Bone Heart Sword's expression was calm.
"I have a mission in a few days, so I came to take a look at Yang Teng Sand."
"Yang Teng Sand? We have it. If Young Master Zhuang wants it, even if this little shop didn't have any, we'd still get our hands on it." Fifth Sister-in-law smiled as she hurried back to the counter, took out a dark red wooden box from beneath it, and presented it to Bone Heart Sword with both hands.
Several more customers entered the shop at this time, men and women alike, dressed in all manner of clothing.
One of them had clean-cut features and slightly pale skin, looking much like an ordinary frail young master from a wealthy family, with a faint scholarly air about him.
He wore a pale yellow Daoist robe, a white belt, and an ordinary longsword on his back. He looked no different from the other disciples of the outer district around him.
This person was Lin Xin, who had been at the market for half a day. He had not come to buy anything. Instead, he had first wandered all over the place, found the most popular shop—this Jade Radiance Abode—and then waited outside its entrance for several hours.
He was observing. From the way Fifth Sister-in-law, the shop owner, treated different customers, he could determine which ones were formidable, which were ordinary, which held high status, and which stood low. He then committed each of those formidable, high-status people to memory.
No one here could be trusted. No one even cared about cutthroat competition. It was clearly a standard jungle where the strong devoured the weak, so he might as well honestly gather intelligence himself.
Stopping before a compartment hung with jade pendants, Lin Xin casually pinched an oval jade