Song Miaozhu was putting the final touches on a Yin Paper Clothes piece when her little paper servant scurried over, carrying the jingling phone. She motioned for it to press the answer button and turn on speakerphone.
Zhao Huoyan's voice crackled through: "Master Song, the compensation for E Hongjuan's case has been approved. Captain Li and the suspect's family went to Huaihua Alley to buy paper money, but your shop was closed. Should I send them to your home?"
Song Miaozhu had been holed up on Xiaozhu Mountain for half a month, researching the crafting of Yin Paper Clothes. She hadn't left home once. When she was focused on making spiritual attire, even the images sent by the little paper servants to her mind were subconsciously ignored.
Only now did she realize that, in the footage from her paper servants stationed at the shop, Huaihua Alley had returned to its usual calm. No one was lurking around anymore, waiting to interrogate some so-called spirit medium.
Her viral video had clearly lost its heat.
Behind the shop's curtained display window, her paper servants also spotted Captain Li, the university dorm supervisor, and an older woman waiting outside.
"I'll head over there," Song Miaozhu said.
She couldn't let everyone come barging into her home for every little thing. Since the alley was quiet again, she might as well reopen the shop. Her workshop was overflowing with non-tiered paper ingots and a growing stock of Yin Paper Clothes. As she ordered the little paper servants to haul the lower-grade items to the ghost shop's warehouse, she instructed the two shopkeepers to restock the shelves from the ghost shop's reserves.
While they scrambled, Song Miaozhu put the finishing stitches on her current piece, then hopped on her e-bike and headed down the mountain. By the time she arrived at Huaihua Alley, the three people who had been waiting outside her store were already sitting at the outdoor seating area of the escape room next door, drinking tea with Cheng Ziyang.
At the sound of her scooter, Cheng Ziyang craned his neck toward the alley entrance. "Boss Song! Long time no see! You doing alright?"
"Just closed up for a while to let the heat die down. I'm fine. Now that it's over, I'm back," Song Miaozhu replied.
"That's great, really great!" Cheng Ziyang sighed in relief. "Thanks to all the attention you brought in, my escape room business is finally on track. You should come with your friends sometime, it's on the house!"
Song Miaozhu waved him off. "No need…"
She was deep into her work with Yin Paper Clothes. Who had time to play escape rooms?
If she really wanted to experience something eerie, she might as well stroll through the city of Fengdu.
"Aw, don't be so formal with me! Back when I opened, you crafting paper goods out front brought in a ton of customers!" Cheng Ziyang said eagerly.
He wasn't exaggerating. Nearly every good review his escape room received online mentioned the "Anshou Paper Shop" next door.
Many players were drawn in just because the escape room was located in what used to be a funeral street—and had a paper craft shop as its neighbor. The horror vibe was already strong before they even stepped inside.
Song Miaozhu had been about to decline again, but changed her mind last minute. "Alright. I'll come check it out later."
Cheng Ziyang blinked in surprise, then quickly grinned. "Great! Looking forward to it!"
She turned toward Captain Li and the mother-daughter pair from the university dorms. "Come with me."
While she had been chatting, her little paper servants had finally moved the lower-grade paper goods back into the storefront. Opening the shop door, she found it just as clean as she'd left it, though the shelves were bare. When she had closed temporarily, she'd moved all unsold items to the ghost shop for storage or sale.
She led them up to the attic. "This is what I have. Spirit ingots are twenty cents each. Golden lotus flowers, twelve yuan each if they have six petals, plus two yuan for every extra petal. Paper clothes are forty yuan per set."
"Master Song," Captain Li said, "The compensation fund for E Hongjuan is 800,000 yuan. I don't think this will be enough to cover it."
"Right, right!" added the dorm supervisor. "Master Song, don't you have paper houses, paper cars, paper cellphones and stuff?"
"No," Song Miaozhu replied. "But if the money's not spent, I do have graded paper offerings."
Ingots:
1st-tier: ¥200
2nd-tier: ¥2,000
3rd-tier: ¥20,000
Gold Lotuses (six-petal base):
1st-tier: ¥20,000
2nd-tier: ¥100,000
3rd-tier: ¥200,000
(Each additional petal: +¥2,000)
Paper Clothes:
1st-tier: Up to ¥2,000
2nd-tier: Up to ¥20,000
3rd-tier: Up to ¥200,000
Captain Li and the dorm supervisor were both stunned. They had seen Song Miaozhu's abilities with their own eyes, so they bit their tongues.
But the older woman couldn't hold back. "Are you robbing us? These are just paper! A few yuan would already be outrageous, and you're asking tens of thousands?"
"These are graded paper offerings, crafted for the underworld," Song Miaozhu replied calmly. "What I quoted is the underworld's price."
"Crafted for the underworld?" the old lady scoffed. "Young people these days, making up scams without even trying to sound convincing! There's a police officer right here. Better be careful before you get arrested."
Song Miaozhu frowned slightly and turned to Captain Li. "So, who's in charge of the compensation fund? Are you still buying or not?"
Captain Li took out a bank card. "It's on here, under E Hongjuan's name. The money came from selling the suspect's property.
"But Master Song, your pricing really is... unexpected. Maybe we could start by buying some of the lower-grade offerings to send over, and tell E Hongjuan about the rest? Let her choose for herself?"
"That works too," Song Miaozhu replied. "Honestly, it'd be best if she could come pick them out herself. Has she been cremated yet? If so, bring her ashes here tonight and she can choose."
The Secret Art of Paper Crafting included a soul-summoning technique using a paper servant, which could summon a spirit to communicate. It wasn't even that difficult. But Song Miaozhu wasn't ready to reveal that particular spell, so she kept it to herself.
"Alright, let's do that." This was Captain Li's first time handling a case involving a ghost, and he was figuring things out as he went.
"Oh, and ask Leader Zhao to send someone with the Heavenly Eye opened," Song Miaozhu added dryly. "So no one accuses me of scamming."
The old lady bristled. "How dare you—"
"Mom," the dorm supervisor tugged her mother's sleeve, "we're here to buy offerings for E Hongjuan, not to argue about how the compensation fund is spent."
"But that house was your father's!" the woman said, clearly pained.
"He's a murderer, not my father!" The dorm supervisor turned to Song Miaozhu. "Master Song, I'd like to personally buy some standard items for E Hongjuan."
"Take your pick," Song Miaozhu replied. "But please don't let the old lady go to the offering."