Auction House Backstreet

The rain in Heaven Dou City stopped in the latter half of the night.

They were still clearing stones from the Old Canal by the Imperial City, but lights had already come on in the Auction House's backstreet. People from the Spirit Hall Branch had sealed off the entire alley. A document from the Crown Prince's Mansion lay on the Auction House counter, and several managers knelt on the floor, not daring to raise their heads.

Bai Jin walked in over the wet flagstones, his silver hair tousled by the night wind. A candy stick hung from his mouth, and his black blindfold rested loosely on his forehead. He looked less like someone who had just dismantled a Slaughter guiding array in the Old Canal and more like someone dragged out of bed at midnight to go shopping.

Lu Heng came to meet him, keeping his voice low. "They haven't cleared out the backstreet's hidden storeroom yet. We caught six people. Two are dead, and the rest won't talk."

"Then let them keep their mouths shut a little longer." Bai Jin yawned. "Where are the accounts?"

"Inside."

Xue Qinghe stood on the second floor overlooking the street, a pale cloak around his shoulders and the Crown Prince's usual gentle expression on his face. When he saw Bai Jin, he gave a slight nod. "I sealed the accounts in the name of the Crown Prince's Mansion, but I can only hold them until dawn. After that, someone at court will ask why Spirit Hall has surrounded the Auction House."

Bai Jin looked up at him. "Tell them you couldn't sleep, so you came out to see how the people were doing."

Xue Qinghe fell silent for a moment. "Do you think anyone would believe that?"

"Whether they believe it doesn't matter," Bai Jin said with a smile. "What matters is whether they dare tell you to your face that you had too much time on your hands."

Ning Rongrong burst out laughing, then clapped a hand over her mouth. With Ning Fengzhi nowhere nearby, she was clearly feeling bolder. But the moment Bai Jin turned toward her, she instinctively edged half a step behind Dai Mubai.

Tang San did not laugh.

He crouched at the hidden storeroom's entrance and picked up a pinch of gray-red powder. Though rainwater had soaked it, it still carried a faint, sweet scent tinged with blood. Blue Silver Grass emerged from his palm. The moment a leaf touched the powder, it curled slightly.

"Blood-Pattern Incense," Tang San said quietly. "Not an ordinary tracking incense. It's mixed with Corrupt Blood Vine powder. Soul Masters who breathe too much of it grow restless and irritable. Ordinary people have nightmares after prolonged exposure."

Xiao Wu stood beside him, looking pale. "So this is how they chose people?"

Tang San nodded. "Only those who stayed clearheaded in this smell were sent to the next location."

Bai Jin crunched the candy stick between his teeth. "Congratulations. The Auction House has moved up from selling things to selling people."

Lu Heng's face darkened further.

It was an ugly thing to say, but no one could argue with it.

Empty crates filled the hidden storeroom, their bottoms showing fresh pry marks. Zhu Zhuqing circled toward a corner, then suddenly raised her hand. Her Nether Civet Martial Soul possessed her, and she hooked a claw into a hidden compartment behind a cabinet. She tore the panel free, revealing a Ledger half-soaked in water.

Ning Rongrong's eyes lit up, and she hurried over. She might usually seem delicate, but someone raised in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect had a natural eye for Ledgers and handwriting. She turned a few pages, her brow slowly furrowing.

"These aren't one set of accounts," she said. "The first half was for the Auction House, the second for the buyers. Some of these figures are strange. They don't look like Gold Soul Coin amounts. They look more like numbers of people."

Oscar leaned in for a couple of glances, then backed away with a headache. "I'm better suited to making sausages."

Ma Hongjun could not make sense of it either, so he watched the other end of the storeroom instead. A wooden rack stood there beneath a piece of burlap. Rainwater dripped from the cloth, but when it hit the floor, it did not spread. It gathered into a dark-red thread.

"Careful," Tang San said.

The words had barely left his mouth when a dark figure burst out from behind the rack. The man's face was smeared with blood, and a fine needle was hidden beneath his tongue. As he sprang forward, he bit through a Poison Sac. Like a venomous insect driven into a corner, he lunged at Ning Rongrong, the closest person to him.

