第20章 血赚

It was night, inside an ordinary civilian house.

"Quickly rub the dead hand! Damn!"

Luo Yan sat cross-legged in front of an old wooden table, his sleeves rolled up high, as he matched a few pieces of cut hard paper together in his hands.

Spread across the table were a blade, paste, half a bottle of black ink, and a scrap of dark red cloth picked up from somewhere.

The lamp flame flickered sideways in the wind, casting his face in alternating light and shadow.

He hadn't originally planned to make a book cover.

With this crappy book, even the ink had been mixed with water when he wrote it.

The cost of a few copper soul coins, a storyteller's throat, and a hidden compartment in an old bookstore.

He figured that this young miss would give at most two hundred, and he would put on a pained expression and sell her the story.

Who would have thought this young lady wouldn't even bargain.

Luo Yan fished a few thin pieces of gold foil from his bosom.

That was from a few days ago when he passed by a jewelry shop and saw an apprentice throwing away scrap gold leaf. He squatted by the door picking them up for half a day, then bit them with his teeth and burned them with fire to confirm they were mixed with real gold.

Now, as it turned out, they came in just handy.

He laid the gold foil on the dark red cover, pressing his fingers down extremely lightly.

The gold light seemed to be absorbed by something, adhering obediently to the hard paper without bulging or wrinkling.

Yet what Luo Yan wanted was not some shiny upstart trash.

He closed his eyes briefly, channeling spirit power into his fingertips.

Floating Life Like a Dream.

Willpower seeped from his fingertips into the gold foil.

The gold suddenly aged, as if soaked in seawater, worn by the wind, and fondled repeatedly by someone's hands for decades.

Luo Yan traced those ink lines once more, utilizing the willpower to let the ink color sink slightly into the gold leather.

A single lamp at the bow of a boat, a silhouette in the fog.

A gold base with dark red patterns, looking neither new nor old.

"Good thing you didn't bargain."

He muttered softly, "Otherwise I wouldn't even have the heart to make this for you."

When he finished speaking, he wiped the spine of the book with a damp cloth and slowly roasted it dry over the lamp flame.

The book emitted a very faint golden border in the light; it wasn't dazzling, yet it made one unable to look away.

Luo Yan lifted it up, looking at it from the front and the side, then placing it further away to view.

Then he sighed.

"This is no unofficial history; this damn thing is divine history."

He wrapped the book contentedly in a cloth and pressed it under his pillow.

He sat back down at the table, sweeping all those scraps and gold foil fragments into a broken jar.

At the end, he didn't forget to fish half a dry pancake from his pocket, took a bite, and swallowed it down with cold water.

"Five hundred gold soul coins to buy a localized out-of-print Secret Records of Sea God Island, complete with a cover."

He mumbled, "Miss Ning, a massive profit."

Heaven Dou City in the early morning hours was somewhat darker; most of the lanterns on both sides of the main street were extinguished, leaving only a few half-bright and dim in the wind.

Luo Yan stood before the Seven Treasure Hotel, looking up briefly.

The lintel of this shop was extremely high, and the two bronze doors were polished brightly enough to reflect a person's silhouette.

Even the stone steps at the entrance were half a fathom wider than anywhere else.

At this time the main gate was tightly shut, with only a small lamp lit beside the side door, and a night-watching gatekeeper standing there with folded arms like a half-asleep door god.

Luo Yan walked over.

"I've come to see Miss Ning."

He said, his voice low yet clear enough, "Please announce me."

The gatekeeper lifted his eyelids to look at him: gray clothes, old shoes, his body still stained with nocturnal dew.

He let out a "heh" and didn't move. "What kind of place do you think this is? It's not even dawn, and you think you can see an honored guest of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School on just your bare word?"

"I don't come on just my word."

Luo Yan pushed the gray cloth bundle in his bosom forward. "I've come to deliver a book, as agreed at the Listening Wind Pavilion."

Only then did the gatekeeper let his gaze fall onto the gray cloth bundle.

He hesitated for an instant, didn't take it, and only asked, "What is your name?"

"Surname Luo, she knows."

The gatekeeper glanced at him again, and finally waved a hand at the servant behind him.

The servant squeezed in through the side door, the sound of his footsteps quickly swallowed by the night.

Luo Yan simply stood at the foot of the steps, neither urging nor leaving.

The night wind blew over from the end of the main street, blowing the hair on his forehead somewhat messy.

