Business

After buying the saber, Chen Jue turned to a stall selling copied martial arts manuals.

The stall owner seemed to be a lean man, about 175 centimeters tall, dressed in thin black clothes. He sat quietly on a small stool, a black gauze conical hat covering his entire face.

Unlike those stall owners who robbed graves, fenced stolen goods, or trafficked military supplies, copying martial arts manuals was a business with no capital and enormous profit—but in the Great Ming Divine Dynasty, it was an unforgivable crime. If caught, one could be executed on the spot.

That was why stall owners in this trade were always cautious and never showed their true faces.

"Do you sell any movement techniques?" Chen Jue asked softly.

During the battle on Wutong Street, if he had known a decent movement technique, he could have fled with Uncle Lin. Why would he have needed to get cornered in the restaurant, left with no road but to fight to the death?

That was also his main reason for coming to the black market.

Hearing this, the man in the conical hat pulled out a stack of newly printed books from the wooden box behind him, the scent of ink not yet faded, and laid them before Chen Jue.

Chen Jue flipped through them and found that they were all low-grade movement techniques such as Flying Over Grass, Green Duckweed Crossing, and Water Drifting. Their principles were not complicated either—one could learn the gist of them almost immediately.

"Do you have any higher-grade movement techniques?" Chen Jue closed the books, dissatisfied.

The man in the hat said nothing. He pulled two more movement technique booklets from the box behind him.

Silent Step and Wandering Dragon Body Technique, two mid-grade movement techniques with different focuses.

"How much for both?" Chen Jue asked.

The man in the hat held up one hand and showed him five fingers.

"For this pile of who-knows-if-it's-real junk, you want fifty thousand? Fifteen thousand. Not a cent more!" Chen Jue waved his broadsaber and slashed the price off at the knees.

Slap! The man in the hat smacked his thigh, rose from his stool, pulled out a payment QR code from his robes, and held it out in front of Chen Jue.

"Fuck! Can I make a new offer?"

Chen Jue suddenly realized he had bid too high. Just as he was about to take it back, he saw the black-clothed men maintaining order on the second floor all turn their eyes toward him.

His expression tightened slightly, and he understood at once. This was Director Wu's gray-market operation. Once the official risks were stripped away, these pirated manuals had nothing left but printing costs.

Truly, a business with no capital and enormous profit.

Chen Jue obediently scanned the code and paid. Then he took the initiative to ask, "Any higher-grade spear techniques? Bring them out and give me your lowest price."

The man in the hat sat back down and rummaged through the box for a while before finally pulling out two booklets whose pages had already yellowed somewhat.

Six Harmonies Spear, Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix Spear.

"Pah! No, brother? You're selling me spear techniques without internal cultivation methods?"

Chen Jue picked up Six Harmonies Spear and questioned him.

The man in the hat pointed upward.

Chen Jue looked up at the utterly bare concrete ceiling, then suddenly understood. The man in the hat meant that these two were the highest-grade spear techniques available.

So he was a mute who couldn't speak...

"Eight thousand..." Chen Jue had barely opened his mouth.

The man in the hat had already presented the payment QR code...

He really would sell for any price as long as he got paid.

Chen Jue felt deeply defeated. Just as he was about to leave this heartbreaking stall, the man in the hat suddenly grabbed his wrist and handed him an earthy yellow envelope.

He accepted the envelope and opened it, finding a USB drive and an instruction sheet inside.

"Contains 108 sets of martial techniques for saber, spear, sword, halberd, and other weapons; thirty-six varieties of movement techniques; introductory lessons for secondary professions such as alchemy and inscription techniques..."

Chen Jue's eyes widened, and his breathing gradually quickened.

"How much?"

The man in the hat once again showed him five fingers.

"...Twenty thousand?" Chen Jue probed.

The man in the hat froze. After holding it in through the entire exchange, he finally pulled a pink phone from his robes and typed the words "poor bastard" on the screen.

"Fuck you..."

Chen Jue had just started to curse when the envelope was snatched back from his hand.

"You meant five hundred thousand just now, didn't you?" he realized.

The man in the hat nodded with difficulty.

"Sorry to disturb you... farewell!" Chen Jue clasped his hands and left the book stall without looking back, wandering toward the other areas.

