Chapter One: The Recorder of the Investiture of the Gods

My name is Xu Xiaoqian, a minor web novelist who has long been stationed in the online fiction world but repeatedly left stories unfinished, often earning scorn from readers who mockingly call me “Eunuch Xu, the Ninth Level Master of the Sunflower Manual.”

As a perennial eunuch in the realm of online writing, I have vowed to create a novel so extraordinary it shakes heaven and earth, moves gods and ghosts.

Today marks the moment to change my destiny, all thanks to my dear friend Yang Yue. Her profession is rather unconventional—she practices feng shui and fortune-telling. I’ve heard countless wondrous tales from her line of work. This time, she is introducing me to someone whose story will utterly transform, even overturn, my entire worldview.

On the eve of meeting this person, I was so excited that I barely slept, tossing and turning as I imagined finally redeeming myself online, proudly proclaiming to others that I am not some mere eunuch in charge of the inner palace.

The next day, Yang Yue led me to Room 717 on the seventh floor of a hotel. After knocking on the door, she ushered me inside. My heart pounded with anticipation and nervousness as I finally came face to face with the man.

He sported a neat, close-cropped haircut and wore a plain white shirt. His height, build, and features were utterly ordinary—no matter how you looked at him, he was just an average man.

My radiant smile froze instantly. Could such an unremarkable man truly have a captivating story worthy of inspiring my novel?

Yang Yue introduced him as Xing Zhengang, asking me to call him Teacher Xing. He was in his thirties and ran this very temple. She often came here for spiritual healing.

Yang Yue was several years older than me but had always suffered from poor health. She explained that her condition was due to an excess of spiritual energy, making her susceptible to possession by external malevolent forces—what she called “deficiency illnesses,” also known as “evil maladies.”

These external evils attach themselves to a person’s body to siphon off spiritual energy, causing discomfort and illness in affected areas. Over time, what begins as a deficiency turns into a real disease. Hospitals can treat the symptoms, but not the root cause. To completely eradicate the illness, one must combine medical treatment with spiritual practice, seeking help from someone like Teacher Xing, who possesses the proper cultivation.

Yang Yue had no choice but to enter this field, having undergone more than three major surgeries, with ailments beyond the reach of conventional medicine.

Indeed, Yang Yue was no ordinary mortal; she had descended from the heavens—a fact I had long suspected.

She brought me here today because she believed I was not entirely ordinary either.

The temple required visitors to wash their hands before offering incense. As a newcomer unfamiliar with these rituals, I was guided by Teacher Xing on how to proceed.

The temple housed seven statues: on the top tier stood the Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother of the West; below, from left to right, were the True Martial Emperor, the Supreme Elder Lord, the Old Mother of Mount Li, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, and the Saintly Emperor Guan.

Before the statues were three oil lamps symbolizing heaven, earth, and humanity.

Unlike Buddhist incense offerings, Taoist ritual begins by placing three incense sticks horizontally on the palm, raising them above the head, and bowing thrice to the statues. Then, holding the base of the incense with the right hand and the tips with the left, the tips are lit from below. The incense is held high at the forehead while bowing another three times.

One incense stick is placed in the center of the burner—this is the Heaven incense. The second goes to the left, representing Earth incense, and the third to the right, symbolizing Humanity incense.

Finally, one kneels on the cushion and performs three kowtows followed by nine bows, marking the completion of the ritual.

I clumsily followed the procedure, then sipped the tea brewed before me. My eyes brightened—the tea leaves were ordinary, but the water’s taste was excellent.

Curious, I asked Teacher Xing about the tea. He told me, “This is Guanyin’s divine water, bestowed by Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva.”

He recounted an occasion when the hotel owner invited him for tea in her office. There, he noticed a statue of Guanyin that hadn’t been worshipped for over twenty years. Suddenly, the statue spoke, asking Teacher Xing to bring it to the temple for veneration.

Teacher Xing requested the owner’s permission to take the statue, which she granted. That very night, in a dream, he saw the South Sea Guanyin seated on a lotus throne, raising a hand to present him with a blue porcelain bottle, which contained an inexhaustible supply of healing and restorative divine water.

I noticed that the ash from the three incense sticks formed a symbolic bridge: the Heaven incense’s ash curved to connect with Yang Yue’s incense, the Earth incense’s ash bridged to the central incense, and the Humanity incense pointed toward Teacher Xing.

I couldn’t decipher its meaning, so Teacher Xing explained: the Heaven incense bridging to Yang Yue’s symbolized that she brought me here; the Earth incense connecting to the main incense indicated that my signal had been received—like a phone call answered; and the Humanity incense pointed to him because...

At this moment, Teacher Xing’s eyes clouded with confusion. After a pause, as if suddenly enlightened, he said, “… it’s you!”

“What?” I was baffled. What exactly was “me”?

