Turning the Tables?

"Yo, sir, you don't come here often, do you? What kind of girl are you looking for? Just say the word!"

The moment Zou Feng entered, the madam—whose makeup was so heavy she could have gone onstage to play the Old General—came up to greet him with overflowing enthusiasm.

This was already the lowest-grade pleasure house, a paradise where men at the bottom could reclaim a shred of dignity, so no one cared that Zou Feng was dressed so shabbily.

"Bring me your cheapest girl!"

Zou Feng used the most overbearing tone to say the most pathetic words.

But he had not come here to vent his urges in the first place, so there was no need for him to be picky.

"..."

The madam froze for a moment, then said with an awkward yet polite smile, "Sir, if you mean the cheapest... then she can't really be called a girl anymore..."

Zou Feng understood and waved a hand. "Make the arrangements. It doesn't matter if she's older."

If he wanted the cheapest option, he really could not demand that she still be of a girl's age.

Having received confirmation, the madam immediately turned and shouted upstairs, "Sister Zhang, are you still taking customers?"

Ah, someone even this madam called Sister Zhang?

She had probably been retired for ages...

Though it truly did not matter, since he was not going to do anything for real, Zou Feng's heart still gave an involuntary lurch.

The next moment, a head that could barely be described as retaining a trace of charm popped up over the second-floor railing.

The woman craned her neck and looked Zou Feng over a few times. Her eyes suddenly lit up.

"I am, I am, I am!"

"Sir, hurry up and come upstairs!"

The instant Sister Zhang saw Zou Feng's ordinary yet handsome face, she became more anxious than the most desperate patron in the place.

It even gave Zou Feng the illusion that she was the customer, while he was the male escort who had been ordered...

Before going upstairs, Zou Feng still asked the madam, "This Sister Zhang... she's the cheapest one? How much?"

"Twenty copper coins will do, sir!"

Damn, she really was cheap.

Still, Zou Feng could not shake the feeling that Sister Zhang ought to be paying him instead.

Once upstairs, Sister Zhang immediately coiled around him like a python.

Then, giggling coquettishly, she dragged Zou Feng into a room.

The moment they entered, she bent down to undo Zou Feng's belt.

She was so eager that even Zou Feng started to panic.

"Wait!"

Zou Feng hurriedly stopped Sister Zhang from turning the tables on him.

"Let's... let's have a couple of drinks first and chat?"

To his surprise, Sister Zhang did not stop. As she continued fumbling with Zou Feng, she said, "What's so good about drinking that horse piss? Better let this servant girl sing a tune for you, sir."

Seeing that Sister Zhang had already lost all reason, Zou Feng could only helplessly wave a hand and lightly brush it across her face.

"Smells so good..."

"Oh my, sir, my head feels a little..."

Before she could finish, Sister Zhang's body went limp, and she quickly fell unconscious.

Zou Feng lifted her with one hand and tossed her onto the bed.

Then he picked up the wine-mixed water from the table and poured some over Sister Zhang.

Naturally, this was to create the illusion that Sister Zhang believed she had gotten drunk and slept through the night.

To make the act more convincing, Zou Feng even opened the door, called over a waiter, spent more money, and ordered several more pots of wine-mixed water.

Only after finishing all that did he begin carefully inspecting the room.

Not bad. Most importantly, it had a window, and beneath that window was a secluded alley.

Once the time was about right, Zou Feng took out the outfit he had prepared in advance and changed into it.

A gray long robe and a veiled bamboo hat—this was how Zou Feng intended to dress for the Ghost Market.

At midnight, East River Mouth, Yuan Guang County.

Not far from the river mouth stood a vast, densely packed shantytown.

It could also be called a slum.

Upon entering, the shacks were built so tightly together and looked so alike, while the paths twisted and tangled in all directions, that it felt like stepping into a maze.

For some time now, the Ghost Market had often opened within the shantytown.

The ones managing the Ghost Market and maintaining its basic order were the two major local gangs.

The Black Flood Dragon Gang and the Vermilion Heart Alliance.

With these two local powers keeping watch, at least within the Ghost Market, there was no need to worry too much about personal safety.

The Ghost Market was, after all, a place for business, and the first basic requirement for doing business was an order people could accept.

Since he had already made detailed inquiries through several channels, Zou Feng found the Ghost Market's entrance soon after entering the shantytown.

In fact, even without asking for the exact location, the entrance would not have been hard to find.

Along the way, Zou Feng had spotted far too many furtive figures hurrying in the same direction. He only needed to follow them.

But before officially entering the Ghost Market, he still had to pay an entrance fee.

It was not too expensive—two qian of loose silver.

For that price, Sister Zhang could sleep with someone for ten nights.

It was worth mentioning that, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, Zou Feng had kept his poison power fully activated throughout his journey here.

This caused a cloyingly sweet fragrance to drift from his body.

Anyone with even a little knowledge of the martial world would immediately realize upon smelling it that he was most likely someone who cultivated poison arts!

When traveling the martial world, people were already exceedingly wary of dealing with those who cultivated poison arts.

After all, who knew what kind of vicious poison those poison cultivators might be carrying on them?

Moreover, poison cultivators often kept company with venomous creatures and liked to conduct isolated research in remote, uninhabited places.

As a result, most of them easily became dark-minded perverts who held grudges with particular tenacity.

So even rank martial artists kept far away from poison cultivators unless it was absolutely necessary.

Seeing the expressions on the faces around him—like they had encountered the god of plague—after realizing he cultivated poison arts, Zou Feng instead felt reassured.

Excellent. He only wanted to shop peacefully in the Ghost Market.

Once he finally entered the Ghost Market, the lively scene before his eyes was unexpectedly bustling.

Zou Feng had originally imagined this place would be deserted, with only stallholders and a few scattered customers.

But he quickly understood why it was so lively.

The reason was simple: not only martial artists came to browse the Ghost Market. There were just as many ordinary people who had never practiced martial arts.

After all, anything sold at the Ghost Market could be bought as long as one had money, and it offered all manner of underground services.

For example, the most common one was hiring someone to murder another person.

Zou Feng strolled along leisurely, and soon discovered that there were quite a few stalls selling cultivation manuals.

They did not merely sell sinister arts. There were even secret manuals from famous orthodox sects that were not passed down to outsiders.

Of course, they were only handwritten copies. Whether they were genuine, or whether buying them would bring any trouble, was impossible to know.

Besides, even if one's luck exploded and one bought the real thing, without guidance from a proper master, it would be extremely difficult to achieve anything with it.

If one insisted on practicing it by force, the most likely outcome would be an unavoidable descent into qi deviation.

Unless one was a once-in-a-century martial arts prodigy.

However, Zou Feng had long since lost all interest in orthodox cultivation methods.

If a cultivation method had no side effects, or only minor ones, it would not show up on the panel—so why the hell would he practice it?