Before long, the servant returned, nodded to the gatekeeper, and said to Luo Yan, "Please follow me."

The gatekeeper spoke no more, merely yielding half a width of the side door.

Luo Yan sidestepped in, following the servant across an extremely broad front hall.

The hall was paved with blue jade square bricks, and two rows of bronze lamps had mostly extinguished, leaving only a few casting thin light from high above. There was a cold fragrance in the air.

They went upstairs.

Ning Rongrong lived in the innermost room on the third floor.

The servant stopped in front of the door and knocked gently. "Miss, the person has arrived."

After two breaths, Ning Rongrong's voice came from inside. "Let him in."

The servant pushed the door open and withdrew to the side.

Luo Yan straightened his collar and stepped inside.

The room was much warmer than outside, a bronze lamp was lit on a small table, and Ning Rongrong sat right behind the light.

She was draped in a moon-white outer robe, her long hair simply and loosely coiled.

It was evident she had gotten up in a hurry, yet her complexion showed no sign of drowsiness; instead, set off by that touch of warm light, her eyebrows and eyes appeared all the more distinct.

"You really dared to come," she said.

Luo Yan smiled slightly. "Since Miss Ning is willing to see me, why wouldn't I dare?"

He walked forward, placing the gray cloth bundle on the table. Without rushing to open it, he stepped back half a step.

Under the light, that cloth bundle looked dusty and utterly discordant with the exquisiteness of this room.

Yet the more it was so, the less Ning Rongrong could look away.

"Open it," she said.

Luo Yan uncovered the gray cloth, revealing a book inside.

The cover pressed dark red, its edges revealing a thread of old gold. Ning Rongrong took a single look and sat up straight.

She raised her hand, her fingertips landing on the cover and pressing down.

Without speaking, she slowly picked up the book and opened the first page by the light.

The pages were extremely thin yet crisp, and only a single line of words was written on the first page:

Knowledge of Sky and Earth.

"This is?"

Luo Yan raised an eyebrow with a smile. "The complete version. The content you read previously is at the back, and this is the first chapter."

Ning Rongrong's fingers moved slightly, skimming through it roughly before putting the book down.

"Five hundred gold soul coins is too much. I'll give you two hundred, plus... this bracelet."

"Miss Ning."

He lowered his voice, incredulity lacing his tone, "Does this mean your money isn't enough?"

"Of course not."

Ning Rongrong interrupted him swiftly, her tone somewhat hurried yet feigning calmness, "I'm not so hard up for these few hundreds, it's just that my father watches the accounts too strictly. If I suddenly had five hundred less today, he would ask about it, and wouldn't this book become impossible to hide?"

As she spoke, she slipped a bracelet off her wrist and placed it on the table.

"This is a storage bracelet," she said, her eyes avoiding Luo Yan and staring straight at the book instead.

"It was a gift from someone when I was little. There are too many gifts, and my father might not necessarily remember them all. There are still some gold soul coins left inside—see for yourself if it's enough."

Luo Yan looked at the bracelet.

The jade color leaned greenish and didn't boast any astronomical value, but its merit lay in its compactness, entirely devoid of ornamentation save for a tiny bit of silver inlaid at the joint.

Indeed, it was an inconspicuous yet genuinely usable item.

But this was a storage "equipment," the very thing he lacked most right now.

"Miss Ning," he said softly, "are you trading this with me?"

"It doesn't count as a trade."

Ning Rongrong averted her face, the tips of her ears somewhat red. "My money isn't enough, so I'm using this as a deposit first. When things are really impossible later... I'll redeem it back."

As she uttered the word "redeem," her voice trailed off lower, as if she herself felt the wording was bizarre.

Luo Yan didn't reply. He reached out and picked up the bracelet.

It felt slightly cool to the touch and heavy.

Without using spirit power, he simply turned it over to inspect it and tapped it gently against the edge of the table.

"Are you really willing to part with it?" he asked.

"What's there to be unwilling about?" Ning Rongrong lightly snorted. "I have plenty of bracelets like this."

"Alright then." Luo Yan smiled, slipping the bracelet onto his left wrist.

He rotated his wrist and nodded with satisfaction. "Fits quite well. It can hold more than that crappy bundle of mine."

"That's fine then. Right, you sold me a book, but I still don't know what you're called?"

"Luo Yan."

"Alright. If you discover any more good books in the future... leave a letter with the people here, and they'll bring it over."

"You got it! Little old me is off to hunt for good books right now, guaranteed to satisfy the boss!"