The Snake Bone Bracelet wasn't uncommon on the market.
However, most were made from materials like resin or acrylic, making them the cheapest kind.
Next came cow bone and real snake bone. The most expensive were made of pure silver or gold.
Though the one she had was made from real snake bone, it was worth only around seven hundred yuan on the market.
He could make more than ten times that amount from this deal. It was no small sum.
Hu Long said nothing.
He simply opened the backpack beside him and took out a stack of ten-thousand-yuan bills.
Mobile payments were beginning to catch on in this era, but they had yet to become universal.
It was only sensible to carry some cash.
The woman stared at the money held out to her and froze.
She had thought the other man was only joking when he struck up a conversation. She hadn't expected him to be serious.
Hu Long had changed quite a bit since before.
Thanks to his bodily talent, High-Efficiency Absorption and Metabolism, and the careful nourishment he had received these past few days, his body had returned to normal.
His original appearance hadn't been bad to begin with. Even with sunglasses on, he looked like a handsome man with well-defined features.
Add in his expensive designer clothes, and he was quite appealing to most women.
Unfortunately, the man before her didn't seem entirely right in the head.
"All right!"
The woman gave it no further thought. She briskly took off the Snake Bone Bracelet and accepted the money.
Hu Long reached out and took the bracelet.
It was made of more than a dozen small snake-bone segments linked together.
The bones were as white as jade, each piece polished smooth and lustrous, with a cool glimmer under the light.
Thin red cords and silver rings connected the pieces.
The moment it touched his hand,
the chill grew stronger.
"So this really is the thing!"
Hu Long's gaze shifted.
"By the way, where did you get this?"
Hu Long asked.
"I found it while traveling. I made the Snake Bone Bracelet myself, and it's the only one."
The woman replied.
"Where?"
Hu Long immediately grew interested.
"At Little Rock Sinkhole in Qi Province. But it was completely closed last year and no longer accepts visitors."
The woman explained. Perhaps it was because of the money, or perhaps because of Hu Long's looks, but she explained in great detail.
"All right, thanks!"
Hu Long nodded and made a note of the name.
Now that he had the Snake Bone Bracelet and the information he wanted,
he ignored the man in the distance, who looked ready to kill, and said nothing more.
The woman beside him had wanted to keep chatting, but now she found it hard to continue.
Two minutes later,
the Snake Bone Bracelet in his hand no longer gave off cool currents.
The silver writing before his eyes no longer appeared.
His thoughts stirred, and he looked at the panel.
Compared with before, the panel had become much more detailed.
[Host: Hu Long] [Physical Talent: High-Efficiency Absorption and Metabolism] [Skills: Unarmed Combat (Master)] [Network Offense and Defense (Master)] [Makeup Art (Master)] [Voice Mimicry (Proficient)] [Green Bag Fragment: Soul Guiding Chapter (Skilled)] [Network Speed: 8M/s] [Data: 0M] [Source Value: 14.36 strands]
The Snake Bone Bracelet had given him nearly five strands of Source Value.
Added to the Source Value he had originally gained from the Human Skin, he now had over fourteen strands.
This trip had yielded quite a lot.
Not only had he dealt with the threat posed by Xue Wu's family, he had also learned where to find the Snake Bone Bracelet.
But for now, he had to go back and wait until after the ancestral rites to explore that place.
As dusk fell, Hu Long got out of the car alone.
He hadn't asked Hu Zhao to pick him up. Instead, he called a taxi and rode home in silence.
Night had fully fallen, and warm yellow light spilled from the windows.
At dinner, the family sat around the table.
As usual, several nourishing medicinal dishes were laid out. A faint medicinal aroma wafted from the soup.
They had been prepared especially to help Hu Long recover.
He didn't refuse, and ate heartily.
"Slow down, don't choke. I'll make you more when you've finished."
He Yanling advised him from beside the table.
Somehow, the conversation turned to Xue Wu.
Hu Zhao couldn't claim she wasn't sad about Xue Wu's death.
But she was nowhere near devastated, much less ready to die for him.
They had been lovers in name, but their feelings for each other hadn't run deep.
To her, Xue Wu had simply been a "suitable" partner, nothing more.
Besides, ever since graduating, she had devoted herself to building her business. She had little time or energy to spare for romance.
Now that she knew what Xue Wu's family had done,
Hu Zhao felt a chill of fear.
If none of this had happened and she had married into that family, the outcome would have been unthinkable.
The thought filled her with relief.
Afterward, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the company's affairs.
Xue Wu had shared the workload before, but now that he was gone, she had much more to do.
She had been so busy these past two days that she was practically at her wits' end. She had no time to think about Xue Wu.
"By the way."
As if to change the subject, Hu Chengwen looked at Hu Long.
"You should be mostly recovered by now. After the New Year, go back to school. I've already made the arrangements. You can go with that girl, Sun Yi."
"Yeah, Sun Yi said she wanted to add you as a friend. Why didn't you accept?"
He Yanling added from beside them.
Hu Long chewed and swallowed a piece of braised pork.
"Sun Yi? I didn't really notice."
He remembered. After getting his phone, he hadn't been able to recall the password to his original social media account, so he had registered a new one.
Someone had indeed sent him a friend request around that time.
But he had blocked and rejected them immediately.
He had no interest in getting along with the original owner's friends.
After all, he wasn't the original owner.
As for Sun Yi, her situation was a little different.
More precisely, she had been Hu Long's childhood betrothed.
They had been classmates from primary school through high school. They were a well-matched pair, childhood friends, and had long since developed feelings for each other.
Under ordinary circumstances, marriage would have followed naturally when they were older.
But after the original owner was afflicted by that "ghostly thing," he suddenly dropped out of school during his senior year of high school.
Sun Yi, meanwhile, went to a university outside the province. From then on, they were separated, and their contact gradually dwindled.
"There's no need to rush back to school. I'm only twenty-one, and I don't think I've completely recovered. It could happen again at any time. Let's wait a while."
Hu Long said.
He wasn't very interested in going to college.
If this were a normal world, with no ghostly thing haunting him and no Primordial Plain Panel, he might consider furthering his education.
But with the Primordial Plain Panel, he could download any skill as long as he had enough Source Value. Knowledge that took other people years or even decades to master could be acquired by him in an instant, provided he had enough Source Value.
There was no need for him to work hard at learning it himself.
Hu Long had never been one to overthink things. He wasn't going to leave the panel unused.
More importantly, as long as his family didn't gamble, they had enough money to last for generations. Why put himself through the misery of studying?
"Also, I don't want to see Sun Yi."
He really had no desire to deal with that sort of personal entanglement.
"You can put off going back to school and go whenever you feel ready, but you have to see that girl, Sun Yi. Your mother and I both think very highly of her."
Hu Chengwen set down his chopsticks and cut Hu Long off.