In the open space before the main hall of the Celestial Master's Mansion, a female Daoist stood naked, like a shaman or witch, running and singing along the edge of the altar.
"I come from a faraway place, my parents are dead, my brother is dead, my sister is dead as well..."
As she sang, the female Daoist suddenly began to cry and laugh, saying she wanted to find a Daoist to have a child with, so she could bring her parents and brother back to life...
Xu Qing's gaze swept past the female Daoist, and in the southwest corner on a crooked tree, a young Daoist was swinging, not standing or sitting on the swing, but with the rope tied around his neck, swaying back and forth.
In the large incense burner before the main hall, a Daoist had buried himself in the incense ash, leaving only his head exposed, practicing some unknown divine technique.
At the altar for teaching and discussing the Dao, a Daoist with disheveled hair was lecturing on the mysteries of Buddhist Teachings, claiming he was the reincarnation of a Buddhist child.
Besides that, there were drunken Daoists, Daoists rolling and flailing around, Daoists whose noses bubbled as they sought out relatives, Daoists urinating and defecating everywhere, Daoists eating stones, Daoists roasting mice in open fires...
Xu Qing looked at the bizarre scene before him and wondered if he had come to the wrong place.
"Who are you people, daring to trespass into the Celestial Master's Mansion grounds?"
Just as Xu Qing had his eyes opened wide, the Four Shadows Daoist, holding a fiery dragon whip and with a face full of viciousness, leaped out from the incense burner in front of the hall!
The incense ash with sparks from the burner seemed like volcanic ash formed after an eruption, shrouding the entire open-air altar in a haze.
Xu Qing squinted, seeing clearly that the vicious person was the strange Daoist who had previously buried himself in the burner!
"Trespass?" Xu Qing said with a smile: "This is the Celestial Master's Mansion grounds. I was invited by the true heir of the Orthodox Dao to come here and clean up the place!"
"What did you say I am?"
The black-faced Daoist frowned upon hearing this: "An external disciple? Since when does an external branch have the authority to handle matters of the Celestial Master's Mansion? If a disciple violates the precepts, it is the Celestial Master's Mansion's inspectors who should deal with it. It's not your place to interfere."
The so-called inspectors are Daoists responsible for the order, etiquette, laws, and precepts of the grounds.
Xu Qing looked at the Celestial Master's Mansion disciples, who were dancing wildly in front of the open-air altar, yet he couldn't find a single place that adhered to etiquette and law.
"Don't talk non-sense; where's your warden? I have something to discuss with him!"
Xu Qing respected those with mental illness, but if you let the patients loose to bite people, then it's your fault!
In Da Yan, there was no saying that the mentally ill are without sin.
Moreover, the biggest problem now was that Lu Celestial Master, the warden of this Celestial Master's Mansion asylum, was most likely the maddest of all the lunatics here!
"Nonsense! I shall escort you to the disciplinary stand and await punishment by the Celestial Master!"
As soon as the words were spoken, the Daoist with the fiery dragon whip suddenly leaped forward to seize Xu Qing, intending to take him away for forced treatment!
Yet, before the glowing-red whip could wrap around Xu Qing, it was shattered by a burst of sword light; the Daoist looked askance in shock, discovering the surrounding environment spinning chaotically.
In his dazed consciousness, he vaguely saw his headless body spurting a blood fountain several feet high, and not far from his body, the silent little girl wordlessly sheathed her Sword Pill, as if nothing happened.
The surrounding insane Celestial Master's Mansion disciples kept on playing with their own madness, not a single Daoist let out a shout or showed any bizarre expression.
Only those who seemed no different from ordinary people rushed hurriedly into the hall to report, while Xu Qing acted indifferent, continuing to bless the corpse in his hand.
The Four Shadows Daoist and that lecherous Daoist were no different; both were truly beasts hiding behind human faces.
Before entering the Celestial Master's Mansion, they had personally harmed those who trusted and relied on them—blood relatives.
Xu Qing glanced roughly but grew more interested in the Four Shadows Daoist, who after joining the Celestial Master's Mansion, took on the role of inspector.
In other Daoist temples, inspectors reward good and punish evil among disciples who violate precepts internally, but the Celestial Master's Mansion's inspectors punish those pure-hearted souls who adhere firmly to the Orthodox Dao's ancestral teachings.
If everyone is abnormal, being the one person who is normal is a crime!
Aside from instilling twisted ideologies into normal disciples, those disciples of the Celestial Master's Mansion, who at a glance seemed severely ill, also had a unique set of practices suited only for them.
These disciples were usually locked in what the Four Shadows Daoist termed the 'disciplinary stand'.
The so-called disciplinary stand is the place where a temple teaches the three great precepts, namely 'Initial Truth Precept, Intermediate Ultimate Precept, and Heavenly Immortal Precept'.
In other words, it's the Celestial Master's Mansion's confinement room, where these lunatics are imprisoned.
When the Celestial Master's Mansion is open to outsiders, all disciples who haven't been 'ordained' are locked in the disciplinary stand, constantly receiving ordination and instruction from the elders until their external madness is suppressed and they can disguise as ordinary people, only then is the ordination considered complete, allowing them to become formal disciples of the Celestial Master's Mansion and contact the outside world.
Xu Qing happened to arrive on a closed-door day at the Celestial Master's Mansion, which coincidentally was the day the disciplinary stand disciples were let out for air.
"Turns out it really is an asylum..."
Xu Qing observed with twitching eyelids, thinking that if so many lunatics accidentally got out someday, it would be terrifying how many people could be harmed!
Just as Xu Qing finished blessing the Four Shadows Daoist, dozens of aggressive Daoists appeared outside the main hall.
The leading Daoist looked somewhat familiar to Xu Qing.
Under Lu Celestial Master of the Celestial Master's Mansion were seven true heirs, known as the Seven Sons of Xuanji, though these seven seemed to be quite unlucky.
In the past one or two decades, Spirit Wind Daoist, ranking second, vanished in the Jin Sect, and the longevity lamp linked to Spirit Wind Daoist's life too extinguished within the Celestial Longevity Hall of the Celestial Master's Mansion.