The border of the Human Realm, Huanming Prefecture, Qing Yuan City.
My master said that Huanming Prefecture is the junction of the Human Realm and the Yao Realm, and Qing Yuan City is a trade city jointly governed by both sides.
Here, vermilion flying eaves and white bone towers interlace, and Human Race lanterns and demon fire lanterns twinkle in mid-air.
Mechanical birds carrying cargo boxes fly past, and the fluffy stalls of nine-tailed vendors are dazzling.
Under the arched bridge entwined with vine demons, merfolk are bargaining with Human Race Cultivators.
At this moment, Ling Tian was standing on the bluestone curb of “Hundred Treasures Alley.”
In front of him, a toad demon squatted, its cheeks puffing in and out:
“Esteemed guest! Come and see! Xuan Yin Mountain Dragon scales! Top-grade Materials for Artifact Refining!”
The moist mist, carrying the unique fishy smell of scales, assailed his nostrils.
Ling Tian picked up the palm-sized dark golden scale with two fingers, gently rubbing it with his thumb.
The scale shimmered with an eerie gray hue in the morning light, and the teeth marks on the edge were too regular, as if meticulously filed.
“Fifty Low-Grade Spirit Stones.”
Ling Tian flicked the scale with his finger: “The scale pattern is gray, indicating it has shed at least three years ago. Freshly shed scales should have Xuan Yin Qi.”
The toad demon’s green bean eyes darted around, and its webbed palm slapped “pa” on the gilded abacus:
“Fellow Daoist, what are you saying! This is what our brother risked his life to get from Xuan Yin Mountain...”
“One hundred.” Ling Tian suddenly raised the price, “But, you have to include that basket of scrap iron.”
Ling Tian kicked the rusty remnants of profound iron at the corner of the stall, and rust powder fell, a faint blue glint flashing in his eyes.
The toad demon’s tongue tied itself in a knot in mid-air.
Those things were scraps it had fished out of the moat for half a month, originally intending to fool Human Race Cultivators with them, but it didn’t expect... “Deal!”
The toad demon’s webbed palm swiftly snatched the money bag, but froze when it touched the Spirit Stones.
Inside the bag, ten Medium Grade Spirit Stones were neatly stacked, each wrapped in a layer of light green talisman paper.
“Esteemed guest, this is...?”
“Exorcism Talisman.” Ling Tian put the scale into his qiankun bag, “To save you from being haunted by the Dragon soul at night.”
...After turning three street corners, the scorched scent of lightning-struck wood mixed with Medicinal Pill fragrance wafted into his nostrils.
Inside the old Medicinal Pill shop, which had a plaque that read “Healing the World,” the goat-bearded shopkeeper was shaking his head at a piece of ebony wood:
“The lightning pattern is beautiful, but unfortunately, it was soaked in continuous rain...”
Ling Tian stepped directly over the threshold: “Excuse me, do you buy Poison Fire Scorpion Materials?”
The shopkeeper poked his head out from behind the Pill Furnace, his nostrils twitching: “Poison Fire Scorpion from the Crimson Flame Mountain Range?”
“Three hundred scales, twenty scorpion tails, and three Major Achievement scorpion Medicinal Pills.”
After speaking, Ling Tian opened his qiankun bag, and dark red scorpion scales flowed like molten lava, each edge glinting with gold lines.
The most striking were the three fist-sized scorpion Medicinal Pills.
The crimson patterns floating on their surface reflected in the dim light, making the shopkeeper’s wrinkled face flicker between light and dark.
“Clatter!” A Medicinal Pill snake suddenly dropped from the beam, its mouth open, lunging towards the demon Medicinal Pill.
Ling Tian’s fingertips glowed with talismans, which instantly solidified into a fire shield before the snake’s mouth could touch it: “Inspection is fine, but forced purchase is not.”
The shopkeeper tapped the snake’s head with his dry tobacco pipe, his cloudy old eyes looking at the scorpion tails: “Are the scorpion tail poison sacs full?”
Ling Tian pulled out a thick scorpion tail and lightly touched the inkstone with its stinger.
Purple smoke hissed from the bluestone inkstone surface, instantly corroding it into honeycomb-like holes: “Three fen into the stone, enough to refine a furnace of bone-corroding Medicinal Pills.”
