Song Miaozhu leapt from a tree branch and landed behind the wild boar. She jabbed it with a twig she'd picked up along the way.
The boar, busy scratching its back against a tree, suddenly felt a sharp sting on its rump. It turned around, eyes flaring. 「(#▼皿▼)!」
Taunt successful. Song Miaozhu spun on her heel and took off running.
She sprinted a bit too fast at first and quickly realized the boar couldn't keep up. She slowed her pace just enough and called out, luring it back on track. "Over here, over here!"
The boar growled in rage and charged.
Once, then again.
Nothing happened.
"Hurry up!" Song Miaozhu waved at it from ahead, as if inviting a friend to catch up.
The boar's eyes burned red as it chased after her. In the dense forest, finding a spot where sunlight actually reached the ground wasn't easy. She crossed two mountains before discovering a clearing bright enough for her plan.
By then, the boar was panting heavily. It could barely manage a charge anymore. It only made it that far because Song Miaozhu kept prodding its rear with the twig and throwing mocking glances over her shoulder.
When the sunlight hit the boar, Song Miaozhu summoned her spiritual power and hurled the Shadowbind Paper Lock. A golden flash shot forward, passing clean through the boar's body and landing squarely on its shadow, wrapping it up tight.
Just when the furious beast thought its moment for revenge had come, its entire body froze. It felt something pull it down like invisible chains—strong, unyielding. It couldn't move a muscle.
Song Miaozhu circled around it. "So it really does work!"
She poked it with the twig again. The boar's bloodshot eyes glared at her, but it didn't even blink. It was like a statue, completely still.
"Not bad at all."
The Shadowbind Paper Lock automatically targeted the opponent's shadow. No skill required. As long as you threw it right, it would lock on its own. To release it, however, she would need to undo the lock manually—channeling spiritual energy to draw the paper rope back.
Its only drawback was this: once it latched onto a shadow, the sunlight it had absorbed started draining. The golden glow binding the shadow visibly faded over time.
The more violently the target struggled, the faster the glow diminished. Once the golden light disappeared, the lock would lose its power completely. So, while effective, the lock wasn't something you could set and forget. Still, during battle, it was perfect for immobilizing an enemy long enough to strike.
Satisfied, Song Miaozhu pulled the rope back and jogged off. The wild boar blinked once, realized she was gone, and roared at the mountains in frustration. Later, she jumped into a tree and tried it on some sparrows. Out of the whole flock, she only caught one. The Shadowbind Paper Lock could only bind one shadow at a time.
After disturbing every creature in the Yunwu Mountains, a new idea struck her. "Wait, spiritual creatures have shadows too, don't they?"
She raced to a sunny cliffside and summoned her spiritual paper phoenix. Then she flung the Shadowbind Lock straight at it.
The phoenix flinched. 「???」
"Yup, it works!" Miaozhu beamed. "As long as there's a shadow, size doesn't matter!"
Back in the cave, she added the Shadowbind Paper Lock to her list of nourished items and infused it with green spiritual energy. Then she did the same for her Echo Paper Tower. After charging both with her power, she used the Spirit Mirror to assess them. The Shadowbind Lock's function remained unchanged. But the Echo Paper Tower's result had shifted.
Where once it read: "Can capture a random past sound that occurred at this location," it now read: "Can capture any type of sound that ever occurred at this location."
Just one word had changed, but the meaning was entirely different. Miaozhu couldn't resist testing out the now-spiritualized Echo Paper Tower. This time, she could specify what kind of sound she wanted.
"I want to hear any human voices—excluding mine," she instructed.
First activation:
"It's still raining? Looks like we're stuck here for the night."
"My firestarter got soaked. No way we can light a fire. Let's head deeper inside, get out of the wind."
...
Song Miaozhu immediately recognized them. "Those are the same two people I heard before!"
She triggered it again.
"Left: Qinglong. Right: Bohu. Dead-end at Qian. Backside's Xuewu. That hill ahead—Zuoshan—is a real treasure trove for storing spirit energy. Once Yutu finishes here, we'll head up to Bin Fort!"
The second level burned away.
"…What?"
Miaozhu was stunned.
She didn't understand a single word of that.
It wasn't the local dialect, and it wasn't standard Mandarin either.
Third activation.
More strange speech she couldn't comprehend.
These recordings couldn't be captured on any device—only heard directly through the paper tower. If she couldn't understand it now, she'd never be able to.
She guessed it must have been people from ancient times speaking in an old accent she simply didn't recognize.
"No wonder," she thought. Some of the older ghosts in the underworld muttered things she couldn't decipher either.
Good thing the ghost world had its own language and script. Thanks to her credentials as a Heaven-tier ghost shop owner, she had access to ghost speech and writing. Otherwise, she wouldn't even be able to run her store, much less do business with ancient ghosts.
The remaining activations brought more of the same—unintelligible chatter.
Her short-lived interest in the Echo Paper Tower faded again.
"Looks like this thing just isn't suited for quiet places. Or for echoes from too long ago."
Sure, it let you hear the past. But what was the point if you couldn't understand it? She dusted the ashes off her hands and resolved to make a few more Echo Towers later. She'd try them in more populated areas and see if they fared better there.
Just then, her spiritual paper kite arrived, carrying a stack of silver-foil paper. Time to craft the Moon Dew Paper Lamp. Miaozhu had made plenty of paper dolls holding bowls and spirit-gathering mascots before. Folding a paper bowl came easily to her. The key now was in the spiritual ignition.
She saturated her spiritual platform with energy, restored her own reserves to full, and clutched a top-grade spirit stone in her hand before daring to begin. It took several tries, but she finally succeeded. Cradling the silver paper bowl, she went into the bamboo grove and found a moonlit spot. She set the bowl down and left one of her paper soldier servants to watch over it.
Moonlight pooled in the bowl, silver mist swirling faintly inside. Satisfied, she returned to the cave. Her spirit detached from her body as she left for her underworld classes. After the lesson, she came back and went to check on the Moon Dew Paper Lamp.
Four hours had passed. The moon had moved, and that part of the grove was now in shadow. Still, a shallow pool of dewdrops had formed inside the bowl. They shimmered with silver light and gave off a cool, calming aura.
She herself was in no need of healing. With multiple layers of protective paper clothes and spiritual armor, not even a scratch showed on her from running around the forest. No matter. She called back her three cats using her little paper servants.
Holding one of their soft paws, she gently dabbed a bit of moon dew on it. They'd been playing nonstop in the bamboo grove, even learning to climb cliffs. Their paw pads were caked with hard dirt that could break the skin if peeled off.
This would be the perfect way to treat them.