It did not take long.
Hu Tao hauled the loaded little cart along with one hand, a coin pouch of Mora swinging from the other, and headed for the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
Passing the mouth of a narrow alley, she spotted two men standing inside it, one tall and one short, wearing the faces of people who had just buried both their parents.
She happened to know these two.
The men who had handed her free books earlier that morning.
So she stopped to think it over. They had given the books away for nothing, true, but taking things from people without giving anything back never sat right with her.
Which was why she was weighing whether to have them chip in a little extra Mora, so she could arrange the full Wangsheng Funeral Parlor package for the pair of them: body collection, cremation, and burial, all in one tidy service.
While she stood there deliberating, the fatty spoke up, hesitant. "B-boss... I said it, didn't I... doing this much wrong, won't it... won't it be the death of us?"
"Screw your uncle. We're the Treasure Hoarders! If we don't do wrong, what exactly are we supposed to eat?"
The skinny man smacked the back of the fatty's head, and when that failed to work the anger out of him, he swung a fist at the alley wall.
Only, right as his knuckles were about to land, his nerve failed him. He pulled the fist back and kicked the wall instead, which somehow still hurt enough to leave him hissing through his teeth.
Watching all this, Hu Tao grew even more certain that these two needed a package deal.
These particular Treasure Hoarders looked exactly like the pair who die first in Ten Treasure Hoarders, that reworking of Fang Qiu's Ten Hilichurls.
The sort that didn't look especially bright.
Treasure Hoarders like these, much like the adventurers who loved poking around dangerous places, were all Tao-grade clients as far as she was concerned.
But just as Hu Tao was working out which package to recommend, the two Treasure Hoarders noticed someone standing outside the alley watching them.
"What are you looking at? Never seen Treasure Hoarders this handsome before?"
The moment the skinny man saw someone staring, his temper boiled over.
He had been aching for somewhere to dump his rage, and here came a volunteer, delivered right to his door.
He rolled up his sleeves and started toward the alley mouth, cursing as he went. Then he got a clear look at Hu Tao's face. He froze where he stood for a good long moment, then whirled around and bolted.
Two strides in, he went down face first in the dirt. He howled, then scrambled up without sparing a thought for the pain and kept running.
The fatty had gotten a clear look at Hu Tao too, and he came stumbling and half crawling after his boss.
Before Hu Tao could get a single word out, the two of them had vanished.
"Uh..."
Hu Tao blinked after them, puzzled.
She hadn't said anything at all. So why had those two run off like they'd seen a ghost?
It wasn't as though she'd set a ghost on them.
With no other option, Hu Tao took hold of the little cart again and carried on toward the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
On the way she ran into Yun Jin.
When she learned that Yun Jin was setting out for the Wanwen Bookhouse to buy a copy, she simply handed one over on the spot.
Yun Jin, naturally, saw no need to stand on ceremony with Hu Tao, and accepted the book happily.
Hu Tao went on humming the reworked Hilitune that Fang Qiu had given her, dragging the little cart all the way home to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
Seeing their Director back so early, Old Meng and the undertaker girl were both a little thrown.
"Director, how come you're back so soon?" the undertaker girl asked.
"Don't tell me nobody was buying Miss Fang Qiu's book?" Old Meng wondered aloud.
Mister Zhongli coming home early made sense, at least. After all, at the tavern downstairs from the Wanwen Bookhouse, anyone who had spent above a certain amount could collect their copy straight from the tavern on release day.
And Mister Zhongli was a regular there, so he could simply pick his up.
"Oh, there were plenty of people."
Hu Tao said, "But while I was standing in line, I ran into two very strange men."
"Strange men?"
Old Meng and the undertaker girl exchanged a baffled look.
"The two I had you register the other day. Those two wanted me to hold a place in line for them, so they booked the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor's top-tier package with me, paid the Mora and everything, and then never came by to sign the actual order all this time. And today I ran into them again. I assumed they wanted me to queue for them a second time."
Hu Tao settled into a chair, lifted her teacup, took a sip, and went on, "I was still deciding which service to pitch them, and then, would you believe it, they wanted to give me a few dozen copies of Fang Qiu's anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day."
"So you took them, Director?" the two of them asked in the same breath, bewildered.
"Of course not."
Hu Tao waved a hand. "Am I the sort of person who takes things from others for free?"
"Then?" they asked.
"So I offset it against a Wangsheng Funeral Parlor order," Hu Tao said.
"Ah, that explains it." Understanding dawned across the undertaker girl's face.
Old Meng, standing to one side, was looking at the Mora pouch Hu Tao had set down by her hand. "Then, Director, what's the story with that pouch of Mora?"
The Wangsheng Funeral Parlor's Mora pouches were all embroidered with the parlor's crest. That pouch clearly wasn't one of Hu Tao's.
"This? Well, those books are only worth a few hundred Mora, nowhere near enough to cover one of our orders, so I told them they'd have to top it up." Hu Tao glanced at the pouch beside her.
"So that's what they topped it up with?" Old Meng's eyes went wide.
"That's right. What else would you expect from me? Another top-grade funeral order signed for the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor."
Hu Tao planted her hands on her hips. "Oh, right, Old Meng, write down the client's name."
"Righto." Old Meng nodded, fetched the order ledger and a pen, and asked, "What's the client's name?"
"Di Yun."
Hu Tao thought about it a moment, then said, "They didn't say much else. Told me they'd come find us when the time was right. Anyway, just get the name down and log the accounts. And do me a favor and hand out the books, would you? I want to sit and properly savor this anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, seeing as Fang Qiu wrote it to promote our Wangsheng Funeral Parlor philosophy."
With that, Hu Tao waved them off, picked up a copy of anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, sank into her chair, and began to read.
Old Meng and the undertaker girl traded a helpless glance, put the Mora safely away, and Old Meng hauled the little cart out to the front hall entrance.
The undertaker girl took out the account book and recorded the order's income and expenses.
Then the two of them sat down on stools, one on either side, and started reading as well.
Meanwhile, on the second floor of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
Zhongli sat upright at his desk. A breeze passed by outside the window, and the last thin wisps of mist drifted into the room.
The air was faintly cold.
Zhongli looked at the copy of anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day lying beside his hand. The cover was painted in bright colors: blue sky, white clouds, green hills.
A group of boys and girls stood on a bridge, or sat by the flower beds along it, or leaned against the railing.
All but one girl.
She wore a white dress, her hair silver, arms spread wide as she walked the railing with wobbling, careful steps.
Judging by their clothes, the cover was set at the height of summer.
He turned the pages open with an easy hand.
And with the sunlight of a late summer afternoon, the noisy cicadas outside the window, and a hot, restless breeze, the story began in a small town in Inazuma.
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