Inheriting a Taoist temple, the story begins with Wu Zetian offering incense.

Chapter 110 The Association is full of ruthless thugs? What a coincidence, me too! [Requesting monthly votes]

Early in the morning, Zhou Yi woke up to the sounds of insects and birds. He got dressed, washed up, went to the kitchen, started cooking millet porridge, and then went to the entrance of the Sanqing Hall to practice his breathing exercises.

Wu Zetian carried a basket and wandered through the vegetable garden, picking a lot of green beans, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and other vegetables. She also dug out an old pumpkin that was more than half a meter long from the weeds in the corner of the wall. Its skin was yellow and it looked sweet.

After breakfast, Zhou Yi sent a message to Hu Lijun, asking him to call him back when he woke up. Then he rode his motorcycle down the mountain to assess the feng shui of a house site for a family in the next village.

In the past two years, with the real estate market in a slump, a trend of building villas in rural hometowns has quietly emerged.

In the city, you can buy a small apartment for over a million yuan. If the price fluctuates even slightly, half a year's salary will be wiped out.

Relatively speaking, building a small house in your rural hometown is not only less expensive, but you also own the land. Most importantly, there are many styles of villas to choose from. You can buy a trendy villa blueprint online for just a few hundred yuan, and it's no longer the monotonous, rustic style of the past.

After examining the land plot and the blueprints the client had purchased online, Zhou Yi offered some suggestions:
"Don't leave a back door, it'll let in the wind and bring bad luck. Change the curved outer wall to a right-angled straight wall. Our ancestors believed in the concept of a round heaven and a square earth, so the house must be square."

After more than an hour, Zhou Yi returned to Yunwu Town with a service fee of one thousand yuan.

However, instead of returning directly to Hunyuan Palace, he continued forward on his motorcycle, turned left at the fork in the road at the south end of the town, and followed the transport route for installing wind power equipment, arriving at a mountain ravine.

He pulled a pair of binoculars from his motorcycle tool bag and carefully observed the construction site below where bridge piers were being driven.

This is a section of the expressway within Xiuchuan County that is particularly difficult to construct. The expressway cuts diagonally through the mountain ravines, requiring the pouring of more than ten sets of bridge piers that are sixty or seventy meters high.

According to the requirements for bridge construction, the higher the above-ground part is, the deeper the underground part is. The foundation of the bridge piers in the mountain ravines is at least tens of meters deep.

With such deep foundation piles, if a person falls in, it's about the same as a leaf falling down.

After observing for a while and deducing the steps and procedures for driving the stake, Zhou Yi rode his motorcycle back to town. He first went to the courier point to pick up today's packages, and then asked the owner of the appliance store to help him get some digital walkie-talkies. He also bought two watermelons before returning to Hunyuan Palace with his load of goods.

At 10:30 a.m., Zhou Yi was sitting in the air-conditioned room teaching Wu Meiniang multiplication tables when Hu Lijun called:
"Master Zhou, I just woke up. That Golden Light Talisman is really powerful. I wasn't scared at all on the way back last night. I just feel a bit tired when I woke up today, like I didn't get enough sleep."

The Golden Light Talisman can stimulate the body's potential. After using it, fatigue will naturally occur, which is a normal phenomenon.

Zhou Yi didn't disturb Wu Meiniang's studies. He got up and went to the next room to ask about the details of Hu Lijun's family's trip to Yiyang City, focusing on whether they had gone to any particularly strange places or met any strange people.

Since the location of the "ghost wall" is unrelated to the provincial highway near Huowangzhuang, the only place to investigate is Hu Lijun's family.

Hu Lijun's voice was filled with confusion:

"We didn't go anywhere or see anyone. We just took the kids out to eat, drink, play, and wander around."

As he was speaking, Wang Fengzhi's voice came through the phone:
"When we were having lunch on the fourth floor of the Golden Sun Shopping Mall, my second child was being naughty. He followed someone into the elevator to the apartment building, walked around for a bit, but came down quickly... Does that count?"

Apartment building?
Zhou Yi recalled the layout of the Golden Sun Mall and understood.

The building has a total of 32 floors. The bottom five floors are a shopping mall, and the floors above the mall are apartment buildings for rent. The apartment elevators lead directly into the mall. Some unfamiliar customers take the elevators to the upper floor and may accidentally end up in the apartment building.

The Book of Changes asks:

"Did you go up?"

"No, I waited for Erbao at the elevator entrance. When he came out of the elevator, his hands were ice cold. I thought it was because of the drink, so I didn't pay attention."

Zhou Yi felt he had found the reason:
Is your second child nearby right now?

Hu Lijun said:
"Yes, Erbao, come over and say something to your Uncle Zhou. Just say whatever you want, don't be afraid. If I'm not busy this afternoon, I'll take you to Uncle Zhou's Taoist temple."

After much coaxing, Hu Lijun finally got his second child to answer the phone.

The Book of Changes asks:

"Little friend, do you remember which floor you went to in the elevator?"

The little guy's voice sounded timid:

"I wanted to go to the fifth floor, but when the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor, there were too many people and I couldn't get out, so I went all the way to the eighteenth floor. It was pitch black outside the elevator, and when I went out to take a look, I felt a chill all over my body, so I quickly got back into the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor to go down."

The 18th floor... I'll go to the city to take a look tomorrow.

