Cui Jiuyang frowned slightly and gently waved his sleeve.
In an instant, an invisible gale swept through the house, gathering every speck of dust, every piece of debris, and those piles of filth, whisking them out through the gaps around the doors and windows.
Then he tossed several balls of yellow talisman paper from his sleeve.
The paper balls landed, flashed with golden light, and turned into little paper figures over two feet tall. Nimble and hardworking, they began tidying up inside and out.
In just an hour, they had swept the little courtyard spotless and wiped the inside of the house clean.
But the house had stood empty for so long that a damp, musty smell filled the air, and large, conspicuous yellow patches of alkaline residue stained the corners and the bases of the walls.
One clever paper figure found some scattered rotten wood and dead branches and lit a fire in the middle of the house.
The dancing flames drove away the damp and brought a little warmth.
Once the other paper figures finished cleaning, these diligent servants had fulfilled their purpose. They lined up and obediently jumped into the fire inside the room, turning into sparks and offering their last strength to the flames that dispelled the damp.
Meanwhile, Cui Jiuyang sat in the courtyard.
He had found a relatively flat stone in a corner of the courtyard and carried it over to sit on.
Judging by its color, size, and placement, it was almost certainly an old stone the former owner had used to weigh down a pickle crock.
Who knew how many years it had been used? The soy-sauce stains soaked into it had not completely faded even after exposure to wind and rain, lending it the weathered air of everyday life.
Fortunately, after