Chapter 915: Fortune Flourishes

This courtyard had clearly long become the residence for the mansion's servants. Several rooms contained communal sleeping platforms. Only the room Ji Yuan had originally stayed in was locked, perhaps because of him, or for some other unknown reason, and it had remained locked for seven and a half years.

At this moment, seeing Ji Yuan open the door and emerge, the mansion's servants who were outside playing or watching chess all turned to look at him.

“How can there be someone in that room?” “No way, hasn't that room been locked for years?”

“I heard it's been locked for seven years. It can't be a ghost, can it?”

“Oh, come on, where would a ghost come from in broad daylight? Don't talk nonsense!”

The servants whispered among themselves for a few moments before someone finally stepped forward to speak.

“Who are you, and how did you come out of this room? This is an official residence of Minister Li of the Ministry of Rites. Outsiders who trespass will be punished!”

Ji Yuan looked at the seven servants in the courtyard, all unfamiliar faces. Seeing their nervousness, he smiled and offered an explanation.

“My surname is Ji. I once stayed in this room. If Minister Li returns, please be so kind as to inform him that I, Ji, have departed.”

Having spoken, Ji Yuan exited the room, closed the door behind him, nodded to the stunned onlookers, and left the small courtyard. In a corner of the courtyard, the broken wall had finally been repaired.

“Hey, wait! You can't just leave like that! Hello, did you hear me?”

Someone was calling from behind, but Ji Yuan did not stop. By the time the servants chased him out of the courtyard, Ji Yuan was nowhere to be seen.

The entire official residence seemed sparsely populated; Ji Yuan walked through most of it without encountering another person. Many areas had accumulated fallen leaves, though basic cleanliness was maintained. After a moment's thought, Ji Yuan realized that Li Ping had been promoted and the emperor had specifically granted him a large mansion in the capital. This official residence was simply kept as is, with a few people assigned to maintain basic tidiness.

Stepping onto the main street, Xia Yong Capital was bustling with people, seemingly more lively than before. Ji Yuan looked up, surveying the sky in all directions. He could see various energies interwoven: a vibrant human energy, along with prominent scholarly and martial energies. Interspersed among them were also traces of divine power and immortal-buddhist aura.

These were all visible and barely concealed energies, immediately apparent to Ji Yuan's Dharma Eye. It was conceivable that there were also beings, whether human, ghost, demon, or immortal, whose auras were hidden beneath the surface.

The very moment Ji Yuan stepped out of the official residence, within the Heavenly Secret Pavilion, the Heavenly Secret Wheel registered his presence. It instantly flew out of Xuan Jizi's sleeve, spinning above his head with a brilliant glow, startling him awake from his meditation.

“What's going on?”

Complex characters and symbols rotated on the Heavenly Secret Wheel, each projecting light. Though these flowing symbols formed no images or words, Xuan Jizi gazed at them for a moment, and his face lit up with surprise.

“Mr. Ji's aura has appeared!”

After careful consideration, Xuan Jizi immediately took out a small flying sword. He placed it horizontally above the Heavenly Secret Wheel, cast a spell and chanted, then pointed it skyward. The flying sword immediately ascended. It had barely risen thirty feet when it was overtaken by a beam of light from the Heavenly Secret Wheel, then vanished before Xuan Jizi. When the flying sword reappeared, it was already outside the immortal cave.

However, Ji Yuan was still moving about in Xia Yong Capital at this time. The reason he hadn't left immediately was to check the current state of the Civil and Martial Temples nearby.

In fact, the places with the densest scholarly and martial fortune in the city were the Civil Temple in the south and the Martial Temple in the north. Just as Ji Yuan had expected, both places enjoyed strong incense offerings, but most of the frequent worshippers were ordinary folk. There were few genuine scholars, literati, or martial arts masters.

In reality, the Civil and Martial Temples did not truly require incense offerings. What they needed was the devout heart of cultivation from those in the human realm who pursued scholarly and martial paths. Indeed, cultivating oneself through learning is a path, and achieving breakthroughs through martial arts is also a path. Incense offerings are needed by deities, but not by the Civil and Martial Temples, which symbolize the scholarly and martial fortunes of heaven and earth. Instead, they nurture and gather these fortunes to protect humanity and the virtuous scholars and warriors within it.

Ji Yuan first arrived at the Civil Temple. Among the numerous worshippers, most prayed for promotion and wealth; very few comprehended the true essence of scholarly fortune. However, there were at least some scholars who came in groups and possessed a certain demeanor.

