Craft Spirit

"Zhang Laifu, you lied to me. I hate being lied to more than anything."

"Old Helmsman, even your name was fake. Why didn't you say you hated lying when you lied to me?"

"I lied because you're a fool. A fool like you deserves to die..." Old Helmsman kept roaring, but his voice grew fainter and fainter.

"What did fools ever owe you? Did a fool eat your family's rice?" Zhang Laifu looked down at Old Helmsman and watched his body crumble inch by inch until he vanished into the Top Hat along with the Waterwheel.

Zhang Laifu wiped the blood from his face. A smile appeared, and he muttered the same thing over and over: "I'm going to become a Craftsman!"

After smiling for more than half a minute, he remembered something and hurriedly took out his other bag of Jasmine Dew Snuff.

There wasn't enough soil. He had to add more, just as Old Helmsman himself had said.

Once he opened the Bowl, he couldn't stop. Song Yongchang himself had said that.

When he poured in the second bag of Snuff, the hat fully spread its frame and grew wildly inside the Ancestral Hall.

The brim cracked the Ancestral Hall's wall. Zhang Laifu feared the main house and the Ancestral Hall might collapse.

He ran beneath the offering table, collected Yu Qiasuan's and Xiaozhuzi's Craft Essence, and took both men's money pouches too.

Old Yu had also left behind a Peachwood Sword, a stack of Talisman Paper, five wooden tablets, and a mirror.

Xiaozhuzi had left less: only a sewing box. It had two tiers, and the contents looked decent. The upper tier held two rows of needles. The largest was longer than Zhang Laifu's phone, while the smallest was so tiny he couldn't pick it up or even see where its eye was.

There was also a wooden box. Zhang Laifu had dug it up, but Old Helmsman had snatched it away. He kept that too.

After collecting everything he could, Zhang Laifu stood outside the Ancestral Hall and watched dust and smoke burst from the building.

A Bowl made from a Top Hat, soil made from Snuff, and Old Helmsman as the seed. What sort of Craft Spirit would they produce?

Zhang Laifu didn't know. He doubted many people in all of Wansheng Province did.

But would Old Helmsman alone be enough? Who knew how many years the old ghost had been dead? Did he still have any Craft Essence?

To be safe, Zhang Laifu threw Old Yu's Craft Essence into the hat as well.

The hat reacted violently. Bursts of crackling explosions came from the roiling smoke.

There was no hiding a commotion this big. If He Shengjun suddenly came to inspect the Old House, how could Zhang Laifu explain what was happening?

It's my Bowl, soil I bought myself, a seed I put in myself, and my own Craft Spirit. If He Shengjun tries to take it, I can't beat him anyway...

Put that way, there wasn't much point thinking about it. If He Shengjun really came, Zhang Laifu couldn't do anything.

Since there was nothing to think about, he might as well count the money.

Zhang Laifu opened Xiaozhuzi's and Old Yu's money pouches. The gleaming silver coins dazzled him.

Xiaozhuzi's pouch held twelve Silver Dollars.

Old Yu's pouch held twenty-six Silver Dollars.

Banditry paid quite well.

The small wooden box held fifty Silver Dollars. Adding the twelve Silver Dollars for the tobacco and snuff and this month's wages, then subtracting what he had spent on tobacco, snuff, treatment for the yin energy, and a shovel, he had ninety-eight and a half left.

Ninety-eight and a half Silver Dollars!

How many bowls of wontons could that buy?

Zhang Laifu felt wonderfully happy!

The time had come to enjoy himself!

Boom!

The remaining half-wall in front of the Ancestral Hall collapsed too.

This bowl seemed to be making rather a lot of noise.

He Shengjun, whatever you do, don't come!

Two whole days passed, and He Shengjun did not come. During that time, the hat grew larger and larger. Smoke poured from it as dust churned constantly inside, and Zhang Laifu didn't dare approach.

He didn't sit idle. First, he studied Old Helmsman's Alarm Clock. Each time he wound it, Old Helmsman had gained the ability to hear. Li Yunsheng had also speculated that the clock was a top-tier Fierce Artifact.

How was he supposed to use such a fine Fierce Artifact?

None of the three hands on the clock face moved. Zhang Laifu turned the Alarm Clock over, gripped the winding key, and tried to turn it several times. It wouldn't budge.

Was the spring wound that tight?

Maybe it wasn't tight. Maybe he simply didn't know how to use it. He would find a chance to learn later.

After putting the Alarm Clock away, Zhang Laifu searched the Old House. He found a total of 161 Silver Dollars in the west wing of the front courtyard, beneath the swing in the rear courtyard, and inside the storehouse in the eastern side courtyard.

The Silver Dollars were all stored in small wooden boxes. Some boxes held forty or fifty, while others held only two or three. Old Helmsman had probably hidden them all. When he hid those coins, he surely never imagined how close he had come to his own remains.

Zhang Laifu now had 259 and a half Silver Dollars. Was that enough to acquire some property?

It was too early to think about property. Bandits were still hunting him, and he couldn't hold on to it even if he bought some.

On the third morning, the hat broke. Crown, brim, and band all fell apart, leaving scraps of cloth strewn across the floor.

