163: I'm not here to collect debts, I'm here to check the accounts

On the seventh day, before dawn, the mountain fog was so thick it wouldn't dissipate.

On the stone steps at the foot of Mount Longhu, Zhang Xuanyi still sat cross-legged, his old cloth spread out, displaying three “defective items” quietly: an empty bottle, a charred shell, and a yellowed strip of paper.

The wind swept by, the corners of the cloth fluttering, as if an unobserved ritual was quietly beginning.

He didn't move, nor did he open his eyes, but a fire had already ignited in his heart.

Just half an hour ago, a wisp of green smoke, light as mist, drifted from a crack in the mountain gate, precisely circled the stall three times, and finally condensed at the mouth of the empty Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid bottle, forming a miniature talisman—its patterns ancient and unadorned, it was the “Pledge Seal of Wish Fulfillment,” long lost from the Tianshi Mansion.

And at this moment, a white figure broke through the mist, silently appearing at the end of the stone steps.

An old white-haired Daoist priest, in a spotless plain robe, holding a scroll of gilded names, walked as if treading on air.

He stopped in front of Zhang Xuanyi, slowly bowed, and offered the scroll.

“By order, I am here to receive the account auditor.”

His voice was not loud, yet it resonated like a bell in a valley, causing the surrounding mist to subtly ripple.

Zhang Xuanyi finally opened his eyes, his gaze as clear as washed water.

He reached out and took the scroll, the moment his fingertips touched the cover—

A vast surge of wish power, like a tide, poured back, rushing up his arm directly to his sea of consciousness!

That was the echo of billions of incense and prayer thoughts, the countless wishes of common people burning talismans three hundred years ago, the unreturned obsession when miners drew talismans for safety, old soldiers swallowed candy before battle, and children offered candy to gods!

His breathing hitched, then he turned to the first page.

The ink was still wet, four large characters prominently in view:

Year Gui Mao Wish Power Revenue and Expenditure Audit Special Envoy Zhang Xuanyi

Affiliation: Incense Department Re-establishment Preparatory Group.

The official seal was bright red, its border slightly rough, and within its Texture, even faint traces of carving knife slips could be seen—

Zhang Xuanyi almost laughed out loud.

“Good heavens... they even gave me a formal position?”

That seal was clearly the rubber stamp he had privately carved at a street stall three years ago, the one he used to print thousands of “Peace Talisman Raffle Tickets”!

At the time, he had even grumbled, “The Tianshi Mansion’s official seal is too complex; our simplified version still needs to be recognizable.”

Now, the simplified version had been directly upgraded to official certification, becoming an “Envoy Credential.”

He closed the scroll, looked up at the white-haired old Daoist priest: “So, you no longer treat me as a debt collector, but call me an ‘auditor’ instead?”

The old Daoist priest's expression remained unchanged: “Every photocopy yellow paper you sold, every pinch of ash burned, has woven a net underground. Last night, stall 48, stall 59... automatically settled. The Incense Account Ledger activated itself, and the Earth Vein recorded the accounts in a chain. This is not human action; it is ‘faith’ overriding ‘power’.”

Zhang Xuanyi was silent for a moment, then suddenly chuckled: “You are finally afraid.”

“Not afraid,” the old Daoist priest whispered, “but awakened.”

The two said no more.

Zhang Xuanyi stood up, dusted off the hem of his Daoist robe, tucked the scroll into his embrace, and followed the old Daoist priest up the mountain path.

Along the way, Mount Longhu was eerily silent.

The usual morning bells, evening drums, and chanting of disciples were completely absent, replaced by closed temple doors, patrolling black-clad guards, and the shimmering light of array patterns faintly visible on the walls.

The entire mountain was like a hibernating beast, outwardly relaxed but inwardly tense, heavily guarded.

“The seal has been loose for three hundred years; have you locked yourselves up so much you developed PTSD?” Zhang Xuanyi quipped casually, but his steps had secretly slowed.

As they reached the Incense Hall, the bluestone ground suddenly sank.

His eyebrow twitched slightly.

It wasn't an illusion—the golden patterns underfoot were moving!

Those normally static talisman lines were twisting and flowing like living snakes, as if some colossal entity beneath the ground was slowly awakening.

He remained composed, subtly pinching his fingertips in his sleeve, quietly taking out a piece of already ineffective heavenly eye mung beans residue, biting his tongue, and letting a drop of blood fall onto it.

In an instant, his vision became crystal clear!

In the spirit sight, invisible to the naked eye, the stone bricks underfoot were transparent like glass—

A massive array formation was revealed a hundred zhang underground!

Countless pottery jars were buried deep like a forest, arranged in a Taiji vortex, each jar mouth connected to a thin golden thread, winding and converging like blood vessels, ultimately leading to a giant bronze furnace deep within the Incense Hall.

A faint light flickered in the furnace core, and human-like phantoms could vaguely be seen floating within it, as if their essences were being extracted.

And on those pottery jars, labels were prominently affixed:

【Type A · Winter Peace Tinder】

【Type C · Child Protection Wish Lamp】

【Type G · Border Guard Hero Soul Consolation】

All were “emergency wish power packages” from folk offerings, promised but not fulfilled.

Zhang Xuanyi's chest tightened, and he almost let out a cold laugh.

So that was it.

The common people's incense and prayers were not “used,” but “stored.”

Their wish power didn't turn into tinder sent to villages on cold nights, nor did it become protective talismans in the hands of border guards; instead, it was all extracted as energy to sustain the seal, maintain the elders' seclusion, and uphold the prestige of this so-called “orthodox Daoist sect”!

This wasn't an Incense Hall; it was a Wish Power Battery Factory!

He withdrew his gaze, his expression normal, as if he had only glanced at the floor tile patterns.

