The Whole Village's Female Dogs Had All Been Ravaged

"How much?"

"Ten taels of silver."

"Do you take me for a sucker?"

"What's the matter, sir? This is a genuine Western spotted dog."

"The spots on that dog are already fading."

"..."

The quality of the wares at Bird Market was all over the place. Wherever there was business, there were swindlers; wherever there was a world of hustlers, there were people looking to game the system. The authorities generally didn't bother with fraud in this kind of marketplace. What little order there was depended on the local powers that be.

It was no wonder there were so many gangs and criminal societies in those days. Whether it was the Canal Gang or the porters' guild, the authorities couldn't manage every little thing. So people on the ground gathered their own followers, made their own rules, and kept order themselves.

The old hands of the underworld had a saying: without rules, nothing could be done. An industry without rules would have died out long ago. The trades that survived all had their own rules.

The rules at the Capital City's Bird Market were enforced by the four big shots of the Capital City's young ruffian circle: the four masters known as "Bird, Longevity, Insect, and Dog."

Master Dog fought dogs and raised martens. Longevity Master kept turtles and fish. Insect Master fought crickets and played with katydids. And Master Bird kept birds and trained falcons.

Each of the four masters had his own interests and oversaw his own trade, but their authority was limited. They collected stall fees and let you set up shop at Bird Market. That was all.

Did they crack down on fakes?

Of course not. There was no such rule. When it came to anything connected to the ruffian circle—whether pets, jade, antiques, or paintings and calligraphy—nobody policed counterfeits.

If you sold someone a fake, that was your skill. If you bought one, you'd been fooled; you hadn't understood the game and weren't good enough at it. People would laugh at you, and you'd have to swallow your grievances yourself.

Besides, this trade was all about what caught your eye and what you liked. Who could say exactly what anything was worth?

Take the renowned painter from the previous dynasty who painted bamboo among ink-washed clouds. He was a master of bamboo painting, and people praised him to the heavens. But if you didn't like his work, if you thought it looked like a few stalks of weeds hastily scribbled on the page, then it wasn't worth a penny to you. People said the mastiffs from the Western Regions were fine dogs, but if you liked little village dogs and would pay anything to buy one, then that little dog was a treasure to you.

So, with things that depended entirely on personal taste and what caught your eye, you couldn't set a price and call something fake. Besides, this wasn't something ordinary folk could afford to dabble in. In those days, most commoners had enough trouble putting food on the table. Who had the time or money for that?

Most of these ruffians came from wealthy families, with time and money to spare. The majority were Bannermen.

Trace those Bannermen's family trees back far enough, and you'd find ancestors who had fought alongside the Late Emperor to conquer the land. They'd inherited the Late Emperor's favor and the hereditary privileges granted under the banner system, blessings that sheltered their descendants for generations. People under the banners didn't need to work or toil. Even if they lay around at home, they could collect rice and silver every month, living off a steady stipend—a "iron rice bowl" that never failed, rain or shine.

These Bannermen were even more overbearing than officials. Officials had to pass exams and work before they could draw a salary, while people under the banners could lie at home and collect their money. Over time, living without earning a thing rotted them from the inside. It was no surprise that Fortune-Longevity Paste had become so widespread.

Still, one had to admit that absurd rule could produce strange wonders.

Though these wealthy, idle Bannermen held the nation's industrial development back, they certainly scattered their money around and kept Great Jing Dynasty's entertainment industry thriving.

As Lin Shou wandered through Bird Market, he couldn't help noticing that aside from the stallholders, most of the people shopping there wore fine fabrics. He was the only one dressed in rough cloth. Anyone could see his status and means at a glance. Ordinary folk were too busy scraping by to have Lin Shou's kind of carefree attitude.

As he strolled along, Lin Shou felt something tugging at him. He looked down and saw a little village dog pawing at his leg. It was painfully thin and scruffy, its fur matted into felt, with shoeprints from people kicking it. It gazed up at him pitifully, as if it hadn't eaten in ages and was begging for food. It was a miserable sight.

