Chapter 103: Life-Buying Money

Jia Cheng looked at Xu Shan unhappily.
It was obvious that when a beautiful school beauty like Xia Yubing asked him, Jia Cheng was happy to answer personally, but he was very annoyed when Xu Shan blurted out his secret.

“Jia Cheng, Xu Shan has a point.”
“We in the Supernatural Events Department also settle accounts clearly.”
“It’s free to hang the photo in the clubroom for research, but if you need to take the photo away, you should pay Xiao Qing a certain price.”
“Xia Yubing and Bai Yue also made their transactions this way.”

Mo Qingyan was the department head, so her words set the tone.
Jia Cheng had no objections and pulled Xiao Qing aside to negotiate the price.

I had never understood what a firsthand spirit photo was.
It was only when they were discussing it that I understood.
For a camera, the original film negative is the firsthand source.
The photos developed from it are secondhand.

And the standard for this “secondhand” photo is based on the concentration of resentful energy.
The original negative has the heaviest resentful energy, and the first batch of photos developed from it will have significantly less.

But what was useful to Jia Cheng were the photos, not the negatives.
If the photos were copied again, the resentful energy would be even fainter.
That’s why he had collected so many spirit photos from the internet and newspapers, but very few of them were useful.

The spirit photo Xiao Qing had taken was with her phone, so the original image on the phone was the firsthand photo.
If it was forwarded or printed out, it would be a secondhand photo.

Mo Qingyan also explained to me that the specific effect was also related to the material of the photographic paper and the quality of the ink used when he printed the photo, but I didn’t understand those complex materials.

In short, Jia Cheng seemed to really want the original image in Xiao Qing’s hands.
For this, he even offered five thousand yuan, wanting to buy Xiao Qing’s phone.
But Xiao Qing was unwilling, as it contained a lot of her personal information and was inconvenient to transfer.

In the end, they reached an agreement.
Ou Zhiqin gave Jia Cheng an internal friendship price of one hundred yuan to borrow her phone to print the photo once.
No matter how many copies he printed, it would only be one hundred yuan.

Jia Cheng was very happy.
This price was already very cheap.
Although the cost of the photographic paper and ink was not low, he had to provide them himself.
If Ou Zhiqin had charged a little more, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
In the end, both were happy.

“Uh, I’ll also provide two things for you guys to study,” I said, taking two items out of my schoolbag.

One was sealed in a box.
When opened, there was a Daoist talisman inside.
Although it was drawn with cinnabar on yellow paper, it flowed with a turquoise spiritual light.

“Is this an authentic Rejuvenation Talisman from the Daoist sect?”
“Where did you get such a good thing?” Mo Qingyan asked in surprise.

“This was given to me by Yi Zhiqiu when the Painted Skin Ghost injured me.”
“I only used less than half of it, and there’s still a lot of spiritual power left,” I explained, not mentioning that it was compensation from Yi Zhiqiu for using me as bait and a test.

I had originally wanted to give this Rejuvenation Talisman to Xiao Qing as a thank-you gift for the half a talisman she had used up to protect me.
But then I gave Xiao Qing a one-hundred-and-seventy-thousand-yuan artifact, and this used Rejuvenation Talisman suddenly seemed a bit shabby.
So I never gave it to her.

After thinking it over, I decided to bring this Rejuvenation Talisman to the Supernatural Events Department for everyone to study, which would be nice too.

“Good stuff, really good stuff.”
“As long as we print an identical Rejuvenation Talisman according to the style of this talisman paper and then place them together with this Rejuvenation Talisman, we can mass-produce many low-spec Rejuvenation Talismans,” Mo Qingyan said excitedly.

I remembered that Xiao Qing had done the same thing, pressing a secondhand Daoist talisman in a box.
The replica talismans could continuously absorb the spiritual power leaking from the authentic talisman, quickly transforming into low-spec talismans.
Although the aura of the replicated talismans was very weak, as seen when Xiao Qing fought the Painted Skin Ghost, they could still be effective.

“This is a contribution from Xia Bing to the Supernatural Events Department, we can’t let her lose out.”
“According to our rules, we should each pay a portion, and consider it as us buying this Rejuvenation Talisman,” Mo Qingyan said again.

“Eh? No need, I’m not short of money.”
“I brought this talisman over to give to the club members for research,” I waved my hands repeatedly.

“That won’t do, there have to be rules.”
“If you don’t take money, others will be too embarrassed to ask for it in the future.”
“But as long as we establish that contributing items to the Supernatural Events Department won’t be a loss, then everyone will be happy to take out and share any good things they find in the future,” Mo Qingyan said again.

Her words reminded me of the stories of Zigong redeeming a person and Zilu accepting an ox from the Analects.¹
It was said that the laws of the State of Lu stipulated that if one could redeem a person from Lu who had become a s*ave in a foreign country, the ransom could be reimbursed from the state treasury.
After Zigong redeemed a person, he did not claim the ransom.
Confucius thought he had done wrong, because in the future, people of Lu would no longer be willing to redeem others.

On the other hand, Zilu saved a drowning person, and the rescued person gave him an ox as a thank-you gift.
Zilu accepted it.
Confucius was very happy, believing that in the future, the people of Lu would be willing to save drowning people because of Zilu.

Therefore, a certain degree of public order and good customs should be encouraged, rather than letting some seemingly noble behaviors override conventions, break the rules, and make actions that could benefit most people difficult to emulate.

It was this principle of fair exchange.
One could accept a friendship price, but one couldn’t not accept money.
This was Mo Qingyan’s attitude.

Everyone else agreed with this rule, and I no longer insisted.
Mo Qingyan would decide.
In the end, she valued this Rejuvenation Talisman at two thousand yuan, to be shared equally by all members, unless they decided later not to use these mass-produced Rejuvenation Talismans.

No one objected to this decision or declared that they wouldn’t use the Rejuvenation Talismans.
Everyone was willing to pay.
In the end, it was five people each paying four hundred yuan.
Bai Yue was not present, so Mo Qingyan paid her share for her first, but of course, she sent a text message to confirm that she had no objections.

The other item was wrapped in a black plastic bag.
When opened, there were ten bright red banknotes inside.
Xu Shan asked in confusion, “Why did Junior Sister Xia bring so much money?”

“Don’t touch it! That’s life-buying money!” Mo Qingyan shouted, startling Xu Shan into retracting his hand.

“This is life-buying money?” Jia Cheng took out a Polaroid camera and took a picture of the money in the plastic bag.
The photo immediately developed.
He picked it up and looked at it.
As expected, the photo showed only hell money.

“Hiss! Amazing.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen life-buying money up close.”
“It looks exactly like real banknotes,” Xu Shan said, looking at the money in the bag with admiration.

“It only looks like real banknotes to the naked eye.”
“In reality, it’s all hell money.”
“And only Xia Yubing can touch it.”
“If anyone else touches it, I’m afraid they’ll lose a layer of skin,” Mo Qingyan said, then turned to me and asked, “What do you want to do with the life-buying money you brought to the club?”

“Senior Sister Mo, teach me how to use the life-buying money,” I said.

Footnotes:
¹ Zigong redeeming a person and Zilu accepting an ox: Two famous anecdotes from the Analects of Confucius that illustrate principles of ethics and governance. The stories highlight the idea that for good deeds to be encouraged and widely practiced, there must be a system of reward or at least no personal loss for the doer. Rejecting a reward, while seemingly noble, could discourage others from performing similar acts in the future.