With Chen Yuanyuan's cultivation now on the right track—she could already stir spiritual energy—Song Miaozhu felt relieved enough to say goodbye and head back.
Chen Yuanyuan immediately stood up. "I'll go with you and help you unpack!"
"No need. Focus on your painting. I don't have much to unpack anyway, and I need to get back to practicing paper crafting."
Chen Yuanyuan had originally planned to rent out this apartment. After the last tenant moved out, she'd hired cleaners to tidy up.
When Song Miaozhu moved in, the place was already spotless. All she had to do was lay out her bedding and arrange her personal belongings—and even that wasn't necessary.
The little paper servants had already taken care of everything while she was out eating with Chen Yuanyuan.
By the time Song Miaozhu returned, the curtains were tightly drawn, all the lights were on, hot tea was brewed, her computer was open, and the wanted criminal photos, blank paper, and scissors were neatly laid out.
She sat at the table, picked up the scissors, and began cutting out paper figures.
For each one, she meticulously wrote the criminal's personal details and crimes in tiny script, then pasted their mugshot onto the paper figure's head.
Just like that, one curse doll was complete.
By the time she had turned all the files she'd prepared last night and this morning into these paper servants, Miaozhu finally felt grounded again. Ever since the Eastern Wraiths were exorcised at the back of the Golden Rose Resort, something had felt missing. The sense of unease in her heart was finally settling.
In cultivation, standing still means falling behind. Practice must never be neglected.
Miaozhu ordered the little paper servants to move the tea table out of the way and lay down an old bedsheet across the floor. Then she began arranging the cursed paper figures across it one by one.
She still needed to decide how to curse them.
The Eastern ghosts hadn't belonged to this land. It hadn't mattered how she punished them—even cursing them into soul destruction carried no karmic consequences. Even the judges of the underworld wouldn't count it against her.
But this was different. These criminals were born on this land. Their souls were still under the jurisdiction of the underworld's reincarnation system.
If her curses went too far, she might end up in trouble herself.
These people, if truly guilty of horrific crimes, would eventually be judged and sent to Hell, to suffer punishment and have their souls destroyed. If she interfered and robbed them of that suffering, wasn't she just lightening their sentence and taking on the karmic debt herself?
"No, no. Soul annihilation curses are off the table."
"Cursing them to death is also risky."
If she cut short their earthly punishments, the underworld might take issue.
"And wrongful convictions must be considered."
After much deliberation, Song Miaozhu settled on a single curse: misfortune that would expose them to the authorities.
"This works. With only their identities and no physical samples, the curse's potency is limited. Cursing someone to bad luck is far easier than cursing them to death."
Decision made, she set to work.
A small porcelain bowl, rooster blood, and a thick sewing needle were prepared. Dipping the needle in blood, she channeled spiritual energy and began stabbing the effigies while chanting:
"Liu XX of Guangdong Province, ID 440… trafficker of women and children—first needle to the head, may sleepless nights plague you; second needle to the throat, may lies burn like blades; third needle to the heart, may flight feel like a hammer's strike. May peace elude you until justice claims you…"
These were not deadly curses, nor did they cause physical harm. They simply brought misfortune and exposed the criminals to arrest. Because of that, Miaozhu barely used up any spiritual energy.
In fact, such controlled curses tested her skill in the Secret Art of Paper Crafting more than those large-scale, reckless ones ever did.
She cursed all one hundred fugitives in the file before she stopped.
Once finished, she carefully rolled up the bloodstained sheet—curses and all—and stored it inside a yin-wood box in the storage room of the ghost workshop.
"Stay right here," she said. "I'll come back to 'take care' of you tomorrow."
Miaozhu was very methodical when it came to cultivation. She made sure to give every technique proper attention and time. Now that she had real material to work with, there was no need to rush.
She still had other matters to attend to. In fact, she'd even turned down Chen Yuanyuan's dinner invitation to the Imperial Cuisine Hall for this.
After replenishing her spiritual energy with a spirit stone, she prepared to visit the underworld.
Her recent mahjong games with Shopkeeper Liang and the others hadn't been for nothing. The elusive paper-crafting ghost instructors she'd struggled to recruit? They were now secured.
All three were centuries-old ghosts, well-versed in the inner workings of Anshou Hall. Under Song Miaozhu's promise not to compete with their businesses, each had lent her a paper-crafting instructor—two hours of daily lessons for four months, totaling a year's worth of instruction.
These instructors were far more specialized than her previous hires. Though not the cream of the crop, they were more than capable of laying a solid foundation.
Her current weakness? A shaky base. She could only craft paper effigies through cutting and pasting—the core tying method remained beyond her.
Her past instructors, while skilled in their own fields, had only tangential relevance to paper crafting. Progress had been slow.
Now, she planned to focus on these paper-crafting instructors first, solidify her fundamentals, then experiment with the Secret Art of Paper Crafting while continuing advanced studies with other ghost instructors.
These ghost instructors specialized in paper crafting, unlike the random ones she'd found before.
They might not have been top-tier masters or the pride of their shops, but they were more than enough to teach her a solid foundation.
That was her biggest weakness. So far, she had only learned how to craft using cut-and-paste methods. She hadn't even touched the core binding technique of the art.
The instructors she'd previously hired had all been experts in other fields. Learning from them had its benefits, but progress was slower and less targeted.
Her plan now was to have these three ghost instructors focus on building her foundation. Once that was in place, she would study the Secret Art of Paper Crafting on her own and pursue advanced lessons from other instructors. That way, she could refine her skills to the highest level.
Today was her first class.
Each instructor would teach for two hours. After that, a different instructor would teach a final one-hour session.
She dispatched a team of little paper servants to scout hiding places within a kilometer in case of emergencies. Another team guarded the door and windows to protect her physical body.
With all preparations made, Song Miaozhu departed for the underworld.
As soon as the paper-crafting instructor arrived, she exchanged brief greetings and then jumped right into the study of binding techniques.
With this skill in hand, many of the secrets in the Secret Art of Paper Crafting would finally become usable.