Chen Damin suddenly remembered that Song Miaozhu's parents had also passed away
"Ah, look at me—being dead has made me scatterbrained. Your parents are gone too, and your family's paper shop must've closed by now."
"Uncle Chen, I've taken over the shop," Miaozhu replied with a soft smile. "Auntie Chen and the others probably just haven't had time to stop by recently. You don't have to worry anymore."
She added, "I brought some handmade gold ingots this time. Once Auntie and Shuanghe come back, I'll burn some for you."
"Th-this… this is too kind!" Chen Damin's voice from the tombstone sounded flustered, as if he were nervously rubbing his hands.
Before Song Miaozhu could reply, Aunt Chen and her daughter Shuanghe had returned. The cemetery manager brought tools to pry open the stone cover. When they lifted it, they found the urn soaked in stagnant water.
"Good thing we caught it early," the manager said. "A little later and the water might've seeped into the urn!"
"Early?! The lower layer's already wet! My underworld home's flooded up to my calves! And we paid extra for that 'premium nanmu wood' urn from the crematorium next door—turns out it's about as waterproof as a sieve!" Chen Damin grumbled from inside the tombstone.
"Mom, let's get Dad a new urn," Shuanghe suggested. "Wood absorbs moisture. They have stainless steel ones now—sturdy and waterproof."
Chen Damin immediately agreed—though silently, of course. "Yes, yes! My girl's got sense! But stainless steel's too expensive, and sleeping in metal's so cold. A plain ceramic jar would be better!"
Song Miaozhu sighed. "Shuanghe, metal urns feel too cold. Even stainless steel can degrade over time. Ceramic's more stable—and gentler."
"Wouldn't ceramic be too… ordinary?" Shuanghe frowned.
"Ordinary? Listen to Miaozhu!" Aunt Chen cut in. "Ceramics buried for centuries stay pristine. Meanwhile, our stainless steel gate at home's already rusting!"
"Fine, fine, ceramic it is!" Shuanghe relented.
"Shuanghe, burn the paper money while I go buy the urn. We'll need to reseal the panel too," Chen's mother instructed before hurrying off.
As Shuanghe lit the paper money, she proudly declared, "Look how pretty this hell money is! Each bill's worth a trillion! Dad, I'm burning you a fortune—so make sure our restaurant thrives down there, okay?"
"Ugh, spare me this garbage!"
Song Miaozhu watched, amused, as Uncle Chen disdainfully pushed aside the gaudy hell notes, eagerly scooping up the gold ingots she burned instead.
"Girl, these are fantastic! Some are almost good enough to be graded! Keep this up, and when you die, you'll live like royalty in Fengdu!"
Song Miaozhu nodded awkwardly. It was frustrating—only she could see this exchange. After burning a few more ingots, she quietly excused herself to visit her own family's graves.
The area around her family's burial site was noticeably lighter. The yin energy was faint, almost like the main walkway of the cemetery—so diluted it felt like nothing at all. Not a single ghost lingered near their tombstones. The grave looked… abandoned.
There were no signs of spiritual presence at all.
Miaozhu laid down a bouquet and began burning gold ingots. Yet even as the flames consumed them, the offerings felt hollow, lifeless—nothing like the vibrant, full-bodied spirit energy they'd carried earlier for Uncle Chen.
She knew why.
The people she wanted to remember no longer resided here. This offering was more a ritual than an expression of true longing. Her heart simply held no lingering grief. The longing of the living transforms into spiritual sustenance. No longing means no energy—plain and simple.
From her observations, even the most beautiful ingots she burned for Uncle Chen couldn't match the spirit energy initially clinging to the cheap paper Shuanghe had offered. Longing mattered more than quality.
But that paper—shoddy as it was—failed to preserve the energy. Most of it dissipated quickly, wasted. Her own ingots, though humbler, retained every bit of longing. They didn't lose it. They didn't leak it.
Unlike the graded spirit ingots that allowed refined energy to be stored and withdrawn again and again, hers were still crude—but functional. By the time she finished tidying up, Aunt Chen and the others had already finished repairing Uncle Chen's grave. This time, they sealed it much more thoroughly.
As they drove off, Shuanghe suddenly blurted, "Do you think ghosts are real?"
Song Miaozhu stiffened. "Why the sudden change?" Just days ago, Shuanghe had scoffed at her ghost-cat story.
"I don't know… When I saw Dad's grave waterlogged like that, it felt familiar somehow," Shuanghe said hesitantly. "Just now, it hit me—I've seen it before."
"Where?" Aunt Chen asked sharply. "Don't tell me you've been cursed!"
"I saw it in a dream," Shuanghe said, lowering her voice. "Just like you, Mom. I've had dreams of being underwater—more than once. They were short, and I'd forget them when I woke up, so I didn't think much of it. But now… today's scene was almost identical. I think… I think I even heard Dad's voice."
Her voice trembled slightly. The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she felt.
"You were just a little thing when your father died. How would you remember his voice?" Auntie Chen scolded. "Don't overthink it! The grave's fixed, that's all that matters. Now let's go. We still have dinner prep to do!"
Shuanghe started the engine, still doubtful. "Maybe I'm just imagining things..."
"Who knows?" Miaozhu chuckled, scratching her kittens' chins. "What do you think, my little furballs?"
"Meow~ Meow~"
"Yes, yes, I know. I'll get you some goat's milk right away," Miaozhu said, pulling out a thermos and kitten-sized bowls.
Aunt Chen shook her head as she watched. "You really treat them like your own children, huh?"
"They are still babies," Miaozhu said gently. "And I promised their mama I'd take good care of them."
Auntie Chen glanced toward her daughter at the wheel, then leaned in and whispered to Miaozhu, "Miaozhu… can you actually see those things?"
Song Miaozhu startled. "Since when did Auntie believe in this?"
Before she could answer, Aunt Chen nodded knowingly. "I thought so!"
"The old folks always said your family's short lifespans were tied to your… gifts. That dealing with the underworld wears the body down.
"When I told you to quit paper crafts, I said it wasn't profitable—but the real reason was this.
"Thank you for helping us today. I'll give you a red envelope later. But… think hard about keeping the shop open. For your health's sake. You're still so young."