Infinite Professions

Chapter 319 - 170: Entering the Dream

Due to the separation of Yin and Yang, coupled with rampant evil spirits, the reconstruction of villages must be a joint effort of Yin and Yang.

First, the Yin Department dispatches land gods to reside and build Divine Realms to protect the village, ensuring it isn’t disturbed by ordinary evil spirits. Then the Government Office from the Mortal World dispatches villagers to boost the population, and finally, the village is reconstructed.

Now, Shen Hex has been commissioned by the Prefecture City’s Yin Department to assume office, and the Government Office from the Mortal World will operate accordingly, dispatching villagers to assist him in reconstructing Little Huang Village.

After all, the village residences and cultivated lands around the village are tangible wealth and production. If it weren’t for demons devouring the previous land god, causing the Magic Realm to break and leaving the village unprotected, villagers wouldn’t have been willing to leave.

Now that he has taken office, despite having a touch of infamy, there will be impoverished people willing to take the risk of relocating, and with the Government Office’s dispatch, the population issue doesn’t need much worry; it will be resolved in due time.

Although Shen Hex is not short on time, he doesn’t wish to wait leisurely for the Government Office’s arrangements because, his experiences in the bureaucracy have given him a clear understanding of the government’s administrative efficiency in this world. Waiting for them to provide personnel might very well take ages or at least a year or half.

Therefore...

He commanded ten Shadow Soldiers to guard the Land God Temple while he rode out of the village alone, moved eastward on a gust of Yin wind towards Dongping County.

Dongping County neighbors Qinghe County, and the county town is merely about a hundred and eighty miles from Little Huang Village. Shen Hex rode a Paper Horse akin to a First-rank Escape Artifact, rapidly traversing in the Underworld, soon returning to the Song Residence located in Dongping County Town.

Back in the residence, Shen Hex sat alone in the hall, refined a stick or two of incense to replenish Divine Power, readying himself to perform the Dream-Entering Technique.

The Divine Being enters the dream to communicate between Yin and Yang!

For a small deity like him, typically, Dream-Entering Skill can only be performed within his own Magic Realm; performing it elsewhere is too depleting and not compliant.

However, since he is an ancestor of the Song Family, dreaming about his own clan members, blood relatives, and descendants in his family Yin Residence, outsiders cannot fault him; it’s only that the Divine Power consumption is rather significant.

So it goes...

That night, within the Song Residence, a fierce quarrel ensued.

"As the saying goes, the eldest brother is like a father. After Father has gone, I’m the head of the family. I don’t agree to divide this family."

"Pff, what eldest brother is like a father? When the old man was alive, you took all the advantages, and now that he’s gone, you still want to monopolize the family estate? You should ask if we brothers agree."

"Exactly, today you will divide this family whether you want to or not!"

"Primogeniture, primogeniture, advocating the eldest as first. You, born of the second wife as a concubine, dare claim to be the eldest brother as the father?"

"Let’s not talk nonsense. Let’s be plain; all are father’s sons, everyone has a share in this estate, so dividing it equally is only fair."

"Fair my foot! Who knows what you have stashed privately? Now you propose dividing equally, I’m the eldest brother, so this residence should belong to me!"

"Why should it belong to you? This Song estate should belong to our primary branch!"

"I don’t want anything else, just the books from Father’s study. You all know my kid is clever and talented, destined to be an official. If he has these books, maybe our Song family will produce another official, and you all could benefit from it, couldn’t you?"

"Pff, everyone knows the old man’s books were the most treasured and valuable. You talk smooth and want to take them; why don’t you outright steal them?"

"Exactly, exactly, my family wants a share of those books too!"

"The old man just passed away, and you want to rebel?"

"Oh dear, Fifth Madam, how can you say that? Who would dare?"

"Also, the condolence gifts received during the funeral need to be divided..."

In the great hall, the quarrel raged, involving Song Xiang’s many wives, concubines, and children.

Prior to his death, Song Xiang was merely a Junior Eighth Grade County Instructor, but an eighth-grade official is still an official, incomparable to ordinary folks. Moreover, Song Xiang was a free-spirited and considered a romantic scholar in his youth, resulting in a marriage to one wife, two concubines, and three maidservants, totaling six spouses, and he fathered nine sons and eleven daughters.

Among them, his first wife passed away early, as did two of his concubines and three maidservants before him. Now, three of his wives are still alive, and all his children remarkably did not suffer premature death. With all nine sons surviving, the family is thriving and unmistakably an enormous clan.

Sometimes, having many people isn’t necessarily good.

Just like now, Shen Hex stood outside with his hands behind his back, observing the fierce quarrel among them with a touch of speechlessness.

Song Xiang was indeed romantic but had an ’affectionate’ disposition. During his life, he opposed the division of family property among daughters and didn’t set a clear heir. He never managed absolute fairness, causing all his children to harbor resentment.

Upon his death, this accumulated resentment immediately erupted; mere days after the funeral, three of his wives along with all his children clamor for the division of property, directly staging a dramatic family ethics saga.

This was why Shen Hex didn’t return during the first seven days after death.

Song Xiang, unlike previous Dream Butterfly bodies he had encountered, bore no deep grievances nor suffered cruel oppression; yet the trouble’s complexity was on par.

Standing outside the hall, Shen Hex watched the quarrel, simultaneously clarifying relations and choosing suitable targets to enter the dream.

After a round of squabbling, the group still reached no consensus, eventually dispersing in discontent; some even slammed doors as they left.

Among them, the Song family’s eldest, Song Wen, returned to his room with his wife, all huffing and cursing, entirely lacking the grace of a scholarly family upbringing.

Indeed, there was none.

The Song Clan, for generations, had been farmers with backs to the sky and faces to the earth. The most accomplished were trader tycoons and wealthy landlords; until Song Xiang’s generation, one Scholar arose—a genuine nouveau riche.