Skill.
Absorbing the knowledge of Civil and Military Divination, Xu Qing had an epiphany.
Geomancy and Feng Shui involve rectifying bad layouts and adding appropriate enhancements without excess. If one were to elevate their home Feng Shui to standards higher than the Imperial Palace, they could risk harm due to insufficient personal fortune.
Liu Chunlai was a classic example of such a negative outcome, suffering enormous backlash.
In contrast, the top-grade human Qi Observation Skill, although not revealing human hearts' wickedness, could see demon transformations and the concealed purity and impurity in heaven and earth.
Clearing his mind, Xu Qing activated the Qi Observation Skill within, half-closing his eyes to go into a trance, seemingly seeing and yet not, focusing with his mind.
In the next moment, he opened his eyes, seeing a colorful, light, and misty aura rising all around.
The five elements and colors were all present.
Looking at the people in the hall, each had different colors and depths of aura on their heads. Su Hongxiu and Li Xiangyun had threads of ambiguous colors, while steward Song Cai had a faint bloodthirsty aura above him, clearly evidence of a recent killing.