Latest updates, fastest!
Drip, drip.
Click-clack.
Ding.
Dongdong.
Click, click.
The Hook Brothers' shop echoed with the interwoven, distinct ticking of countless clocks. Every wall was hung with all kinds of timepieces, most of them meant for telling time: old-fashioned mantel clocks, new pendulum clocks, clunky desk clocks, delicate Pocket Watches, and more, in every imaginable style. A smaller portion consisted of antiques and artworks, such as an hourglass once used by a Persian prince, a sundial once handled by a Shang Dynasty shaman, a cracked gnomon, and a rusted armillary sphere. There were also some more unusual pieces, such as an Exorcism Clock covered in Runes, an Astronomical Clock whose face was formed of constellations, and a Flower Clock that told time according to the blooming hours of different plants, and so on.
Zheng Qing stood amid instruments for measuring time, inwardly agitated by how little time he had.
On the counter, two wooden boxes had already been carefully opened by Big Hook, revealing the Moonlight Treasure Boxes resting on velvet inside. He had every reason to be careful. The quoted price for this deal alone was as high as sixty jade coins, meaning the two boxes contained the equivalent of nearly half a month's turnover for the shop.
The customer took an exquisite monocle from his robes and tucked it beneath his hood.
The customer was, naturally, Zheng Qing.
The monocle tucked beneath his hood was a little gadget often used in alchemy classes to inspect whether an Alchemical Object met standards. Zheng Qing had used one that very morning.
Set upon a reddish-brown wooden base was a spherical crystal cover. Within its transparent shell stood delicate pavilions and towers, lotus ponds, and gardens. The gardens contained lawns, flowerbeds, fruit trees, and shrubs; paths paved with bluestone; and