The apartment buildings in the city are very chaotic, with dance classes, beauty salons, tutoring classes, feng shui classes, barbershops, foot massage parlors... all kinds of businesses are there, making it a real mixed bag.

As the saying goes, true hermits live in the city; if someone were to do something shady in an apartment, it would certainly be a good choice.

After talking with the little guy, Hu Lijun said:

"I want to go to the Taoist temple this afternoon and get a peace amulet for each member of my family. No matter how much money we make, nothing is better than our family being safe and sound."

Zhou Yi naturally welcomed this kind of business that came knocking on his door with open arms:

“Sure, no problem… By the way, Mr. Hu, I’d like to buy some antimalarial medication. I need a large quantity. Do you have any connections for that?” Yesterday, he tried buying the medication online but found that antimalarial drugs are prescription drugs. He not only had to communicate with a doctor online but also couldn’t buy them in bulk.

Since online shopping isn't working, let's try offline channels.

Hu Lijun said with a smile:

“You’ve come to the right person. My wife is the manager of Zhang Zhongjing Pharmacy in our county. You can buy most medicines there.”

These words delighted Zhou Yi:
"How about this, you don't need to pay for the peace tokens for your whole family; you can exchange them for antimalarial drugs, how about that?"

Wang Fengzhi readily agreed.

"Okay, we'll take the medicine to the Taoist temple this afternoon."

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Yi felt he had accomplished a major task. With the help of the pharmacy manager, it would be much more convenient to buy medicine in the future. However, the most important thing was to find a way to improve the medical level in the ancient world and help them become self-reliant as much as possible.

During lunch, Zhou Yi announced that he had found a large supply of antimalarial drugs. Wu Zetian was delighted, but more than the drugs themselves, she was curious about the principles of pharmacology.

"Master, do you have any books on medicine making? I would like to buy them so that the physicians of the Imperial Medical Academy can conduct research on them."

The Book of Changes says:

"There should be tons of information online. I'll pick some out and let them know that malaria is not an incurable disease, regardless of whether they can understand it or not."

Wu Meiniang originally planned to stay at Hunyuan Palace for a while longer to obtain Yunwu Town residency as soon as possible, but she didn't expect to have to go back to deliver medicine. If she wanted to come back again, she would have to wait another five days.

Zhou Yi, unsure when Xie Yukun would arrive, said to Wu Meiniang:
"Don't leave during this time. It's not too late to go back after the opening ceremony of the pickle factory and the consecration ceremony of the Sanlizhuang Land Temple are completed. Li Ke won't be leaving so soon, so there's no need to rush to send the medicine."

Upon hearing this, Wu Meiniang readily agreed:

"Everything will be arranged by the immortal."

Shortly after the meal, Hu Lijun and his family arrived, bringing hundreds of boxes of antimalarial medicine. Zhou Yi expressed his gratitude warmly and recommended different peace-bringing amulets based on the family's horoscopes.

However, these peace amulets cannot be worn directly on the body today; they need to be offered to different deities for three days.

The Taoist temple was finally getting some tourists, and Zhou Yi led them on a tour. Wu Meiniang then cut a chilled watermelon to serve everyone, and the guests and hosts enjoyed themselves immensely.

While everyone was enjoying the lively gossip, inside the office of the Yiyang City Feng Shui and Folk Customs Association, Xie Yukun was explaining the highway project to Han Chujiu:
"They paid our association to provide feng shui advice to ensure the project's progress. The recent weather forecast says that Xiuchuan County may experience thunderstorms in the latter half of this month. If water accumulates in the mountain streams where the pile foundation is being driven, it will delay the construction period and affect the feng shui layout. I plan to go there and urge them to speed up the progress."

Han Chu Jiu reached for the ashtray and flicked off the cigarette ash:

"You're suddenly telling me this because you're afraid to go alone?"

Xie Yukun really chickened out:

“Fan Chengye and my cheap apprentice are both dead, and their deaths are very suspicious. I’m worried that I will follow in their footsteps.”

Han Chu Jiu took a drag of his cigarette and said calmly:
"Don't be frightened by the apparent fluctuations. Your destiny has always been very stable. If anyone interferes, I will correct it immediately... By the way, at the last meeting, only three or four directors attended. What do the other directors do?"

Xie Yukun chuckled:

"We all have our own things to do, Mr. Han. You really don't plan to come with me?"

Han Chu Jiu thought for a moment and then made a condition:

"I'll go with you, and you give me the information on the other board members, okay?"

"make a deal!"

With Han Chu Jiu protecting him, Xie Yu Kun seemed very happy. He excitedly made arrangements to set off for the highway project site in Yunwu Town the day after tomorrow.

We'll try to expedite the process, such as by having people work in shifts around the clock, to complete the pile foundation pouring work before the thunderstorm arrives.

After Xie Yukun left, Han Chu Jiu seriously considered the impressions left on him by the directors who attended the meeting:

"One of them exudes an evil aura, clearly belonging to the evil cultivation lineage; another's hands smell of ink and blood, probably a tattoo artist; and yet another is brimming with the aura of yin spirits, it's unclear what he does... Could he be secretly cultivating a yin spirit?"

After analyzing the situation, he finally stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and muttered to himself:
"I've only been a few days since I joined, but I've already seen the filthy side of this association. The members are all brutal and ruthless..."

At this point, the blind man's lips curled upwards:

"What a coincidence, so am I!"

(End of this chapter)