Furthermore, his relationship with the Li family stemmed from a friendship he formed with Li Bingjie when they were classmates and deskmates during her childhood schooling in the countryside, a relationship that was well-known to Li Bingjie due to her childhood autism. It was this connection alone that earned him the favor of the legendary Mr. Li.
If all of this is still plausible—that the Li family helped him embark on the path to rapid wealth—then Xu Zhengyang's sudden illness and dementia for more than two years after Old Master Li's death, followed by his rapid reorganization of his former businesses after recovering, raises even more suspicions.
In particular, it is said that this young man had a violent conflict with the Li family.
These things, no matter which one of them is brought to the forefront, are incomprehensible, too bizarre, too unbelievable.
Because those powerful figures overlooked the most crucial point among these chaotic clues: Xu Zhengyang had, for a time, promoted superstitious beliefs. Those high-ranking individuals wouldn't believe in the existence of gods, so these clues were naturally ignored by them.
so……
Several factions began to secretly keep a close eye on Xu Zhengyang, determined to find out who this mud crab who crawled out of the ditch was and how he got involved with the Li family. At the same time, the factions also began to look around suspiciously at each other, wondering if Xu Zhengyang had some unknown relationship with a certain faction and then acted as a go-between to get involved with the Li family.
Of course, these factions are not visible in normal times; they still govern together, and the world is at peace.
If Xu Zhengyang knew that these high-ranking figures had such a vivid imagination and suspicious nature, and made such absurd and wild speculations, he would probably forcefully enter a high-level meeting attended by only a few people, declare himself a god, and tell them to stop speculating and get down to business.
Unfortunately, Xu Zhengyang didn't know that.
The brothers Li Ruiyu and Li Ruiqing knew this, but they couldn't tell Xu Zhengyang.
They were doing their best to persuade some people not to speculate wildly. Xu Zhengyang was still that rural young man with no status, who had only gotten to where he was today through good luck. The reason he married Li Bingjie was truly because he didn't want her to fall ill again after her mental recovery.
This reason is barely acceptable.
Some people believed it for the time being, while others did not. They had to stop for a while, at least they couldn't openly follow and investigate Xu Zhengyang anymore.
Angering the Li family is no joke.
Therefore, Xu Zhengyang's life during this period was peaceful, happy, and stable.
In the mundane world, Xu Zhengyang is patiently waiting for the arrival of the third day of the third lunar month, the day he has set to marry Li Bingjie.
On the other side of his life, which is outside the secular world, that is, as the Imperial Censor of the Eastern Heavenly Court, he still has many things to consider and deal with.
For example, he temporarily revoked the authority of the thirty-three ghost messengers in Fuhe City. This was because Fuhe City was currently free of major villains. For over two years, three years prior, Fuhe City had been turbulent, with political upheavals and several major cases leading to a near-complete reshuffling of its officialdom. Older officials became increasingly incorruptible, and new officials dared not act recklessly, resulting in a more transparent and efficient government. Meanwhile, in the surrounding counties and districts, due to the occurrence and spread of some inexplicable events, fear and tension permeated the population, leading to a significant decrease in crime. Even instances of filial impiety in ordinary families and the near disappearance of local bullies and thugs had almost vanished.
Xu Zhengyang screened all the ghost messengers he had previously gathered, and then sent the most heinous ones to the underworld, placing them on the Mingnie Platform to work. This was unavoidable; initially, the ghost messengers on the Mingnie Platform were simply too busy to handle everything.
There are too many evil people in the world!
The remaining thirteen ghost messengers include Yan Liang, who is currently staying in the Chinatown area of Dunstone, M country.
Hmm. This certainly doesn't include Acting Judge Li.
Old Li is still traveling around the country, following Xu Zhengyang's instructions, to observe public sentiment and reflect on his experiences. Of course, besides seeing the people and understanding their opinions, he can't do much else on this trip, because Xu Zhengyang hasn't given him much authority; moreover, even if Xu Zhengyang wanted to give him too much authority, he couldn't.
On the night of the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, Xu Zhengyang summoned Old Li back to the City God Temple in Fuhe City.
The twelve ghost messengers and Elder Li held a meeting together.
The meeting was simple, with only one basic topic: all the ghost messengers should closely follow the leadership of Xu Zhengyang, with Elder Li presiding, to discuss the new rules and regulations governing the authority and management scope of the City God's ghost messengers.