But the fist in his sleeve was already clenched white.

Just then, a figure swiftly passed by the eaves in the distance—plain clothes, short hair, carrying a camera, it was Su Qingzhu.

She had infiltrated the outer archives under the guise of a “special interview” and was now hiding behind a bookshelf of the “Hidden Accounts · Volume C,” her fingertips trembling as she flipped through yellowed pages.

As she read page after page, a chill ran down her spine.

The records of “maintaining balance” wish power allocation for nearly a century were clearly listed: seventy percent used to maintain the seal, twenty percent to support the secluded elders, and only ten percent returned to the common people for emergencies.

And the extreme cold disaster that swept through the north thirty years ago, which should have released “Winter Peace Tinder” to warm countless homes, was instead written off, marked as—

“Delayed fulfillment, pending discussion.”

She abruptly closed the ledger, biting her lip to prevent any sound from escaping.

“This isn't mismanagement...” she muttered to herself, her eyes blazing with anger, “This is systemic defaulting.”

She quickly photographed the key pages and hid the camera deep in her backpack.

Looking up towards the Incense Hall, she felt as if she could see that person walking in the dark corridor, carrying a street stall receipt, heading towards an reckoning that could overturn three centuries of order.

And the moment she pressed the shutter, a golden thread connected to the Earth Vein subtly trembled.

As if billions of silent wish power nodes had finally waited for the person who dared to say, “It's time to settle the bill.”

Su Qingzhu's fingertips hovered over the send button for three seconds.

The wind poured in through the broken window of the archive, disheveling the stray hairs on her forehead, but it couldn't extinguish the fire in her heart.

She stared at the three media email addresses on her phone screen, taking a deep breath—not out of hesitation, but to suppress her trembling.

“You always say that extraordinary people are above mortals,” she typed out the attached message, word by word, “then why don't they even give receipts?”

Click send.

The night was as dark as ink, but in just two hours, the internet had ignited like a prairie fire.

#TianshiMansionFirstPublicOffering#

#IncenseFundExplodes#

#WishPowerFinancialScam#

Among the top ten trending searches, seven were dominated by topics related to extraordinary people.

A financial blogger exposed a nearly century-old “maintaining balance” fund flow chart, with the caption: “This is not a religious organization; it's an energy monopoly group with a Ponzi scheme structure.” A veteran from the north live-streamed burning the peace talisman worshipped in his home: “My son guarded the border for ten years, losing three fingers to frostbite—only to get an unfulfilled receipt in return?” The comment section instantly exploded, countless people sharing ancestral yellow papers, remnants of talismans, and even some using old cassette recorders to play tapes of Daoist priests making wishes thirty years ago: “...A handful of incense ash, to protect your whole family from disaster for ten years...”

And the most fatal blow came from a blurry interview video—

The screen showed an old man with a weathered face, wearing a faded fire-patrol uniform, standing in front of a grave in the snow, his voice hoarse: “We collected incense ash from the common people back then, promising that each handful would bring ten years of peace. But the tree on my mother’s grave still froze to death last winter. No one came to fix it, no one came to ask, just like... we never believed.”

At the end of the video, he looked up at the camera, tears in his eyes, but no hatred: “I just want to know, did the sincerity I offered truly count?”

The entire network fell silent for three minutes, then erupted.

At the same time, in the main hall of the Incense Department of Mount Longhu.

Dark clouds hung overhead, and the hall was lit without lamps.

Three illusory figures floated on a high platform, all projections of secluded elders, their faces ancient and unadorned, their eyes like lightning.

The central figure's sleeves billowed, his voice like thunder: “By what right do you demand to exercise this auditing authority?”

The entire hall echoed with the lingering sound of the phrase “demand to exercise,” carrying disdain and judgment.

This was the questioning of rules, the pronouncement of power against a challenger.

Zhang Xuanyi stood at the foot of the steps, his Daoist robe slightly moving, but the corners of his mouth curved upward.

He didn't speak, only slowly took out three old items from his stall cloth: the empty Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid bottle, the charred shell of the heavenly eye mung beans, and the yellowed remnant of the photocopy yellow paper.

He gently placed them on the altar, as if displaying offerings.

Then, he pulled out a new fire coin—its edge engraved with “Myriad Laws Street Stall · Credit Points,” and its back bearing a simple, archaic Seal Script character for “Trust.”

Under everyone's gaze, he gently placed the fire coin in the center of the pile of defective items.

The moment of contact—

The entire hall trembled violently!

The talisman patterns on the dome cracked by an inch, and a giant light screen suddenly appeared in the air, light and shadow flowing, actually replaying a scene from three hundred years ago:

The sky was rent with fire, the seal initially set.

The young True Person Zhang stood at the peak of Dragon and Tiger, holding a jade slip, facing the kneeling multitude of common people, and declared loudly: “Today, I borrow the wish fire of all beings for three hundred years to protect the purity of the mountain gate; when the tide recedes, all shall be returned.”

The crowd cheered.

But just as the contract was about to be finalized, True Person Zhang suddenly turned and swiftly added a line of small characters to the back of the jade slip—

The scene zoomed in, and the handwriting clearly appeared:

“If the people return the fire themselves without seeking recompense, the creditor's right shall return to the multitude.”

The entire hall fell silent.

The three elder projections trembled in unison, their light and shadow beginning to flicker unstably.

The leader's face was ashen, his lips moving slightly, as if to cut off this footage, but he found that his spiritual power could not touch the light screen in the slightest.

As if... this was not an illusion, but the “original ledger” personally retrieved by heaven and earth.

For a long time, the silence was profound.

Finally, the white-haired elder on the left spoke, his voice so low it was almost inaudible:

“This clause... has been erased for over two hundred years.”