The Yearly Market.
The sky gradually darkened.
Lights came on one after another, creating quite an atmosphere.
Seeing that someone was still selling lanterns, Ning Jiaojiao bought one and continued browsing the streets with Ning Zheng, carrying it in her hand.
"I just don't understand why all the shops in the night market love hanging red lanterns from door to door?"
Ning Zheng pondered as he walked,
"It makes even the air glow red, turning this late-night ghost market into something truly creepy."
In theory, the Embers retained the patterns they had followed in life.
When they were alive, the lanterns at the Yearly Market should have been colorful. Why had the lanterns after their deaths all become red?
To serve as the atmosphere team?
To scare people better and eat them?
But that was definitely impossible.
Because none of them believed they were dead, much less thought they were ghosts.
To be honest, this was not very scientific!
Could it be that after dying, they had all become red-green color-blind and could no longer distinguish colors?
Was that why they had all started hanging red lanterns?
If so, they did not merely have a cognitive defect regarding "death"; they also had one regarding "colors"!
Perhaps there was another possibility.
Could their longing for blood have made them especially sensitive to the color red?
Like certain carnivores in nature, such as sharks, which went berserk the instant they sensed blood.
As he strolled through the streets, his thoughts proliferated, and he wandered into the realm of science.
It was mainly because Ning Jiaojiao had dragged him around from daytime until nightfall, leaving him with nothing to do but ponder the meaning of life to pass the time.
For a moment, Ning Zheng felt that his second body should not have been a cultivation hand, but a foot.
After all, his mortal legs were getting rather tired from walking.
After a full day of walking, Ning Jiaojiao had bought quite a lot, bags large and small. She had even bought a small cart, which Ning Zheng was responsible for pulling from behind.
They had not spent much money.
Moreover, Ning Zheng approved of many of the things they had bought.
The pottery pots and bowls were all real objects, and they indeed needed to make a big purchase and bring a batch back.
Those dead people bought things merely for amusement. They were puppets bound by their "behavioral logic from life," but he was a living person who genuinely needed pots, bowls, and basins.
"Right, let's go buy some clothes."
Ning Zheng suddenly remembered that they really did need to buy a batch of the simplest clothes.
After all, it was the New Year.
Since they were already out shopping, as the manor lord, he should at least buy his employees some new clothes, right?
The clothes they had before were all old garments left behind by the slave blacksmiths on the mountain, and they were nearly used up. Once the blacksmiths revived in the future, they would still need to have another batch of clothes prepared for them, right?
Previously, Money Boy and Money Girl had not distinguished between men and women, but now there were humans among them.
They still did not distinguish between men and women.
That had been Xiao Ai's suggestion.
The Little Ai assistant had said at the time, "Give them a few cuts and deal with it a bit. They love that sort of thing! Otherwise, their world might not pass the censors."
Ning Zheng naturally followed the suggestion. Sword Forging Manor had to focus on pure love.
"You want to buy clothes? Go to Sister Er Niu's place!" Ning Jiaojiao said. "They're cheap and practical."
After turning through several streets, Ning Zheng arrived at a shop.
A woman was sewing clothes at the entrance, while garments hung inside.
Bright-red bridal gowns, a groom's red robe, the everyday clothes of Confucian Scholars, and all kinds of metal headdresses from various ethnic minorities hung inside. The variety was dazzling.
The ghost tailor was called Er Niu. In truth, there was not much difference between her life and death.
Aside from having a fondness for eating people, she sewed clothes day in and day out, exactly as she had before.
Because she had no meat to eat, she instinctively stuffed ring after ring of cloth bandages into the hollow space of her own bubble.
In reality, she was a cloth person, which made her look rather eerie.
In fact, most impoverished bubble-bound ghosts, unable to eat meat, did the same in order to gain the tactile sensation of a physical body.
Filling the empty bubbles with objects related to their obsessions from life could also turn them into means of attack.
It could only be said that most poor wretches who had gone hungry while alive would inevitably become hungry ghosts after death as well.
Of course.
Only cultivators who had opened their Three Flowers and used spiritual energy to cover their eyes could see her true form.
After entering the shop,
Ning Zheng had no desire to browse or shop. Without even looking at the finely sewn clothes, he pointed straight at the most ordinary styles with the confidence of a tycoon and said, "Two hundred sets of this kind of coarse hemp clothing."
