Craft Spirit

"Zhang Laifu, you tricked me! There's nothing I hate more than being lied to!" "Lao Duozi, even your name is fake. How come you didn't hate it when you were the one lying to me?" "I lied to you because you're an idiot, and an idiot like you deserves to die..." Lao Duozi kept shrieking, though his voice grew fainter and fainter. "What does an idiot owe you? Did an idiot eat your rice?" Zhang Laifu looked down at Lao Duozi, watching his body shatter inch by inch until he and the water cart vanished into the fedora. Zhang Laifu wiped the traces of blood from his face. A faint smile touched his lips, and he muttered a single sentence over and over: "I'm going to become a craftsman!" After grinning for more than half a minute, he remembered something and hurriedly pulled out the other pouch of Jasmine Dew snuff from his clothes. The soil wasn't enough; it had to be topped off immediately. Lao Duozi had said so himself. Once a bowl was opened, it couldn't be stopped. Song Yongchang had said that himself. Once he poured the second pouch of snuff inside, the hat unfurled completely, expanding with wild vigor throughout the ancestral hall. The brim collided with the ancestral hall's walls, cracking them. Zhang Laifu worried that the main house and the ancestral hall might collapse. He darted under the offering table to collect the craft essences of Yu Qiasuan and Xiao Zhuzi, taking both of their coin pouches as well. Lao Yu had also left behind a peach wood sword, a stack of talisman paper, five wooden plaques, and a mirror. Xiao Zhuzi had left fewer things—only a sewing kit box. The box had two tiers, and its contents looked quite respectable. The upper tier held two rows of needles. The largest needle was longer than Zhang Laifu's cell phone, while the smallest was so tiny he couldn't even pick it up, nor could he see where its eye was. There was also the wooden box that Zhang Laifu had originally dug up and Lao Duozi had snatched away. He took that back as well. Having gathered everything he could, Zhang Laifu stood outside the ancestral hall, watching dust and smoke billow out from the room. A bowl made from a fedora, soil made from snuff, and Lao Duozi as the seed—what kind of craft spirit would this yield? Zhang Laifu had no idea, and he doubted more than a handful of people in all of Wansheng Prefecture would know either. Could Lao Duozi alone really do the trick? Who knew how many years the old ghost had been dead—did he even still have craft essence left in him? To be safe, Zhang Laifu tossed Lao Yu's craft essence into the hat as well. The hat reacted violently, bursting into crackling pops amidst the boiling haze of smoke. A commotion this loud could hardly be concealed. If He Shengjun suddenly came to inspect the old residence right now, how would he explain any of this to him? This is my bowl, the soil I bought myself, the seed I tossed in, and my own craft spirit... But if He Shengjun dares to snatch it, I'm no match for him in a fight... Thinking about it that way, there really wasn't much point in worrying. If the man actually showed up, there was nothing Zhang Laifu could do anyway. Since there was nothing to dwell on, he might as well count his money. Zhang Laifu opened Xiao Zhuzi and Lao Yu's money pouches. The gleaming white silver dollars dazzled the eye. Xiao Zhuzi's pouch held twelve silver dollars. Lao Yu's pouch contained twenty-six silver dollars. The bandit profession certainly offered handsome compensation. The small wooden box held fifty silver dollars. Adding the twelve silver dollars meant for buying tobacco and snuff, plus this month's wages, and deducting what he spent on tobacco, snuff, treating the yin energy, and buying the shovel, he was left with ninety-eight and a half. Ninety-eight and a half silver dollars! How many bowls of wontons would that buy? Zhang Laifu felt utter bliss! The time to enjoy good fortune had arrived! Rumble! The remaining half-wall in front of the ancestral hall gave way and collapsed. The bowl seemed to be making quite a stir. He Shengjun, whatever you do, please don't come! ... After waiting two full days, He Shengjun indeed never showed up. Over those two days, the hat grew larger and larger, smoke steadily pouring from within as dust churned relentlessly. Zhang Laifu didn't dare draw close. He didn't idle away the time either. First, he studied Lao Duozi's alarm clock. Every time it was wound, Lao Duozi regained his hearing, and Li Yunsheng had previously surmised that this clock was a top-grade fierce vessel. How did one use such an extraordinary fierce vessel? The three hands on the face were motionless. Zhang Laifu turned the alarm clock over and pinched the winding key, turning it several times, but it wouldn't budge at all. Was the spring really this tight? Perhaps it wasn't tight, but simply that he didn't know how to use it. He would find a chance to learn later. After stowing the alarm clock away, Zhang Laifu scavenged around the old residence. One after another, he found a hundred and sixty-one silver dollars across the west wing of the main courtyard, beneath the swing in the back courtyard, and inside the storehouse of the eastern side-courtyard. These silver dollars were all packed in small wooden boxes—some holding forty or fifty, others only two or three. They were almost certainly hidden by Lao Duozi. When he hid those dollars, he surely never imagined that he had once been so close to his own remains. Zhang Laifu now had a total of 259.5 silver dollars in hand. Could this sum buy a bit of property or business? It was far too early to think about property. He was still being hunted down by bandits; even if he acquired an estate, he couldn't hold onto it. By the