7: Ghost Market Quick Seizure

The Ghost Market was located at the abandoned mine entrance at the northernmost end of Qinghe Market.

Unlike the clamor of the free market stalls during the day, the air here seemed frozen solid.

There were no hawking cries, no haggling arguments, only deathly silence punctuated by occasional low murmurs.

This was a black hole for fencing stolen goods, a paradise for desperadoes.

Zhou Wannian was currently disguised as a bloated fat man, his face covered with a black cloth, revealing only a pair of vigilant eyes.

He blended into the sparse flow of people, each step taken with extreme lightness.

The air was permeated with a mixture of decay and the smell of blood.

Most of the stalls along the roadside were just a piece of black cloth; the stall owners were all bundled up tightly, some even wearing masks that blocked Divine Sense.

The items on the stalls were even more varied: blood-stained Magical Artifacts, unknown poisonous herbs, and even Sect Disciple tokens of dubious origin.

Zhou Wannian kept his eyes forward, his mind focused solely on that divination verse:

[True north, the third stall. Make it quick.]

He counted rapidly.

The first stall displayed several Yao Beast skeletons.

The second stall belonged to a sinister old woman selling knockout drugs and poisonous powders.

The third... Zhou Wannian's gaze locked onto a spot in the shadows ahead.

It was an extremely crude stall. The owner was huddled inside a wide black robe, his body trembling uncontrollably.

This trembling wasn't from cold, but from nervousness.

On the black cloth before him sat a solitary, incomplete cyan Jade Slip, with a few broken Talisman brushes placed beside it.

That's him!

"He is desperate to escape, yet fears revealing his wealth."

Zhou Wannian didn't rush over immediately. Instead, he slowed his pace, sweeping his peripheral vision around the area.

Sure enough, not far from that stall, behind a stone pillar, two Loose Cultivators with sinister, vulture-like eyes were faintly watching the trembling stall owner, as if sizing up a fat sheep, or waiting for him to leave the Ghost Market before making their move.

"Delay breeds trouble."

A chill ran through Zhou Wannian's heart. If he didn't act now, once those two Robber Cultivators snatched it or the stall owner got scared off, this Opportunity would have nothing to do with him.

He took a deep breath, adjusted his breathing, then suddenly quickened his pace, walking straight to the stall.

The stall owner, like a startled quail, jerked his head up, revealing a pale and young face, looking no more than seventeen or eighteen, his eyes filled with panic.

"Wh-what are you looking at?"

The young stall owner's voice trembled.

Zhou Wannian wasted no words. He directly pointed at the incomplete Jade Slip, lowered his voice, and spoke in a rough, impatient tone:

"For Talisman making?"

"Y-yes... a family heirloom..."

The young stall owner started to explain, trying to raise the price a bit.

"Thirty Spirit Stones."

Zhou Wannian cut him off directly. With a flip of his palm, a small, heavy cloth bag landed on the stall with a dull thud.

The mouth of the bag was open, revealing the glistening white Spirit Stones inside.

Under the dim Ghost Market lamplight, the glow of thirty Spirit Stones was practically dazzling.

The young stall owner was stunned.

He had originally wanted to ask for fifty, but his psychological bottom line was actually to sell for just twenty-five, as he urgently needed travel funds to flee the market.

The other party's offer of thirty was neither absurdly low nor insulting, yet it precisely pierced his psychological defenses.

More importantly, the other party's "take the stuff and scram" Aura made him instinctively feel this was someone with money who was not to be trifled with.

The two Robber Cultivators in the distance were also stunned.

They hadn't expected someone to swoop in halfway, and with such lavish and decisive action.

"D-deal!"

The young stall owner scrambled to grab the bag of Spirit Stones. Without even looking closely, he stuffed it directly into his robe.

Zhou Wannian, even faster, grabbed that Jade Slip and the broken Talisman brushes beside it, shoving them into his sleeve.

The entire process took no more than three breaths.

"Go!"

The moment the transaction was complete, Zhou Wannian didn't linger for a second. He turned and left.

But he didn't head towards the market center. Instead, following the flow of people, he ducked directly into a side alley leading to the Slums.

"Damn it, we've been cut off!"

A faint, low curse came from behind.

Zhou Wannian felt two malicious gazes stick to his back.

He was being tailed.

But he wasn't flustered at all. Over the past half month, besides drawing Talismans, he had been studying the market map and escape routes.

He strode with heavy steps (disguised), seemingly panicked, ducking into a dead-end alley.

Footsteps behind him rapidly closed in.

However, when the two Robber Cultivators chased into the alley with sinister smiles, they were dumbfounded.

The alley was empty, only a pile of messy junk and a few broken baskets.

"Where'd he go?"

"Damn it! That fat guy knows martial arts? Bone shrinking? Earth escape?"

What they didn't know was, just before they chased in, Zhou Wannian had swiftly removed his bulky outer robe stuffed with cotton batting, returning to his original slender build. Like an agile gecko, he scaled the two-meter-high wall and had already landed in the alley next door... A quarter of an hour later.

