"You claim the town mayor knows about this. Would you dare come with us to see him?" Li Haoran did not believe a word of their nonsense, hoping to catch a flicker of panic on their faces.
Unfortunately, there was none.
The four humans and three ghosts waited in the dilapidated temple through the night. At the break of dawn, as the soft halo of the moon faded and gave way to the rising sun, they set out for the town mayor's residence.
Guhuai Town was renowned for its locust trees, which could be seen everywhere, all ancient and weathered. The thickest among them was so massive that even three Lu Yangs could not wrap their arms around its trunk. The female ghost in white, who introduced herself as Xiao Qi, said this ancient locust tree was over a thousand years old—older than Guhuai Town itself.
Locust trees were of yin nature, casting a shadowy, overcast atmosphere over the entire town. It was pleasantly cool, making it a fine retreat from the summer heat.
Among all the towns Lu Yang had visited, Guhuai Town was considered the largest.
Furthermore, Guhuai Town was thriving, poised to expand even further in the future.
After they stated their identities to the yamen guards, the town mayor soon came out to welcome them. Plump and genial, he wore an amiable smile no matter whom he met.
"I never imagined Daoist masters from the Dao Seeking Sect would grace our humble town! Forgive me for failing to welcome you properly, forgive me!" The town mayor apologized the moment they met, adopting an exceedingly humble posture.
Lu Yang noticed that the mayor had a cultivation base of late Foundation Establishment.
Noticing the three female ghosts trailing behind the four, the mayor's expression flickered slightly, but he composed himself at once and said politely, "My surname is Fan, and my given name is Fan Guiren. Everyone may just call me Xiao Fan."
"Please come inside, all four of you."
"Mayor Fan is too courteous." Lu Yang took a sip of the tea Mayor Fan poured and nodded slightly. Well, he couldn't tell what kind of tea it was.
"Mayor Fan probably already knows why we're here. We would like to understand the story behind these three female ghosts."
"As expected, alas." Mayor Fan looked dejected. Truth be told, he really did not want to speak of this matter, but with people from the Dao Seeking Sect asking, he had no choice.
"Does Mayor Fan know that these three female ghosts have been absorbing men's yang energy?" Lu Yang cut straight to the chase.
"I do. Back then, a traveler reported to me that female ghosts in the ruined temple outside town were absorbing yang energy. When I heard about it, I thought this was outrageous, so I immediately led men over to investigate."
"Only when I arrived at the temple did I realize that Xiao Qi and the other two were not malicious ghosts who drained a person's yang energy dry in one go, but good ghosts with no intention of harming anyone."
"Back then, Guhuai Town was not nearly as bustling as it is today. I wanted to develop the tourism industry and increase the town's revenue, but relying solely on a bunch of locust trees wasn't enough to attract visitors."
"Then I thought of the female ghosts. Worried that trouble might arise, I made a point to check the legal statutes. I discovered that the law strictly forbids female ghosts from absorbing yang energy to the point of causing harm or disrupting ordinary life, but it doesn't completely prohibit them from absorbing yang energy at all."
"Female ghosts absorbing yang energy does not count as soliciting prostitution, which means travelers don't even have to pay a single copper."
"Furthermore, the tax code says nothing about ghosts paying taxes on yang energy."
"After weighing the pros and cons repeatedly, I decided to use female ghosts as a gimmick to promote Guhuai Town. And wouldn't you know it, the results were remarkably good! Many travelers came looking for romantic encounters, and the town's income grew visibly. With local finances thriving, the commandery rewarded me, and having plenty of resources at hand, I smoothly cultivated all the way to late Foundation Establishment."
"Originally, the commandery had intentions of promoting me. But being town mayor here gives me good food, fine drink, and spirit stones to spare—far better than playing underling at the commandery—so I declined."
"Even if I do accept a promotion to the commandery, it will only be after I reach the Golden Core stage." Mayor Fan possessed a very clear plan for his political career.
The three female ghosts nodded vigorously upon hearing this, asserting that they were innocent, good ghosts.
"Wait, if this was such a good thing, who asked our sect for help claiming there were female ghosts here in the first place?" Meng Jingzhou asked in bewilderment.
This mission had not been discovered by the sect itself; someone had reported it to the Dao Seeking Sect.
A competitor?
Did this industry even have competitors?
Mayor Fan was equally surprised. He had assumed Lu Yang and the others were merely passing by, noticed the female ghosts, and stepped in to slay demons as a matter of course.
How could someone have reported it?
"Does Mayor Fan have any clue?"
"Not yet... By the way, may I ask what the mission description says?"
"It says that female ghosts in Guhuai Town have been absorbing people's yang energy, leaving scholars drained of energy and listless."
Mayor Fan's expression turned bizarre.
"Mayor Fan knows what happened?"
Mayor Fan nodded. "Scholar Zhou has a son whom everyone calls Xiao Zhou. Xiao Zhou's academic abilities are quite mediocre, and he has failed the examination for the xiucai degree several times."
"Yet Xiao Zhou's mother is convinced it's because he constantly visits the female ghosts—that they've distracted him, drained his energy, and made him neglect his studies."
"Xiao Zhou's mother came to me demanding that I punish the ghosts. But Xiao Zhou's lack of talent is obvious to everyone; he's playful by nature and simply can't absorb his studies. It has nothing to do with the female ghosts whatsoever."
"I assumed she was just throwing a tantrum and ignored her. After she left, several other parents also blamed their children's failure to pass the examinations on the female ghosts, but I dismissed them all."
"Who would have thought they wouldn't let it go and actually took the matter straight to the Dao Seeking Sect?"
Mayor Fan sighed. "In truth, Xiao Qi and the other two have already tried their absolute best."
Xiao Qi, the female ghost in white, chimed in, "The three of us were terrified this would blow up and expose our existence to the righteous sects. So we gathered all the struggling scholars in town at the temple and tutored them."
"In our past lives, all three of us came from scholarly families. Teaching them was well within our capabilities."
"If they studied well, there would be rewards; if they performed poorly, no rewards. Under this reward-and-punishment system, their academic progress advanced by leaps and bounds."
Lu Yang sized up the three female ghosts. Leaving aside the red-clad ghost whose lips were swollen like sausages for the moment...
The ghosts in white and green were both pretty, scantily clad, and possessed their own distinct charms. In a setting like that, those scholars could actually focus on studying?
Oh, right. If they didn't focus, there would be no reward.
"The scholars were quite willing to study this way as well. Take yesterday, for instance: despite a torrential downpour unseen in a decade, where day turned as dark as night, Xiao Zhou and the others braved the storm to hear our lectures. They studied until the storm passed, leaving the temple utterly exhausted in mind and body."
"Who knew that after working so hard, their parents would still report us?" Xiao Qi felt that life was fraught with hardship; being alive was not easy, but being dead wasn't easy either.
Lu Yang summarized, "So during the day, you run a private school and lecture students, and at night, you roam the town and visit inns to harvest yang energy?"
"That's right."
Lu Yang, Meng Jingzhou, and Li Haoran felt thoroughly ashamed upon hearing this. These female ghosts were far more hardworking than the three of them.
Qin Yanyan clicked her tongue in amazement. Were ghosts really like this?
Xiao Qi continued, "Not only that, but seventy percent of the yang energy we harvest has to be handed over; only thirty percent belongs to us."
"Hm? Handed over to whom?" Lu Yang was baffled. The imperial court certainly had no use for yang energy.
"To our superior. We all call him Lord Mi. Lord Mi even told us that there is a treasure left behind by the previous Cult Master in Guhuai Town and told us to keep an eye out for it."
Chapter 299