Little Taotie froze, the little girl’s round-eyed stare was stupidly cute, which made the old man laugh out loud. He reached out to rub her forehead. "What, did you get so happy you turned dumb? Didn’t you already guess it’d be like this?"

Little Taotie lifted her head in a daze to look at the old man, her face full of confusion.

She had indeed said that to the Ghost Enforcer, but that was just her trying to comfort herself. She had absolutely never thought that the Merit she spent would actually come back dozens of times over.

This was way faster and more unbelievable than donating money or just doing good deeds.

"I didn’t expect..." Little Taotie reached out to touch the Golden Light rushing over and swirling around her. "That there’d be this much."

The old man: "You have to give to get."

Little Taotie finally snapped out of her daze, covered her mouth and started secretly laughing, her eyes bent into crescents, Little Dimple sinking deep, like a Kitty that had just stolen a fish, ridiculously cute.

The old man chuckled softly. "Alright, if you keep laughing you’re going to turn into a giggling idiot."

Little Taotie pouted. "I am not an idiot."

Little Taotie continued moving the Gold Bricks out. Maybe because the Golden Light around her was too thick, the Golden Light actually dyed the Gold Bricks, and the evil stuff that had gotten mixed into the bricks during firing seemed to be gradually destroyed by the Golden Light.

One Gold Brick suddenly burst out with Golden Light, and a comfortable exhale sounded. "Finally, that feels better."

Little Taotie jumped in fright. "The Gold Brick is talking!"

The old man narrowed his eyes.

Little Taotie scooted closer to the Gold Brick and cautiously poked it with a finger. After confirming it wasn’t dangerous, she picked it up to examine it.

"Thanks. Can you help clean me up completely?" The Gold Brick spoke again, only this time its voice grew blurry, like a phone call whose connection could cut off any second, the signal really bad.

Little Taotie went "hello, hello, hello" at it several times, but it didn’t respond.

Little Taotie patted it with her hand. "Gold Brick, say something. Why aren’t you making any sound? Did your signal drop?"

The old man picked up a Gold Brick beside him and handed it over. "Try using Merit to illuminate this Gold Brick."

Gold made with the ancient method was a bit dark to begin with, tinged with a faint dark red, like red gold. Under the illumination of the Merit Golden Light, it gradually shed a layer of dust, blooming with the true brilliance of gold, so dazzlingly bright it could blind you.

The Gold Brick spoke again, but this time it was a second Gold Brick talking. "I can only talk for a limited time. I’m just a Tower Spirit attached to each Gold Brick, so..."

"So what?" Little Taotie pressed.

But the connection cut off again.

"Hello, hello? Are you still there, Gold Brick? Oh no, Tower Spirit, are you still there?"

Little Taotie held the Gold Brick up to her ear like she was on the phone.

But no matter how long she called, there was no response at all.

Little Taotie was utterly deflated.

The old man and Hua Jinyan each handed her a Gold Brick. This time, without them having to remind her, she’d already caught on: every Gold Brick was the Tower Spirit. Because it had split its consciousness into every single Gold Brick, the consciousness in each one was very thin and very little.

When Little Taotie drove away the filth on a Gold Brick and illuminated it with Merit, the Tower Spirit could talk to her. But because there was so little consciousness on each Gold Brick, the time they could talk was very short. The filth on the other Gold Bricks would then make the Tower Spirit’s consciousness turbid and muddled again, so it couldn’t communicate anymore.

If she wanted to talk smoothly with the Tower Spirit without the line dropping, she could only use Merit Golden Light to illuminate all of the Gold Bricks, every last one.