Gentlemen, it's time to enter the Banner of Ten Thousand Souls.

Chapter 168 Sect Affairs
The thirty-three floors of the Yellow Springs Palace have now been completely converted into Chen Ye's residence.

Even the Venerable Lord had to condescend to choose the thirty-second floor as his residence. Chen Ye originally thought he was just a puppet sect leader in name only, but he never expected that this Venerable Lord would be so particular in his actions.

However, today the Venerable One was not so polite. He walked directly up to Chen Ye and questioned him: "Why did you set the date of establishing your sect on July 14th? You know some divination techniques, so you should know that this day is by no means an auspicious day."

At this time, all preparations in Fengdu City were complete. It was early spring, and there were many auspicious days to choose from, but Chen Ye chose July 14th, several months later.

On the 14th of July, the yin and yang are reversed, and according to common sense, it is not auspicious to do anything.

Chen Ye said, "July 14th is an auspicious day, perfect for our Huangquan Sect. Fengdu City is mostly inhabited by spirits, and July 14th is a day of reversal of Yin and Yang, making it the best day for our Huangquan Sect to establish itself."

Upon hearing this, the Venerable One frowned slightly and retorted, "I never intended for the Yellow Springs Sect to be based on Yin spirits. Don't you plan to take on any disciples in the future?"

Chen Ye responded frankly: "It's not that we don't accept them at all, but look at the Yellow Springs Sect now, which sect can accept hundreds of thousands of disciples at once? From the very beginning, the Yellow Springs Sect was destined to have more ghosts than humans."

The Venerable One was speechless for a moment, then finally sighed and said, "So be it. The Yellow Springs Sect is indeed unprecedented, and we cannot follow the old precedents. July 14th it is."

After discussing this, the Venerable One unfolded a diagram in front of Chen Ye and pointed to its contents, saying, "According to your previous plan, these 127 ancestral spirits will be temporarily designated as City Gods. Each City God will be equipped with a Chief Clerk, a Grand Duke, and sixty Jiazi Yin Soldiers."

Chen Ye only glanced at it; the esteemed host was handling things quite well.

Each ancestral spirit is a deity worshipped by the tribe, making them suitable as the city gods of different tribes. As for the chief clerk, the Grand Duke Jupiter, and the underworld soldiers, these are positions that Chen Ye prepared for the spirits of Fengdu City.

Although there are only six or seven thousand positions in total, it is far from enough for the hundreds of thousands of wandering souls.

Fortunately, the ghost soldiers in these City God Temples are rotated, and among these hundreds of thousands of ghosts, there are a large number of old, weak, women and children. These people are not suitable to serve as ghost soldiers for the time being. We will wait until the young and strong ghosts adapt to the environment.

Anyway, we didn't intend to let them starve to death. We just wanted to give the spirits a goal to strive for, so they wouldn't be idle all day and cause trouble everywhere.

The four secret techniques of restraint, interrogation, and torture have been widely disseminated, and then it's a competition to see who can master them best.

The Venerable One reminded him, "However, you need to refine more Soul Banners regarding the Yin soldiers under the City God's command. The Yin spirits in Fengdu City cannot move around freely right now and need the protection of the Soul Banners."

Chen Ye nodded. His original idea was to have each city god build a temple so that the wandering souls could have a place to stay and enjoy incense offerings.

Unfortunately, most people in the northern frontier were homeless and unable to build city god temples, so the city god had to migrate with the tribe.

The ghost soldiers under the City God's command need a place to stay, so the only option is the Ten Thousand Souls Banner.

Not only the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, but Chen Ye also needed to devise a means of long-distance communication. He couldn't very well have the City God come to Fengdu with the banner to complain every time he encountered trouble; that would be far too inconvenient.

The Lord was well prepared for this.

The Nirvana Sect was the most extravagant in its practice of bestowing incense offerings. Their method of deifying gods could seal all ancestral spirits into Buddhist pagodas, with clear hierarchical distinctions.

Following Chen Ye's instructions, the Venerable Lord also established a City God Pavilion in the Yellow Springs Palace, enshrining each City God there, who could manifest at any time through incense and the power of their vows.

Chen Ye can also communicate with each ancestral spirit through this City God Pavilion and keep abreast of the situation of various tribes in the Northern Frontier.

Only in this way can the City God become a deity who protects the local area, rather than a ignorant and wicked god who only turns his people into beasts of burden.

However, most ancestral spirits lack intelligence and possess only instincts.

Chen Ye also needs the help of the ancestral spirits of the White Bone Clan to make the other ancestral spirits understand what the duties of the City God are and what rules need to be followed on a daily basis.

All of this requires a lot of time to arrange, which is why Chen Ye wanted to schedule the opening ceremony several months later.

When Fengdu City was first built, it was impossible for visitors to see a group of ancestral spirits who could only howl; that would make it look like a demonic sect.

The practice of offering incense originated from the Nirvana School, yet it has been made so unsightly that it is easily subject to criticism.

The Venerable Lord was very satisfied with what he heard. Chen Ye truly wanted to pass on the Yellow Springs Sect, rather than being forced to be a puppet sect leader. This made the cooperation between the two sides even more pleasant.

After discussing the arrangements for the City God for quite some time, the Venerable One brought up another matter: "How should your master be arranged? Have you already convinced him?"

Chen Ye nodded. After talking with Mo Ci last time, this stubborn old man seemed to have come to his senses. He stopped telling him to die all the time and started to cultivate on his own initiative.

