"Hope I can fish out the little treasury today," Nuomi murmured, pressing her palms together, not knowing which deity to pray to.
As far as Zhou You knew, he had never heard of a deity who protected ghosts.
Following the same routine as yesterday, Zhou You stripped naked and jumped into the lake again, while Chu Xiaoyao and Nuomi stayed on the shore to keep watch.
Chu Xiaoyao felt something under her foot, but the light was too dim to see it clearly.
"Hmm, what's this?"
She bent down and picked it up, finding it was a pair of glasses.
"You've been coming here these days, but no glasses?" Chu Xiaoyao wondered. They had come to Big Stone Lake so often these past days it was almost becoming a Carefree Sect secret realm. Something reflective like glasses dropped on the ground would be easy to find.
Chu Xiaoyao had excellent vision, wasn't nearsighted, and rarely wore glasses. Curious, she put them on and gave them a try.
"A pair of non-prescription glasses? A decoration?"
Chu Xiaoyao thought glasses made a decent accessory—they could make her look learned.
Wearing the glasses, she turned around in place, and suddenly a white skirt entered her field of vision.
"Hmm?"
Chu Xiaoyao was stunned. The owner of the white skirt had a pure appearance, her eyes carrying a clarity not fit for the mortal world. She floated in the air, as if walking out of an ink-wash landscape painting. Rather than a ghost, she was more like a fairy.
The owner of the white skirt looked around alertly, diligent and responsible, preventing anyone from approaching.
Chu Xiaoyao took off the glasses, and the white-skirted owner disappeared. She put them back on, and the white-skirted owner reappeared.
"Nuomi?" Chu Xiaoyao called softly.
"Who called me?" Nuomi turned around, surprised to find Chu Xiaoyao's gaze on her.
What kind of glasses were these? Chu Xiaoyao didn't understand. How had she just happened to pick up a pair of glasses that could see ghosts?
"Grand Elder, you can see me?"
Although Nuomi and Chu Xiaoyao often bonded through writing and literature and communicated by writing, this was the first time they had seen each other with their own eyes.
Chu Xiaoyao nodded, her tone calm: "I don't know where these glasses came from, but I can see you just by wearing them."
Although this was amazing, given her rich experiences, this didn't even rank.
"Forget it. No need to dwell on such trivial matters. It's simply that this seat has luck on its side."
"Think back to when this seat was not yet famous on the Hongmeng Continent, when everyone fought over a rare treasure, their eyes red with killing. This seat was merely passing by, and the rare treasure slipped into this seat's hands during the scramble."
"Seeing the treasure fall into this seat's hands, everyone came forward to fight for it, unleashing magic treasures and divine abilities."
"Facing attacks raining down like rain from the sky, however, to this seat they were nothing but insects, defeated with a snap of the fingers."
"Afterward, the enemies fell, blood flowed like rivers, and heaven and earth changed color."
Chu Xiaoyao said it nonchalantly, and Nuomi listened with great admiration: "Grand Elder, you're so awesome!"
On the other side, Zhou You was still rummaging through the trash in the lake without stopping.
The types of trash were as numerous as ever, even including the flashlight he had thrown in yesterday.
"Another mineral water bottle."
"A book?"
Zhou You picked up a large, thick book. He didn't know how long it had been soaked in the water. He flipped through it casually—the small print was densely packed and completely illegible underwater. It looked like a pirated novel.
"Could it be that someone was caught reading a novel by a teacher, and the teacher threw the book into the lake?"
Although he didn't know which senior's book it was, Zhou You still observed a moment of silence for it.
Probably the moment of silence moved that senior, and the senior showed his spirit—Zhou You actually touched a wooden box.
Except the wooden box wasn't sunk to the lakebed; only a corner was exposed, most of its body buried in mud and sand.
"How was the box buried so deep?"
Zhou You didn't understand, but it didn't affect his actions.
Originally, he thought it would take three or five days of diving to see results, but he found it on the second night. What good luck.
Zhou You got excited, dug out the box in two or three moves. The Carefree Sect was finally going to get rich.
