This isn't my Little Treasury! (Thanks to Daxia Loves Hamburgers for the Alliance Leader donation)

"I hope we can fish out my Little Treasury today." Nuomi pressed her palms together and muttered a prayer, though who knew which god she was praying to.

As far as Zhou You knew, there wasn't a god who watched over ghosts.

Following the same procedure as yesterday, Zhou You stripped naked again and jumped into the lake, while Chu Xiaoyao and Nuomi stayed onshore to keep out of danger and stand watch.

Chu Xiaoyao felt her foot knock against something, but it was too dark to make it out.

"Hm? What's this?"

She bent down and picked it up, discovering a pair of glasses.

"We've been coming here a lot lately. There weren't any glasses here before, were there?" Chu Xiaoyao was puzzled. They had visited Great Stone Lake so often lately that it was practically becoming the Carefree Sect's Secret Realm. Something reflective like glasses would have been easy to spot on the ground.

Chu Xiaoyao had excellent vision and wasn't nearsighted, so she rarely handled glasses. Curious, she put them on to try them out.

"Nonprescription glasses? Just an accessory?"

Chu Xiaoyao thought glasses made a decent accessory. They could make her look scholarly.

She turned in a circle with the glasses on, and a flash of white skirt suddenly entered her field of vision.

"Hm?"

Chu Xiaoyao froze for a moment. The girl in the white dress had an innocent face and eyes of a clarity that seemed beyond this mortal world. She floated in the air as though she had stepped out of an ink-wash landscape painting. Rather than a ghost, she looked more like a celestial maiden.

The girl in the white dress scanned her surroundings vigilantly, diligently making sure no one approached.

Chu Xiaoyao took off the glasses, and the girl vanished. She put them back on, and the girl reappeared.

"Nuomi?" Chu Xiaoyao called softly.

"Who called me?" Nuomi turned around and was startled to find Chu Xiaoyao looking right at her.

What kind of glasses were these? Chu Xiaoyao couldn't understand how she had casually picked up a pair of Ghost-Seeing Glasses.

"Grand Supreme Elder, you can see me now?"

Although Nuomi and Chu Xiaoyao often bonded over writing and communicated through written messages, this was the first time Chu Xiaoyao had seen her in person.

Chu Xiaoyao nodded, her voice calm. "I don't know where these glasses came from, but I can see you when I put them on."

It was certainly miraculous, but given her wealth of experience, it didn't rank particularly high.

"Never mind. There's no need to dwell on such trifles. It simply means fortune favors me."

"Back before I made my name on the Primordial Continent, everyone was fighting over a rare treasure, their eyes red with bloodlust. I was merely passing by when the treasure slipped out of the struggle and into my hands."

"When they saw the treasure in my hands, they all came to seize it, unleashing their Magic Treasures and divine abilities."

"Their attacks rained down from the sky, yet to me, they were no more than insects, easily repelled with a flick of my finger."

"Then my enemies fell, blood flowed in rivers, and heaven and earth changed color."

Chu Xiaoyao spoke with breezy nonchalance, leaving Nuomi full of admiration. "You're amazing, Grand Supreme Elder!"

Meanwhile, Zhou You was still rummaging through trash in the lake.

The trash was as varied as ever. He even found the flashlight he had thrown away yesterday.

Another water bottle.

Is that a book?

Zhou You picked up a hefty book. Who knew how long it had been soaking in the water? He casually flipped through it, but the dense, tiny print was impossible to read underwater. It looked like a pirated novel.

Did a teacher catch someone reading a novel and throw it into the lake?

Although he had no idea which older student's book it was, Zhou You still observed a second of silence for them.

Perhaps his moment of silence moved that older student, prompting them to bless him from beyond, because Zhou You actually felt a wooden box.

However, the wooden box wasn't simply resting on the lakebed. Only one corner was exposed, with most of it buried in mud and sand.

How did the box get buried so deep?

Zhou You didn't understand, but that didn't stop his hands.

He had thought it would take three to five days of diving to get results. Finding it on the second night was unexpectedly good luck.

Excitement surged through Zhou You, and he dug the box out in no time. The Carefree Sect was finally going to be rich.