“Three thousand scales, three thousand scorpion tails...”
“Three thousand five hundred scales.” Ling Tian picked up a scorpion scale and pressed it onto the Pill Furnace; the crimson patterns actually resonated with the furnace fire, “Using this to control the fire will increase the success rate of Medicinal Pills by at least two-tenths.”
The Medicinal Pill snake suddenly coiled into the shape of an abacus, its tail tip tracing “nine thousand five hundred” on the counter.
Ling Tian chuckled, flicking the scale away; the thin piece spun and stuck into a Medicinal Pill basket.
“Ten thousand for the whole package. Next time I have good stuff, you’ll be the first I look for.”
The old shopkeeper’s goat beard trembled, “Deal!”
Leaving the Medicinal Pill shop, Ling Tian, with his bulging qiankun bag, wondered where to appease his stomach.
Two months of roughing it had left his mouth tasteless.
“Immortal Senior, please wait!” A child’s voice accompanied by the sound of bells rang out.
Ling Tian turned, catching sight of a small child wearing a tiger-head hat, holding a ball of snow-white fur:
“Excellent treasure-hunting rat, only five hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones!”
Ling Tian was about to get closer to look, but the furball suddenly exploded, dozens of sharp quills shooting towards his face.
Ling Tian spun to dodge, but his back hit a rouge stall, and various fragrant powders exploded like fireworks.
“My Jade Pool pollen!” The rabbit-eared girl’s shriek almost pierced his eardrums.
“Sorry...” Ling Tian had just finished speaking when he turned and realized that the “treasure-hunting rat” was actually a hedgehog demon in disguise, and it was now prying open his qiankun bag!
“By command, bind!”
Talismans instantly shot out and entangled the little demon. At this moment, Ling Tian saw a fresh wound on its belly, and half of a demon-hunting arrow was stuck in the festering wound.
“Two choices.” Ling Tian lifted the trembling little demon.
“Either I send you to the Demon Guard Yamen, or...” He flicked his finger, releasing the restraint, and tossed a bottle of healing dew.
“Apologize to this little sister.”
The hedgehog demon stood still for a moment, holding the Medicinal Pill bottle, then suddenly bowed deeply to both of them, and then darted into the crowd.
“It runs fast.” Ling Tian shook his head with a light laugh, then met a pair of reddish rabbit eyes.
The girl’s ear tips were flushed, and the rouge boxes in her arms were piled into a precarious small mountain: “Pay up!”
“Miss, you deliberately knocked over three boxes of Jade Pool fragrance just now, actually trying to cover up...” Ling Tian suddenly leaned close to her ear.
“The non-human, non-demon aura on you, right?”
“You!” The girl’s rabbit ears instantly straightened, she retreated two steps, and a thought flashed through her mind: “Maybe he can...”
Then she threw a gilded invitation at Ling Tian: “Tianzhen Pavilion auction at Hai Shi (9-11 PM), come if you’re interested!”
With that, she vanished in a puff of smoke.
Ling Tian caught the flying gilded invitation.
“Tianzhen Pavilion? Sounds like a good place. Maybe I can buy Medicinal Pills to improve my cultivation.”
Ling Tian put the invitation into his bosom, looked up at the sky, it was almost evening.
“Before that, I still need to fill my stomach.”
He patted his somewhat empty stomach and walked towards the Drunken Immortal Inn.
Drunken Immortal Inn, the largest restaurant in Qing Yuan City.
Flying eaves and layered arches, flickering lights.
As Ling Tian stepped into the main hall, he caught a whiff of a peculiar fragrance.
A deer demon waiter was pouring netherworld river water into a wine jar—the green-faced, fanged waiter, seeing a new customer, immediately had pink peach blossoms bloom on his antlers: “Immortal Senior, how many? There are private rooms upstairs.”
“A scattered seat by the window.”
Ling Tian casually flicked a Spirit Stone onto the counter.
The old shopkeeper, wearing a birthday hat, sniffed, and the wolf-hair brush in his hand made an ink mark on the ledger: “Second floor, Seat C, half price for demon fungus soup.”
The wooden stairs creaked.
On the second floor, by the window, the Eight Immortals table was already clean.
