By this time, Song Miaozhu had already arrived at her temporary shelter.
Back when she trained by running through the mountains every day, she had purposefully explored the depths of Yunwu Mountain. Over time, she had thoroughly scouted the area closest to Yuanshan Town, so now that she truly needed to leave civilization and hide, she wasn't searching aimlessly. She headed straight to a cave she had discovered earlier.
The cave sat midway up a cliff face, formed by a narrow crevice that cut through the mountain. Its main opening faced southeast, letting in slanting sunlight in the mornings and gentle light throughout the afternoon. It had excellent natural lighting.
The only drawback was that the entrance was a bit too long—about eleven or twelve meters of passable space. It sat roughly twenty-five meters above ground, and the cliff face was steep, making it difficult to climb.
However, a wild bamboo forest spread out beneath the cliff. Song Miaozhu had visited before to harvest bamboo, and the stalks had grown up to thirty meters tall, taller than the cave entrance itself. This growth now acted as natural cover, making the entrance nearly impossible to spot unless one specifically walked between the cliff and the bamboo grove.
There was also a small opening less than one square meter in size at the cave's northwest side, veiled by hanging vines. Overall, the cave had excellent light, ventilation, and concealment.
Its only real flaw was limited space. The area where one could stand and move around freely was about the size of her old attic. It was enough for large-scale paper crafting, but her living area was basically nonexistent.
Still, for a shelter that kept out wind and rain and gave her space to practice the Secret Art of Paper Crafting, she was more than satisfied. The only thing bothering her was the open view of the main entrance. It made her feel like anyone standing there could see straight inside, which felt unsafe.
Should she build a stone wall using mountain rocks?
She still had several bags of leftover cement in her ghost shop warehouse from when she had renovated the courtyard. After considering it, she decided against that idea. A fake rock wall would be better.
With her current spiritual power, she could now attempt the landscaping technique within the Secret Art of Paper Crafting. While it was difficult to make flowing water or fragrant flowers, crafting a fake stone wall was relatively simple. She didn't need it to be sturdy—just enough to block the view and provide camouflage.
Song Miaozhu wasted no time. After reviewing the diagrams for artificial rockwork in her mind, she pulled out a large roll of grey paper and began practicing—starting with ordinary paper, then switching to spiritual paper.
While selecting materials in the ghost shop warehouse, she sent out several spirit kite messengers carrying letters. They went to Wu Zhuxiang, Dai Xiaojia, and other masters skilled in crafting spiritual paper. The letters explained her intent to buy more paper and offered equivalent spiritual artifacts as payment.
She also decided to sell off some of the gathering spirit dolls the little paper servants had retrieved. There was no space to store them in the cave anyway. Even though she already had a decent stockpile of spiritual paper in the ghost shop, Song Miaozhu still wanted more. You could never have too much of it.
All the replies she received from the masters started with nearly identical sentiments:
"Thank the heavens you're still alive!"
"Master Song, it's such a relief that you survived!"
"Is it really you? I knew you weren't dead!"
And so on.
Song Miaozhu assured them she was safe, though it wasn't convenient to share her new location. From now on, communication would be one-way through the spirit kites.
When asked if she would accept gathering spirit dolls as payment, she agreed. A single gathering spirit doll was worth quite a bit. According to the SEIU app's market prices, a standard sheet of spiritual paper went for around 0.01 contribution points, while a gathering spirit doll was worth 30,000 points.
The masters told her they needed a bit of time to prepare stock. For now, they sent what they had with the returning spirit kites and reminded her in their letters to stay safe and take care of herself.
Clearly, the explosion at her old residence was no secret anymore.
With such a huge blast, everyone in Yuanshan Town had probably seen or heard something. There was no hiding it.
First, she sent a letter via spirit kite to Chen Yuanyuan to let her know she was safe. Song Miaozhu wasn't sure how others would react, but if Chen Yuanyuan thought she was dead, she would definitely rush to Yuanshan Town without hesitation.
Next, she had the little paper servants at the paper shop turn on a fully charged backup phone and log into her usual social media accounts. She drew a divination slip and peeked at the screen.
As expected, someone had filmed the post-explosion fire and uploaded it online.
Social media was abuzz with rumors that she had died in the explosion. Some people had even dug up her old registration photo and begun digitally grave-sweeping.
Song Miaozhu: "..."
She only wanted to hide her identity—not fake her death.
She still needed to run her business, sell spiritual artifacts, and earn spirit stones.
And yet the same people who used to scold her with such venom were now mourning her. Were they genuinely grieving her "untimely death," or were they just upset that the gathering spirit dolls might go out of production?
As if that wasn't enough, people had started digging into her past.
That brief time when she'd gone viral as a "pretty Mystic" now had a name. Even her childhood stories were being leaked—like the one about how she once carried a schoolbag full of paper gold ingots to kindergarten. Self-proclaimed classmates were posting old photos she didn't even remember taking, and now they were popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm.
Embarrassing. All of it.
Song Miaozhu felt like the public exposure hurt even more than the actual explosion. It was enough to make her feel like she'd die from sheer frustration—even if she had already survived a bombing.
Seeing all this reminded her to contact Zhao Huoyan, just in case he really thought she was dead and had her identity canceled or her assets confiscated.
Even though she converted all her earnings—whether in contribution points or yuan—into hell coins through the Tiandi Bank's Treasure Bowl, she still held legal claims to Xiaozhu Mountain, the old courtyard land, and the Anshou Paper Shop on Huaihua Alley.
She still didn't fully trust the SEIU, so she didn't bother using a proper envelope. She tore a scrap piece of paper meant for paper crafting, scribbled a quick note, crumpled it up, and sent it off with a spirit kite.
She wasn't sure what was happening within the SEIU, but she was confident Zhao Huoyan was on her side. If not, she would have really failed as a person.
Before her paper stone wall was even finished, the SEIU announced that Song Miaozhu had survived the explosion unharmed.
The trend of digital grave-sweeping and digging up her dark history finally faded. Now people were shifting to speculating how she had managed to survive the explosion.
No matter how wild the guesses became, Song Miaozhu was just glad they'd stopped unearthing her childhood.