The women's designs featured hand-drawn floral patterns, while the men's bore simplified sketches of pine, cypress, and bamboo.
She made five of the women's styles and only three of the men's—partly because she felt her minimalist art style suited the feminine designs better, giving them a youthful, vibrant energy. On the men's shirts, the same strokes looked somewhat childish.
"Well, I'll just make a few and see how they sell."
Additionally, she crafted three black fourth-tier T-shirts. On gold paper, she drew ingots of varying sizes, cut them out, and pasted them onto the black fabric. On the chest area, she affixed a small gold label reading: "No. 414, Yinshui Alley, Anshou Hall."
These were the exclusive Anshou Hall Ghost Shop uniforms—reserved only for staff and the owner, Song Miaozhu. Naturally, her T-shirt boasted the most golden ingots. Once it reached the underworld, that shirt would be no ordinary piece of clothing. It would shimmer with prosperity, like someone had draped themselves in a mountain of spirit-ranked gold ingots.
Arriving at the ghost shop's warehouse, Song Miaozhu immediately slipped on her ingot-covered T-shirt, pairing it with black trousers. Whether it looked good or not hardly mattered—it radiated wealth. After delivering the floral and pine-patterned shirts to the paper clothing section, she handed one of the ingot T-shirts to Mao Jinxia.
"Work uniform," she said. "Put it on. There's another one in the warehouse for Xu Jingsi. When she comes in, remind her to change."
Mao Jinxia squinted, dazzled by the shine of the gold, but her face lit up. "It's gorgeous! These ingots look and feel real. Golden and brilliant—this is what prosperity looks like!"
"Exactly," Song Miaozhu said. "It's all about that symbolism!"
Just then, a few ghostly customers had managed to grab the limited Fourth-Grade T-shirts and eagerly brought them to the counter. When they saw what Song Miaozhu and Mao Jinxia were wearing, their joy quickly turned to complaints.
"Hold on," one of them said, "why do your staff get the pretty ones, but all we can buy are the flower and tree designs?"
"The gold ingots are our store's signature," Song Miaozhu replied.
The ghosts went quiet.
After selling Yang goods for so long, Anshou Hall's origins—selling gold ingots—had nearly been forgotten.
"You're not selling the ones you're wearing?" a ghost asked.
"Not exactly," Song Miaozhu said. "We're not selling these specific designs, but we might release something similar using the same gold-ingot elements in the future."
The staff uniforms had to stand out from what the customers wore. Still, if ghosts really liked them this much, it would be a shame not to make money off it.
"Alright, I know Fourth-Grade paper clothes are rare. I'll wait. But for now, let's settle the bill for this one," said a ghost.
Paper clothes were the only items in the store that customers could take off the shelf to try on, then bring straight to the counter to purchase.
"Me too!"
"Same here!"
...
Song Miaozhu counted eight paying ghosts—exactly the number of fourth-tier T-shirts she'd stocked that day.
"Sold out in minutes?"
These shirts were priced even higher at 150,000 hell coins each, totaling 1.2 million.
But why had one male ghost bought a women's design?
Mao Jinxia dutifully pointed out, "Customer, this is the women's style. Are you sure?"
"Yes!" the ghost answered firmly, already pulling out his payment—one Third-Grade gold ingot and five Second-Grade ones, each brimming with underworld lifespan energy. A perfect total of 150,000.
Mao Jinxia wiped the anti-theft mark off the shirt with a special cloth. "Please take your purchase. We look forward to your next visit."
The moment he had the shirt in hand, the ghost didn't wear it. Instead, he raised an arm and shouted, "Fourth-Grade women's T-shirt! 160,000! Who wants it?"
"I do!" a well-dressed female ghost called out.
The two quickly completed the deal. Just like that, the male ghost had made a 10,000 hell coin profit in a blink.
Song Miaozhu was speechless.
She had anticipated this kind of reselling ever since her Yang goods began selling out. To prevent the store from becoming a ghostly supply hub for scalpers, she'd initially imposed purchase limits per item, per ghost.
Once the Yang goods had stabilized in supply, she lifted those limits. But paper clothes had never been restricted—until now.
That male ghost probably only flipped the women's shirt because he couldn't grab one of the men's versions. Not a big deal.
But now everyone had seen him turn a quick profit. If others followed suit, it could turn into a professional scalping operation. That was very different from a ghost simply reselling a shirt they'd grown bored of. Eventually, regular ghosts trying to buy Fourth-Grade clothes would have to pay inflated prices to scalpers. But now, she reinstated them: one shirt per ghost per batch.
Once production scaled up, she'd relax the rule again.
Fourth-tier paper clothes were selling far better than she'd imagined. Even at steep prices, demand was relentless.
"Time to ramp up production."
She hurried back to the mortal world to continue honing her craft. Though the simplest designs sold well, she refused to mass-produce them for quick profits. Not only did she need to improve her skills, but she also knew the current frenzy was due to Anshou Hall's monopoly on fourth-tier quality—not aesthetics.
If she kept churning out basic vests and T-shirts, sales would eventually plummet. The underworld, stagnant for centuries, despised monotony. So Song Miaozhu experimented with new styles every day, using each batch to refine her technique. She never mass-produced any design—at most, ten pieces per style. That was enough for her to go from learning to proficiency.
If she wanted to continue improving, the simple styles she'd already mastered wouldn't help anymore. What she needed were more elaborate and ornate designs, which aligned better with underworld aesthetics.
As she learned more about sewing, drawing, and embellishment, her paper clothes began to bloom with variety. She produced fewer pieces each day, but each one commanded a higher price.
Overall, her profits kept rising.
Fourth-Grade paper clothes had become the shop's most lucrative product, even outpacing the Yang goods. In fact, they were earning nearly ten times as much. In just over a week of selling paper clothes, Song Miaozhu's hell coin savings had surpassed twenty million.
Although the structure of her designs hadn't changed much, the level of detail had dramatically increased. The success of the gold-ingot T-shirts gave her a new insight—combining painting with paper cutting and embossing might be even more suited for decorating paper clothes.
She returned to watching master-level paper cutting and printing tutorials and began applying those techniques, using layered cutouts and print patterns to adorn her creations.