[Heart Like Eighteen]:Thanks again! Once I've restored these paper crafting forms, I'll show you the results. If you run into any difficulties in your studies—especially if the ghost instructors can't help—don't hesitate to come to me! Let's keep learning from each other. Also, don't forget the bamboo slicing exercises I mentioned yesterday. Practice daily, and show me photos when you're done. If your foundation is solid, everything you make afterward will take half the effort and yield twice the results!
[Miaow Zhu]:Got it.
Song Miaozhu shook her head with a smile. Mutual learning? Not exactly. While they were treating each other as peers, it was clear that Master Zhang Yunxi had already taken her in as a half-apprentice and was determined to temper her paper crafting skills with rigorous effort.
She hadn't yet gone on her usual mountain run, so she jogged several laps deep in the Xiaozhu Hill to complete her training for the day. Then she picked a sturdy bamboo stalk, chopped it down, and carried it home.
Zhang Yunxi had hurried back to Xiangcheng that same day and entered closed-door study, diving into those scanned craft blueprints. But she never parted from her phone and checked in daily to review Song Miaozhu's progress on her fundamentals.
Whenever she had breakthroughs while restoring the techniques, she would send photos and updates to Miaozhu right away. Song Miaozhu watched as Master Zhang advanced rapidly, even surpassing her in some areas, despite Miaozhu being personally guided by ghost instructors. This made her happy—but it also spurred her to train even harder.
After all, even though her goal wasn't to perfectly replicate the paper crafts of the ghost masters, she still needed to fully understand them before adapting their techniques into the Secret Art of Paper Crafting to create her own masterpieces.
As Zhang Yunxi progressed quickly and began offering her pointers, Miaozhu was no longer limited by the three hours she could spend in the underworld each day. Whenever she hit a wall, she could now ask Master Zhang for guidance, and conversely, when Zhang Yunxi faced a tough question, Miaozhu would consult her ghost instructors during her night classes.
With this back-and-forth, Miaozhu absorbed a lot of knowledge. Crafting techniques she had once struggled to grasp finally began to make sense. For her first attempt at using paper crafting to create something from the Secret Art of Paper Crafting, she decided on a small spirit paper horse for her little paper servants.
It was the simplest kind of transportation talisman.
Bamboo strips served as the frame, rice paper as the skin. After crafting the shape of a small horse, she would imbue it with energy by "awakening" it through a special sigil brushstroke.
It didn't require too much spiritual power, but the horse had to be well-proportioned and structurally sound, or it would end up as a broken-legged wreck.
As for appearance, that wasn't important.
The horse could be elaborate and ornate, or simple and unadorned, so long as the paper covered the bamboo frame completely.
But since she had recently been learning to craft bold, vibrantly colored ceremonial paper horses from her ghost instructors, she borrowed some of those techniques and decorated the horse based on the little paper servants' sense of aesthetics.
The end result turned out quite well.
She raised her brush and channeled spiritual power to activate it.
The moment she lifted her brush, the little paper horse reared its front legs and let out a high-pitched whinny. Like the paper servants and paper soldier dolls, it had been granted a trace of spiritual awareness.
Its talents, however, were focused entirely on speed. Its hooves clattered against the table, then it leapt down and began circling her legs, eager to carry its creator on a gallop.
"You're not strong enough to carry me. Your partners will be your riders," she said, lifting the idle paper servants nearby.
The little horse lowered its proud head and pawed at the ground in frustration, as if sulking over its small size. Still, it shared the same origin as the little paper servants and naturally felt close to them.
Soon, they began clambering onto its back, one after another. Each servant was no thicker than a sheet of paper. Stacked tightly, all twenty of them somehow managed to pile on.
At last, the little horse had a job. It galloped proudly around the courtyard, carrying its tiny passengers. Three plump furballs lounging in the old pagoda tree perked their ears at the noise and peered down.
The deep red horse, its little paper riders flapping in the wind like an octopus's arms, stirred the hunting instinct of the cats. When Song Miaozhu returned after tidying up her paints and paper scraps, she discovered that a full-blown cat-vs-horse chase had broken out in the yard.
The three cats were charging after the red paper horse from one end of the courtyard to the other.
According to the Secret Art of Paper Crafting, a spirit paper horse would never tire so long as it had enough energy, and could run three thousand miles in a day. Her version was smaller and less powerful, but it was more than enough to keep the overweight, once-agile cats on their toes.
Mounted atop it, the little paper servants could now move around far more efficiently.
Clearly, the spirit paper horse was a success.
She returned to the bamboo grove behind the house and cut down another ten or so stalks.
Over the next few days, she crafted a few more of the same small horses for her little servants, while also processing the bamboo into strips of varying thickness. But this time, she wasn't going to stop at miniature horses. Watching her little servants play with the cats every day stirred something in her.
She wanted one for herself.
A full-sized paper horse, as tall and strong as the real thing. Which, of course, would be far more difficult to make. Luckily, by now she had practiced enough to master the essential techniques. Making a larger version was just a matter of scaling up.
After several days of preparation, everything finally clicked into place.
One week later, a proud red paper steed stood in her courtyard, waiting.
Song Miaozhu was ready to perform the final step—awakening.
But instead of rushing it, she waited until the sun had completely set. Only then, under the cover of night, did she proceed.
This time, she wasn't using spiritual energy.
She planned to awaken the horse using converted yin energy drawn from the hell coins, turning it into a Yin Paper Horse. She had her reasons. If she made another spirit horse, she had nowhere to ride it. Its ability to travel three thousand miles in a day still didn't match the car she had bought.
But in the underworld, in Fengdu City, the streets welcomed mounted riding. No worries about crashing into ghost pedestrians—or damaging her own body.
With this Yin Paper Horse, her travel in the underworld would become much more efficient. She could even reach Sparrow Slope for her mahjong games faster.
Yin-based activation couldn't be done during the day. It had to wait until nightfall, when yang energy was at its weakest, for the best results.
Still, whether using yin or spiritual energy, the activation technique was the same. Song Miaozhu was experienced now, and the process went smoothly.