Pawn Crossing the River

The largest inn in Longmen City was originally called Mingsheng Inn. It occupies a convenient location on the street opposite the Wanxiang Academy. I don’t know how many people come to the Wanxiang Academy to study or pay a visit in a year. They are not allowed to enter or wait. During the day, Hou Jian rested here, and many people from the academy were nearby setting up drinks and chatting.

However, after Wanxiang Academy was changed to Wanxiang Dao Palace by Daomen, Mingsheng Inn was also changed to Taiping Inn by Daomen, and business was still booming.

After Qi Xuansu entered the city, he went straight to the largest Taiping Inn, because on the second floor of the inn, he could just see the southeast side entrance of Ziwei City, and behind the side entrance was the lower palace.

The children and teenagers in the lower palace are not allowed to leave Ziwei City. When they go out, they always use the side door. Only those quasi-fourth-grade wine-sacrifice Taoist priests can enter and exit through the main entrance. There is only one road, which leads directly to the upper palace and the Mingtang, but is isolated from the lower palace.

Although he was going straight to Taiping Inn, Qi Xuansu walked in no hurry. As he watched the people coming and going around him, memories of the past slowly came to his mind like a tide.

As a kid, it was okay, just following the rules. When I was a teenager, I became bolder and began to try to escape from Ziwei City. It didn't mean that I would leave the Wanxiang Dao Palace and let birds fly in the sky and fish jump in the sea, but I just wanted to see the outside world. It's not even about looking forward to the world, it's just about seeing the city of Longmen Mansion. For them, Yujing, Imperial Capital, and Jinling are too far away, and Longmen Mansion is already a world of flowers.

Although the walls of Ziwei City are very high, the young men in the Wanxiang Dao Palace are not ordinary people. The best among them are almost touching the threshold of innate people. With the help of some tools, a city wall really can't stop them, so In Longmen Mansion, we often see teachers coming out to catch people.

After being caught, they will naturally be punished, mostly corporal punishment.

If it is the first offense, the punishment will be lighter, such as being forced to stand, not allowed to eat, work, etc.

If the person refuses to change despite repeated admonishment, the punishment will be heavier and the whip will be used directly. Moreover, it is a very special whip that will not leave any obvious scars, but it will be extremely painful and will be remembered for a long time.

There are also those who hit the boards, the beatings were bloody and bloody, which was quite scary, but it didn’t hurt the muscles and bones. It took half a month to apply the medicine and it was healed, leaving no scars. This kind of beating is usually to scare the monkeys.

But even so, the teenagers still enjoy it. They are not delicate flowers in the garden, nor are they pampered young ladies. They are strong-skinned and stubborn. To them, these corporal punishments are nothing at all, and there is no psychological shadow. Many people are proud of being punished. After all, if their grades are poor, it will be difficult for them to get out.

Qi Xuansu was not a popular figure in the Wanxiang Taoist Palace back then, but he was still outstanding. Otherwise, he would not be hated by Yue Liuli. To put it mildly, it takes qualifications to offend others.

Of course, Qi Xuansu had done this kind of thing before, but it was always with others. Looking back now, he had not contacted those friends and friends for many years. He didn't know where he was now. Even if he saw each other again, it would probably be difficult to renew the friendship between classmates. After all, not everyone can afford the "Mother and Son Talisman". If Qingping didn't issue the "Mother and Son Talisman" every month, Qi Xuansu wouldn't be able to use it now.

This is probably the situation where fate comes and fate gathers, and fate goes and fate disperses. In life, it is not about having many friends. It is a blessing to have one or two close friends.

Qi Xuansu is not optimistic about how many of these old friends and acquaintances will succeed.

The most outstanding among them, Yue Liuli and Wan Xiuwu, the two leaders of the Longhu Society, were accepted as disciples by the master of the Wuxu Palace. Now they are only fifth-grade Taoist priests, not even high-grade Taoist priests. If not, let alone others?

As Qi Xuansu's guide, Qiniang once gave Qi Xuansu a detailed explanation of Taoist promotion.

What to rely on to climb up?

It is the result of a combination of ability and merit, personal connections, upper-level recommendations, lower-level foundation, noble opportunities, and hard work and qualifications. In this, personal connections play an important role, even a fundamental role.

There are two top families within the Dao Sect, namely the Zhang family and the Li family. Originally, the Qin family was also counted as one, a three-legged family, but as the Qin family became the royal family, it was no longer included among them. The characteristic of this type of top family is that they have an orderly inheritance and almost control one path. For example, the Zhang family controls the Zhengyi path, and the Li family controls the Taiping path. There are too many real people in the family. The Li family is known as one family with seven real people, which here only refers to the Xuan family. Shenghe Donghuang was inherited from Li Daoxu's direct line, and side branches, sons-in-law, and adopted sons were not included. If counted, it would be far more than seven people.

There are twelve first-class families, and each family has more than three second-grade Taiyi Taoist priests. There are nearly a hundred small families, and there is at least one second-grade Taiyi Taoist priest in the family.

Disciples from the Wanxiang Dao Palace do not belong to these families. They have no background to speak of. They can only look at the relationship between master and inheritance. But there is only one master, and there are so many brothers. Who can really take over the master's inheritance depends on luck.

Qiniang once made a rough statistics. Although the Taoist sect has a year-stopping system, this system actually restricts the children of aristocratic families. For ordinary disciples, almost no one can meet the standards for promotion before the year-stopping year.

