Huang Silang Pays His Respects to Grandmaster Hong

"Shopkeeper Sun, you're here." The assistant, Jin Gui, hurriedly bowed.

"Mm. I'll attend to this customer. Go check on the tea in the back."

"Yes, sir." Jin Gui dashed into the back room.

Shopkeeper Sun approached Li Xiang and looked him up and down. His gaze lingered on Li Xiang's long, clean hands for a moment. Then he smiled, cupped his hands, and lowered his voice to utter an obscure bit of underworld jargon.

"Friend, are you casing tombs or cracking them? Looking for fresh digs or seasoned goods?"

These were code words used in the tomb-robbing trade.

He was asking whether Li Xiang scouted out tombs or dug them open, and whether he wanted freshly unearthed goods still stained with blood or clean merchandise that had already changed hands several times.

Clearly, the things Li Xiang had just requested, coupled with the chilling air that came naturally with his [Embalmer] class, had led Shopkeeper Sun to mistake him for a fellow tradesman—or a tomb robber looking to fence his loot.

Li Xiang paused briefly, then shook his head. "You've misunderstood, Shopkeeper Sun."

With a calm expression, Li Xiang answered in the same jargon. "I don't dig pits or fill them in. I eat the rice offered at the dead's heads—in other words, I'm an embalmer who sews clothes for the dead and does their makeup.

"By the rules of our trade, we follow different paths, but we're still kin who deal with the one beneath the earth."

"An embalmer?" Shopkeeper Sun raised his eyebrows. "Ah, so you're a young corpse-stitching master."

Shopkeeper Sun's smile grew more sincere. "You have a point, young friend. You see them off, and we handle... ahem. In any case, we both rely on the dead to put food on our tables. Kin indeed, kin!"

He led Li Xiang over to sit at the tea table.

"Since you're in the trade, I won't keep anything under wraps."

Shopkeeper Sun poured Li Xiang a cup of tea. "That aged cinnabar and old yellow paper you asked for—I do have them. Genuine bottom-of-the-coffin goods, too."

"Oh?" Li Xiang's brows drew together, his interest piqued.

"Someone dug them out from beneath the ruins of an old Daoist temple recently," Shopkeeper Sun said casually.

"The cinnabar spent centuries sealed inside an alchemical furnace. It's brimming with fire energy. The yellow paper was soaked in a special medicinal solution. It may be paper, but it's tougher than cloth. For drawing talismans or... crafting certain things, it's top-notch."

Something stirred in Li Xiang's heart.

This was exactly what he had been looking for.

When making paper effigies, the quality of the materials was crucial.

An effigy made from ordinary paper was just a lifeless object that would topple at the first gust of wind.

But with spiritually imbued materials like these, combined with the right ritual, the resulting paper effigy... could commune with spirits.

"Name your price, Shopkeeper." Li Xiang wasted no words and went straight to the point.

"For an outsider, this set would cost at least fifty silver dollars."

Shopkeeper Sun held up one hand and flipped it over. "But as I said, we're kin in the trade. I'll give you a friendship price: ten silver dollars, with a fine weasel-hair brush thrown in."

Ten silver dollars?

Li Xiang felt inside his robe. That was almost a fifth of everything he currently owned.

But he did not hesitate.

He could always earn more money. Materials this good could only be found by chance.

Still, when buying something, he ought to slash the asking price in half first.

"Five."

"Deal."

"..."

Damn. I offered too much.

Li Xiang was about to revise his offer when Shopkeeper Sun immediately sent the assistant to fetch the goods from the storeroom.

Before long, an exquisite wooden box was placed before Li Xiang.

Inside the opened box were a jar of cinnabar as richly red as blood, a stack of yellow paper with a faint golden sheen, and a weasel-hair brush with a mottled shaft but a tip as sharp as a needle.

Li Xiang reached out to touch the yellow paper. Beneath his fingertips, it felt almost like skin, warm, smooth, and resilient.

"Good stuff." Li Xiang accepted his loss, put away the box, and left five silver dollars before rising to take his leave.

"Shopkeeper Sun, if you get any more strange materials from the realm of the dead, remember to save them for me. I'll come by often. Please give me a real friendship price next time."

"Of course, of course." Shopkeeper Sun escorted him to the door. "Take care, young friend. Come visit often!"

