The back mountain of the villa was peaceful, and the ambient yin energy had returned to normal levels. Many of the previously dilapidated buildings in the estate had also been repaired. Even the mountain road leading to the villa was livelier than before. When Song Miaozhu drove up, she had to yield several times to passing vehicles.
"Miaozhu! Over here!" Zhao Mumu waved her over.
Song Miaozhu parked, grabbed her bag, and joined her. Two days ago, she had asked Zhao Mumu and Chen Shuanghe in their group chat about the process of registering spirit items as merchandise.
Chen Shuanghe was off on a cultivation trip in her mobile van today, but Zhao Mumu happened to be free and offered to take her.
"So? Pretty impressive now, right? The Lingcheng SEIU branch's new scale and renovations?" Zhao Mumu said proudly.
Song Miaozhu nodded in agreement. "It looks great. But when are you finally taking down that big sign out front that still says 'Golden Rose Summer Villa'?
Even someone like me, who rarely leaves the house, has heard the gossip. People say the long-abandoned Golden Rose Villa has secretly reopened and is doing booming business, though no one knows who they're catering to. Keep this up, and someone might report you for illegal operations."
"You're late to the party. We've already been reported—more than once!" Zhao Mumu sighed. "If the SEIU's work wasn't already an open secret among certain departments, there probably would've been a formal investigation. But it won't be long now. The revival of spiritual energy is going public soon. Once that happens, we can finally hang a proper sign that says 'Lingcheng SEIU Branch.'"
"It's going public? Do you know when?" Song Miaozhu asked, intrigued.
"During the Qingming Festival this year," Zhao Mumu replied. "All the major TV stations and social platforms will broadcast a short educational documentary produced by SEIU Headquarters to explain the spiritual revival."
She continued, "In fact, online censorship of spiritual-related incidents has already eased. There are even dedicated teams guiding public opinion. A lot of regular people are mentally prepared already."
Thanks to her little paper servant monitoring the news nonstop, Song Miaozhu had also noticed signs of this shift. She had assumed the SEIU was laying the groundwork for the announcement, but she didn't expect it to happen so soon. And Qingming wasn't far off.
"We're here. This is the Spirit Item Registry Office. Every spirit item listed on the SEIU app must be registered here," Zhao Mumu said, leading her to a villa. She pushed the door open.
"Today's staff is someone you know..."
"Grandpa Zhao?" Song Miaozhu was surprised.
Behind the single desk in the room sat Old Master Zhao, casually playing with a small wooden bird.
"Huaishui'er, here to register spirit items, right? Mumu already told me," he said with a smile.
"To register a spirit item, the cultivator must have fully awakened their spiritual eye and be able to see spiritual light clearly. In our entire Lingcheng SEIU branch, the number of cultivators who meet that standard can be counted on one hand. Nobody wants to be stuck here doing clerical work all day, so we just take turns.
The reason you're registering today is because this is the only day this office is handling spirit item registrations this week," Zhao Mumu explained.
Song Miaozhu nodded in understanding. Her gaze drifted to the small wooden bird on Grandpa Zhao's arm. "Grandpa Zhao, is that the dream-delivering wood bird?"
"That's the one!" he said. "Today just happens to be one of its high-energy days, so it's stretching its wings a bit."
The little bird tilted its head and stared at her with shiny black eyes. "Cheep~"
If not for its wooden texture and grain, its chirp and behavior could easily fool someone into thinking it was a real bird. Song Miaozhu curiously poked at it with a finger.
Grandpa Zhao was already growing impatient. "Huaishui'er, what spirit items did you bring?"
The Spirit Item Registry Office had been running for a few months now, but it hadn't had many real registrations. Most of the time, they were just organizing and cataloging spirit item data from SEIU Headquarters.
Besides Song Miaozhu, nearly all the cultivators in Lingcheng had been absorbed into the SEIU. But very few had actually cultivated spirit items. Only those who had opened their spiritual platform and condensed red spiritual crystals could even attempt to nurture them. Song Miaozhu opened her large backpack and placed two items side by side on the desk.
"This is the Bowl-Holding Paper Servant, and this is the Spirit Kite."
"Two items? You've nurtured two already?" Grandpa Zhao asked in surprise.
"Actually, it should be four," Zhao Mumu added. "There's also the pure gold ingot and the golden lotus."
Miaozhu had mentioned them before. The paper servant holding a bowl and the large paper bird—each about the size of a washbasin—both gave off clear spiritual light. No doubt, they were spirit items.
But nurturing spirit items was no easy task. Across the entire SEIU, only a few had managed it, and those people had received significant institutional support.
Yet Miaozhu had done it all on her own. Four items? How?
Unless... her spirit items had unusually low energy requirements.
That would suggest they were weaker in function.
"That's right," Song Miaozhu said. "I never fully nurtured the gold ingot and lotus. Once I realized they were simply transforming into pure gold, I stopped wasting spiritual power on them."
"Even so, that's still impressive," Zhao Mumu said. "What do these two items do?"
"The Bowl-Holding Paper Servant can absorb and store ambient spiritual energy. The Spirit Kite can travel through space to deliver large items."
Both Zhao Mumu and Grandpa Zhao were startled.
"Absorb ambient spiritual energy?"
"You're sure it's from the environment, not spiritual power from a cultivator?"
No one had heard of a spirit item that could store ambient energy. There were items that stored spiritual power, like the Spirit-Jade Beads, but not ambient energy.
"I'm sure," said Song Miaozhu. "There's no energy here right now, but I had it absorb some at home. If you look in the bowl it's holding, you should see a faint trace of spiritual energy."
They leaned in to check.
"There really is something there!" Grandpa Zhao exclaimed. "So this Bowl-Holding Paper Servant can absorb ambient spiritual energy on its own, store it in the bowl, and release it later for cultivation?"
Zhao Mumu's eyes lit up as she waited for confirmation.
Song Miaozhu nodded, and the pair looked overjoyed.
"Miaozhu! You're planning to list the Bowl-Holding Paper Servant on the SEIU app, right? Can I pre-order one?" Zhao Mumu asked eagerly.
She finally understood how Miaozhu could cultivate so effectively on her own, even without a full logistics team backing her like SEIU members had.
So that was the secret—a Bowl-Holding Paper Servant.
If she had one too, she wouldn't need to drive her van around looking for spiritual energy. She could just send the paper servant out to collect it, then have it release the energy for her to cultivate.