Only after confirming he had completely lost his tail did Zhou Wannian, in another deserted corner, change back into his original Daoist robe, put on a bamboo hat, and return to his dilapidated hut with a composed expression.

Close the door, lock it, barricade it with a table, hang the bell.

After completing this standard procedure, Zhou Wannian finally felt his heart settle back into place.

"Whew..."

He slumped onto the bed, his back soaked in cold sweat.

The scene just now seemed simple, but it was actually fraught with danger.

If he had hesitated for a second more at the stall, or haggled for another sentence, those two Robber Cultivators would probably have surrounded him directly. Forget buying anything, escaping unscathed would have been a question.

"The Golden Finger didn't deceive me. Thirty Spirit Stones, one offer, a clean kill."

Zhou Wannian took out the cyan Jade Slip, still warm from his body heat.

A corner of the Jade Slip was missing, covered with the marks of time.

Impatiently, he probed it with his Divine Sense.

Boom!

A massive stream of information flooded his mind. Although most of the content was fuzzy, garbled nonsense (being a fragment), in the core area, the structural diagrams of two Talismans were crystal clear, displayed before his eyes as if branded.

First Rank Medium Grade: Blazing Fire Talisman.

First Rank Medium Grade: Vajra Talisman.

"Great stuff!"

A brilliant light shone in Zhou Wannian's eyes.

This 'The Solution to the Void Talisman' was indeed worthy of being a family heirloom. Although a fragment, its analysis of these two Talismans was extremely thorough.

Blazing Fire Talisman, an offensive Talisman. When activated, it transforms into a fireball the size of a millstone, powerful enough to severely injure a Qi Refining Third Layer Cultivator, and even pose a threat to a Qi Refining Fourth Layer Cultivator.

Vajra Talisman, a defensive Talisman. When activated, it forms a faint golden protective barrier on the body's surface, capable of withstanding three attacks from a Low Grade Magical Artifact.

With this offense and defense, he finally had some real footing in this chaotic market.

"Thirty Spirit Stones were spent too well!"

Zhou Wannian caressed the Jade Slip lovingly, unable to put it down.

Next up, it's time to grind!

He still had about thirty Spirit Stones left from his earnings over the past half month, enough to buy a batch of mid-grade talisman paper and Cinnabar for practice... Just as Zhou Wannian was immersed in the joy of obtaining a new Legacy,

East District of the market, Chen Family compound.

In the brightly lit main hall, the atmosphere was suffocatingly oppressive.

"Worthless! All of you are worthless!"

A middle-aged man in brocade robes violently smashed the teacup in his hand to pieces. He was the Chen Family head, Chen Tianxiong, an Early Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivator.

Below him knelt the Chen Family steward who had appeared at Black Wind Ridge, now trembling.

"I sent you to break the formation, and what happened? It's one thing to lose over a dozen Loose Cultivator cannon fodder, but you even lost our Chen Family Formation Master!" Chen Tianxiong was furious. "What exactly was in that Immortal Cave?"

"F-family head..."

The steward said tremulously, "Th-that Immortal Cave... it wasn't some ancient Cultivator's ruins at all, it was a trap! We found a fresh corpse inside, judging by the attire... it looked like a 'Blood Fiend Sect' Demonic Path Cultivator!"

"Demonic Path Cultivator?!"

Hearing these two words, Chen Tianxiong's face instantly turned deathly pale.

The Blood Fiend Sect, that was a Demonic Path behemoth jointly eradicated by the major Sects a hundred years ago. How could remnants appear near this remote Qinghe Market?

"Has the news been contained?" Chen Tianxiong immediately asked, his gaze turning sinister.

"C-contained. The Loose Cultivators who escaped back... have all been dealt with." The steward swallowed, lowering his voice. "Except... except for that first batch that went in half a month ago. One Loose Cultivator who lost a hand ran fast, mixed into the shantytown..."

"Find him. Kill him."

Chen Tianxiong issued the cold order. "If news of a Demonic Path Cultivator's appearance gets out, before the Sect envoys even arrive, our Chen Family will be overrun by panicked Loose Cultivators. Remember, make it clean."

"Yes!"

...West District Shantytown, dilapidated hut.

Zhou Wannian had just prepared to meditate to recover his energy when he suddenly sneezed.

"Achoo!"

He rubbed his nose, an inexplicable chill welling up in his heart.

It wasn't from cold, but an intuition of being shrouded by some kind of shadow.

He instinctively looked at the Heavenly Secret Dao Disk on the table.

Although he had already used today's divination, he felt that the market's night seemed to be growing darker.

"Enough thinking. If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up."

Zhou Wannian shook off the distracting thoughts and pulled out the newly bought Talisman paper from under the bed.

"First, learn the Blazing Fire Talisman. In times like these, without fire in hand, the heart isn't at ease."

He picked up the brush and, following the guidance of 'The Solution to the Void Talisman' in his mind, began to outline the first stroke.

Meanwhile, in another alley not far from him, Wang Dachui, missing an arm, was hiding in a dark, damp cellar. His body was burning with fever, wound infection had plunged him into semi-consciousness, and he was still muttering incoherently:

"Don't kill me... I didn't see anything..."