Song Miaozhu carefully checked her body from head to soul. Only when she confirmed there was no abnormal aura did she feel at ease.
Judging by her current peak spiritual state, along with her spiritual platform filled with energy and ready to replenish itself at any moment, she could likely stay in the underworld for a full hour at most—that was, two hours in total.
This time limit wasn't affected by day or night.
If her cultivation improved and her spiritual energy increased, that duration might extend even further. And with the added protection time from the Heaven-grade ghost shop, she had a total of three hours.
One class per hour meant she could attend an extra lesson from one of the ghost instructors. Miaozhu took out the list of ghost instructors and studied it.
There was no need to take more bamboo weaving classes for now. There was only one bamboo weaving instructor, and after attending two sessions, she had only learned the basics of shaving bamboo strips.
She understood the technique, but her hands still lacked the skill. She couldn't even make evenly shaved strips yet, so more time was needed to digest what she had learned before returning for another class.
She narrowed her choices to instructors in painting, sewing, and calligraphy.
She had already taken a calligraphy class and could continue with it, but there was only one instructor. She had already grasped his teaching style.
On the other hand, there were still many painting and sewing instructors she hadn't had a chance to learn from. She picked three ghost instructors she hadn't studied under yet and scheduled one class with each for tonight. She wanted to get a feel for their teaching before deciding anything further.
She also needed to arrange a class with Jin Meilan for tomorrow night. Miaozhu had been working on the paper version of the skirt Jin Meilan had taught her. After several days of experimentation, she had finally found the best design.
Originally, she had planned to finish it today. However, today was Thursday.
The paper shop in the world of the living only opened on Thursdays. Her crafting time during the day would be limited, so she moved the class to tomorrow night.
Her little paper servants worked together to pull open the curtains. Morning light filtered softly through the window. Seeing the time was about right, Miaozhu rode out on her e-bike, leaving a few little paper servants at home to watch the place.
After negotiations broke down with the SEIU regarding the rights to customize Fourth-Rank Paper Clothes, no one from the SEIU had contacted her again. Even the contribution point marketplace had gone quiet on their end.
Still, these things didn't affect her paper shop's business much. She only opened the shop once a week on Thursdays, but that was enough to sell off all the low-grade hell coins made by the paper servants the week before.
People from the town came to buy. Tourists came too. Even folks from the city or nearby areas, and those asking others to buy on their behalf. These buyers were all people with some awareness of the spiritual energy revival. Many had some connection to the SEIU.
The SEIU's app had recently released information about the differences between handcrafted and printed paper money. Among cultivators, this sparked a wave of interest in handcrafted offerings.
Since the SEIU had not strictly enforced secrecy, even some ordinary people with indirect ties to cultivators had caught wind of it. Old handcraft paper shops like Anshou Hall Paper Shop had seen an uptick in business lately. According to Boss Wu, prices for gold and yellow paper at the paper mills had already gone up.
Even though Miaozhu's late-night paper crafting video had long faded from viral status, it had left a lingering impression online. Despite only opening one day a week, Anshou Hall Paper Shop still did very well. Sometimes she didn't even need the full day to sell out her stock, and could close early.
Song Miaozhu never cared who bought the goods. She just wanted to clear out the low-quality paper crafts that wouldn't sell in the underworld. Even a mosquito's leg was still meat—she'd take whatever earnings she could get.
After arriving at the shop today, she followed her usual routine: first, checking over the paper crafts her little servants had moved to the shelves last night.
Once she confirmed everything was fine, she had the servants hide away, opened the doors, and started making gold ingots and lotus flowers while waiting for customers. In the end, the basket was full of ingots, but aside from a few early-bird tourists peeking in before heading to the escape room nearby, not a single serious buyer came in.
"Seems like business this week is a lot quieter than last week," Miaozhu thought.
But she wasn't disappointed. It wasn't a festival or holiday season—naturally, there would be less demand for offerings. The living still needed to live their lives. They weren't going to spend every day mourning the dead.
The SEIU's word-of-mouth info could only spread so far. The handcrafted paper craze had died down. It made sense that the shop would grow quiet again.
"Looks like I should change my shop hours from every Thursday to every other Thursday—or maybe just the fourth of each month."
She took a blank sheet of white paper and wrote:
"This shop will now open on the 4th of each month, from 9:00 to 17:00."
Then grabbed some glue, ready to paste the notice to the door.
Just as she peeled off the old "Open every Thursday" sign, someone called out to her.
Turning around, she saw Zhao Mumu and Chen Shuanghe walking over together.
"What brings you two here?" she asked in surprise. "Did Team Leader Zhao finally give you a break?"
All branches of the SEIU were stepping up internal training efforts. Everyone was either running around cultivating in their assigned districts, filming tutorials for the SEIU's app, or teaching fellow team members.
Recently, thanks to Old Zhao's spirit-vision ability, Zhao Huoyan had discovered several skilled artisans in Lingchen who could influence spiritual energy.
The logistics team had also added new members.
Zhao Huoyan had assigned each of the top-level artisans who could manipulate and absorb spiritual energy, including Zhao Mumu and Chen Shuanghe, a support crew. These formed study groups where the support crew would both assist and learn their instructors' signature skills.
Even Zhao Huoyan had joined Old Zhao's study group.
Zhao Mumu and Chen Shuanghe had been swamped. They only chatted with Miaozhu now and then through WeChat.
They had mentioned all this to her before.
"Time off? Not a chance," Chen Shuanghe groaned, looking like the sky had collapsed. "Can you believe we have to submit weekly progress reports and get ranked based on our improvement?"
Zhao Mumu shook her head. "My brother basically brought the military training regimen into the SEIU."
"The last time I studied this intensely was back in senior year of high school," said Chen Shuanghe. "Now every day feels like senior year."
"Well, I can tell the training's paying off," Miaozhu said. "The spiritual light around both of you is way more pronounced. I bet your skills have leveled up too."
"That's true," Zhao Mumu replied. "I can just barely see the specks of free-floating spiritual energy in the air now."
"I've started absorbing spiritual energy to refine my body," said Chen Shuanghe. "And finally, I've got more than just one dish—spicy stir-fried pork—that can activate spiritual energy."
"Congratulations."
Song Miaozhu could tell that, despite their complaints about Zhao Huoyan's intense training, neither of them had slacked off in their personal efforts.
Cooking and wood carving were things they truly enjoyed.
And when you love what you do, even long hours don't feel tiring.