The Little Fox's Immortal Cultivation Encyclopedia

"What are you talking about? I'm just thinking of the fox spirit. The fox spirit wouldn't want to be controlled by some mountain god who just appeared out of nowhere, would it?" Su Yinchai said with a smile.

"Does that mean the mountain god will also be subject to human control?" The fox keenly noticed the clue.

Su Yinchai patiently explained, "Fox Immortal, you may not know this, but the Mountain God is different from the City God. He is only responsible for governing a small area of ​​mountains and managing some mountain spirits. Moreover, unlike the City God, he does not need to write any records of merits and demerits or monthly reports of good and evil. He has fewer constraints but greater power."

He paused for a moment, then added, "Moreover, if you join the palace, you will be a god with status, a registered deity of Mount Tai. If any foolish intruders dare to attack, the fox spirit won't even need to take action personally; you can simply submit a document, and the relevant departments will naturally send people to assist you."

The fox imagined a scene where, at the fox's command, ten thousand Su Yin messengers would emerge from behind and swarm forward to punch and kick the incense master, and it felt somewhat tempted.

"Are you sure I don't need to do anything?"

"It's absolutely true. The mountain god only needs to protect the peace of the area and quell disasters within the scope of his power. Isn't the fox spirit already doing this? What difference does having another identity make? The fox spirit is still the same free and unrestrained fox spirit." Su Yinchai's expression was sincere, almost as if he were swearing an oath to the lord of the city.

"Alright, when will the City God of Tao County arrive?"

Su Yin choked for a moment, then truthfully replied, "I won't be coming for the time being."

"..."

"..."

"The fox will bite you to death!"

"You little fox, why are you so clever!"

Su Yincha laughed and skipped over the subject: "The palace is currently reorganizing the divine positions in various places. The vacant positions of City God, Mountain God, and Earth God need to be filled as soon as possible. This is a last resort for me. If the fox spirit really doesn't want to join the palace, I won't force her, but registration is still unavoidable. I will have to bother you a lot in the future."

"Hehe." The fox responded with a forced smile, a thought suddenly arising in his mind.

"Tell me, what are the requirements to become a mountain god? According to your logic, even a fox spirit can become one?"

"Hey, is the fox spirit agreeing?" Su Yinchai didn't expect such a twist of fate and hurriedly replied, "The Lord of the Underworld has decreed that if spirits and monsters in the mountains and forests can do good deeds and protect the people, accumulating merit, they can be removed from the list of demons and enter the list of gods, becoming a mountain god."

"What are the specific procedures?"

"First, the local City God or Mountain God should submit a letter of recommendation, but since Tao County has neither City God nor Mountain God, this step can be skipped. I only need to vouch for the fox spirit, write down the fox spirit's specific situation, and send it to the Gouyuan Division for them to handle and endorse. Finally, the file will be submitted to the Pingdeng Division for review. Once the review is approved, it will be officially registered."

The fox nodded: "What about the City God?"

"A fox spirit wants to become the City God? That's a bit troublesome. Nowadays, most City Gods are loyal ministers and martyrs who became gods after death because of their uprightness in life. Or, they are assessed based on their official abilities and moral character before they can become City Gods."

"Does it have to be people dying?"

"It must be someone who is already dead."

The fox felt a pang of regret. If only a living person could be the one to become the City God, he could simply let Magistrate Zhang become the City God. After all, his daily work wasn't necessarily easier than that of the City God, and the fox could then be a carefree mountain god.

Seeing the fox remain silent, Su Yinchai pressed, "What does the fox spirit think?"

The fox spoke up: "Let me think about it."

"Let the fox consider how many spirits he has here," the fox pondered to himself.

The only dead person the fox knew was Shen Erlang, and the fox didn't think he was fit to be the City God. Since the appointment of the City God was impossible, and this path was blocked, the fox planned to find another way.

The fox began to mentally call out each name.

The queen bee is a good candidate, but she is busy managing the entire bee kingdom, and for some reason, she opened a shop in the city. Now she helps the fox every day, so the fox is embarrassed to bother her anymore.

Da Liu is a simple-minded fellow, good for clumsy work, but whether he can do a good job as a mountain god is another matter, and he might even get bullied by other spirits. It's better for the fox to do it himself, saving the trouble of teaching him.

In that case, only shrews remain.

The fox tried hard to recall what the shrews were doing right now.

Since their last exploration of the underground Yin energy, they've gathered a huge group of henchmen, claiming they want to be some kind of great general. According to the Bee Queen, these guys are going to the granaries of various wealthy merchants every day to catch new rats to be their underlings, and recently their ranks have grown so large that they're almost half of the Bee Kingdom.

Hmm, that means he's capable of managing things.

The fox was considering the requirements of virtue. The shrew woman had heard somewhere that there was a saying: Heaven has its way, man has his way, snakes have their way, and rats have their way. So she decided to dig an underground tunnel from Tao County to Qingling. To achieve this goal, she had already sent all the rats in the city to dig burrows in the wild.

Well, making the rats that steal grain do manual labor reduces human losses and eliminates potential rat infestations. It's reasonable to have a statue of the shrew erected for it, isn't it?

Does this count as doing good deeds and protecting the people, thus accumulating merit?

The fox was scheming to dabble in the tiger's skin without doing any work.

Unaware of the fox's ulterior motives, Su Yinchai glanced at the sky and said, "Why don't you take your time to consider this, Fox Immortal? Let's deal with that old man in white first?"

"it is good."

……

Pingkangfang, an inn.

He Ying pushed open the door, walked straight to the table, placed her sword on it, poured herself a cup of tea, and gulped it down in one go.

"Wow, I'm exhausted."

As she spoke, she picked up the teapot and poured tea for Lu Zhi and Shen Guan, who came in later.

Shen Guan walked to the window, opened it a crack to peek out, and then closed it again.

Lu Zhi also came to the table: "What have you gained today?"

"Don't even mention it. I've been investigating and found quite a few people who looked similar, but unfortunately, none of them are the case. However, I do have a few suspects. But I've searched three times and still haven't managed to catch them."

Shen Guan sat down opposite Lu Zhi: "I asked around and someone said they saw him in the north of the city, wearing a blue cloth shirt, and his back wasn't hunched. But that was three days ago."

Lu Zhi nodded and reached for the teacup. His movements suddenly froze as his gaze fell on the edge of the tea tray, where an envelope was pressed down, its corner peeking out and barely noticeable unless one looked closely.

"This is..." He Ying followed his gaze, paused for a moment, then immediately grabbed her sword and got up to survey the room. After looking around, she opened the window again, leaned out, and scanned the room from top to bottom.

"Nobody's here."

Lu Zhi gently moved the tea tray aside by an inch, took out the letter, brought it close to his nose to smell it, then held it up to the light, and finally used his fingernail to pick at the seal.

It has no interlayer, carries a floral fragrance, and is light and elegant.

He took out the letter, looked at it carefully, and then handed it to the two of them.

The three looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Let's go."

"Could it be a trap?"

You'll find out when you get there.