The wicked sorcerer brought harm to others.

Relying on the literary foundation he had built while writing "Strange Tales from the Studio," Luan Yi found the composition of "The Gospel of the Holy Mother" to be particularly smooth, completing the first draft in just three days. With the scripture finished and the day of departure approaching, Luan Yi gathered Guo Jia and the rest of his brothers and asked if they would join him in Jinan to establish the new faith.

Guo Jia and Xi Zhicai shook their heads repeatedly, expressing their lack of interest in anything to do with spirits or, especially, in pretending to commune with them. Though they did not say it outright, Luan Yi could clearly sense from their words a deep disdain for the fabricated cult of the Holy Maiden, seeing it as nothing short of heresy. For the past eight years, they had always followed Luan Yi’s lead—this was the first time they questioned his decision. Luan Yi could not help but feel a pang of sorrow, but at the same time, he was quietly relieved that Guo Jia and Xi Zhicai had finally grown independent.

As for Dan Fu, he was keen to accompany Luan Yi, but as the only son of his family, with a deceased father and a chronically ill mother, he could not be spared from home for long journeys. Luan Yi was understanding. To his surprise, among the five brothers, Mao Jie—who was not particularly close to him—agreed without hesitation to go to Jinan. He claimed to have heard that the springs of Licheng County, Jinan, were famous for their beauty and wished to see them, but Luan Yi knew he was truly worried for him and wanted to lend a helping hand. Luan Yi felt a warm surge in his heart and told Mao Jie the date of departure.

On the eighth day of the third month, beneath clear skies, a caravan assembled once more before the Luan residence. This time, the convoy was larger than ever, though it carried not wealth or grain, but countless carpentry tools and movable type printing equipment.

That day, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, and Dan Fu came to see Luan Yi and Mao Jie off. The five brothers reminisced about their years together, unable to restrain their tears as they embraced and lamented, “Who knows when we shall meet again after parting?”

Choked with emotion, Luan Yi noticed the hour growing late, and Dian Wei had already sent for him several times. He said, “Once Brother Mao and I have settled in Jinan, all of you are welcome to come and stay with us at any time. So… I bid you farewell!”

The five brothers bowed deeply to one another, tears streaming down their faces as they parted ways.

Jinan was much farther than Luoyang. The journey was long, and along the way, some petty thieves attempted to prey upon the Luan family’s reputed wealth, but Dian Wei always uncovered their plans in advance. Most of these bandits were small-time mountain brigands, hardly any threat. Dian Wei subdued their leader with barely a move, sending the rest fleeing in terror. When Luan Yi felt the urge to test his skills, he found his adversaries pathetically weak—a single blow sent men and horses flying, with the rest dropping to their knees and begging for mercy.

On the third day of the fifth month, the boundary marker of the State of Jinan finally appeared on the horizon. A wave of affection rose in Luan Yi’s heart—this was, after all, his original homeland, some eighteen hundred years hence. At the same time, he could not help but laugh at himself: in all the world, perhaps only he could claim to be a stranger in his own hometown.

Licheng County, where Luan Miao served, was the political, economic, and cultural heart of Jinan then and for generations to come—the capital of the kingdom. It should have been a place of prosperity.

Yet, on the way to the county seat, all Luan Yi saw were emaciated commoners, their frailty far worse than the poor village inside Hulao Pass. Their clothes barely covered their bodies, their faces bore the pallor of chronic malnutrition, and though it was warm spring, their winter frostbite had yet to heal, still oozing with pus.

The dwellings in the villages were dilapidated, so fragile a single strong wind might topple them. The yards were silent—no chickens, no barking dogs—likely all long eaten by the starving people.

At the center of each village stood a temple, thick with incense smoke, yet there was no one inside offering prayers. Luan Yi stopped an elderly local and asked where all the incense came from if no one entered to worship.

“We have no choice but to burn incense!” the old man replied bitterly, his story pouring out. As it turned out, the gentry of Jinan spread tales of witchcraft as a pretext to levy extortionate taxes. They forced the local people to pay incense money to the temples every month—fifty coins per household. If they failed to pay, the temple priests would barge in and seize anything valuable. If there was nothing of worth, they would take people instead. Of course, they left the men, but would snatch the women, all the while sanctimoniously declaring that the gods had chosen their daughters as holy maidens. In reality, they were taken to the temples to serve the pleasure of the rich. Afterward, payment was made—not called a fee for fornication, but an offering to the gods.

At this, the old man broke down in tears. His own daughter had been taken in such a manner. “It’s like this everywhere in Jinan now. All the money the people make goes to incense for the gods—how are we supposed to live?”