Entering the Civil Temple with some of the worshippers, Ji Yuan found the temple quite magnificent. What amused him was seeing numerous side halls, each housing deity statues.

Ji Yuan stood outside the left and right side halls. The other worshippers had already entered, holding their purchased incense sticks, lighting them, and bowing, each muttering prayers for prosperous family fortunes, academic success, or for themselves or their family members to pass examinations with high honors, or at the very least, good health.

Ji Yuan then looked up ahead. Only a handful of people were heading to the main hall. While it made no difference whether incense was offered there or not, the contrast still left Ji Yuan feeling both amused and exasperated.

“Well, those who study literature or martial arts are, after all, a minority.”

Ji Yuan took a step, not entering any of the side halls. He wasn't even interested in knowing who or what deities were enshrined there; he simply walked directly toward the main hall.

Among the several scholars who had entered with Ji Yuan, a few had been subtly observing him, noting his extraordinary demeanor. They had worshipped every statue in the side halls, hoping to pass the imperial examinations, but they hadn't seen Ji Yuan enter any of them.

“Hey, hey, that distinguished gentleman didn't come over to offer incense.”

“Did he go to another shrine?” “No, I saw him head towards the main hall in the back.”

“Are you all done offering incense? Shall we go check out the main hall too?”

“Of course. Since we're at the Capital Civil Temple, we should definitely see everything. Let's go take a look.”

“Okay!” “Let's go!”

The group emerged together and headed toward the main hall. After stepping into the main hall's courtyard, they became noticeably quieter. They quickly reached the main hall and saw its doors open, with only one person standing inside: the gentleman in green robes they had seen earlier.

The several people looked up. The main hall's scale was naturally grander and more magnificent than local Civil Temples, but its interior furnishings were almost identical: no deity statues, no prayer mats, just a clean offering table with some books—both bamboo slips and paper pages. Other than that, a few perpetually burning lamps illuminated the hall.

In front of the offering table, or rather, high above it, a large banner hung. It was blue at the top, black at the bottom, and white in the middle, with three large characters written from top to bottom: “Heaven,” “Scholarship,” and “Earth.”

“The essence of this place hasn't been lost, after all.”

The scholars who had just arrived heard Ji Yuan's voice. One of them, being bolder and more outspoken, directly asked from behind.

“Listening to you, sir, do you mean you know the true essence of the Civil Temple, or are you saying other parts of this Capital Civil Temple have lost their true essence?”

Ji Yuan turned to look behind him. The scholars first clasped their hands in greeting. Ji Yuan nodded but did not return the gesture, merely replying calmly.

“Precisely, both. What the Civil Temple reveres, apart from Heaven and Earth, is the scholarly fortune of the world. All else is... well, merely a complement.”

Having carefully chosen his words, Ji Yuan still put it mildly.

“What you say, sir, might be reasonable, but the deities outside protect the Civil Temple and bless us scholars, which is also very good. They ought to enjoy the temple's offerings.”

Ji Yuan smiled.

“Scholarly fortune does not require incense offerings, and it's not strictly forbidden for them to partake. If they can protect the Civil Temple, it counts as a deity fulfilling its purpose. However, they cannot be enshrined as the Civil Temple's primary object of worship; at most, they are attendants. In the world today, there is only one person truly qualified to be enshrined in the Civil Temple.”

“The Sage of Literature?”

One scholar asked.

“Indeed.”

Ji Yuan replied, then stepped away, moving outside the main hall. He encountered a new scholar approaching, whose presence was notably radiant, with white light converging above his head. There was no lingering scent of sandalwood incense on his hands, indicating he hadn't offered incense outside before coming to the main hall.

Seeing Ji Yuan, the arriving scholar also perceived his extraordinary demeanor and stopped to bow to him. This time, Ji Yuan also paused and returned the bow, before leaving with a smile.

Ji Yuan likewise visited and quickly departed from the Martial Temple. There, too, deities were enshrined in side halls, but he did not encounter any formidable martial artists worshipping, and the number of common folk offering incense was significantly less than at the Civil Temple.

While he didn't encounter any in the Martial Temple itself, as he traversed the streets and alleys of the capital, Ji Yuan had already detected more than one aura of martial artists. These were all martial practitioners who had condensed their vital energy and true qi into their very essence, truly having embarked on the martial path. Ordinary malevolent spirits and goblins would not dare to provoke such martial artists.

Though seven years was a short period, the prosperity of humanity's destiny was no longer in its nascent stage; it had begun to flourish robustly. Even with the Xia Yong Dynasty as it was, certain places that were already notable had naturally become even more extraordinary.