The three rested there for a while. After nightfall, someone knocked on their private room's door and asked whether they wanted to order food.
Li Chen and the others were already eating food they had brought in their Storage Bags. They waved the attendant away, and he withdrew, telling them before he left that the black market would soon open for business.
Sure enough, a little under a quarter of an hour later, a sultry woman's voice came from a magical artifact in the room that looked like a golden figurine.
"Fellow Daoists, honored guests, the city's largest Ten Thousand Nations Trade Fair will begin shortly. We will now project live images into your private rooms. Please refrain from moving about. If you have any questions, you may summon an attendant through the communication artifact..."
This seemed to be a routine announcement. After a general explanation of the black market's trading rules, the voice switched to a deep, resonant male one.
"Next, we will display our first batch of treasures: true demon spirit materials from the Linhai Region!"
The three turned toward a wall in the room painted pure white, with no calligraphy or paintings hung on it and no tables or chairs blocking it.
They had thought its plainness was merely a way to cut costs. Unexpectedly, an image-transmitting formation had been inscribed on it, displaying an illusory scene of a stage-like space as though it were a screen.
Lights surrounded the place on all sides, illuminating everything above, below, left, and right as brightly as daylight.
Beside the speaker appeared a colossal creature ten zhang long, like a ship.
Its body resembled a hyena's, but its paws were webbed, suggesting an amphibious demon. A bucket-wide bloody hole in its body made for a horrifying sight, though its blood