37: Chapter 37 The Black Market Begins

The above-ground buildings of the old industrial park in the west of the city still looked like abandoned warehouses.

The iron doors were mottled, the walls retained remnants of old advertisements, and there were even a few broken wooden pallets piled up at the entrance. However, once one actually stepped underground, everything changed. The elevator leading to the exhibition hall had been newly clad in metal panels, the corridors were carpeted with thick rugs, the wall lamps on both sides cast a soft glow, and the air carried a scent of champagne mixed with a cool fragrance.

When Tang Zhiwei handed the invitation to the waiter at the door, her expression showed no sign of anything unusual.

The waiter checked the guest list and glanced at Shen Qinghe and Zhao Ye behind her. Shen Qinghe wore a dark suit, looking like a calm accompanying consultant; Zhao Ye remained silent, bearing the demeanor of a bodyguard. The waiter didn't ask many questions, only reminding them that photography was prohibited inside.

As the three of them entered the exhibition hall, their Mark of the Torchs grew slightly warm at the same time.

Shen Qinghe quietly scanned her surroundings. In the center of the exhibition hall was a semi-circular auction stage, with twenty to thirty guests seated below. Some were genuinely wealthy, some were secondhand dealers, and a few carried the cold, gloomy aura of long-term contact with old objects. An inconspicuous old wooden stand was placed in each of the four corners; they were completely empty, but through her Spirit Vision, Shen Qinghe could see grayish-black remnants slowly flowing within the wood grain.

They were like eyes.

They weren't staring at any specific person, but were instead gathering the reactions of everyone in the room.

Bai Ya stood on the periphery near the secondhand dealers, holding an untouched glass of wine in his hand. He didn't look at Tang Zhiwei or Shen Qinghe, only submitting a brief message to the Grey Net via his mark projection.

[Old object remnants detected in the four corners. Suspected reaction gathering.]

In the Safe House, Zhou Yan received the synchronized summary of the live auction commentary and had already begun comparing it with folklore data. Xu Minglan sat at another table, with purification patches, hemostatic ointment, isolation boxes, and several temporary medical record templates spread out before her. Meanwhile, Lin Zhao was at the peripheral evacuation point, confirming routes, his gaze never leaving the underground exit.

The auction quickly began.

The host was a man in a grey formal suit, with a gentle smile and a low, slow voice. He made no mention of anomalies, nor did he speak of contamination; he simply packaged everything as legacies, protection, fortune-turning, and mysterious relics of a bygone era.

The first auction item was a faceless puppet.

When the red cloth was lifted, the puppet sat inside a glass display case. Its face was smooth, devoid of features, and it wore a faded child's garment. The host claimed it could allow the buyer to see their future destiny in their dreams, making it suitable for collection or as a gift for Juniors who needed to "evade disaster."

Some in the audience chuckled softly, while others raised their paddles.

Shen Qinghe's mark stung slightly. Through her Spirit Vision, she saw a very faint mist over the puppet's face, and within the mist, someone's facial features seemed to be slowly taking shape.

She submitted her assessment.

[Low-tier identity-corroding anomaly. Contact not recommended.]

The second auction item was a mourning silver bell.

As the silver bell rang, Zhao Ye tightened his grip on the handle of his briefcase. He heard weeping from far away. The sound shared the same origin as the crying face copper coin, but it was thinner, sounding more like someone sobbing right against his ear.

Yet the host claimed this was a rare bell capable of summoning back the voices of the deceased, perfect for remembering beloved relatives.

A middle-aged wealthy man raised his bid on the spot, his eyes turning slightly red.

Tang Zhiwei looked at him, a chill running through her heart.

The third item was an old well porcelain bowl. Once clean water was poured into the bowl, a blurry human figure floated to the surface. The host called it an "ancestor-consulting heirloom," claiming that some families had used it to meet their deceased relatives in dreams.

Zhou Yan's warning arrived quickly.

[Old well legends are mostly related to drowning echoes. It is not recommended to stare at the water surface for more than three breaths.]

