The woman retorted, “I’m singing in my own yard—what business is it of yours!”

James Thompson tried to reason with her: “I’m sleeping without disturbing anyone, but you’re disturbing me.”

“Why is it that no one else is bothered, but you are!”

……

As it turned out, trying to reason with this woman was a mistake from the start—not all women are as understanding as Emily Thompson.

He redirected all of the woman’s anger onto himself, then happily went back to his room to catch up on sleep.

Condensing the seven souls is extremely difficult; he had only taken a small step. After catching up on sleep, he still needed to go out and help others, continue harvesting joyful emotions, and strive to fully condense the first soul within a month.

He returned to his room, closed the doors and windows, pulled up the covers, and soon fell asleep again.

In the yard just across the wall, a beautiful woman with a graceful figure stomped her foot and gritted her teeth, “I’m so mad!”

A young girl with double buns ran out from inside and asked, “Miss, what’s wrong? Who were you talking to just now?”

“With a pig!”

There was no more sound from the other side. Evelyn Harris muttered angrily, and lost all interest in practicing her singing. She asked the little maid, “Have all the things been delivered?”

The girl nodded and said, “Only our neighbor to the left is left. I’ll go deliver it now.”

Evelyn Harris waved her hand, still angry. “Don’t bother with that house!”

“Huh? Why not?” The girl looked puzzled.

They had just moved here two days ago. Since the two of them were outsiders and unfamiliar with the area, they thought life might be inconvenient, so they bought some pastries and candied fruits as small gifts to give to the neighbors, hoping to get acquainted and have someone to turn to if they needed help in the future.

They had delivered gifts to everyone around, except for the closest neighbor. The girl couldn’t understand why.

Evelyn Harris said expressionlessly, “No reason. I said don’t, so don’t.”

To avoid disturbing the neighbors, she had waited until mid-morning to practice her singing. Most people were already up and busy by dawn—who would have thought someone would still be sleeping at that hour, and even call her singing “ghost wailing”? She just couldn’t swallow this insult—how could she possibly give him a gift now?

“Oh…” Seeing that her mistress seemed upset, the girl sneaked a glance at the wall next door and didn’t dare ask further.

James Thompson slept until noon and woke up feeling refreshed. It was the best sleep he’d had in days—if only he hadn’t been woken up in the middle, it would have been perfect.

Speaking of that woman who sang early in the morning, James Thompson remembered that the yard next door had always been empty. He didn’t know when someone had moved in, and she seemed like a handful—a real shrew. In their brief exchange, James Thompson had been at a disadvantage. He just hoped he wouldn’t have any more dealings with her in the future.

He then copied out several drafts of “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” and submitted them to a few bookstores.

The rules at these bookstores were more or less the same: seven days after submission, you could come by to ask if your manuscript had been accepted.

Scholars are poor, warriors are rich, and cultivation is even more of a money pit.

Talisman paper and cinnabar are expensive, and the rare spiritual materials needed for cultivation are even more so. Besides, James Thompson wanted to live a little better. His monthly salary of five hundred coins wasn’t enough to cover all this.

After submitting his manuscripts, James Thompson did his usual patrol around the streets, seizing every opportunity to collect the seven emotions.

Although his progress in condensing the soul had started off smoothly, James Thompson never let himself slack off.

Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire—of these seven emotions, joy was the easiest to obtain. Using his position as a constable to punish evil and promote good, catch adulterers and eliminate wrongdoers, was a shortcut to collecting others’ joy and gratitude.

But how was he supposed to obtain the other six emotions?

He needed to help others gain joy and gratitude, but also make people feel anger, disgust, or even fear toward him. These were contradictory goals. As for sorrow, James Thompson had no clue at all. The most troublesome was desire—what could he do to make people feel a strong enough desire for him? Just thinking about these things gave him a headache.

Even collecting joyful emotions wasn’t going as smoothly as James Thompson had hoped.

Yangqiu County was just a small town. Not much happened on a daily basis, and when there were no major cases, the constables were actually quite idle. A couple of symbolic patrols around the streets each day was enough to avoid being accused of neglecting their duties.

Today, there were no mischievous children flying kites, nor any lost old women. The stray dog in the alley was still there, though. James Thompson spent a few coins to buy it a chicken leg, and only managed to draw a pitifully small amount of joy from it.

This couldn’t go on. At this rate, he’d end up as a ghost after all.

After patrolling the streets for a long time without finding any opportunities to help others, nor encountering any ghosts with unfulfilled wishes, lunchtime approached and James Thompson had no choice but to head home to cook.

Just as he reached his door, someone happened to come out of the yard next door.