Li Xiang had barely taken two steps outside with the wooden box when hurried footsteps sounded behind him.

"Sir, please wait. Might I have a word in private?"

Li Xiang stopped and turned. It was the assistant named Jin Gui.

Wearing a secretive expression, Jin Gui glanced around and pulled Li Xiang over to the entrance of a nearby dead-end alley.

"Young sir, I can tell you're an expert with an eye for quality." Jin Gui rubbed his hands, looking troubled and anxious.

"I have a family heirloom. If my mother weren't seriously ill and in urgent need of money, I would never bear to part with it."

"A family heirloom?" Li Xiang looked at him calmly.

"That's right. A truly priceless treasure!"

Jin Gui pulled a neatly folded map from inside his robe and carefully unfolded one inconsequential corner.

"Look, this is a treasure map belonging to a prince of the Demon Dynasty. They say it leads to countless gold, silver, and jewels that he plundered, along with an immortal pill that grants eternal youth!"

"It's cheap—just five silver dollars. Give me five silver dollars and it's yours. Just don't forget me when you strike it rich!"

Li Xiang lowered his head and glanced at the map.

It was made of some unknown hide, with crooked routes drawn across it and a few seemingly ancient characters.

This texture... this drawing style... this sales pitch...

Li Xiang recalled Lin Xuanshu and Lin Xuanguang explaining aboard the boat why they had come to Blackwater Ancient Town.

The two of them had bought a treasure map made from this very same material and followed it all the way to Blackwater Pool, only to nearly become food for that Corpse Demon Taisui.

"This map of yours..."

Li Xiang raised his head, a teasing glint in his eyes. "Didn't you sell one to two young Daoists before? One looked refined and scholarly, and the other seemed a bit of a hotheaded rookie?"

Jin Gui's face stiffened, but he immediately swore with utmost conviction, "Sir, what are you talking about? This is my ancestral treasure. There's only one! How could I have sold it to anyone else? You must be remembering wrong!"

"Oh? Really?"

Li Xiang reached out and touched the map. It felt slick and greasy, with a faint bloody odor.

This was no sheepskin at all. It was clearly treated human-skin parchment—a Ghost Map used as bait.

Maps like these were typically used to lure people into dangerous places to serve as blood sacrifices.

"Then perhaps I saw wrong." Li Xiang withdrew his hand, the smile vanishing from his face. "I'm not interested in some Demon Dynasty prince's treasure. Keep it to pay for your mother's treatment."

With that, Li Xiang turned and walked away.

"Hey, sir, don't go! We can negotiate! Three silver dollars—even two will do!"

Jin Gui kept calling after him, but Li Xiang never slowed and soon disappeared into the crowd.

After leaving the antiques street, Li Xiang glanced back in that direction.

"The Ink Fragrance Studio has a tomb robber for a shopkeeper, and even its assistant is no ordinary fellow. What a gathering of talent."

"But to think the treasure map Daoist Xuanshu and Xuan Guang bought came from here... Looks like the waters of Linjiang County run deep, too."

Li Xiang was no longer in the mood to browse the antiques street. He hailed a rickshaw and headed straight back to the martial hall.

Yet as the rickshaw approached the Shocking Heron Martial Hall, he spotted a large crowd blocking the entrance from afar.

The normally broad street was now packed so tightly that not even water could trickle through.

"What's going on?"

Li Xiang got out, paid the fare, and pushed his way into the crowd.

"Make way, make way!"

Li Xiang caught hold of a melon vendor watching from the side. "Brother, what happened here?"

The vendor said, "What else? Someone's here to challenge the hall!"

"Challenge the hall?" Li Xiang froze.

Hong Tianbao had only recently opened his hall, and his reputation was riding high. Who was blind enough to come courting disaster at a time like this?

"Exactly!" The vendor pointed at the group entering the front courtyard.

"See them? That's the head instructor of the Eight Gates Martial Hall. I heard Master Hong broke the martial arts community's rules by taking disciples without charging tuition. Now they've come knocking to challenge him."

The moment Li Xiang entered the Shocking Heron Martial Hall, he heard a voice thunder across the training grounds.

"Huang Silang of the Eight Gates Martial Hall pays his respects to Master Hong!"