Dai Mubai stepped forward, and his White Tiger Protection Barrier flared to life.

But the needle was not aimed at Ning Rongrong.

It skimmed past Dai Mubai's shoulder and shot straight for the space between Tang San's brows.

Tang San's eyes sharpened. Just as his Blue Silver Grass was about to lash out, a hand appeared before him.

Bai Jin's hand.

The needle stopped an inch from his fingertips, as though it had struck an invisible swamp. It could move neither forward nor back. Its tail still trembled, but its tip hung motionless, as if nailed in midair.

"A feint, even with one foot in the grave." Bai Jin smiled. "How considerate of you to wake me up first."

He flicked a finger.

The needle flew backward, grazing the dark figure's face before burying itself in a wooden post. The man's eyes widened in terror. In the next instant, Zhu Zhuqing kicked him off his feet, Tang San's Blue Silver Grass bound his hands and legs, and Xiao Wu followed with a knee strike. It was over in a flash.

Bai Jin looked at Tang San. "What if I hadn't been here?"

Tang San was silent for a moment. "I would have dodged with Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, then bound his wrist with Blue Silver Grass."

"Too slow."

Tang San froze.

Bai Jin pointed at Ning Rongrong, then at the needle. "He wasn't betting on whether he could kill you. He was betting on whether you'd dodge to save yourself and leave the support Soul Master behind you exposed."

Tang San's expression shifted slightly.

Xiao Wu glanced at him without a word and quietly moved half a step closer.

Ning Rongrong hugged the Ledger, her voice a little softer. "I would have dodged."

"You would have screamed first," Bai Jin said without mercy.

Ning Rongrong puffed out her cheeks but did not argue.

Dai Mubai glanced at Ning Rongrong and said nothing in her defense. After so long fighting together, everyone in the Shrek Seven Devils knew what a support Soul Master meant to a team. Ning Rongrong could be willful and stubborn, but in a life-or-death instant, one wrong step from her would endanger more than herself.

Tang San pulled the needle from the post and wrapped it in cloth. He looked more serious than before. Hidden Weapons were his strength, but that needle had reminded him that a true killing trap was never just about speed and angles. It was about the human heart, too.

Bai Jin did not continue lecturing them.

He had always spoken lazily and stopped once he had made his point. Rather than deliver a grand lesson, he preferred to let people sit with their discomfort for a while.

Lu Heng drew several sheets of stiff black paper from between the pages of the Ledger and handed them to Bai Jin. A blurred image of an arena was printed on them. "Old Quarry" was written in a corner, beside a list of medicinal ingredients.

Tang San's brow twitched when he spotted one of the herbs.

"Corrosive Bone Orchid," he said. "That herb shouldn't be appearing in large quantities inside the city."

Bai Jin turned the slips over. On the back was an iron-hook mark, blurred by rainwater.

Lu Heng lowered his voice. "There's an abandoned quarry on the edge of Sunset Forest. It supplied stone for Heaven Dou City's walls years ago. They shut it down after the poisonous miasma grew too thick."

Upstairs, Xue Qinghe slowly closed his folding fan.

Bai Jin raised his head and met his gaze.

Xue Qinghe asked no more questions.

In Heaven Dou City, he had chosen to walk the Crown Prince's path. It demanded rules and decorum, and every move he made could be picked apart into eight hundred interpretations. But he also knew some things could not be brought before the court and argued over at leisure. The people who had been sold could not wait for documents to travel back and forth, nor for ministers to test one another in the palace hall.

Bai Jin knew it too.

So he could not even be bothered to say anything grand.

The long street was damp and cold after the rain. Lamplight fell across the black slips, illuminating a road that seemed to have just crawled out of the mud.

"All right." Bai Jin slipped the papers into his sleeve. "And I'd been planning to sleep."

Ma Hongjun asked, "What about now?"

Bai Jin smiled.

"Now we find the bastards keeping people awake."