To use the simplest analogy, Qi Xuansu's sixth-grade Taoist priest encountered a year-stop restriction when he was promoted to fifth-grade Taoist priest, and it took one year before he could be promoted, because he wasted too much time at the stage of seventh-grade Taoist priest. By the time they were spinning around, Wan Xiuwu and Yue Liuli had already accumulated seniority as sixth-grade Taoist priests, so naturally there was no restriction on stopping their years. Later, Qi Xuansu's promotion was too fast, almost directly skipping the sixth-level Taoist priest, and he encountered this bottleneck.

But the reality for others is that it only takes one year to stop the year, but it takes more than five years to accumulate merit. For them, the stoppage has no impact, and almost no one can stick to the time limit of the year. Promotion completed.

Qiniang concluded that, on average, it takes nine years to go from a ninth-grade Taoist priest to an eighth-grade Taoist priest, three years from an eighth-grade Taoist priest to a seventh-grade Taoist priest, seven years from a seventh-grade Taoist priest to a sixth-grade Taoist priest, and seven years from a sixth-grade Taoist priest. It takes seven years to become a Taoist priest of the fifth grade.

In other words, an ordinary young man who leaves the Wanxiang Taoist Palace in his prime years enters the Taoist sect and becomes a ninth-grade Taoist priest. He is promoted to an eighth-grade Taoist priest at the age of twenty-nine, to a seventh-grade Taoist priest at the age of thirty-one, and to a seventh-grade Taoist priest at the age of thirty-eight. A sixth-grade Taoist priest becomes a fifth-grade Taoist priest at the age of forty-five. He has lost the possibility of becoming a high-grade Taoist priest and will stop here in his life. Only a few people are lucky enough to become a fourth-grade wine-sacrifice Taoist priest, but that's where it ends.

At the same age of fifty, the disciple from Wanxiang Taoist Palace is only a fifth-grade Taoist priest, while the disciple from a noble family is already a second-grade Taiyi Taoist priest, and is even expected to aspire to the title of Grand Master.

But this is still a very smooth situation. More people stop at being ninth-grade Taoist priests or seventh-grade Taoist priests. There are also many people who have been ninth-grade Taoist priests all their lives.

A child from a poor family has endured twenty years of hard work. He may have been transferred from one hall to another, turning many halls, but he has been stuck in the same place. At the same time, a child from an aristocratic family has already crossed the threshold of the fourth-grade Taoist priest. Enter the ranks of high-quality Taoist priests.

In fact, each level is a threshold, with several or even a dozen invisible steps hidden within it, varying depending on the entrance to the hall, the palace, and the position. Some positions and positions are easier to be promoted, such as the deacon of the Yaoguang Department of Tiangang Hall, while some positions are difficult to promote, such as the deacon of the Requiem Department of the Ancestral Hall.

Children of aristocratic families with a background can complete the leap in just a few years, and eventually become a rookie in the Taoist sect, rising to such high positions as deputy hall master, deputy palace master, and assistant manager, at least to the level of a third-grade Youyi Taoist priest. Zhang Yuelu, on the other hand, was promoted to the position of deputy hall master with the rank of fourth-grade wine-offering Taoist priest because of his retirement. However, this was only temporary. It was only a matter of time before Zhang Yuelu was promoted to the third-grade wine-offering Taoist priest.

At this time, their opponents are no longer ordinary children from poor families, but children from aristocratic families with the same background, as well as some children from poor families with outstanding abilities. Therefore, the promotion of most people has become slow, and will even stop there. A few people can stand out and join the ranks of second-grade Taiyi Taoist priests, truly stepping into the upper echelons of the Taoist sect.

However, if you have the background, ability, merit, and opportunities, then you must have a bright future. Take Zhang Yuelu, for example. After she participated in solving the Jiangnan case, she fell into the eyes of the Earth Master and was quickly promoted. This brought about a series of reactions that made her stand out from a group of fellow apprentices and sisters, and was designated as the successor by Master Cihang. Becoming what others call a little boss has a bright future.

As for Qi Xuansu, he had no hope. The turning point was that Qiniang helped him enter Tiangang Hall. Going to the third hall was no joke. He was promoted quickly, and he met Zhang Yuelu, a good boss, and he naturally rose to prominence. If he had not left the Taoist sect due to an accident, the Taoist Priest of the Fourth Grade Jijiu would have been stable, and as a direct descendant of Zhang Yuelu, after Zhang Yuelu became the real person of Shenzhi, he would probably be able to ascend to heaven and become an ordinary real person wearing a sword of wisdom. Zhang Yuelu's deputy. For example, Zhang Yuelu serves as the real person in charge of the Tiangang Hall, and he serves as the chief deputy hall master or the second deputy hall master.

His future destiny is firmly bound to Zhang Yuelu. If Zhang Yuelu can become the Grand Master, then he is also expected to ascend the throne of Zhenzhi Zhenren.

This is an opportunity, it is rare.

How many people can meet Qiniang and Zhang Yuelu?

Qi Xuansu never felt that he had a miserable fate and that the sky failed him. That was too hypocritical. In fact, he was considered a lucky man. In other words, he must be lucky if he survived a catastrophe. The assassin sent by Shen Yuxi failed to kill him, so he met Qiniang is like a pawn crossing a river. Although he still has no way to advance, he still has room to move around.

Therefore, most of Qi Xuansu's classmates are still struggling, and they may not be able to survive.

Qi Xuansu looked in the direction of Wanxiang Taoist Palace and sighed in his heart, wondering if he would meet an old friend from back then.