After sunrise, Song Ciwan bid farewell to the Big White Goose, left for work, and, as usual, brought her umbrella.
As she walked through the alleys, she took in the lively, everyday scenes of the Mortal World and listened to the idle chatter and gossip of the neighbors.
For instance: "Guo the Third's family has it rough. The pillar of their family is gone. After the funeral, more than half of the fifty taels of compensation was already spent. Their eldest son had to drop out of school, what a tragedy!"
Guo the Third was also a junior official, and he had recently died while apprehending a demon.
His funeral had been a big affair, and word got out about the compensation money. It was exactly the same amount as when Song Youde died—fifty taels!
Whenever Song Ciwan heard news about his family, she would always linger for a few extra steps to listen in.
The neighbors said, "Rough? How is that as rough as the Song Family's situation? The Guo Family's eldest just can't go to school anymore. But the Song Family? Song Youde died, his wife died, leaving just a little girl all alone. Her engagement was broken, and she's drowning in debt. She had no choice but to go work in the Washing Room to pay it back..."
"That's true. Once you enter the Washing Room, can anything good come of it? She'll be dead within two or three years. Tsk, tsk. That family is doomed to be completely wiped out!"
"Heh, if you ask me, it's all Song Youde's wife's fault. Her husband died, and she fell ill. It's one thing to get sick, but to spend so many silver coins on treatment! If not for that, the Song Family wouldn't be drowning in debt..."
"Pah! What are you talking about? Who asks to get sick?"
Aunt Jin Hua came out carrying a basket. She immediately shot back, her voice sharp and loud, "If you're all so concerned, why didn't you lend the Song Family more silver coins back then? Who knows, if they'd had a few dozen more taels of silver, maybe his wife wouldn't have died, and you wouldn't need to be standing here making such callous remarks, right?"
Aunt Ge, the one Aunt Jin Hua had just rebuked, immediately put her hands on her hips, ready to fire back. But she suddenly felt a chill crawl up her spine.
The chill was deeply unsettling. She couldn't help but turn to look, and her eyes met Song Ciwan's pitch-black, bottomless eyes.
Those eyes... they were like a dry well, a frozen pond, or even a bottomless abyss. The moment Aunt Ge met her gaze, she became inexplicably flustered. She stammered, "You... you... You're so charitable! I won't waste my breath on you!"
Before the words were fully out of her mouth, Aunt Ge wiped her hands on her apron and hurried away in a fluster.
As she walked, she couldn't help but mutter to herself, 'It's not that I'm scared of anyone. I just can't be bothered arguing with someone who's full of Bad Luck and about to die... Hmph! Hmph!'
After Aunt Ge left, the Heaven and Earth Scale materialized before Song Ciwan once more.
[Human Desires: Greed, Anger, Fear. Three taels and two maces. Available for trade.]
Aunt Ge had somehow provided Song Ciwan with three taels and two maces of human desires. And besides anger and fear, the desires she supplied also included "greed."
'What greed? Why greed? Where did this "greed" come from?'
Song Ciwan watched Aunt Ge's retreating figure and became lost in thought.
When Aunt Jin Hua saw Song Ciwan, she hurried over to express her concern. Song Ciwan replied, "Don't worry, Auntie, I'm doing fine. Once I save up a bit more money, I'll make a payment on my debt at the end of the month."
Aunt Jin Hua immediately cried, "Oh, child, what's the rush? Everyone knows your circumstances. Who would dare pressure you for payment? Don't do this! You should use any money you save to buy yourself some nourishing food. Save for a couple of months and then get out of that place for good..."
Song Ciwan listened quietly to her concerned rambling. When she finished, Song Ciwan asked softly, "Auntie, you said before that if my family had an extra few dozen taels, my mother... would she really not have died?"
Aunt Jin Hua herself had just brought this up, but when Song Ciwan asked the question directly, she suddenly paused, as if the words were caught in her throat.
