Touch Once

Duan Rong returned to Antique Street.

He first pretended to stroll leisurely toward the entrance of the alley where he had killed those men before. He noticed several vendors near the alley entrance, their expressions calm as they set up their stalls.

Several days had already passed since the killings.

Thinking back to that day, judging by the four men's clothing and accents, they were probably not from this county. Having suddenly died in that secluded alley, perhaps even their identities could not be confirmed.

And there was no aggrieved party to file a complaint. Why would the authorities take it seriously?

Without an aggrieved party, who were they supposed to fleece?

The corpses might even have been hauled to the charity burial ground and burned that very day.

Public order on the Nine Provinces Continent was rather chaotic. The occasional death or two was perfectly normal.

Those few men had vanished from this world just like that. At most, the authorities had gained another unsolved case, probably recorded in only a few lines on the constable chief's desk.

Duan Rong secretly let out a breath of relief and walked back and forth along Antique Street once.

He had already decided to spend several days thoroughly combing through this street, to see just how much gold he could pan from this mud and sand.

Anyway, he could only practice stance training for an hour and a half each day now. He had plenty of spare time to devote to the great cause of picking up bargains...

Three days later, Duan Rong rose from a stall at the far end of Antique Street with a dark expression, rubbing his slightly sore waist in frustration.

His waist had been tempered by stance training. It might not have been forged through a thousand hammers, but it was at least well-trained.

Yet even it was beginning to give out.

The main reason was that Duan Rong had gone at it too hard!

Over three days, he had practically combed through the entire Antique Street. And his method of combing through it meant touching every single item once.

After those three days, Duan Rong had acquired a nickname on Antique Street: "Touch Once."

At first, the vendors had been somewhat resistant to Duan Rong, but after three days, his reputation had long since spread. The vendors simply treated him as entertainment and let him do as he pleased.

After all, he neither stole nor robbed. He merely openly touched something once right in front of them.

"Touched yourself satisfied?" The vendor at the last stall grinned when he saw Duan Rong stand up.

But Duan Rong was so depressed that he had no time to shoot the breeze with him.

In the whole of Antique Street, aside from that Portrait of a Lady by Fan Yunlin he had found a few days ago, there had not been a single genuine item.

"What a bunch of swindlers!"

Duan Rong was deeply dissatisfied with the vendors on Antique Street.

Duan Rong suddenly recalled a story he had studied in his previous life, called Waiting by a Stump for a Hare. It seemed to have come from Han Feizi's "Five Vermin."

"A Song Person was plowing his fields when a hare, running through the field, struck a tree stump, broke its neck, and died. So he abandoned his hoe and guarded the stump, hoping to get another hare. But no more hare could be found, and he became the laughingstock of the Song Kingdom."

At that moment, Duan Rong felt that he was that farmer waiting by a stump for a hare. Not only was the hare never to be found again, he had even let his fields grow barren.

He had wasted three whole days for nothing!

Worn out in both body and mind, Duan Rong left Antique Street and plopped himself down inside a Beef Soup Shop not far from the roadside.

Duan Rong ordered a bowl of beef soup and two flatbreads. He poured a heaping spoonful of chili oil into the soup and began slurping it down.

Duan Rong was eating and sweating profusely when he suddenly spotted a stall across the street.

A thin, scholarly-looking middle-aged man was sitting there, writing letters for people.

Behind the scholar's stall hung several calligraphy pieces and paintings, apparently all done by himself.

Most of those paintings were portraits: graceful and unrestrained ladies, martial artists brandishing blades and spears. Even from afar, they looked quite lively...

At that moment, seated before his stall was an old woman with a basket of vegetables hooked over her arm and a headscarf wrapped around her head.

Duan Rong watched for a while. Then, seeing the Thin Scholar bent over writing a letter, his heart suddenly stirred, and he cried out again, "I really am too brilliant!"

"You've seen portraits of ladies, but have you seen Photoshop?"

