The emperor stared at Bai Jingfei for a few minutes with an unreadable expression.
Bai Jingfei had thought that the emperor would brush off her statement as a joke or something of the sort but it looked as if he was seriously considering that the gods had time to strike down a prison out of anger.
Bai Jingfei just realised how religious the people in the kingdom were.
She probably shouldn't have mentioned a god. She was probably going to be the cause of a witch hunt that could possibly backfire and make her the witch.
Knowing everyone was staring at her, Bai Jingfei wanted to go back home. Somehow in her heart though, the Bai family mansion had become home.
She no longer wished to go back to the cave she came from.
She did miss Botbot a bit but he wasn't really a person.
The emperor finally opened his mouth to speak again after making Bai Jingfei uncomfortable for what felt like hours to her.
"That is possible." he turned to a guard, "Go bring the head priest here, tell him it's an emergency."
Bai Jingfei felt another wave of dread as if foreshadowing that something bad was going to happen to her. This priest was definitely going to cause her some trouble at the very least.
After waiting for about half an hour while the ministers discussed the possibilities of a curse and of divine punishment, Bai Jingfei stared at the ornate roof of the hall as if awaiting her demise.
Red and green dragons had been carved into the roof with gold, gilded work done on them. The whole palace had themes of dragons done up in red and gold, occasionally with hints of green. Plus the wooden parts looked expensive to say the least.
Staring at the roof a little more, Bai Jingfei realized that the eyes of the dragons were actually pearls!
She made a mental note to come back and rob the palace when she had the opportunity, and to bring a knife with her so she could scrape the pearls off the roof.
Bai Jingfei turned to her father who looked rather relaxed and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Papa, can I go take a walk?" asked Bai Jingfei with a pleading look in her eyes.
Prime minister Bai turned back and shook his head and turned back to the meeting. It was obvious he rejected her out of concern but Bai Jingfei felt tired.
Finally a posse of priests entered the hall holding everything from candles to what looked like talismans.
Bai Jingfei recognised one of the strange characters on the talismans. Back in her cave she had strung up one of those. The lady had sold it to her saying that the character meant riches and of course Bai Jingfei wanted riches.
Now looking at the character on the talisman Bai Jingfei realised that either the lady had scammed her or this priest was a fraud.
Or maybe both.
The priest looked just as shaken up as Bai Jingfei felt. His robes were in disarray and he looked extremely sleepy, as if he had just awoken. But it was well into the evening so it sounded unlikely that the priest had just woken up.
Unknowingly, Bai Jingfei had hit the nail right on the head.
Head priest Tang was a fraud through and through.
Thirty years ago when he was wandering as a homeless beggar, he had come across an abandoned temple and had decided to squat there. After a few weeks there he really regarded the place as his own.
Thus when some travellers came across the temple while heading to the capital, they found Head priest Tang there, lying on the floor covered in moss because he hadn't taken a bath in a few weeks.
They assumed he was meditating, and spread word of a priest who had meditated so long that the earth had accepted him as its own.
Soon, disciples came in flocks to the temple, some with actual knowledge of buddhism.
The temple flourished because of donations, and head priest Tang built a name for himself through luck, coincidences and bullshit.
So yes, head priest Tang was a fraud.
Unfortunately no one other than fraud man Tang himself knew of this.
Head priest Tang was sweating buckets. This was the first time he was in the presence of so many ministers at once. It would be impossible for him to play off a mistake if any one of them caught on.
The guard had briefly explained the problem to him, so he decided to pin the problem on someone else. Preferably someone dumb and naive.
So he looked around and the first person he spotted was a cave creature.
"Your Majesty! Who is that child?!" asked the head priest, pretending to be shocked.
He was up and ready to pin the task of mediator between god and the kingdom on Bai Jingfei.
"The child has much more holy energy than I. If they were to call upon god, god would surely respond and bless us."
Now it was Bai Jingfei's turn to be sweating buckets. She initially thought that he had found out about her transmigration but she realised he was just trying to shift all the work to her.
Before she could object the emperor responded.
"So be it then, Bai Jingfei will be calling upon god to bless us and tell us why he unleashed hellfire on the prisoners."
Bai Jingfei felt like crying. Everything had taken a full circle back to her and now she was stuck here to call god's helpline desk number and ask about a crime she had committed.
After a few minutes the priest led Bai Jingfei to the highest point of the palace from when Bai Jingfei noticed thousands of civilians waiting for her.
So with no other choice left in hand, Bai Jingfei rose her hands to the sky, calling upon god to come down and bless the puny mortals of the Wang kingdom.
'Ah, I should've written my will...'