Xu Zhengyang emphasized that the purpose of formulating the new regulations was to prepare for and respond to the call of the Heavenly Court to gradually launch a rectification campaign nationwide. In a highly modernized secular society, under the premise of not affecting people's livelihoods, development, or the normal order of humanity, the aim is to restore the lost morality and conscience of secular people, to instill correct beliefs and values in their minds, and to prevent humanity from becoming increasingly distorted in the trajectory of development.
In fact, Xu Zhengyang was well aware that the goals he had mentioned were still a long way from being achieved.
It might seem like a waste of time and effort, like taking off your pants to fart. If Xu Zhengyang had followed his previous method, using ghost messengers as enforcers to punish, intimidate, and deter humans, he could have achieved a distorted social order within a few years. It would simply be a matter of Xu Zhengyang traveling the country, deploying ghost messengers in major cities, and establishing regulations to intimidate the masses. With human propaganda and dissemination, achieving the initial desired effect wouldn't seem difficult.
However, if he were to actually do that, Xu Zhengyang thought, how many times could I withstand the punishment of the Heavenly Tribulation?
Furthermore, harsh measures are used in times of chaos, but this is not a time of chaos. Using harsh measures would likely only lead to one becoming an evil god.
Xu Zhengyang already felt disdain and contempt for the actions, thoughts, and ideas of a former legitimate god, let alone the idea of him becoming an evil god? That was something he simply could not accept.
According to Xu Zhengyang's current thoughts, he hopes that... everyone in this world has faith, but that faith is not extreme, yet people can accept it openly, rather than being forced to; and that people can still live normal lives in this ordinary faith, relying on human nature, occasionally getting angry, occasionally acting impulsively, making mistakes, and committing crimes, but in their hearts, people know that God exists.
Perhaps one day in the future, every ordinary person, when faced with injustice, disaster, or even in their everyday expressions of surprise, will, like those people in Western countries, softly utter, "God bless you," "My God," or "Oh, God will punish you..."
Of course, special circumstances require special treatment, and miracles must occur; otherwise, how can people be convinced?
Volume 5, Spirit Official, Chapter 246: Asking about Jade
At the end of the first month of the lunar calendar, a vigorous crackdown was launched across the country.
Documents from the Ministry of Public Security were being urgently distributed to public security organs across the country; at the same time, supervisory teams established by the Ministry of Public Security were divided into several groups and dispatched to various regions to supervise law enforcement in some major cases.
Xu Zhengyang, of course, wouldn't be idle either. He granted ten ghost messengers the authority to conduct inspections throughout the country. However, due to geographical limitations and the limitations of Xu Zhengyang's divine abilities, these ghost messengers could only perform patrol duties and could not act as law enforcement agents. If they discovered any major situations, they would report them to Xu Zhengyang, who would then directly relay them to the public security department through Li Ruiqing.
In fact, the task of these ghost messengers is to play a supervisory role. When public security departments across the country launch a crackdown, these ghost messengers can naturally discover many hidden truths in secret.
While deploying ten ghost messengers across such a vast country is indeed a drop in the ocean, Xu Zhengyang felt that during a crackdown, their presence would merely be icing on the cake. Following Elder Li's advice, this kind of embellishment would be far more effective than personally weaving a brocade. At least… there wouldn't be any negative effects.
Xu Zhengyang wholeheartedly agreed.
However, the crackdown has just begun, so the effects will not be immediately apparent. With Elder Li overseeing the arrangements, it is much more appropriate than Xu Zhengyang coordinating all aspects of the work.
So, while Xu Zhengyang seemed to be relinquishing his duties, he was actually thinking about finding a suitable material to create a magical artifact similar to the city scroll. In other words, he wanted to at least make a case book for Old Li, so that Old Li would have a magical artifact to increase his work efficiency and prevent the ghost messengers from having to travel thousands of miles to help them when they encountered something while on patrol.
As a celestial official of the Eastern Heavenly Court, Xu Zhengyang had the authority to travel freely throughout the mortal realm under its jurisdiction. However, without personally visiting a place and establishing a nominal City God's Palace, he couldn't simply use his divine sense to travel thousands of miles to arrange all the necessary tasks. It was like how he could be in the capital city and instantly teleport his thoughts and divine sense to Fuhe City, a thousand miles away, but he couldn't suddenly fly from Fuhe City to halfway to the capital city.