The fourth item was a severed-finger Buddha's hand. Placed in a black wooden box, it resembled a dried Buddha's hand citrus, but was missing a finger. The host said it could take on disasters, shielding the wearer from a major illness or catastrophe.

The information submitted by Bai Ya was even colder.

[The cost is suspected to be transferred to blood relatives. The promotional description has been maliciously altered.]

Tang Zhiwei suddenly understood that the most terrifying aspect of this auction was not just that the old objects were dangerous.

It was that the danger had been meticulously packaged as gifts.

The people in the audience didn't feel like they were buying disaster. They believed they were buying a change of fortune, longevity, reunions with the deceased, and Family prosperity. Money gave them an illusion, making them believe everything in the world could have a price tag.

Looking at the old wooden stands in the four corners, Shen Qinghe said softly, "They aren't just selling things."

Zhao Ye didn't look at her, keeping his voice extremely low. "Screening people?"

"Yes," Shen Qinghe said. "Who is greedy, who is afraid, who can hear, who can resist touching—they are watching all of it."

Bai Ya also submitted the same assessment from his end.

[The auction has a screening nature. The targets are not limited to the buyers.]

After the gavel fell on the fourth item, the host suddenly paused.

He closed the catalog, his smile deepening.

"The next item is not in tonight's public catalog."

The red cloth was wheeled up.

Silently lying inside the display case was a fragment of a broken mirror. A black label was affixed to the back of the fragment, with only three characters written on it.

[Retrieved]

Shen Qinghe's wrist suddenly burned hot.

Zhao Ye's gaze darkened.

The surface of the wine in Bai Ya's glass rippled slightly.

They all understood that this auction item was not meant for the wealthy.

It was displayed for the Xinhuo Council to see.

The rules of the auction were also highly meticulous. Each attendee received an unnumbered black wooden paddle; when raising the paddle, no names were announced, only recorded by the waiters behind the host. After a successful bid, the item would not be delivered on the spot but temporarily stored in the so-called "holding room" for three days. Upon seeing this process, Bai Ya immediately noted in the mission channel: The three-day storage is not for security, but to observe whether the buyer is actively chosen by the old object.

The more Shen Qinghe heard, the more she felt this was not a simple illegal transaction. Every step of the process here seemed to have been polished over years: first, using folklore packaging to lower vigilance, then using the wealthy social circle to endorse each other, and finally completing the contamination screening through temporary storage and transit. Even if ordinary people bought them and met with disaster, they would only think they had bad luck or were suffering backlash from some so-called taboo, making it extremely difficult to trace back to the true source.

Below the stage, some people discussed in low voices, saying that several of the items tonight were "spirited." An old man wearing a jade thumb ring even smiled and said that the more temperamental an old object was, the more valuable it became. Hearing these words, Tang Zhiwei's fingertips tightened slightly. She had attended many collectors' meets in the past and had seen people inflate prices with stories and set traps using origins, but never before had she seen so clearly: the stories themselves were traps, and the origins themselves were bait.

Lin Zhao on the periphery was not idle either. Every time an item was sold, a waiter would leave from the underground corridor entrance, carrying a sealed wooden box toward the back area. Lin Zhao recorded these people's routes into his mark projection and found that they all ultimately passed through the same inconspicuous iron door. That place might be the holding room, or it might be the true transit point of the Old Object Chain. He did not approach without authorization, only sending the coordinates to the Grey Net and waiting for the judgment from the inside.

After receiving these routes in the Safe House, Xu Minglan casually drew the casualty evacuation sequence on a whiteboard. Those with mild contamination would leave the underground level first, suspected victims of life-force draining would remain in the observation area, and those experiencing mental auditory hallucinations were not to be placed alone. She did not possess an Ability Seed, yet she had already begun handling problems in the manner of the Xinhuo Council: first classify, then isolate, and finally await the containment results. The backup kit beside her contained no miraculous medicines, only the most basic standard tools, but she knew that as long as the process was correct, even these ordinary tools could buy time for the front line.