To prevent their secret craft from being lost due to the divide between the living and the dead, the ancestors established a Heaven-ranked ghost shop that could be inherited by the living.
They paid a heavy price for it.
One of the prices paid was that whenever the ghost shop changed owners, it would revert to its initial state. This was why Anshou Hall wasn't always this small—it had shrunk back to its original humble size after the ownership transfer.
Once the business expanded, it could be upgraded using hell money. With enough money, it could become as luxurious as desired.
According to The Secret Art of Paper Crafting, anything could be made from paper—paper figures, paper houses, paper horses, paper cars… Though born from fragile sheets, these creations could exhibit extraordinary abilities.
However, all advanced moving paper crafts required energy to operate, whether spiritual energy, yin energy, or ghost power.
Spiritual energy was the most versatile, while yin and ghost power were adaptations developed after the paper craft entered the underworld, carrying certain limitations.
The living cannot harness ghost power—such power only becomes accessible after death.
A Heaven-ranked Ghost Shop owner can convert the underworld lifespan embedded in underworld currency into yin energy to power the crafts. But since this is an external force, its effects are significantly weaker and less flexible.
Moreover, both ghost and yin energy are suppressed by yang energy. In the human realm—especially during daylight—they're severely limited, even unusable. They're far more suited to the underworld.
Still skeptical, Song Miaozhu took a blank sheet of paper and cut out a few small paper figures.
Unsurprisingly, no matter what she tried, they wouldn't move.
She currently lacked both spiritual and yin energy, and all the hell money she earned yesterday had already been converted into RMB.
With a sigh, she placed the paper scraps back in the corner and obediently flipped The Secret Art of Paper Crafting to the last section, starting with the basics.
These were non-moving paper crafts, including the gold ingots sold at Anshou Hall. Folding these ingots only required some technique and an intangible "aura" cultivated through long exposure to paper crafting.
Coming from a family with deep roots in the craft, Song Miaozhu had no trouble with the techniques—she could fold a perfect ingot even with her eyes closed. But she wasn't sure if she possessed that mysterious aura.
Folding required special gold paper, and they no longer had any at home.
She wondered if there were still some left at the Anshou Paper Shop.
After her parents passed away, Song Miaozhu still returned to the old house every year—but she almost never visited the paper shop. She never imagined she'd one day have to inherit the family's paper crafting business.
Whether for the underworld ghost shop or for the possible return of spiritual energy to the human world, Song Miaozhu had to take this art seriously.
Though The Secret Art of Paper Crafting had been considered an unorthodox practice in the previous era of cultivation, in these times, it was still a rare and valuable legacy.
Unlike cultivation methods, which followed strict rules, this craft only required spiritual energy to function. Tonight, she planned to reopen the ghost shop and establish fixed business hours to attract more customers. With some time left in the afternoon, she decided to visit Anshou Paper Shop.
Grabbing her phone, she headed out.
As usual, she stopped by Auntie Chen's restaurant for a meat-and-vegetable lunch before making her way to the shop.
Anshou Paper Shop was located at No. 4 Huaihua Alley.
Its name was similar to Anshou Hall at No. 414 Yinshui Alley—both bore the name "Anshou Hall" and dealt in paper offerings. One served the living, the other the dead.
But compared to the spacious Yinshui Lane, Huaihua Lane was just a narrow alley. The largest vehicle that could pass through was a pedal-powered tricycle. Originally situated on the northern outskirts of Yuanshan Town, the lane now found itself near the center after the town expanded northward into the "Ancient Yuanshan Town" district.
But no matter how prime the location, the alley remained deep, narrow, and lined with funeral-related businesses. Unless someone had a death in the family, few would wander in.
The town had changed so much that Song Miaozhu circled back several times, even taking a wrong turn, before finally spotting the alley entrance—half-hidden behind a "Buy One, Get One Half Off" sign outside a bubble tea shop.
"Excuse me!"
Squeezing past the line of tourists, she finally stepped into the alley. Only when she recognized the curve of the corner and the chipped bricks in the wall did she confirm she was in the right place.
After three minutes of walking, the path opened up.
Before her were two L-shaped wooden buildings enclosing a small courtyard. In addition to the entrance she came through, there was an exit opposite her. In the courtyard's center stood a blooming locust tree, thick enough to take two people to wrap their arms around.
Her family's Anshou Paper Shop was nestled in the bottom of the inverted L-shaped building to the right. Compared to the bustling commercial streets outside, this place felt like an oasis of stillness in the chaos.
The moment she stepped in, she felt a coolness in the air.
Back in the day, this alley had paper shops, shroud shops, coffin vendors, incense stores—everything one needed for a funeral. Farther in, you'd reach the old stone yard, where craftsmen made tombstones.
But now, all of it was gone.
The well-connected moved their operations to crematoriums. The rest shut down for good. Business had long since dried up. Song Miaozhu looked around—most shop doors and windows were wide open, with workers going in and out. Even the spaces had been rented out.
From the props and mannequins scattered around the courtyard, it seemed they'd been leased to an escape room business.
Only her family's Anshou Paper Shop remained, its red-on-white plastic sign still hanging loyally over the door. Last autumn's leaves lay undisturbed at the doorstep. A fleeting image flashed through her mind—her parents busy inside the shop while she sat at the entrance doing homework.
"I probably can't bear to rent this place out either."
Before, she had avoided leasing it due to the nightmares, fearing it was the shop her great-grandmother had warned about. Now that she knew it was a misunderstanding, returning here made her reluctant to let strangers remodel it.
Fortunately, with the ghost shop in the underworld, money wasn't as tight. Keeping this place unused wasn't a problem.
"Who knows? Maybe it'll serve a purpose in my hands after all."
The thought lifted her spirits. She stepped forward, blew the dust off the lock, inserted the key, and with a click, the door creaked open.
Cough, cough, cough!
Another wave of dust greeted her.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating countless floating particles in the air.
The dust here was even thicker than in the old house.
This shop was far larger than the tiny Anshou Hall in Yinshui Alley.
The entrance opened into a wide, three-bay space with no partitions—a single expansive storefront. Once, it had been packed with all kinds of paper offerings. But they had all been burned as funeral offerings during her parents' rites.
Now, aside from a solid wooden counter, only a few bamboo stools and empty baskets remained.