Translator: Tamon
Hei Huang weaved through the alleys with Xu Hei never far behind.
He went downtown, an expansive area, where mortals were a rarity, replaced by cultivators and their stalls or shops.
Hei Huang picked a weapon shop where he showed a nagan, a saber, and a snake bone.
“Eight for all of these. Deal?”
The shopkeeper paused then nodded, “Deal.”
Hei Huang took the spirit stones and roamed the area, stopping at an ingredient shop.
Showing a pile, he asked. “Fifteen spirit stones. Deal?”
After some haggling, he settled on thirteen.
Next was a pill shop, butcher shop, and many more, either to buy or sell.
Xu Hei watched with wide eyes.
“He’s selling off the loot, bastard! He’s hogging all the good stuff!” Xu Hei cursed.
He saw exactly how the mutt took out the loot from a storage bag he hid to sell everything.
This was why the Golden Core’s avatar had no damn good treasures in it, the bastard skimmed them!
Xu Hei forced himself to stay put, tailing him to find out just how many spirit stones he earned and make the dog cough up each and last one.
…
Two cultivators in white robes and clouds drawn on them rushed into the market.
The shopkeepers looked at them with respect and bowed.
They were Sky Effigy Sect’s disciples!
It was the top sect in Qin Kingdom, ruling over the rest. They had jurisdiction in every town.
“Damn it! What rotten luck being sent to this shit-hole for three damn years!” The horse-faced cultivators grumbled.
“We’ve still to reach Foundation Establishment after so long and have to obey orders. River Town is a mess, but it’s sure to line our pockets with a little work,” the other, a dashing youth, said.
The two were outer disciples who got sent out of the sect as town supervisors due to their lack of talent.
Any place was better than River Town, though, as no disciple ever wanted to be sent to this remote, chaotic, barren, and the odd evil cultivator attack. It was a pain in the rear.
They visited the shops and stalls to collect fees, then went to the Treasure Pavilion.
“Eh?”
The horse-faced youth squinted, pulling his partner to the side and pointing at a short guy. “Did you see him?”
“Yeah, he must’ve robbed someone and came to sell off his loot.”
The dashing youth replied, an often occurrence in River Town that he ignored.
The Treasure Pavilion was the largest chain of shops in the Qin Kingdom. Only cultivators allowed.
Hei Huang entered and showed off a spirit stone. “Call your manager. I’m here to sell.”
The receptionist recognized a moneybag when he saw one and obeyed.
“Tell me, how much is all this worth?” Hei Huang threw a storage bag.
The manager’s eyes went big as he scanned it.
He gasped. “Fellow Daoist, shall we talk inside?”
Hei Huang nodded, following him in.
Xu Hei waited outside.
Hei Huang was out a few minutes later, looking around and entering an alley.
“What’s he up to?” Xu Hei wondered.
The horse-faced youth crossed his path and rushed into the Treasure Pavilion, demanding, “What did that short cultivator in black want?”
He and his partner were together still, their white robes with clouds conspicuous.
The manager shook in fright, cupping his hands. “He came to exchange many Snake Catcher Sect jade slips and magic treasures for even more tempering pills and late Awareness demon meat.” The managers spilled the beans.
���How much were they worth?” The horse-faced youth asked.
“Around a hundred spirit stones.” The managers replied.
The horse-faced youth’s eyes shone, rushing after Hei Huang.
“Junior Brother Yu, hold on!” The dashing youth called, “We’ve just arrived and need to assess the other’s situation before we act. For him to take out so much in the open shows he doesn’t fear errant eyes.”
Yu Qiang sneered. “I find his actions suspicious and just want to question him. Nothing more.”
The dashing youth’s brow shook. [Suspicious? The whole of River Town is suspicious.]
Questioning was a blatant excuse to rob.
He sighed. “I’ll follow your lead.”
The two entered the alley after Hei Huang.
Xu Hei’s mind raced with countless thoughts. “The rotten mutt has the worst luck, getting Sky Effigy Sect’s disciples to eye him.”
Xu Hei didn’t want to go but heard how Hei Huang had bought many tempering pills and demon meat. It showed Hei Huang didn’t take nearly everything for himself.
While the dog’s fate meant nothing to the snake; the pills were a different matter.
“Let’s just observe.” Xu Hei followed.
He had a feeling the dog strutted about just to bait someone into attacking him.
A small fry was nice and all, but it turned out to be Sky Effigy Sect’s disciples.
“This sucks.” Xu Hei grumbled and cursed every generation of the dog’s lineage.
Hei Huang was in front, the two disciples in the middle, and Xu Hei picked up the rear.
They went like that all the way to the east of town, the most deserted part.
The houses here were shabby and ready to fall, almost all being empty and not a shadow of a person on the streets. It used to be the turf of some gang but got wiped out by a rival group. Ever since the streets were cleaned up with blood, no citizen came to fill in the gap.
Only vagrants and wanderers took shelter here.
“Eh? Where’d he go?”
Yu Qiang followed Hei Huang into one such shabby house, only to find no one else, just a big black dog marking a wall.