Chapter 19 How… Did I… End Up… Here?…

Chapter 19: How... How Did I End Up Here?...

After noon, A Chan locked her door and headed to the West Market.

The West Market was a bustling hub, its stalls laden with goods from every corner of the land, yet the specific items she sought were notoriously difficult to procure there.

She found a shop displaying a plaque with the character "Hunt." It was a small establishment, devoid of merchandise, save for an old man in a gray robe lounging idly behind the counter.

Upon seeing a young, beautiful woman enter, the old man lifted an eyelid. "Miss, have you perhaps come to the wrong place?"

"I'm looking for a few things," A Chan stated directly.

At her words, the old man straightened up. "What might you be looking for, miss?"

"Blackwater moss over thirty years old, fresh white soil from a century-old grave, and a hollow section of a locust tree trunk at least fifty years old."

The old man swiftly jotted them down on two sheets of paper.

"These three items aren't particularly valuable, but they're a bit troublesome to acquire. The price is fifty taels of silver, with a fifteen-tael deposit. Can you accept that?"

"Yes." A Chan pushed two silver ingots across the counter.

After weighing the silver, the old man stamped both papers with a square seal. Then, from beneath the counter, he produced a thumb-sized wooden token carved with the character "Hunt."

He slid one stamped paper and the token towards A Chan. "This is our Hunting Shop's token of trust. In three days, bring the remaining payment and this token to collect your items."

A Chan pocketed the paper and token, gave a slight nod, and turned to leave the shop.

The Hunting Shop was a relatively legitimate organization, operating under official supervision; otherwise, it wouldn't be able to openly conduct business in the West Market.

They specialized in sourcing unusual items for clients. Though their prices were steep, their goods were never counterfeit.

Should there be any issues with the items, or if the shopkeepers absconded, A Chan could present the token to the authorities, and her complaint would be duly processed.

After A Chan left, the old man shook the paper listing the three items and called out, "Doggy, work's here!"

Soon, the cloth curtain over the back door was pushed aside, and a burly man, nearly two meters tall, ducked inside.

"What's the job, old man?"

The old man handed him the paper. "A small one. We have some moss left in the shop. For the grave soil, you can go to Yi County; there are plenty of century-old graves there. A day trip should suffice."

Doggy nodded. "I'll send Second Dog for that. What about the hollow locust tree?"

"The locust tree requires a trip into Black Mountain. There's a locust grove there, but that place isn't clean. You'll need to go during the day and handle it yourself."

"Understood." Doggy readily agreed, then asked with a hint of curiosity, "Old man, what are these three things for?"

The old man shook his head. "They're all things rich in yin energy. I've never seen this combination before."

As the shopkeeper of the Hunting Shop, his experience was naturally extensive; he could often infer a client's intentions from the items they requested.

However, of the three items the recent client wanted, only the moss was common. The other two had never been requested before.

Leaving the shop, A Chan didn't head straight home.

She detoured to an ironmonger's stall, buying a hammer and chisel, then to a spice vendor for a mortar and a syringe.

Finally, she visited the jade stall that had previously been investigated by the Bright Mirror Bureau.

The memorably portly shopkeeper was currently at his stall, recommending a set of jade tea utensils to a customer. The customer seemed quite pleased and promptly paid with banknotes. The shopkeeper deftly packed the tea set into a brocade box and presented it to the customer.

With a beaming smile, he saw the customer off, then turned and noticed A Chan, who had been standing there watching for a while.

"Miss, are you looking to buy jade?"

A Chan pondered how to phrase her request without seeming abrupt, but ultimately decided to be direct.

"I happened to be here the day your stall had that incident."

The shopkeeper paused briefly but didn't change his expression, waiting for her to continue.

"I wanted to ask, do you still have the jade pieces that were affected at your stall?"

"They're still here, but they turn to powder with the slightest pressure—I'm afraid they're unusable." The shopkeeper was honest. It wasn't that he didn't want to throw them away, but discarding them all felt like a waste.

The ruined jade pieces, when gathered, could fill a good half-sack—the very thought pained him.

"To be frank, I've been making incense pellets lately and happen to need jade powder, which is why I came to buy some."

"Is that so…" The shopkeeper mused. "If you can take all of it, ten taels of silver will suffice."

He didn't lack ten taels of silver, but selling a pile of useless items for that price was enough to bring him some peace of mind.

"Good, I'll take them." A Chan agreed.

The shopkeeper asked A Chan to wait while he sent a young assistant to fetch the sack of discarded jade.