The black market's goods were a chaotic and endless assortment, but its best-selling items were always pills and spiritual materials.

The former were monopolized by the government and aristocratic clans, and their market prices were exorbitant.

The official purchase price for the latter was extremely low; only in the black market could they fetch a good price.

Next came all kinds of strange talismans and cinnabar. It was said they could be used to kill evil spirits, giving wanderers of the martial world confidence when traveling in the wilderness.

Chen Jue made three full rounds of the black market without finding any qi-and-blood pills useful to him.

However, during that time, he unexpectedly bought some "substandard" Blood-Burning Potion.

Because the potion was a defective product discarded by a pharmaceutical company, it was exceptionally cheap—only eight hundred cash per vial, with a one-month shelf life.

"Little brother, I heard you asking around for pills that replenish qi and blood?"

Just as Chen Jue was about to leave the black market, a furtive-looking young stall owner quietly sidled up beside him.

"I have a section of Blood-Spine Vine here, something that greatly replenishes qi and blood. Want to give it a try?" The young stall owner lifted a box the size of a sword case and held it out before Chen Jue.

For no reason at all, alarm bells blared in Chen Jue's heart. He pulled three steps away and scrutinized the man with wary eyes.

The stall owner was around twenty-four or twenty-five, fair-skinned and beardless, with sincere-looking eyes. He wore a long green robe and kept his hair long and flowing in an old-fashioned style.

He looked like a good person.

Yet the alarm bells in Chen Jue's heart did not stop. Like a wildcat encountering something filthy, his entire body instantly tensed, and his qi and blood began to surge faster on instinct.

Especially when the man opened the brocade box in his hand, revealing a blood-red vine as thick as a forearm inside.

The intense craving from his body made him cry out inwardly at how sinister this was, every hair on his body standing on end.

"Thank you! I don't know much about this, so I won't be taking it."

Chen Jue politely declined and turned to leave.

"Friend, this is a divine treasure for replenishing qi and blood. If you want it, I'll let you have it for ten thousand."

The young stall owner reached out and grabbed Chen Jue's arm. A stream of icy true qi spilled from his palm, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue as it bored straight toward Chen Jue's meridians.

"!!!"

Chen Jue's expression changed drastically. Setting Sun Blood Reversal blazed like fire, instantly igniting the qi and blood throughout his body. His left hand clenched into a fist and shot out in a straight cannon punch, gathering the strength of his entire body as it smashed directly toward the young stall owner's face.

"?!"

The probing strand of true qi had not yet received the answer it sought before it was scattered by the qi and blood that abruptly erupted within the other man's body.

The young stall owner was a little dumbfounded. He had roamed the martial world for nearly ten years, yet he had never seen such a hot-tempered brute—one disagreement, and he immediately burned his qi and blood.

With that kind of approach, no wonder Chen Jue was asking everywhere for pills to replenish qi and blood.

He hurriedly raised a hand. His right palm spread like cloth and steadily caught Chen Jue's straight punch.

"What tremendous strength!"

The young stall owner felt his right palm go numb. Just as he was about to say something, Chen Jue's tall, over-1.8-meter figure drove his right shoulder forward like a hammer, crashing straight into his chest like a speeding dump truck.

"Wait!"

The young stall owner's pupils contracted sharply. The word had barely leaped from his throat before his body flew away like a kite with its string cut, sent hurtling through the air by Chen Jue.

Crack!

The impact felt unusually slight, as though he had rammed into a bundle of cotton.

But Chen Jue heard a string of strange noises. It did not sound like breaking bones, but more like dozens of chopsticks snapping all at once.

The young stall owner hit the ground, smashing through two stalls in succession. His feet twitched once, and then he went still.

"Insolence! How dare you cause trouble here? Are you tired of living?!"

The black-clothed men maintaining order in the black market surged in from all directions. Each had a hand on a saber, and some even carried large-caliber shotgun firelances wrapped in black cloth.

The moment Chen Jue saw this, he instantly cowered. One hand covered his head while the other pointed at the young stall owner he had sent flying like a dump truck. "It has nothing to do with me! That guy grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go. He insisted on making me buy his stuff!"

"I couldn't shake him off, so I had no choice but to fight back!"