Of course, Xu Zhengyang is now capable of freely moving his divine sense between Fuhe City and the capital.
The reason, of course, was that after he returned from Heaven, he went to the capital and appointed ghost messengers there, establishing a nominal City God's Palace. Although those ghost messengers in the capital were ruthlessly thrown into the underworld for reincarnation after completing their missions, Xu Zhengyang did not change that.
Xu Zhengyang wouldn't casually assign ghosts to be ghost messengers without rigorous vetting.
He is no longer in the same hurry to develop his strength as he was back then.
When Xu Zhengyang asked Cheng Juan what kind of magical artifact was needed to make a case file, Cheng Juan told him that making a case file not only required great supernatural power, but also a great deal of mutton-fat white jade; generally speaking, making one case file requires more than twenty catties of pure mutton-fat white jade.
Xu Zhengyang was taken aback. Wasn't this nonsense? Where could he find a piece of mutton-fat jade weighing over a hundred pounds?
Xu Zhengyang had once searched online for information about the purity of the jade in the city scroll, out of curiosity. It was incredibly expensive, priced by the gram. Goodness, making one piece of this would require tens of kilograms of material…
Damn it! Xu Zhengyang spat out a mouthful of phlegm. It turned out that he had been asked for three million when he first got this city pass, but the price was later artificially inflated to tens of millions. He was the one who lost out.
That's not tens of millions, it's over a hundred million. Plus, where else can you find a single, perfectly formed piece of pure mutton-fat jade weighing more than several tens of kilograms? So, according to the general practices in the antique and jade industry, such a valuable item, coupled with its large quantity, would command a very high price…
Xu Zhengyang did a rough calculation and his mind went completely blank.
My goodness!
Back when I bought that motorcycle, I sat in front of the bank in broad daylight playing with it. I showed Yao Chushun the jade on the train. I showed it to many people. I even used it to swindle three million yuan from Zou Mingyuan... but that's not all.
Xu Zhengyang asked Cheng Juan: How many kilograms of mutton fat jade are you made of?
Cheng Juan replied: It was not made of mutton fat jade, but was formed by the Emperor of the Azure Heaven Court from the jade mountain in the cold pool of the Azure Moon Palace.
Xu Zhengyang had never been to the Biyue Palace and didn't know what that jade mountain was, but he wasn't stupid; the word "mountain" wasn't used lightly. So he asked: "To put it simply, if you were to make something similar to you out of mutton fat jade, how much would it take?"
The city scroll said: "Mutton fat jade cannot be used." When this sentence was displayed, the city scroll's surface radiated a red glow, and it seemed a little annoyed, as if Xu Zhengyang's question was an insult and a desecration of its existence.
I mean, hypothetically! Xu Zhengyang was furious; he didn't care whether the jade had a temper or not.
After circulating the scroll for a while, it said: At least... 100,000 catties.
Xu Zhengyang was stunned. After a long while, he came to his senses and tried to calculate in his mind how much it was worth, but he still couldn't figure it out. Then Xu Zhengyang almost cried, holding the jade and kissing it for a long time, saying, "You are my heaven, my earth, you are my greatest treasure, I love you so much..."
In the office of Yao Chushun, the general manager on the second floor of Gu Xiang Xuan.
Xu Zhengyang sat on the sofa, calmly sipping his tea. He took a drag of his cigarette and casually asked, "Mr. Gu, these days, is it possible to find any genuine mutton-fat jade?"
"Hmm?" Yao Chushun laughed, "You son of a bitch, it's hard for others to find, but you're not? Our Guxiangxuan has a few pieces of top-quality mutton fat jade, and also jade carvings made of mutton fat jade... Hey, thinking of giving them to your wife to please her again? Hehe."
"Oh." Xu Zhengyang ignored Yao Chushun's teasing, took a puff of his cigarette, and asked, "Approximately how many kilograms of mutton fat jade does your shop have?"
Yao Chushun's eyes widened suddenly. He didn't exhale a puff of smoke, but instead coughed heavily, cursing, "Damn it, don't talk like that when you're out in public. Oh, and by the way, when you're in front of experts, don't tell them you know me, Yao Chushun... Damn it, you're actually asking about this stuff by the pound... Are you sure you're asking about pure mutton fat jade, and not some kind of pebble jade?"
"Is it really necessary to make such a fuss?" Xu Zhengyang frowned.