When the sack arrived, A Chan opened it and casually sifted through its contents. The ruined jade inside had indeed been inhabited by Snow Needle Snakes.

She brushed the jade dust off her hands, tied up the sack, and pulled a ten-tael silver ingot from her sleeve to hand to the shopkeeper.

This time, the items A Chan bought were quite heavy for her. Unfortunately, she had no one to help carry them, so she had to walk a stretch, rest, then continue—it took her over an hour to finally return home.

Once home, she casually placed the sack of jade behind the door. She hadn't lied to the shopkeeper; this jade powder, apart from making incense, truly had no other use.

The jade had absorbed the aura of the Snow Needle Snakes, making it highly effective at repelling common snakes, insects, and rodents. If Xiao Lin Shi hadn't met with an unexpected incident, A Chan would have bought them much sooner.

Of course, the jade powder was just a side purchase. Her main purpose for visiting the West Market that day, besides commissioning the three materials, was to buy tools.

She took out the hammer and chisel, then brought out the shadow-willow stump she had bought earlier at the West Market.

A Chan had only ever watched others do craftwork before—doing it herself was a different experience.

She wanted to carve the shadow willow into a bowl shape but underestimated the wood's hardness. From broad daylight until the moon set in the west, she finally completed it.

By the time she set down the chisel, blisters had formed on her hands.

A Chan paid no mind to her hands. She checked the sky, then carried the willow stump—with its hollowed-out cavity—to the backyard.

The next day, the willow was only slightly damp. But by the third day, the hollowed-out groove was completely filled with water.

As it happened, three days had passed. A Chan collected the items she'd ordered from the West Market and brought the willow stump back inside.

At sunset, she closed the doors and windows, lighting just a single oil lamp inside.

She took out the three materials she had spent fifty taels of silver to obtain.

The hollowed section of the locust wood was dark inside, studded with black knots. A Chan carefully removed each knot, ground them into powder with a mortar, and set it aside.

Then, she ground the blackwater moss into powder as well and poured it into the willow trough along with the knot powder.

A Chan used her hands to mix the two powders with the water in the groove, kneading them like dough, and finally sprinkled sifted grave-earth over it to bind everything together.

She divided the kneaded mixture into eight portions, placing each into an extrusion tube to extrude thin incense sticks.

At first, A Chan's hands trembled, producing wavy incense sticks, but she gradually gained steadiness.

The materials she had only yielded fewer than a hundred incense sticks, which needed to cure in the shade for three days.

Three days later, A Chan had ninety-two usable incense sticks; the rest had broken.

She divided the incense into two portions, storing them in wooden boxes.

One box contained forty-nine incense sticks, while the other was stored separately.

At midnight that night, A Chan, who usually went to bed early, came downstairs fully clothed. She approached the wooden table, where only the incense box and a bowl filled with rice were placed. Beneath the bowl was a yellow paper inscribed with Xiao Lin Shi's name and astrological birth characters.

She had obtained this from Sun Ma before her departure.

Sitting on the wooden stool, A Chan took out an incense stick from the box, lit it with a tinderbox, and inserted it into the bowl.

That night, she remained seated by the table, lighting a total of seven incense sticks. Only by the fifth watch (before dawn) did the last one burn out.

The room remained completely still—nothing happened.

Untroubled, A Chan closed the box and went upstairs to rest.

The same routine repeated on the second, third… up to the sixth night.

Each night at midnight, A Chan came downstairs precisely to light the incense. After seven consecutive nights, only seven sticks remained in the box.

She lit one and sat on the wooden stool, propping her chin with one hand, staring at the dim crimson ember of the burning incense.

At some point, the utterly dark room suddenly brightened.

The room itself hadn't changed—the incense still burned in the bowl—but the figure on the stool was no longer human. Instead, it was a snow-white fox.

This was A Chan’s original form before she took human form.

The fox was bound by six black chains, their ends disappearing into emptiness.

When A Chan tried to move her hand, the fox twitched its front paw. With dawning awareness, she understood she might be in a state of inner vision.

It was said that humans possessed an inner realm, ordinarily beyond perception. Why had she entered it now?

Before she could figure it out, a shadowy figure shrouded in mist manifested abruptly.

"How... am I... here?"

The voice was fragmented but familiar—Xiao Lin Shi’s voice.

After lighting the spirit-calling incense for seven days, she had finally succeeded in forcibly summoning Xiao Lin Shi’s sealed soul.