After a moment, she sighed and said, "Maybe, maybe not. Who can really know? Good child, we shouldn't dwell on the past. People have to look forward."
Song Ciwan nodded. "Yes, I will. Please don't worry, Auntie."
There wasn't much more to say after that.
But very interestingly, at this precise moment, the Heaven and Earth Scale reappeared and collected a cluster of the seven emotions and six desires from Aunt Jin Hua: [Human Desires: Love, Worry, Fear. Seven taels and three maces. Available for trade.]
At that moment, Aunt Jin Hua's feelings toward Song Ciwan were extremely complex. 'Besides "love," there was also "worry" and "fear." Why?'
'Song Ciwan already knew the Heaven and Earth Scale didn't collect others' emotions arbitrarily. The prerequisite was that the person had to experience a strong emotional fluctuation because of her. Only when these emotions reached a certain threshold would the Heaven and Earth Scale appear and collect them.'
'In other words, the emotions generated in ordinary daily interactions were rarely strong enough to meet the standard for collection.'
'The behavior of both Aunt Jin Hua and Aunt Ge today was certainly food for thought.'
Song Ciwan already had her suspicions. She sighed inwardly and bid farewell to Aunt Jin Hua.
This time, Aunt Jin Hua didn't run after her, trying to press pastries into her hands.
Song Ciwan went to work as usual, Washing Demons and collecting Malice. After her shift, she didn't go straight home or to the market. Instead, she used A Grain of Sand in the Sea to find a deserted corner, where she retrieved a plain set of men's kudzu cloth garments from the Grotto Heaven space of her Heaven and Earth Scale and changed into them.
She redid her hair in a masculine topknot and applied a dark powder to her face to give it a sallow complexion. And so, a thin, unremarkable-looking man appeared in the alley.
Still under the effect of A Grain of Sand in the Sea, Song Ciwan slowly walked out of the alley in her new disguise. Then, just like any other unremarkable person, she melted inconspicuously into the crowd.
She made her way to Qianming Street. In the area near the Demon Refining Platform, there were several Spiritual Material Shops.
These Spiritual Material Shops primarily sold various Spiritual Objects, but they also dealt in some low-grade Spirit Talismans and Low Level Magical Artifacts that could be used by ordinary people.
Of course, they sold high-level items too, but Song Ciwan had no way of knowing just how "high" that high-level could be.
She selected a Spiritual Material Shop named Min's and stood outside for a moment to observe.
Some rather threadbare Martial Artists came and went, while richly dressed young masters with their entourages of servants swept by. After a moment, when Min's Magical Artifact shop grew quiet, Song Ciwan silently stepped inside.
A shop assistant was lazily flicking a feather duster around. He didn't even raise his eyes when Song Ciwan walked in.
Not until Song Ciwan spoke. "Excuse me, do you have any century-old Peach Wood?"
The assistant shot bolt upright, finally noticing that a customer had come in.
A smile spread across his face. "Heh, century-old Peach Wood, you say. That'll be a string of coins for one tael. How many taels would you like, esteemed guest?"
A string of coins was equivalent to one tael of silver. By that measure, a catty of century-old Peach Wood would cost ten taels of silver.
For an ordinary person, this was an astronomical price!
But Peach Wood possessed Exorcism properties, and century-old Peach Wood was especially rare, so the price wasn't entirely unreasonable.
In that moment, Song Ciwan suddenly felt that the windfall of 350 taels she had recently come by—a sum she had thought was quite good—was nothing at all. 'I'm still poor!'
Poor or not, she had to buy it. Song Ciwan immediately spent a hundred taels of silver on ten catties of Peach Wood.
She then asked for the price of century-old Li Wood. It wasn't as expensive as Peach Wood, costing only five taels a catty. Song Ciwan bought ten catties of it as well.
With both the Peach Wood and the Li Wood now in her hands, Song Ciwan could finally return home, carve the Puppet, practice the Life Substitution Technique, and perform the Substitution!