"What is industrial upgrading? What is a new business model?"

"What is a crushing blow from a higher dimension!"

"Let's go!"

Duan Rong jumped up from his seat in excitement. In his carelessness, he knocked his soup bowl onto the ground. With a bang, bowl and soup alike shattered into pieces.

"Oh, my bowl!" The proprietress twisted over with her bucket waist, angrily wiping her hands on her apron as she glared at Duan Rong. "You're such a grown man—why are you still so clumsy and reckless?"

Duan Rong chuckled sheepishly. "Please calm down, proprietress. I was careless for a moment. I'll pay for it! Here is one qian of silver. Please take it, and trouble yourself to clean this up."

Duan Rong stuffed the one qian of silver into the proprietress's hand, then rushed impatiently out of the soup shop and ran toward Antique Street.

It was not that Duan Rong was generous. He simply had no time to waste haggling with the proprietress, and the smallest piece of loose silver in his inner pocket was one qian.

"Running off to collect a corpse, are you?" The proprietress spat after Duan Rong as she watched him run off. Looking down at her hand, she found that it really was a piece of silver worth one qian. She immediately smiled. "He pays honestly enough, but he's far too rash. No patience at all—not the sort who can live a steady life!"

As she spoke, the proprietress tucked away the loose silver, picked up a broom, and swept the broken bowl shards into a dustpan.

Having made a free one qian of silver, the proprietress's mood instantly brightened, and even her eyes and brows became flirtatious...

By then, dusk was approaching. The vendors on Antique Street had already begun packing up one after another, preparing to head home.

Pushing through the bustling crowd, Duan Rong quickly rushed to a stall in the middle of the street.

The vendor was a plump middle-aged man with two wisps of drooping mustache, looking somewhat like Bao Butong.

Duan Rong rushed over and immediately began rummaging through the tube of paintings beside the stall.

"Damn, Touch Once, why are you back again?" The vendor was packing up his things. When he turned around, he saw the flustered Duan Rong.

Duan Rong did not say a word, merely continuing to search through the tube of paintings. Then his face lit up. "Found it!"

Duan Rong unrolled the painting. It was a rather ornate work titled Ladies' Night Banquet Painting.

There were seven or eight ladies in the painting, some reclining, some sitting, some petting cats, some waving fans. They were all lovely in form and spirit, each with a different expression.

In truth, judged purely by artistic standards, the painting was not particularly fine, much less a masterpiece.

But it suited the aesthetic tastes of the common masses very well. Hanging it in one's bedroom would still count as a touch of elegance.

Duan Rong had no time to admire it. Looking at the set of data floating before his eyes, he smiled faintly.

Item: Ladies' Night Banquet Painting
Artifact Spirit Rank: First Rank
Devouring Requirement: Host Mental Strength Level 1 (met)
Devouring Effect: Exquisite Brushwork, beginner level.

"Kid, you've got a good eye. This painting is considered a top-grade piece here. Look at those brushstrokes, those faces. Look how fair and tender that little beauty is, like a scallion with its skin peeled off." As the sleazy vendor with the drooping mustache spoke, a lecherous gleam even appeared in his eyes.

"Devour!" Duan Rong ignored the vendor completely and silently recited in his heart.

Then he rolled up the painting with both hands and placed it back into the tube, saying, "This looks like an Erotic Picture. Bad for the body!"

With that, Duan Rong turned and left.

The vendor froze for a moment, his face actually flushing red as he muttered, "Y-you... what nonsense are you talking about? I'm a married man!"

The vendor wanted to explain further, only to realize that Duan Rong had already gone far away.

Seeing Duan Rong return, he had thought he might make a sale. But Touch Once truly was Touch Once—he absolutely would not buy anything.

He only touched and never bought, taking advantage for free!

Still, the vendor found it rather strange. How had that kid picked out his beloved item just by touching it once, without even unrolling the painting? "Weird people are always damned uncanny!"