A monthly tribute of fifty coins was nothing to the Luan family, but to ordinary folk, it was a crushing burden. The “cash” of the Eastern Han was still the five-zhu coin introduced by Emperor Wu, a copper coin weighing about 35 grams. At current rice prices, a dan of grain cost forty coins; one dan equaled twenty-seven catties of millet. Averaged out, a single coin bought a little more than half a catty of grain. Fifty coins, then, was twenty-five catties—a month’s supply for a poor family. One family, fifty coins; ten families, five hundred; thousands upon thousands of households—millions of coins. The sum was staggering. What kind of incense could possibly be worth so much? The exploitation and corruption were glaringly obvious.

“Doesn’t the government do anything?” Luan Miao asked angrily.

At the mention of the authorities, the old man bristled with rage. “The government? What government? If they weren’t backing the priests, would the temple dare act so brazenly?”

“Then why don’t you go to the capital to complain?” Luan Miao pressed.

“We have! But the officials in the capital have also been bribed. Jing once traveled thousands of miles to the capital to petition, but not only did he fail, he was punished when he returned. No one even knows where his bones lie now!”

Luan Miao was at a loss for words.

“South of the Ji River was once a land of happiness, the people kind and honest, but now… the times have changed!” The old man sobbed, “I see you’re here on business. When you’re done, it’d be best to leave quickly. This is not the Jinan it once was.” With that, he turned to go, but Luan Yi stopped him.

“Please, sir, a moment.”

“What is it?”

“I wish to ask you a few more things, if you would be so kind.” Luan Yi bowed and asked, “May I ask when this scourge of temples began in Jinan, and who started it?”

The old man sighed again, clasping his hands behind his back as he gazed at the distant mountains. After a moment of recollection, he said, “It was twenty years ago…”

There was once a wealthy merchant family in Jinan named Yang. Their background was much like the Luan family’s—upstarts in the Han, rich but lacking in status. The Luans, however, had followed the path of the scholarly merchant, making their fortune honorably and earning a fine reputation in Yingchuan, with business flourishing ever more. The Yangs, in contrast, used any means to amass wealth—cheating, swindling, kidnapping. By the second generation, under Yang E, their business declined; under the current head, Yang Mou, they were outwardly impressive but hollow within, drowning in debt.

To give Yang Mou his due, he had some cunning. When his family fortunes waned, he once visited a temple to burn incense and noticed the thick smoke and the crowds of donors. He got the idea to use temples for profit.

He first built a temple, installed priests, and brought in prostitutes disguised as nuns to engage in lewd activities, earning a fortune. Then he reasoned: with Jinan’s population in the tens of thousands, if each person donated a single coin a month, that was tens of thousands—over a million a year. It was more lucrative than any business.

He visited every county office in Jinan, shared his scheme with the magistrates, and promised them sixty percent of the proceeds if it succeeded.

The magistrates, desperate for ways to squeeze money from the people, agreed at once.

From that time, the cult flourished in Jinan. At first, the incense tax was only one coin a month—bearable. But Yang Mou grew greedier, raising it ever higher, until it reached today’s fifty coins a month. The people could no longer bear it.

“I see,” Luan Yi nodded. “One more question. I heard the post of Licheng county magistrate is vacant; may I ask where the previous magistrate went?”

At the mention of the former magistrate, the old man’s angry face softened with grief. “He was a good man, but good men meet bad ends…”

“How so?” Luan Miao asked.

“Magistrate Zhang died—burned alive by those cultists before the eyes of the people. They claimed he had offended the gods and that unless he was burned as a sacrifice, all of Jinan would suffer disaster. But everyone knew he hadn’t angered any gods—he had simply stood in the way of evildoers. They killed him as a warning to others not to be heroes.”

“What?” Even Luan Yi was shocked. “They murdered an imperial official in broad daylight—doesn’t the law mean anything? Doesn’t the King of Jinan intervene?”

“Intervene? How? The King of Jinan is just a figurehead—no power, no army, nothing to enforce his will. In Jinan, it’s Chief Steward Zhu Yingcai who is king, who is heaven. He is Yang Mou’s protector—who could touch them?”

“Chief Steward?” In the kingdom, below the king was the prime minister, below him the chief steward—so the chief steward was only the third in command. “What about the prime minister? Doesn’t he do anything about this lawless chief steward?”

The old man’s voice was mournful. “There hasn’t been a prime minister in Jinan for a long time. With things as they are, who would dare take office here? I suspect even the post of county magistrate in Licheng will remain vacant—without a parent official, how can the people survive?”