nownovels Chapter 86 New Buildings
Chapter 86 New Buildings
Chi Le stood in front of the main hall.
The mist slowly swirled around his face, obscuring his expression, but giving an impression of calm and peace.
He quietly gazed at the grand and solemn scene before him, a tapestry woven from a sea of people, banners, and incense.
The crowd bowed low like waves of wheat.
Offerings were piled up like mountains on the incense table.
The banners whistled continuously in the mountain wind, like the beating of drums.
To be honest, Chi Le is still not used to standing in front of people and being worshipped like this.
But the crowd possessed an immense power born from reverence and gratitude.
It felt like a heavy, overweight hand pressing down on his heart.
He seemed to sense the villagers' silent expression of their most simple and devout faith and prayers for Qingshan Temple and for his mysterious abbot.
This made Chi Le feel...
He should be standing here right now, responding to the crowd.
So he said.
"rise."
Zhao Zhu's loud voice rang out.
"rise!"
The crowd surged, and everyone looked up.
Chi Le felt countless eyes on him.
Passion, reverence, piety, gratitude...
Everyone was watching the abbot who had given them lamp oil, enabling them to survive in the eerie fog.
"Offer incense."
This was said by the temple keeper, Chen Cheng.
It's not about having crowds bow down and hold up incense sticks again.
Instead, they were asked to put the incense sticks in their hands into the incense burner.
Chen Cheng's voice wasn't loud, so Zhao Zhu repeated it again.
"Offer incense."
A deep, resonant male voice echoed in every corner of Qingshan Temple.
The crowd moved in an orderly fashion, one person after another, inserting the incense sticks in their hands into the incense burner outside the main hall.
During this time, Chi Le's panel kept sending him message notifications.
Chi Le didn't check; he just watched as one person after another inserted incense sticks into the incense burner.
This process lasted a long time.
The weather is great today, the sun is shining brightly.
No one spoke or complained.
Everyone silently wiped their sweat, waiting for the incense to be completely burned into the incense burner, and the ceremony was completed.
Finally, after the last person inserted the incense into the incense burner.
The ceremony came to an end.
"Thank you!"
Zhao Zhu shouted.
After everyone bowed to the pool.
The crowd spontaneously formed a long queue, waiting to receive the lamp oil.
Once the lamp oil has been collected, the ceremony can be declared over.
"Let's all divide these offerings among ourselves."
Chen Cheng spoke up.
Zhao Zhu looked at Chen Cheng with a puzzled expression.
This practice was not done in previous ceremonies!
Noticing Zhao Zhu's confusion, Chen Cheng added a sentence.
"This is the abbot's request."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Zhu nodded.
He then arranged for the messenger to distribute offerings to everyone present.
The lamp oil that had been prepared beforehand was also distributed to everyone at this time.
"This has been imbued with divine energy; I'll take it home and treat it with great care."
"Absolutely! Absolutely!"
"..."
The villagers, carrying their offerings and lamp oil, happily returned home, only beginning to converse once they had left the mountain gate.
The offerings were distributed, and the lamp oil was emptied.
Zhao Zhu began to arrange for people to dismantle the site setup.
It didn't take long for the entire Qingshan Temple to return to its former appearance.
After bowing to Chi Le, Zhao Zhu also left Qingshan Temple.
Qingshan Temple returned to its deserted state, as if nothing had happened.
Qingshan Temple, main hall.
Chi Le sat in a chair.
He felt a little strange.
This forced him to try to think about other things to alleviate the feeling that something was wrong.
His first thought was to sell the intelligence information of Qingshan Temple.
"I have to write the report once I've acquired superhuman abilities, otherwise it'll be hard to explain myself."
Chi Le's thoughts began to wander as she lightly tapped the armrest.
"And Li Zong, this acting patrol member, if he can write a report about what he did to Gui Shi and submit it, I wonder what kind of reward he will receive."
"I even received a few thousand yuan as a reward for helping Yu Xun catch the pickpocket gang last time."
"This is only related to people who commit crimes using superpowers."
"If they catch Ray Lui and that woman directly, there will definitely be more."
"Oh, right, there's also the matter of the bronze mirror."
"Zhong Shancheng must have been busy reporting to the Special Affairs Bureau, which is why he missed this afternoon's schedule."
"It's not a bad thing for me, although the Special Affairs Bureau will pay more attention to me."
"But they only increased their attention to my talent as a spiritual master; Qingshan Temple remains unaffected."
"With this attention, I might be able to get more resources allocated to me and quickly improve my strength."
"The Special Affairs Bureau still has too few capable people."
After observing the Special Affairs Bureau for the past few days, Chi Le also knew.
The Jiangcheng Special Investigation Bureau is currently facing a severe shortage of manpower.
The incident of the mysterious fog invading Changxing Street exemplifies this.
This means that the Jiangcheng Special Task Force will increase its investment in cultivating new talent.
This training camp is one of the attempts.
As the events unfolded one by one, Chi Le gradually sorted out her thoughts.
To quickly acquire extraordinary abilities and leverage the Special Affairs Bureau platform to rapidly enhance one's capabilities.
At the same time, the development of Qingshan Temple must not stop!
The construction of the new building, the shrine.
There is also the promotion of Qingshan Temple to the third level.
The Taoist temple was upgraded, its territory expanded, and its sanctuary grew.
These should all be put on the agenda...
"It finally calmed down..."
The scene from earlier began to replay in Chi Le's mind.
He first glanced at the statues of gods and immortals in the main hall.
He remained seated there.
Shift your gaze slightly downwards.
The once empty offering table now has some neatly arranged dried fruits.
It must have been after Zhao Zhu gave it to Chen Cheng.
She placed it on the offering table as an offering to the statues of gods and immortals.
He then looked at the open space outside the door, which had been restored to its original state.
Finally, he closed his eyes.
The scene from before flashed before my eyes again.
Chi Le said softly.
"Incense offerings."
In the beginning, Chi Le only regarded incense offerings as a resource.
An indispensable resource for the operation and development of Qingshan Temple.
A resource that can be obtained from the native inhabitants of the Mysterious World, or by sheltering the daytime returnees of the present world.
Incense offerings are simply a quantifiable resource that can be acquired through predetermined steps.
Resources are just resources; nothing else is involved.
But now, Chi Le suddenly felt...
Incense offerings represent more than just the resources necessary for the development of Qingshan Temple.
It also represents the deepest aspirations of the indigenous people of the strange world.
Snapped!
Chi Le patted her face with both hands and rubbed it a few times.
"Stop thinking about it, let's see how much incense offering we've received..."
With a thought, the panel appeared before my eyes.
[Received devout worship from Zhao Zhu, incense offering +3!]
[Received devout worship from Zhao Lin, incense offering +2!]
[Received a devout prayer from Li Mu, incense offering +1!]
[Received from...]
Total incense offerings received: 213!
[For the first time, receiving incense offerings from 100 people simultaneously grants an additional building: Right Side Hall.]
"Um?"
Looking at the prompts on the panel, Chi Le was somewhat surprised.
"Besides receiving incense, did distributing lamp oil this time also unlock a new building?"