Er Niu froze. "That many? I don't have that much stock here."
"It's fine. I'll pay a deposit. Start making them, and I'll come pick them up later." Ning Zheng gave her two Magic Coins as a deposit.
He was not worried that she would renege on the deal.
The Embers, bound by the logic of their lives, had been honest people who kept their promises while alive. After death, they would certainly be honest ghosts who kept their promises as well.
Except when their illnesses acted up, of course.
As for the clothes being filled with deathly energy and resembling burial goods—
Would living people lose years off their lives or become unhealthy after wearing them for too long?
Ning Zheng felt that the blacksmiths probably would not care.
After all, every one of them looked as if they would rather die a horrible death than live to a ripe old age.
Having clothes to wear was already good enough!
"Do you want cloth shoes? So many clothes won't do without cloth shoes."
Er Niu took out a pair of thick cloth shoes and spoke in a soft, gentle voice. "I sewed them myself. The soles have three layers, each stitched one needle at a time. They're very sturdy."
"No need." Ning Zheng shook his head.
"What about straw sandals?" Seeing that such a big customer had come along so rarely, Er Niu said, "These are even cheaper."
Ning Zheng shook his head again. Although he had rather wanted to make a big purchase and buy them as New Year's gifts, they truly did not need them.
It was not that straw sandals were unaffordable. The blacksmiths simply liked walking barefoot, getting close to the earth, and occasionally taking a bite out of it.
When they were on the mountain, Ning Zheng would occasionally see several of them crouching in corners, wiggling their buttocks as they buried their heads in the soil and gnawed away. The sight was bizarre beyond words.
"Then do you want bamboo baskets?" A deep, hoarse male voice came from next door.
Next door was a bamboo-basket shop.
Bamboo baskets, bamboo beds, and bamboo mats were displayed there. The shop was run by Er Niu's husband, Brother Li, a bamboo craftsman.
Under the Spiritual Eye, a lifelike bamboo-strip puppet also walked out of the shop and greeted them.
After bidding the two of them farewell, Ning Zheng placed the clothes on the cart behind them.
Ning Zheng was bored out of his mind by this point and wondered whether he should visit a bookstore and buy some books for the little blacksmiths on the mountain.
After all, they seemed to love reading.
It was the New Year, so he might as well give the people in the manor some benefits as well. Clothes and books were not worth much to begin with.
"We should buy some."
"With how easily satisfied they are, bringing them a gift will probably make them happy for the entire day."
He had a very favorable impression of bookstores.
Back then, he had found a bargain in a notoriously ominous ghost bookstore and obtained many basic cultivation methods. That was how he had embarked on the path of cultivation.
Since this was the Prosperous Era of the Immortal Path, much basic knowledge and miscellaneous lore were quite widespread among ordinary people. After all, scholars bought their books from bookstores.
Having made up his mind, Ning Zheng prepared to take Ning Jiaojiao there and end the day's outing. Suddenly, amid the bustling crowd, he caught sight of "Su Yu Niang."
Ning Zheng could not help freezing, thinking, Why had Su Yu Niang come down from the Mountain Villa? And why had she come to the night market?
He stared more closely at the rice-flower hair atop her head, which brimmed with a familiar aura of shadow.
The good news was that it had actually succeeded.
The bad news was that it had died.
But could Shadow Spirit Rice grown from a dead Ember still be eaten?
If it could be eaten, then this was a walking, humanoid Spirit Rice.
The Spirit Rice might finally be complete!
"Jiaojiao, do you want to have some fish bait the next time we go fishing?" Ning Zheng pulled Ning Jiaojiao, who was walking ahead, back toward him.
"Yes! Could it be that the market is selling fish bait now?"
Ning Jiaojiao carried a chicken cage in her left hand and a flower lantern in her right. "I knew I was going to have incredible luck today."
"It's almost nightfall, so it's unsafe. That young lady clearly came from out of town and has nowhere to stay. Let's trick her into coming home with us." Ning Zheng revealed a gentle smile. "She can fish for us at night as payment for lodging."
Only then did Ning Zheng suddenly understand.
He had been wondering what opportunity there could be at the Yearly Market. Which benevolent townsfolk had been so generous?
So the opportunity was you.
No wonder Ning Jiaojiao's fortune had shot up by more than a hundred—the fish bait she had been longing for had appeared.
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