A Pawn's Passage

Chapter 22: The Past

Generally speaking, no one could truly buy a house in the Jade Capital. That was because all the houses and palaces in the Jade Capital belonged to the Daoist Order. They were managed by the Tianji Hall, which was equivalent to the Ministry of Works in the Imperial Court.

Everyone, including the Great Sage, only had the right to use, not own, the properties. Therefore, everyone could only lease a residence. The lease terms could be long, with the longest lasting up to a hundred years. The Daoist community habitually referred to such long-term leases as purchasing property.

This was somewhat similar to the secular concept of “one field, two owners,” where a piece of land was divided into two parts: underground and above-ground. These deeds were held by two different people, respectively, and were treated as two independent entities that could be freely bought, sold, pawned, or gifted.

The person with the underground deed, also known as the landowner, could not farm and could only collect rent on that piece of land. If they wanted to farm, they must buy back the deed from the person with the above-ground deed, also known as the property owner.

The property owners could farm, but they had to pay rent for the land they occupied. At the same time, they could freely buy, sell, or transfer the land’s surface. They could even build houses or tombs on the land’s surface without interference from the landowner.

If the property owner owed rent, the land owner could try various methods to collect the debt or use other goods to offset it. However, the landowner could not evict the property owner unless the land’s surface was sold off. This was the concept of “one field, two owners.”

Similarly, the residents of Jade Capital did not own their houses but could freely transfer the lease term of their houses. If the Daoist Order wanted to reclaim a house, they would have to return the corresponding rent.

Initially, Qi Xuansu’s master rented a small courtyard in Haichan Place, which cost 1,000 Taiping coins for a lease term of twenty years. There were still ten years left on the lease, and it had not yet been reclaimed by the Daoist Order.

Qi Xuansu could stay there temporarily for a month. Although it was a place that dug up his sad memories, Qi Xuansu was clearly not in the position to be sentimental about it now. The pressure of survival forced him to temporarily set aside these emotions and focus on solving his current lodging issues.

If his application to Tiangang Hall was successful, Tiangang Hall would provide him with a relocation allowance to help him settle down in the Jade Capital. If he was not selected by the new Deputy Hall Master, then there was no need to continue staying in the Jade Capital any longer. He could return by land without having to take a flying ship and even enjoy the scenery along the way.

The nearest route from Nanhua Place to Haichan Place was to pass through Taiqing Square and then head southeast.

This time, Qi Xuansu did not ride a goat cart or an ox cart but walked slowly to admire the scenery along the way. The scenery felt repetitive, with some familiar scenes and some new things to explore.

At dusk, the setting sun casts a fiery glow in the sky. The blood-red sunlight was no longer coming from overhead but horizontally along the horizon along the east-west direction of Yuqing Street. The sunlight fell on Qi Xuansu, casting a long shadow behind him.

Qi Xuansu suddenly felt a bit lonely.

In the past, Qi Xuansu would deliberately suppress this emotion because he believed that the feeling of loneliness was a kind of weakness. Truly strong individuals would not care about loneliness, let alone feel it. They would even enjoy being alone and reject others from getting close to them.

However, this time, Qi Xuansu did not deliberately suppress this emotion. He allowed himself to be fully immersed in his sadness. Correspondingly, the memories buried deep in his mind surfaced slowly.

Madam Qi once said that after leaving the Wanxiang Daoist Palace, where children learned the unified teachings and laws of the Daoist Order, one’s status automatically changed from a Daoist attendant to a ninth-rank Daoist priest. Then, there would be a three-year assessment period.

Before going into the three-year assessment period, it was necessary to first explain what the Wanxiang Daoist Palace was.

This place was originally the Wanxiang Divine Palace, built by Empress Mingkong. Later, it was renovated by the Confucianists to become the Wanxiang Academy. After the Daoist Order, led by the Holy Xuan, defeated the Confucianists and became the orthodox authority, the Confucianists ceded the Wanxiang Academy to the Daoist Order. The Daoist Order then rebuilt it as the Wanxiang Daoist Palace.

The Wanxiang Daoist Palace had an upper palace and a lower palace. The lower palace had two functions. The first function was to take in orphans and abandoned infants. They would raise the children to adulthood without charging a penny, which was considered a charitable act.

Many people could not afford to raise children or, for other reasons, did not want to keep their children by their side. Thus, they sent their children to various Daoist temples, where the children would be transferred to the Wanxiang Daoist Palace.

From this perspective, the Wanxiang Daoist Palace was similar to a charity home or an orphanage.

Due to this, many people in the Daoist community had no parents. They were born, raised, and would most likely die in the Daoist community, spending their entire lives as Daoists.

Qi Xuansu was also one of those people.

Therefore, Qi Xuansu did not really understand what it felt like to have parents. In his memory, he played, lived, and studied with other children in the Wanxiang Daoist Palace, with only an elderly female Daoist disciple responsible for their daily lives.

To be fair, that female Daoist disciple was a good person and a motherly figure. Unfortunately, she had to take care of 50 children alone, so her love for each child was stretched thin.

The second function of the lower palace was to nurture these orphans and abandoned infants to become talents and fresh blood in the Daoist Order.

Wanxiang Daoist Palace practiced unified teaching, generally with one teacher instructing several dozen children, similar to home schooling, but on a larger scale.