As soon as Ling Tian sat down, a burst of noise came from downstairs.
A gray-clothed old beggar was thrown out the door by two ox demon guards.
The wine gourd in his hand rolled to the middle of the street and was crushed by a passing mechanical carriage.
“The old geezer stole wine again!” The deer demon waiter stood with hands on hips at the threshold, “This is the third time this month!”
Ling Tian leaned over and looked down.
The old beggar was sticking out his butt, lying in the carriage tracks, licking the wine stains, his gray beard covered in mud.
With a flick of his finger, a Spirit Stone accurately landed in the deer demon waiter’s hand.
“Waiter, bring this Senior a good pot of wine,” Ling Tian said lightly.
The entire hall of diners roared with laughter.
The cat demon noblewoman at the next table fanned her nose and simpered: “Little Daoist, don’t be fooled, this old madman brags every day that he saw the Azure Dragon descend...”
“Senior, would you like to come up and eat with me?” Ling Tian invited loudly.
Hearing this, the old beggar climbed up the stairs.
He was unceremonious, directly grabbing the sweet and sour carp with his grimy fingers and stuffing it into his mouth.
Only then did Ling Tian see clearly that the old beggar’s face had a hideous scar.
It diagonally split from his right forehead to his left lower jaw, and a faint black Qi emanated from the depths of the wound.
“Tiger bone wine!” The old beggar burped and slapped the table, shouting, “It must be steeped for three years!”
The deer demon waiter rolled his eyes and threw over a pot of wine.
Ling Tian raised his hand to intercept it: “Change it for a new jar, put it on my tab.”
“Tiger bone wine is here.” The old beggar snatched it and drank, his posture as if drinking the blood of an enemy.
Amber liquid flowed down his neck and into his collar.
He suddenly leaned close to Ling Tian, his turbid alcoholic breath spraying on Ling Tian’s face: “Boy, your complexion is dark.”
Ling Tian picked up a piece of cold mixed wisteria flower.
The purplish-black petals curled into a ball in the vinegar, tasting slightly bitter: “How many people have you said that to today?”
“You are the third.” The old beggar wiped his greasy hands on his clothes and pulled out a moldy compass.
“The first two, well... one fell into the moat this morning and drowned, and the other was stabbed seven times by his mistress this afternoon...” The old beggar chuckled.
“Bang!”
The mouse demon maid at the next table knocked over a teacup.
The porcupine demon she was serving suddenly foamed at the mouth and convulsed, clearly allergic to peanut brittle.
Ling Tian took advantage of the chaos to flick an antidote talisman into the tea.
He turned his head to find the old beggar picking his teeth with a fish bone: “Kindness is a sickness, it needs to be cured.”
Ling Tian chuckled, poured a cup of sobering tea, and pushed it over, “Senior, what is your name?”
“You can call me...” The old beggar’s single eye drew close to Ling Tian, “The evil ghost who crawled back from the Sword Burial Abyss.”
With that, he burst into laughter, pulled out a black, shiny object from his tattered pocket, and threw it on the table.
“Seventy years ago, I dug it out of a pile of dead bodies. I’ve been carrying it as a lucky charm. It’s yours now.”
Before he finished speaking, the old beggar had already leaped out the window.
He staggered away, humming an unknown tune:
“Hey-yo—
White bones fragrant at the bottom of Sword Burial Abyss, green scales for wine money~
Soul-devouring ants gnaw my three souls lightly, playing copper coins before the Hall of Yama~
Demon market lights, Human market smoke, seductive women with painted skin wrapped in golden bracelets~
Gambling house dice spin with blood, losing all guts for the heavens~
Hey-yo—
Don’t ask where this old man sleeps, dead men’s clothes as a bedroll~”
...Until the old beggar’s figure disappeared, only then did Ling Tian turn back to look at the black, shiny object on the table.
It was a thumb-sized spherical object, its surface covered with fine patterns.
Rubbing it with his thumb, he could feel tiny crystalline protrusions, like a residual core of a meteorite.
He played with it for a while, not thinking much of it, and casually tossed it into his qiankun bag.
When he walked out of the Drunken Immortal Inn, it was already late evening.
Ling Tian called a mechanical carriage and headed straight for the Tianzhen Pavilion auction.
