The Land Goddess Rejoins the Workforce in the 1960s

In his previous life, Guan Shi was a land spirit who protected the peace of her region. In this life, she has been reborn as the heir to the Lu Zu School of Ritual Arts.

The title of Ritual Arts Grandmaster sounds better than land spirit, but in the 1960s, she is a fraud everyone wants to beat up.

Guan Shi has a home and family in the city, so she has to keep a low profile. After the coffin shop she inherited from her master goes out of business, she heads straight to western Yunnan.

Guan Shi has barely had a few days of carefree eating and drinking in western Yunnan when a group of carpenters show up at her door. They keep calling her Grandmaster and say they've run into trouble while digging a tunnel, begging her to come take a look.

As a land spirit, Guan Shi was supposed to protect the people of her region. Now that she's a Grandmaster, she must protect the disciples of the Ritual Arts School too.

Guan Shi suppresses evil spirits, battles black sorcerers, and destroys witchcraft and curses, wreaking havoc across western Yunnan!

Countless practitioners of the mystic arts cry out her title, Grandmaster, but Guan Shi hurriedly says she doesn't deserve it. She's only a little consultant hired by a certain department.

*

The Lu Zu School of Ritual Arts has produced craftsmen since ancient times. All that talk of mystic arts masters is just empty bluster. What really matters is passing down your craft, being content with what you have, and living a steady, honest life.

During the Third Front construction campaign, Guan Shi burns paper offerings for her master, her brows knitted tight. "Master, it's so hard being a disciple of our school. We're suffering."

After the country opens up, countless major projects get underway. Guan Shi brags to her master: "Master, everyone's fighting to have me perform the rites for their projects. I've done you proud as Grandmaster, haven't I?"

When major projects go overseas, even foreigners pick up the custom of burning incense and making offerings. Guan Shi tells her master again: "Master, you could say we've expanded the ancestral master's territory!"

Later, the school grows stronger and stronger. Its disciples work on all kinds of construction projects, and even take part in various scientific research programs.

They ask her to perform rites for bridges, roads, and aircraft carriers, fine. But why are they asking her to do it for spacecraft launches, too?

The disciples working on the spacecraft launch speak with conviction: "Why wouldn't hand-building a spacecraft make us craftsmen? We're all artisans. Would Lu Zu really not protect us?"

"..."

Blurb:

Summer 1986, London's Chinatown.

A family of three stands outside a Chinese restaurant. The two adults are dressed respectably, but look anxious. Their fifteen- or sixteen-year-old daughter, on the other hand, is remarkably calm.

"Sweetie, settle in at your aunt's and make yourself at home. Eat well and study hard. Once we've sorted things out back home, your dad and I will come get you."

Song Hemian, with her youthful face and steady heart, obediently nods. "Be careful on your way back."

"Wait for Mommy, sweetie."

When the car arrives, Song Hemian watches her parents leave.

In her previous life, Song Hemian was a female physician in the Imperial Medical Bureau. She was born into this world and has lived here for sixteen years. She grew up in the countryside and never expected her parents to send her one day to Chinatown, thousands of miles away.

Though she doesn't know a soul here, Song Hemian isn't afraid.

Her bedroom is on the second floor, facing the street. She has barely turned two pages of her English textbook when the street below comes alive.

The Chinese who crossed the ocean to make a living here come from every corner of the country, and their accents are all different.

The old doctor at Tai An Tang, the Chinese medicine clinic across the street, is from Guangzhou. He's advanced in years, but still full of energy. Standing at the shop entrance, he calls out to passersby, selling his herbal tea for one pound a bowl.

Her aunt buys a bowl and brings it upstairs for Song Hemian, but she can't swallow even a mouthful.

"Auntie, he cut corners. It's not worth a pound."

"That quack Song is a useless doctor. People curse him when he treats them, and he can't even brew a decent pot of herbal tea. He thinks he can cheat me? I'll give him a piece of my mind!"

Her aunt grabs the tea and runs downstairs, charging into the clinic across the street to argue with Old Man Song and demand her money back.

The onlookers speculate that this clinic is about to go under.

Song Hemian raises her brows. Good, let it go under. Better yet, let them hand it over to her.

Thesis: Life is worth living.