Yang Yue understood immediately, her expression turning excited and incredulous. “Could it be that Xiaoqian is the one you mentioned before...?”

“Yes, it’s her,” Teacher Xing said, scrutinizing me with a trace of hesitation. “You don’t resemble anyone from the divine realm; I almost didn’t recognize you.”

It turned out that three months prior, Teacher Xing had received a divine sensation, revealing he would be assigned a disciple to serve as the recorder for this great investiture of gods.

Yes, the very investiture of gods.

Online, many cultivators discuss the new investiture and the new Jiang Ziya. In truth, this matter is genuine.

Long ago, the Heavenly Court decreed that when demons and humans reached a certain level of cultivation, they could be appointed as gods—like passing a civil service exam. This increased the number of gods, but demons, by nature, were demons. Those appointed without scrutiny of their character and morals soon turned the divine realm into chaos. Coupled with some gods’ own misdeeds, the realm fell into disarray.

Thus, the Jade Emperor decided to hold a grand investiture, sending many gods down to the mortal world to be examined and filtered. Only those with sound character and morals who completed their tasks could return to the divine realm for formal appointment. Those who failed would be stripped of their divinity and become mortals.

Hearing this, I took out a voice recorder I had prepared and placed it before him, urging him to continue.

Teacher Xing paused and began, “Let me first tell you about my background.”

Born into a poor rural family, his mother left when he was three, so he was raised by his grandmother. At fifteen, he set out to make a living, working in factories in Shanghai for two years, then as a chef in Xiamen, Fujian for three years. Finding no future, he turned to sales.

From twenty to twenty-five, his career flourished, and he felt fortune finally smiled upon him. But at twenty-five, while drinking tea at a friend’s villa in Nanning, Guangxi, he met two lay practitioners—one from Taiwan, another from Beijing. During their conversation, they suddenly offered to read his fortune and revealed that in a past life during the Tang Dynasty, he was a grand marshal born carrying two swords on his back.

Later, they introduced him to Master Gao, daughter of the Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden. The temple only enshrined Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva and the Supreme Elder Lord’s portraits. Using a notebook, she recorded Teacher Xing’s birth details and asked Guanyin to reveal his origins. Guanyin disclosed he was a disciple of the Kunlun Mountain sect and the favored pupil of the Old Mother of Mount Li, tasked with judicial duties heavy with karmic retribution, currently trapped like a divine dragon.

Though he learned all this, Teacher Xing initially resisted this path, returning home to arrange a marriage. But fate was inexorable; bearing a divine mission, he could not turn away.

With the birth of his daughter, obstacles arose in his career, and conflicts with his wife worsened until they divorced.

After the divorce, he decided to move far away, arriving in City B at the invitation of Yang Yue’s master, Feng Huyuan.

When I asked when he began helping others with divinations, he replied that upon arriving in City B, he rented a room on the seventh floor of that old hotel. At that time, he was downhearted, feeling like a failure. One day, he decided to visit the nearby Li Mountain Temple to worship his master, the Old Mother of Mount Li, guided by Feng Huyuan’s suggestion.

Not knowing the exact location, he followed GPS in a secondhand van. That day was the ninth day of the first lunar month, the Jade Emperor’s birthday.

After paying respects inside the Jade Emperor’s hall, the moment he stepped out, he saw the Jade Emperor standing outside, wearing a crown and a dark golden dragon robe, stepping on cloud shoes, dignified and majestic.

Teacher Xing was stunned. The Jade Emperor raised his right hand, and a bright yellow imperial edict floated before him. Instinctively, he reached out and took it.

Opening the edict, the first line read: “Exorcise demons, uphold righteousness, maintain order among the three realms—the heavens, the mortal world, and the underworld—with justice and judicial duty.”

Looking up, Teacher Xing saw the Jade Emperor vanish. Simultaneously, a flurry of magical tools, command flags, and seals descended from the sky.

In that instant, Teacher Xing attained the Way. Afterward, he established this temple and began offering divinations.

I clicked my tongue in admiration and asked, “So, who was the first person you helped?”

Teacher Xing gestured with his chin toward Yang Yue beside me. “This very woman sitting next to you.”

Today, Yang Yue wore a khaki short jacket paired with a fitted long skirt. Her gently curled hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her bright eyes and delicate, fair face were strikingly beautiful. Upon hearing Teacher Xing’s words, she smiled with captivating grace.

Yang Yue had been brought here by her master, Feng Huyuan. Teacher Xing had long recognized Feng’s true identity—that of Zhu Bajie, the fallen marshal from Journey to the West.

As for Yang Yue’s true form, she was a golden phoenix, daughter of the Jade Emperor, disciple of the Infinite Old Mother, and, of course, Teacher Xing’s divine wife.

Thus unfolded the beginning of my journey into a world far beyond ordinary imagination.