Ripples spread across the calm lake surface. A naked humanoid figure emerged from the water, clutching the wooden box.
Zhou You had some waterweed clinging to his body. After shaking off that film of water clinging to his skin, the waterweed fell to the ground.
Zhou You impatiently tried to open the wooden box. He didn't know if it needed a key or had some mechanism, but it wouldn't open.
"Found the box?"
Hearing the noise, Chu Xiaoyao ran over in two or three strides.
"Eh eh, I haven't put on my clothes yet."
"No one's looking at you."
It was pitch black. Chu Xiaoyao didn't need to see what the wooden box looked like; she just opened it directly.
"Hmm? How could you just open it?" Zhou You, who was in the middle of getting dressed, stared in shock. He himself hadn't been able to open it just now.
"Did you not use the right method? I opened it right away." Chu Xiaoyao didn't know what Zhou You was surprised about.
"Grand Elder, wait for me. I put a sealing on the box. You shouldn't be able to open it... eh, it's open?" Nuomi, who had been patrolling from afar, arrived last.
Nuomi was a bit disappointed. She thought her sealing skills were quite strong, but the Grand Elder had opened it just like that.
"Is this your little treasury?"
Chu Xiaoyao opened the box and took out a square, four-sided thing. It was heavy and substantial, with good texture.
She turned on her phone's flashlight and shone it. It was a jade seal. Chu Xiaoyao didn't know much about such things, but felt the workmanship was decent.
The characters on the jade seal looked ancient, and they were reversed. Chu Xiaoyao didn't recognize them.
"Eh? This isn't my thing!" Nuomi shouted. Her little treasury was real, legitimate money!
"So it isn't?" Originally, Chu Xiaoyao had been considering how to fill this thing into the Carefree Sect's little treasury, thinking it wouldn't fetch much even if sold.
"Isn't it?" By now Zhou You had finished dressing and walked over. He had worked so hard fishing for so long—did he fish up the wrong thing?
Nuomi glanced at the wooden box containing the jade seal. Although it was somewhat similar to hers and fit her aesthetic, it wasn't the same one.
Her wooden box had been found in the old dormitory building. Although she didn't know why a student would bring such a thing to school.
"Should I go down and fish for a while longer?" Zhou You said. He glanced at the time on Chu Xiaoyao's phone. There was still time; he could make two more trips.
He was now more used to going into the water. His breath-holding had increased from four and a half minutes originally to nearly six minutes. Considerable growth.
"Let me ask first, to avoid fishing up the wrong thing. Nuomi, what's in your little treasury?"
"Money, of course. Real, legitimate money!"
"I mentioned before that the school often hires Daoists to exorcise me at the old dormitory building. Every time they come, they burn a lot of money. Some of it isn't completely burned, and I hide it away." Nuomi said complacently. She had collected this money bit by bit; it wasn't easy.
Hearing the first part say it was money, Zhou You prepared to go down and fish two more times. Hearing the second part, something felt wrong.
What did it mean to burn a lot of money?
"Are the face values of your money very large?" Chu Xiaoyao couldn't help but ask.
Nuomi nodded honestly and gestured, as if there was a string of numbers before her: "Very large. There are several zeros, too many to count. I also set up a very strong sealing."
Nuomi was good at math. Any one of her bills was worth far more than the sect master's fifty yuan.
Chu Xiaoyao: "..."
For some reason, Zhou You suddenly wasn't very keen on going into the water anymore.
It was quite late. He'd go home, wash up, and sleep. He could also browse the forum a bit more.
Zhou You decided to explain things to Nuomi.
"Nuomi, actually what you're talking about is called hell banknotes. They're burned for the dead. They're not worth money."
"Not worth money?" Nuomi looked indignant. She pouted and stomped her feet over and over, thinking the sect master was wrong.
"It's not worth money, so why burn it for me?"
Zhou You opened his mouth, but the explanation died on his lips. He felt Nuomi actually made sense. If hell banknotes weren't worth money, what was the point of burning them for the dead?
Chapter 46