morning of the third day, the hat burst. Crown, brim, and band all tore apart, turning into a heap of tattered cloth on the ground. Zhang Laifu picked up a scrap of cloth and squeezed it in his hand; it crumbled into powder across his palm. It had fallen apart completely. There was also a mound of ash on the ground, leaving it unclear whether it was snuff or cremated remains. In the center of the ash rested a wooden box. Opening it, he saw a walnut-sized fruit with a yellow rind inside. Was this fruit the craft spirit? Would eating this allow him to become a craftsman? Zhang Laifu felt a flutter of excitement as he wondered how the fruit should be eaten. It felt fairly soft to the touch, somewhat like a fruit, yet in appearance it resembled a walnut. Should this be cooked before eating, or eaten raw? Should he swallow it whole, or peel the skin first? Matters like this couldn't be left to blind guessing. Zhang Laifu took the wooden box, gathered everything he could carry, and left the Lin old manor. There were still many untold secrets about this old residence in Baicaodang. What grudge existed between Lao Duozi and the Lin family? What was the origin of that water cart? Why had such a grand manor been abandoned? He could look into those things later. Zhang Laifu closed the front gates, swung his bundle over his shoulder, and walked away. He was carrying quite a load and wanted to hire a cart, but the area was too remote, and he couldn't find a carter anywhere along the way. Trudging all the way to Zhuzi Street, Zhang Laifu found Li Yunsheng. Seeing Zhang Laifu safe and sound, Li Yunsheng was overjoyed. "Brother Laifu, you defeated that evil spirit?" Zhang Laifu handed the yellow-skinned fruit to Li Yunsheng. "He turned into this!" The evil spirit of the Lin old manor in Baicaodang was widely known across all of Heishakou. Who could have expected Zhang Laifu to be the one to subdue it? And the Zhang Laifu standing before him wasn't even a craftsman yet! How had he pulled it off? Just what sort of person was he? No matter how many twists and turns lay in between, it was always best to take shade under a great tree—the divination had certainly not lied! Li Yunsheng examined the golden fruit closely and nodded repeatedly. "A fine fruit! A craft spirit of superior quality." "Craft spirits have different qualities too?" "Of course! A golden fruit like this is top-notch quality. Eating a fruit of this caliber will let you smoothly become a craftsman with virtually no risk." Zhang Laifu blinked. "Virtually?" Li Yunsheng lit three sticks of incense, letting the smoke shroud them both. "There is no absolutely foolproof craft spirit in this world. A solid color marks high grade, and gold is the finest of the high grade. To cultivate a craft spirit this good, you must have used an excellent bowl!" "A craft spirit's quality is related to the bowl too?" Zhang Laifu learned something new once again. Li Yunsheng nodded. "Naturally. A while back, a ruffian in the west of town spent five thousand silver dollars to buy an inferior bowl, and it grew a multicolored, blotchy craft spirit. Someone urged him not to eat it, saying a spirit like that offered less than a fifty percent chance of success. He refused to listen. The very day he swallowed it, he was dead—falling headfirst into the ash pit at the east street junction. His corpse was already crawling with maggots by the time anyone found him." That sounded familiar! Zhang Laifu recalled, "The night watchman—the one with bugs growing in his gums—the corpse he stumbled across was that ruffian?" "That's the one!" Li Yunsheng took a sip of tea. "Brother Laifu, a craft spirit of pure quality is exceedingly rare. If you eat this one, ninety-nine percent of the time nothing will go wrong. If you don't want to consume it, you can also sell it. A craft spirit of this grade would fetch tens of thousands of silver dollars without any trouble." Zhang Laifu weighed his options. "A craftsman earns a hundred silver dollars a month. Earning tens of thousands isn't easy—it would take decades..." Li Yunsheng shook his head repeatedly. "Brother Laifu, you can't just think about the income of a first-tier craftsman. Once your craft improves and you become a second-tier master craftsman, you won't be making a mere hundred silver dollars a month." "How much can a master craftsman earn?" "It varies. A master craftsman can open his own shop and run things himself, or partner with a shop and oversee their operations. Second-tier craftsmen don't partner up easily—a shopkeeper has to offer at least thirty percent of the profits, or there's nothing to discuss." "Thirty percent?" Zhang Laifu didn't know much about business. "Giving away that much, does the shopkeeper still make a profit?" "Of course! A shop with a master craftsman operates on a completely different level than an ordinary shop; the avenues for profit are both steady and broad. Brother Laifu, with such a fine fruit in hand, just eat it. I don't think you'll lose out." Zhang Laifu also felt it was worth it. "Brother Li, looking at this fruit's quality, can you tell which trade it belongs to?" "That, I truly can't tell. If I could have told back then, I wouldn't have ended up as a doctor of the Zhuyou branch." "How should I eat it?" "Swallow it whole. Don't peel it, don't spit out the pit, and don't waste a drop of juice. The more completely you consume the fruit, the greater your chances!" "Alright!" Zhang Laifu took the fruit and swallowed it in a single gulp. Li Yunsheng was stunned. "You ate it just like that?" Zhang Laifu nodded. "I ate it." "Without even drinking water?" "Using water isn't manly!" The moment the words left his mouth, Zhang Laifu collapsed to the floor.