Whose dog was this? Lin Shou asked around, but nobody answered. It seemed to belong to no one. Seeing how pitifully hungry it was, he rummaged through his Three Immortals Return to the Cave, but he had no food on him. The only thing he had, if one could call it food, was the reward he'd just gotten from the Record of Selling Corpses: a Virility Mushroom...

Lin Shou took out the mushroom and held it out. The little village dog snapped it up in one bite, gobbled it down, and ran off.

Lin Shou thought nothing of it and continued wandering around Bird Market. After looking over a few dog stalls by the roadside, he understood why the little village dog had been left to roam the streets. It was too skinny and looked too scruffy; nobody could sell such a money-losing mutt. In those days, people who kept dogs prized vicious fighters. Few brought them home to pamper as pets. Even wealthy ladies who wanted something furry to warm their hands didn't keep dogs—they kept martens. Most people kept dogs to guard their homes, or else to fight.

Among the ruffians who kept pets, there were two kinds of fights where nobody paid compensation if an animal was killed: cricket fights and dogfights.

There was a dogfighting ring at Bird Market, run by one of the four masters, Master Dog. Every so often, he put on a few bouts and opened betting.

Whenever the dogfighting ring opened, people packed in around it, shoulder to shoulder. Some came to win money, others to enjoy the spectacle. It was a bloody scene, and dogs were often bitten to death right there in the ring.

The ruffians who liked dogfighting chose their dogs for their ferocity. Lately, mastiffs brought in from the Western Regions had become all the rage. They were huge, heavily built, and vicious. Once they bit down in a fight, they never let go. Master Dog had brought in a pair, one male and one female, and they'd already bitten several dogs to death in the ring. The Invincible General.

Mastiffs weren't easy to get. Back in the previous dynasty, they'd been rare and exotic beasts presented as tribute by a vassal state in the Western Regions. Bringing two of them all the way from the distant trade routes along the Hexi Corridor was no easy feat. You needed the right connections to get your hands on them. At Bird Market, only Master Dog had the clout to pull it off.

Master Dog treasured those two mastiffs. They were undefeated champions in the ring, earning him plenty of prestige, and they'd also become his future cash cows.

Master Dog had gone to such trouble to import a pair of mastiffs from the Western Regions for a reason. He didn't just want to fight them himself; he wanted to make money. He'd brought them in to breed locally, then sell their pups.

The mastiffs had made a name for themselves in the ring. Several wealthy big shots had already put down deposits to buy their future puppies.

Master Dog was sitting in his room, counting money and grinning, when one of his men came in, his face deathly pale.

"Master Dog, there's trouble. Remember that little village dog we used to raise the mastiffs' price at the last fight? One of them got away. I went to feed the dogs at the kennel today and found it had sneaked through a hole and slipped inside."

"That dog's still alive?"

Master Dog was taken aback. To inflate the mastiffs' price, he'd recently found several village dogs and starved them thin, then sent them into the ring to die. Most had been killed on the spot. Only once, a clever little village dog had managed to escape. He remembered that one.

"Hah, that stupid dog must be starving. Of all the places it could've gone, it ran into the kennel to steal food and get itself killed."

Master Dog chuckled, unbothered. His kennel was full of carefully bred stock, raised to be sold as fighting dogs.

"Master Dog, no, no, that's not..." His subordinate's face grew even paler. "It killed our dogs..."

"What?!"

Master Dog was so furious that he dropped his teacup. Every purebred cash cow in his kennel was precious to him; losing even one would make his heart ache.

"Which one died?!"

"The m-m-male..."

"Quit talking nonsense! I asked which one it killed!"

Master Dog slapped his subordinate across the face. The man covered his swollen cheek and protested aggrievedly:

"Master Dog, the male ones—all of them. It killed every last one. And the females... the females have all been ravaged!"

Ugh! Master Dog foamed at the mouth and fainted.