Zhang Laifu picked up a scrap and rubbed it between his fingers. It crumbled into powder in his hand.

It had fallen apart completely.

There was also a heap of dust on the ground. He couldn't tell whether it was Snuff or ashes.

At the center of the dust sat a wooden box. He opened it and found a yellow-skinned fruit the size of a walnut.

Was this fruit the Craft Spirit?

Would eating it make him a Craftsman?

Zhang Laifu grew excited and wondered how he should eat it.

It felt soft to the touch, a little like fruit. But from the outside, it looked somewhat like a walnut.

Should he cook it or eat it raw? Swallow it whole or peel it first?

He couldn't just guess about something like this. Zhang Laifu took the wooden box, gathered everything he could carry, and left the Lin Family Old Residence.

The Old House in Whitegrass Marsh still held many secrets.

What grudge had Old Helmsman borne against the Lin Family? Where had that Waterwheel come from? Why had such a vast estate been abandoned?

He could investigate those questions later. Zhang Laifu shut the gate and left with his bundle on his back.

He had quite a lot to carry and wanted to hire a cart, but the place was too remote. He couldn't find a driver anywhere along the way.

He walked all the way to Pearl Street, where Zhang Laifu found Li Yunsheng.

Seeing Zhang Laifu safe and sound, Li Yunsheng was delighted. "Brother Laifu, you defeated that evil spirit?"

Zhang Laifu handed Li Yunsheng the yellow-skinned fruit. "He turned into this!"

The evil spirit of the Lin Family Old Residence in Whitegrass Marsh was notorious throughout Heishakou. Who would have thought Zhang Laifu would capture him?

And Zhang Laifu wasn't even a Craftsman yet!

How had he done it?

What sort of man was he?

Whatever twists and turns had led here, it was easy to enjoy the shade beneath a great tree. His divination could not have been wrong!

Li Yunsheng examined the golden fruit and nodded repeatedly. "A fine fruit. A Craft Spirit of excellent quality."

"Craft Spirits have different grades?"

"Of course! This golden color is the very best. Eat a fruit like this, and you can become a Craftsman without trouble. There's practically no risk."

Zhang Laifu blinked. "Practically?"

Li Yunsheng lit three sticks of incense and let the smoke envelop them both. "There's no such thing as an absolutely reliable Craft Spirit. A fruit of uniform color is top-grade, and a golden one is the best of the best. To grow a Craft Spirit this fine, you must have used an excellent bowl!"

"The Craft Spirit's quality depends on the bowl too?" Zhang Laifu had learned something new.

Li Yunsheng nodded. "Of course it does. There was a thug in the west of the city who spent five thousand Silver Dollars on an inferior bowl and grew a mottled Craft Spirit in five different colors.

Someone warned him not to eat it. A Craft Spirit like that didn't even offer a fifty-fifty chance. He refused to listen. The day he ate it, he was gone. He plunged headfirst into the ash pit at East Street Corner, and no one found his body until maggots had grown in it."

That sounded familiar!

Zhang Laifu remembered. "That night watchman—the one with worms growing in his gums. Was the body he found this thug's?"

"That's the one!" Li Yunsheng took a sip of tea. "Brother Laifu, a Craft Spirit of such pure quality is extremely precious. Eat yours, and I'm ninety-nine percent sure nothing will go wrong.

If you don't want to eat it, you could sell it instead. A Craft Spirit that looks like this could fetch tens of thousands of Silver Dollars."

Zhang Laifu weighed his options. "A Craftsman can earn a hundred Silver Dollars a month. It wouldn't be easy to make tens of thousands. That would take decades..."

Li Yunsheng shook his head repeatedly. "Brother Laifu, you can't keep thinking only about a first-tier Craftsman's income. Once your craft improves and you become a second-tier Master Craftsman, you won't be earning just a hundred Silver Dollars a month."

"How much can a Master Craftsman earn?"

"That's hard to say. A Master Craftsman can open his own shop and run it himself, or partner with a shop and run it for someone else."

A second-tier Craftsman won't partner with just anyone. The shopkeeper has to give him at least thirty percent of the profits, or there's nothing to discuss."

"Thirty percent?" Zhang Laifu didn't know much about running a business. "If he gets that much, is there anything left for the shopkeeper?"

"Plenty! A shop with a Master Craftsman is on a different level from an ordinary shop. Its ways of making money are both reliable and plentiful.

Brother Laifu, you have such a fine fruit. Eat it. I think it's worth it."

Zhang Laifu thought so too. "Brother Li, can you tell which trade it belongs to from its color?"

"That I really can't tell. If I'd been able to tell back then, I wouldn't have become a doctor of Zhu You Practice."

"How should I eat it?"

"Whole. Don't peel it or spit out the pit. Don't waste a drop of juice. The more completely you eat the fruit, the better your chances!"

"All right!" Zhang Laifu picked up the fruit and swallowed it in one gulp.

Li Yunsheng stared in shock. "You ate it just like that?"

Zhang Laifu nodded. "I did."

"You didn't even need water?"

"Real men don't need water!"

The moment the words left his mouth, Zhang Laifu collapsed to the floor.

P.S. Thanks to patron Sunfish for the support and care all along.