Before the age of 10, children were taught the most basic breathing techniques, along with literacy, arithmetic, and other basic courses. After 10 years old, the children would take an assessment. Those who passed the assessment would become Daoist attendants and begin to learn the classics of various schools of thought, such as Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Mohism, and Legalism.

They would also learn basic courses on astronomy, geography, mechanisms, talismans, and deeper methods of cultivation. Children who failed the assessment would become regular Daoist believers and would start learning various artisan skills.

At the age of 18, the children would take another assessment. Daoist attendants who passed the assessment would leave the Wanxiang Daoist Palace and enter the Daoist Order, becoming ninth-rank Daoist priests.

Those who failed the assessment would continue to stay in Wanxiang Daoist Palace for further study until they passed. However, they would not be qualified for the three-year assessment, and it would be very difficult for them to become fourth-rank Daoist masters.

The difference between them was like that between the Jinshi scholar and the Juren scholar. Both scholars took the imperial examination and were considered officials of the court, but Jinshi scholars were highly esteemed because they passed the highest level of the imperial examination. They would normally start serving the Imperial Court as a seventh-rank county magistrate.

In contrast, Juren scholars, if appointed to an official position, could only start as an eighth-rank county magistrate. There was a rank disparity between the two.

Qi Xuansu belonged to the former category, the Jinshi scholar equivalent in the Daoist community. He left Wanxiang Daoist Palace with outstanding results and entered the Daoist Order as a ninth-rank Daoist priest. Then, during the three-year assessment period, he was chosen as a disciple to a fourth-rank Jijiu Daoist master.

With the help of his master, Qi Xuansu quickly progressed to an eighth-rank Daoist priest. Although his future was not exactly the brightest, he did enjoy smooth sailing.

That was until his master died.

Every time Qi Xuansu thought of his master’s death, he would feel a dull pain in his chest. This was not just emotional, but a real, physical sensation of pain.

Walking on Yuqing Street, Qi Xuansu reached out to cover his chest. He skipped over this memory and recalled his youth.

Qi Xuansu took after his master’s last name, Qi.

Since many people in the Daoist community were adopted and raised by the Order, they viewed the Daoist community as their home. The concept of a biological family was rather faint.

Over time, a culture of a chosen family formed in the Daoist community. Masters were like fathers to their disciples. Many people in the Daoist community did not marry or have children but instead took disciples as their own children to pass on their teachings. The reason was simple: one could not choose who they gave birth to, but they could pick their disciple wisely.

Qi Xuansu’s master was like that, with no parents, children, or wife dependent on him. At the age of 40, Qi Xuansu’s master took him in as a disciple and renamed him.

The two characters in his name, Xuan and Su, had many profound meanings, but the literal meaning was black and white, respectively.

His master also gave him a courtesy name, Tian Yuan. The meaning of Tian was heaven, while Yuan meant the abyss. This implied a distinction between heaven and hell, akin to the contrast of Xuan and Su, black and white.

During that time, Qi Xuansu and his master lived in a small courtyard in Haichan Place. For Qi Xuansu, this courtyard undoubtedly felt more like home than the Wanxiang Daoist Palace. Unfortunately, his home no longer existed.

As Qi Xuansu recalled those times, he no longer felt much anger but rather sadness.

That was because he had already sought vengeance in person, using the Qingping Society as a backing and with Madam Qi to clean up the aftermath.

The price of vengeance was for Qi Xuansu to become a member of the Qingping Society. He was to obey their orders and do things that he did not particularly like but could not refuse.

From the day Qi Xuansu entered the Qingping Society, he was like a pawn on a chessboard, unable to retreat. Fortunately, like a pawn crossing the river, he could still maneuver left and right. Perhaps he could dodge the aftermath when it came down to it.

Nevertheless, this gradually led Qi Xuansu away from his original path and onto the new road he was taking.

In fact, Qi Xuansu had clear goals when his master was alive. However, after seeking vengeance, he felt somewhat lost.

During this time, Madam Qi gradually replaced his master’s position. She taught and guided him, and he slowly regained his will to live. After all, life had to go on, and he was still young with a long path ahead. So, he started to make plans to leave the Qingping Society.

The Qingping Society did not make things difficult for him, either. To leave Qingping Society, Qi Xuansu just had to accumulate 9,000 merits to settle all his debts.

Merits were a unique accounting method in the Qingping Society, varying based on the difficulty of the tasks. The higher the merits, the greater the danger. For instance, Qi Xuansu earned 300 merits in the recent Fengtai County mission. This was equivalent to the merits earned in all of his minor missions over the past few years. However, this time, he almost died at the hands of Zhuge Yongming.

Even though Madam Qi would show up, it was purely Qi Xuansu’s luck that the fourth-rank Daoist master Madam Qi mentioned did not intervene. If that fourth-rank Daoist master fought Qi Xuansu, the latter would probably end up as a corpse.

Since the Fengtai County incident involved the Green Phoenix Guard, the Quanzhen Sect, the Zhengyi Sect, a fourth-rank Jijiu Daoist master, and even a sage from the Taiping Sect, the Qingping Society paid Qi Xuansu 300 merits for this mission. If it had only involved Zhuge Yongming, Qi Xuansu would have gotten less than 100 merits.

At that moment, Qi Xuansu arrived at Taiqing Square.