The "Collection of the True Practices of Blessed Ones" that he couldn't learn before has actually yielded some results in the past few days of re-cultivation. Although he couldn't completely get rid of the five poisons, it has calmed Mo Ci's mind a lot, and the pain during his torture has been greatly reduced.

In this way, Mo Ci can use the power of incense to repair the defects in his soul.

Chen Ye said, "I will leave the position of Day-Roaming God to my master." The Venerable One asked in confusion, "Day-Roaming God, is that the position of patrolling? You really are a good disciple who betrays his master and ancestors. I thought you would at least leave him a position as one of the Ten Kings of Hell."

In the Investiture of the Gods chart set by Chen Ye, the highest rank is the Ten Kings of Hell, followed by the Judges, then the Black and White Impermanence, and then the next level down are the Day Wanderer God, Night Wanderer God, and other underworld generals.

The Lord always thought that the position of the Ten Kings of Hell was reserved for someone as close as Mo Ci, but who would have thought that Chen Ye would send Mo Ci to the daily procession of gods, which was several ranks below him.

Chen Ye shook his head and said, "Master is not suited to be the King of Hell."

Once the cycle of reincarnation is truly established, the responsibilities of Yama will be too heavy. Mo Ci can't even distinguish his own sins; how can someone with such an indecisive nature be Yama? When he misjudges good and evil, will Chen Ye punish him or not?

So being a wandering deity is fine; his daily duties are simply leading his ghostly soldiers around. When he's busy, he doesn't have to think about anything else. Besides, nowadays, let alone Yama, no one is even qualified to be a judge or an impermanent figure. The so-called reincarnation is not even a prototype; at most, it's just providing a place for the dead souls to rest.

However, Chen Ye was not in a hurry. Things had to be done one by one, and cultivation had to be done step by step.

After carefully discussing Mo Ci's deification process with the Venerable Master, it was decided that the ceremony would be held when the sect was founded, allowing everyone to witness Mo Ci's ascension to godhood through incense offerings. Only by completing Mo Ci's deification in full view of everyone could the Huangquan Sect's lineage be recognized, preventing the five major sects from finding fault with it later.

As for how to avoid looking similar to the Nirvana School, that's something for the Venerable One to figure out. This senior is very knowledgeable and will surely be able to do it perfectly.

The Venerable One asked in confusion, "You've been dumping everything on me, so you've been completely hands-off for the past few months? And you still want to continue cultivating your Eighteen Levels of Hell Divine Power?"

Chen Ye shook his head and said, "Haste makes waste. I haven't even fully mastered the second level of the Bronze Bell Hell yet. Further cultivation will only backfire."

The Eighteen Levels of Hell is a profound and mysterious power, not merely powerful, but also possessing many untapped applications. Having reached the Profound Realm after more than a year of cultivation, Chen Ye felt that now was not the time for reckless advancement, but rather to calmly lay a solid foundation.

Anyway, if he wants to break through to the Nascent Soul stage, he still has to wait until the Yellow Springs Sect's Investiture of the Gods diagram is mostly filled. Chen Ye isn't in a hurry now, so he might as well take some time to settle down.

However, Chen Ye wasn't really going to just sit back and do nothing; he still had a crucial problem to solve.

This is the daily entertainment of the wandering spirits.

We cannot truly treat the hundreds of thousands of ghosts as slaves, nor can we let them be idle, otherwise they will cause all sorts of trouble.

Chen Ye tried teaching them how to play mahjong. This game has stood the test of time; once you get hooked, you're guaranteed to play until you're completely exhausted and never run off again.

After a small-scale promotion, the game became quite popular, especially among the ghosts who had followed Chen Ye the longest, such as Yang Chongguang. Almost everyone became addicted and had a great time playing it.

Chen Ye then promoted various card and board games. These games, which have a gambling element, are most likely to excite people, especially since the spirits have long lost their desire for food and drink, and can only feel the thrill of playing like this.

But a few days later, Chen Ye encountered another problem.

The mahjong set I made broke after only two days of playing with it.

It's not that the mahjong tiles are of poor quality, but rather that the death energy emanating from the spirits corrodes objects that lack spiritual energy.

Mahjong tiles carved from bamboo or wood will rot quickly, and even those made of stone will turn black and ugly, covered in filth.

The dead cannot use things from the mortal world. If it weren't for the protective array in Fengdu City, the city would probably have been corroded into ruins by the death energy of 100,000 Yin spirits long ago.

Chen Ye must solve this problem, otherwise this underworld will just be a wasteland with wandering ghosts, ultimately living up to its name.

Since spirits cannot use objects from the mortal world, we must find a way to create things that spirits can use.

Since there is no reincarnation in this world, there is naturally no underworld, so Chen Ye had no way to find the answer in the ancient books. When he asked the Venerable Lord, he was also puzzled: "A large number of Yin spirits can corrupt things in the mortal world? This is the first time I've heard of such a thing."

Previously, only the Demonic Sect would manipulate the spirits, and they were all used as slaves. Who would care what entertainment the spirits had on a daily basis? It was good enough if they weren't tortured every day.

Naturally, no one figured out what could allow a wandering spirit to use it for a long time.

This is something Chen Ye can only figure out on his own.

Fortunately, Chen Ye wasn't without direction. Didn't they always burn paper money to commemorate the dead in their past lives?

I heard that the amount of ghost money has changed from trillions to unlimited, and there are also paper replicas of houses, cars, gold watches, and all kinds of other items available.

We're not sure if our ancestors received this in our past lives, but now we can certainly look into it.

(End of this chapter)