Yao Chushun angrily retorted, "Do you know how big the largest mutton fat jade pebble in China is?"
How big?
130 kilograms.
"Really? Where?" Xu Zhengyang immediately perked up upon hearing this, his eyes shining like a rogue seeing a prostitute.
"This is Ziyu, Ziyu, do you understand?"
"Hmm. Not pure, it needs polishing, carving, and processing..." Xu Zhengyang waved his hand dismissively and said, "How much? Where is it? I want it." He thought to himself that once he got his hands on the hundreds of kilograms of jade, he could use his supernatural powers to craft it. Even if it were pure jade, the process of crafting a divine artifact would involve meticulous refinement and significant waste.
Yao Chushun stared at Xu Zhengyang, speechless, before finally saying, "That piece of jade... Zhengyang. The auction price for that piece of jade was fifty million, and the price changes almost daily. After being processed and carved into a large piece of pure mutton-fat jade, it will definitely fetch dozens of times more..."
This was within Xu Zhengyang's expectations, although he could not accept this price at the moment.
No matter how rich he is, he can't just take tens of millions to play around all the time!
"Zhengyang, how much do you want?" Yao Chushun asked, regaining his composure.
"Oh, for pure jade, we'll need about twenty catties for now, but of course, the more the better." Xu Zhengyang said casually, smoking and looking down, without looking at Yao Chushun. He was wondering if it was worth it to do this.
Yao Chushun was stunned again.
What do you mean by "temporarily needing twenty... and another 'jin'"? Why is the word "come" used so casually? Do you really not value this treasure anymore?
Yao Chushun was so shocked that he forgot his catchphrase and said in a trembling voice, "What do you need so much mutton fat jade for?"
"Huh?" Xu Zhengyang came to his senses. How could he tell Yao Chushun this? He scratched his head and said with a wry smile, "It's nothing, I just think that thing is a good thing, and I'm collecting it to wait for it to appreciate in value."
"Pah!" Yao Chushun roared, "Do you think everyone else is stupid? How much money do you actually have? Enough to keep burning it like this?"
Xu Zhengyang felt embarrassed. It wasn't that he couldn't come up with that much money, but he couldn't very well tell Yao Chushun that Ronghua Group was actually his now, could he? Besides, even if Ronghua Group were his, he couldn't just take tens or hundreds of millions of yuan and squander it all, could he?
He was pondering this. The Heavenly Court had previously appointed so many deities and officials in the mortal realm, from the highest-ranking provincial gods to the lowest-ranking local earth gods, all possessing divine artifacts. How much jade would it take to craft those artifacts? Where did they get so much jade back then? Damn it, why didn't they consider how precious jade was when they were fighting? They shouldn't have wasted it so carelessly, or used jade artifacts as bricks to smash their heads!
Recalling the Heavenly Records he had read in Heaven, and the scenes of divine artifacts being destroyed during the great battles between the gods, Xu Zhengyang gritted his teeth in anger. "Damn it, if you had kept all the divine artifacts you had back then, we could have bought up the entire United States by now."
However, if there really were that many jade stones in the world, then jade wouldn't be worth anything.
Sigh, what a waste, what a waste! Good things have been ruined by those damned gods.
Xu Zhengyang pondered for a long time and said, "Forget it, I'll go to Xinjiang Xinlun Kunshan to find it myself, sigh."
"Find?" Yao Chushun was amused and thought to himself, "Is Xu Zhengyang sick again?" But then he thought, "This guy is different from ordinary people. He might actually be able to find it for me, because he might, no, he must be a god..." "Alright, alright, if you really want to go, let Lao Gao go with you. He's been to that place to mine jade."
Volume 5, Spirit Official, Chapter 247: Wealthy and Powerful
The reason Xu Zhengyang wanted to find the jade himself was twofold. Firstly, he was reluctant to spend so much money. Secondly, he knew he would need more of this mutton-fat jade in the future.
Because there will definitely be many, many more magical artifacts to be created in the future...
Xu Zhengyang said with a smile, "Old Gao is getting old. Can he handle all that back and forth? Forget it, I'll go by myself when I have time."
"That thing is hard to find," Yao Chushun warned.
"Let's try our luck." Xu Zhengyang waved his hand dismissively. Of course he knew that mutton fat jade was hard to find. Such a priceless item had attracted countless treasure hunters. He estimated that the places where mutton fat jade was produced had been thoroughly searched.