Ripples spread across the calm lake as a naked human-shaped creature emerged from the water, clutching a wooden box.

A few strands of aquatic weeds clung to Zhou You. After he dispelled the membrane covering his skin, the weeds fell to the ground.

Zhou You eagerly tried to open the wooden box, but it wouldn't budge. He wasn't sure whether it needed a key or had some hidden mechanism.

"You found the box?"

Hearing the commotion, Chu Xiaoyao hurried over.

"Hey, hey! I haven't put my clothes on yet."

"Nobody's looking at you."

In the pitch-dark surroundings, Chu Xiaoyao didn't bother inspecting the wooden box and simply opened it.

"Huh? How did you just open it?" Zhou You, who was getting dressed, stared in astonishment. He hadn't been able to open it a moment ago.

"You weren't applying force the right way, maybe? I opened it in one go." Chu Xiaoyao didn't understand why Zhou You was so surprised.

"Wait for me, Grand Supreme Elder! I put a seal on the box. You won't be able to open... Huh? It's open?" Nuomi had been patrolling farther away and was the last to arrive.

Nuomi felt a little deflated. She had thought her sealing skills were quite impressive, but the Grand Supreme Elder had casually opened it.

"This is your Little Treasury?"

Chu Xiaoyao opened the box and took out a square object. It was heavy and felt solid in her hands.

She switched on her phone's flashlight and shone it over the object. It was a Jade Seal. Chu Xiaoyao didn't know much about such things, but the craftsmanship seemed decent.

The characters engraved on the Jade Seal looked ancient, and they were reversed. Chu Xiaoyao couldn't read them.

"Huh? This isn't mine!" Nuomi exclaimed. Her Little Treasury contained proper money!

Chapter 46

"Oh, it isn't?" Chu Xiaoyao had been considering how to add this thing to the Carefree Sect's Little Treasury. It didn't seem like it would fetch much even if they sold it.

"It isn't?" Zhou You came over, fully dressed now. Had he spent all that time and effort fishing out the wrong thing?

Nuomi glanced at the wooden box containing the Jade Seal. Although it looked somewhat similar to hers and suited her tastes, it wasn't the same one.

She had found her wooden box while rummaging through the Old Dormitory Building, though she had no idea why a student would bring something like that to school.

"Should I go back down and search a little longer?" Zhou You asked. He glanced at the time on Chu Xiaoyao's phone. There was still enough time for two more dives.

He was getting more accustomed to diving now. His breath-holding time had gradually increased from four and a half minutes to nearly six, a considerable improvement.

"Let me ask first so I don't fish out the wrong thing again. Nuomi, what's in your Little Treasury?"

"Money! Proper money!"

"I told you before, the school often brought Taoist priests to the Old Dormitory Building to drive me away. Every time they came, they burned loads of money. I hid some of the pieces that hadn't burned completely," Nuomi said proudly. She had painstakingly collected that money bit by bit.

Hearing the first part about money, Zhou You had been ready to dive twice more. But the rest sounded wrong.

What did she mean, they burned loads of money?

"Do your bills have really large denominations?" Chu Xiaoyao couldn't help asking.

Nuomi nodded honestly and gestured as if a string of digits were hanging in front of her. "Really large. There are so many zeros I can't even count them. I put a really strong seal on it, too."

Nuomi was good at math. Any single bill from her stash was worth far more than the Sect Master's fifty yuan.

Chu Xiaoyao: "..."

For some reason, Zhou You suddenly didn't feel much like going back into the water.

It was getting late. He might as well go home, wash up, and sleep. He would even have some extra time to browse the forums.

Zhou You decided to explain it to Nuomi.

"Nuomi, what you're talking about is actually called Underworld Currency. It's burned for the dead. It isn't worth anything."

"It isn't worth anything?" Nuomi looked indignant. Pouting and repeatedly stamping her feet, she felt the Sect Master was wrong.

"That can't be right. Why would they burn it for me if it wasn't worth anything?"

Zhou You opened his mouth, but his explanation stalled on his lips. Nuomi seemed to have a good point. If Underworld Currency wasn't worth anything, why burn it for the dead?