The stone steps wound downward, with several glowing stones embedded in the cavern walls on both sides. The light was dim, barely enough to see the path underfoot.
After walking for about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
An entire underground market came into view. Stalls lined both sides, with cultivators weaving through them in twos and threes, the sounds of bargaining rising and falling.
It looked no different from the markets above ground.
Sitting on a stone block at the entrance was an old man with white hair and a white beard. His gaze was gentle as he sized up the two with a smile and asked, “I assume you two are here for the first time?”
Xue Mingzhao replied with a sincere tone, “It is our first time, and we don't really know the rules. We hope Senior can guide us.”
The old man smiled and fished two jade pendants from his sleeve. “These are breath-concealing jade pendants. They can mask your cultivation level and aura, as well as slightly alter your appearance. Do you two need them?”
Xue Mingzhao took a pendant and turned it over to inspect it, asking casually, “Senior, if we wear these, can someone with a profound cultivation level see through them?”
The old man stroked his beard and smiled. “No one below the Tribulation Transcendence stage can see through them. This old man never cheats anyone.”
Xue Mingzhao thought to herself, You just haven't seen that crappy mask I bought before. Let alone Tribulation Transcendence, it couldn't even hide me from a Nascent Soul.
With an unchanged expression, she asked, “Senior, how many spirit stones for one of these breath-concealing jade pendants?”
“One thousand,” the old man paused, “high-grade spirit stones.”
Xue Mingzhao instantly lost her composure.
“Old man, even highway robbery isn't this fast, is it?”
The old man said unhurriedly, “This old man never does such underhanded things.”
Xue Mingzhao screamed internally: You're already doing it!
She took a deep breath, put the jade pendant back onto the stall, and pulled Su Ye as if to leave. “Senior Brother, let's go. I know another shop that is much cheaper than this.”
The old man smiled and didn't stop them. “Safe travels, then. But this old man will offer a word of advice: I am the only one selling breath-concealing jade pendants in the entire black market. Don't come crying if you buy a fake inside.”
Xue Mingzhao's steps paused.
The lesson of that crappy mask from last time was still fresh in her mind. Wasting spirit stones was a small matter, but running around naked in front of top powerhouses was a massive embarrassment.
Xue Mingzhao turned back around, her face once again wearing the sweet smile reserved specifically for bargaining. “Senior, it really is our first time here, and we truly don't have many spirit stones. How about this—one thousand for two?”
The old man was amused by her bargaining strategy. “Little friend, you aren't bargaining; you're trying to stock wholesale. This old man only does business by the rules. Two pendants are two thousand. However...”
He changed his tone. “Seeing your sincerity, I'll give you two for fifteen hundred, along with a free passage talisman to enter and exit the black market. In the future, at the Hour of the Rat, you can use the jade talisman to teleport directly inside without having to take the waterway again.”
Xue Mingzhao calculated. Fifteen hundred for two was a twenty-five percent discount, plus two passage talismans. This was a good deal.
She made a decisive decision. “Deal.”
The old man slowly put away the spirit stones and handed over the two breath-concealing jade pendants and two jade talismans. “Come back often, little friend. This old man has plenty of good things.”
Xue Mingzhao hung the breath-concealing jade pendant from her waist and pulled Su Ye toward the depths of the market street.
Looking at their retreating figures, the old man shook his head and sighed, “Disciples nowadays are getting poorer and poorer. They haggled with me for half a day over fifteen hundred.”
Stalls lined the stone walls on both sides, leaving a walkway in the middle.
Some stalls had worn tarps pitched over them, some simply had animal skins spread on the ground, and a few were mysteriously draped with black curtains, exposing only half a table, leaving it unclear what kind of shady goods they were selling inside.
The items for sale were also a mixed bag: there were legitimate spirit plants, pills, demon beast materials, talismans, and magical weapons, but also incomplete manuals of unknown origin, scrap metal dug up from who-knows-what mystic realm, and fake medicines claiming to change one's destiny.
Xue Mingzhao lowered her voice and said to Su Ye, “Senior Brother, help me keep an eye out for a little girl dressed in tattered clothes. Her stall should have a pile of worthless medicinal herbs and cauldrons.”
Su Ye nodded, asking no questions.
In the original book, after Shen Chaoyue won first place in the mystic realm, she met a little girl in tattered clothes in the black market. After inquiring, she learned the little girl's mother had been poisoned. Out of pity, she spent a hundred spirit stones to buy a battered alchemy cauldron.
It was meant to be a simple act of kindness, but when she returned and accidentally smudged her blood on it, she discovered the cauldron was actually a Profound Heaven Spiritual Treasure close to an immortal artifact—the Hunyuan Cauldron!
Not only could it refine supreme-grade pills with absolutely zero pill toxicity, but it also contained all the ancient pill recipes.
Furthermore, in the later stages when the female lead encountered various difficult predicaments, the artifact spirit would always take the initiative to appear and guide her, acting like a second mentor.
As Xue Mingzhao thought about this, she carefully searched through the stalls on both sides.
The two of them wandered back and forth three times, yet they couldn't find any sign of the little girl.
Su Ye couldn't help but ask, “Junior Sister, are you sure it's a little girl?”
Xue Mingzhao replied resolutely, “One hundred percent sure.”
Just as she spoke, a little girl squeezed past them from behind, squatted down in an empty spot opposite them, and began pulling things out.
They were all battered cauldrons and worthless herbs.
Xue Mingzhao froze for a moment. Looking up, she happened to see Shen Chaoyue slowly walking in this direction.
Her lips twitched. So she only sets up her stall when the female lead arrives, huh?
Seeing Shen Chaoyue getting closer and closer, she quickly stepped forward and squatted in front of the stall. “Little sister, this—”
She cut herself off mid-sentence.
The back row of the stall was packed with alchemy cauldrons. Every single one of them was battered and rusted, looking like identical twins.
Xue Mingzhao: “...”
“How much for this row?”
The little girl looked up, her voice devoid of emotion. “These are low-tier waste cauldrons. They aren't worth much—one hundred spirit stones each.”
Su Ye leaned in and asked, “Junior Sister, what do you need so many cauldrons for?”
On the outside, Xue Mingzhao was as calm as an old dog, but inside, she was already completely numb.
Didn't the original book say that Shen Chaoyue had a keen eye and picked the most battered one from a pile of ordinary cauldrons?
Why was this entire row before her eyes nothing but scrap metal? Not a single one even looked halfway decent.
She felt the sting in her wallet and said, “I'll take all of these.”
The little girl was stunned. “Ten cauldrons? You want all of them?”
Xue Mingzhao made up a casual excuse. “My cauldrons keep exploding during refinement lately. I'm buying a few more to make do.”
The little girl hesitated for a moment but still warned her, “Let me make this clear first: these are waste cauldrons that nobody wants. They all have flaws and damage. No returns or exchanges after purchase.”
Hearing this, Xue Mingzhao took a serious look at her, her heart stirring slightly. “It's fine. No returns or exchanges needed.”
The little girl's eyes were numb. She simply assumed she had met a foolish customer with too many spirit stones, so she didn't ask further. “One thousand spirit stones.”
Xue Mingzhao pulled out her bag of spirit stones and was about to hand it over—
A cold, commanding voice suddenly rang out: “Hold on!”
Rate on N.U.
