Panjiayuan.
With the craze for antiques,
and all those miraculous stories of bargain finds, it drew crowds of fortune seekers dreaming of getting rich overnight.
So Panjiayuan was packed with people every day.
They had all come hunting for treasure.
In reality, most of those bargain-find stories were fake.
Did they really think bargains were that easy to find?
People with ulterior motives deliberately made them up to lure in ignorant suckers.
Those street vendors were all shrewd operators. Would they really let anyone score an easy bargain?
Gu Cheng looked perfectly relaxed.
He strolled down the street with a leisurely swagger.
The vendors on both sides greeted him as he passed.
"Hey, Young Master Gu! Out for a stroll?"
"Young Master Gu, have you eaten?"
"Young Master Gu, you look even more handsome today than yesterday."
"Young Master Gu, I just picked up a treasure. Would you take a look for me?"
Gu Cheng exchanged pleasantries with the vendors while scanning the goods on their stalls.
By the time he had scanned half the street,
he still hadn't found a single treasure.
Never mind treasures-
even genuine antiques were pitifully scarce.
"Looks like Xie Yuchen was right. Supernatural artifacts are incredibly rare. You can only stumble across them, not seek them out."
Gu Cheng shook his head and sighed.
Just as he was about to head home in disappointment,
a fat man in a denim jacket sidled up to him and said with an air of mystery, "Boss, I have a piece of jade here. Could you take a look at it for me?"
Gu Cheng frowned at him. He looked a little familiar, as though Gu Cheng had seen him somewhere before.
"I'm not a shop owner. You've got the wrong person."
Panjiayuan attracted people from every walk of life.
The fat man before him had a fierce-looking face and didn't seem like a decent sort.
Gu Cheng didn't particularly want to deal with him.
"Hey, don't be like that. I saw it just now. All those people were calling you Young Master Gu."
"You must be an expert."
"Sorry for the trouble, but please take a look for me. Thanks in advance."
Without waiting for Gu Cheng to agree, he pulled a piece of blood-stained jade out from beneath his collar.
Gu Cheng had intended to refuse.
But the moment the fat man produced the jade, he froze.
He took the jade.
What he hadn't realized was that it was hanging around the fat man's neck. When he tugged on it, he pulled the fat man toward him too.
"Hey, take the jade off."
Gu Cheng spoke with a look of distaste.
"Sure thing."
The fat man hurriedly removed the jade from his neck.
Gu Cheng focused his attention.
A dozen or so seconds later,
[Item name]: Jade Key [Item grade]: None [Item ability]: None [Item description]: An ancient piece of jade with 2,208 years of history. It is also the key to the Jade Eye mechanism in Jingjue Ancient City.
Gu Cheng froze outright.
He read the [Item description] several times over.
Finally,
he looked up and studied the fat man in stunned disbelief.
After a moment,
Gu Cheng asked, "What's your name?"
The fat man chuckled. "My name is Wang Kaixuan."
Gu Cheng slapped his forehead, utterly speechless.
This was a mess. A complete mess.
Everything was fucking mixed up!
What the fuck was going on?!
First he'd met Xie Yuchen from "The Grave Robbers' Chronicles," and now he'd run into Fatty Wang from "Ghost Blows Out the Lamp"!
What kind of fucking world was this?
"Boss Gu, what's wrong?"
Wang Kaixuan looked at Gu Cheng in puzzlement.
Gu Cheng lowered his hand and stared at him speechlessly. Then he suddenly remembered Fatty Wang's sworn brother, who had stood by him through life and death.
So he asked curiously, "Are you here alone?"
Fatty Wang immediately took a step back and eyed him warily.
"What are you trying to do?!"
"I'm telling you, I served in the army! Taking on three or five guys would be no problem!"
Gu Cheng covered his face again.
This idiot!
What was he thinking?
"Who the fuck wants to rob you? Go ask around and find out who I am!"
"Forget it. I can't be bothered to explain. I'll buy this jade of yours."
"One price. A hundred thousand."
Although Fatty Wang's jade was ancient, its quality was genuinely ordinary.
Setting aside the fact that it was the key to Queen Jingjue's Jade Eye,
the jade itself was worth seventy or eighty thousand at most.
Gu Cheng's offer of a hundred thousand was already above market value.
When Wang Kaixuan heard the figure, his eyes nearly popped out of his head!
"A hundred thousand?!"
"Seriously?! You're not messing with me, are you?!"
Gu Cheng was speechless.
"Come with me!"
With that, he headed toward his own Treasure-Hiding Studio.
Fatty Wang hesitated.
But at the thought of a hundred thousand yuan, he gritted his teeth and followed.
When they reached the entrance,
Gu Cheng told Fatty Wang, "This is my shop. Come in if you're not afraid of dying."
At the sight of the elegant, old-fashioned Treasure-Hiding Studio, Fatty Wang immediately followed him with a broad, ingratiating grin.
"Young Master Gu! Young Master Gu!"
"I'm really sorry. I'm an idiot. I never should have doubted you."
"You're a generous man. Please don't hold it against me."
"I was just afraid of getting scammed. Lots of people have had their eyes on this jade. Just yesterday, some shifty-looking guy with a gold tooth offered me three thousand for it. Good thing I didn't agree."
Gu Cheng paused, then continued into the shop.
They reached the reception room.
Gu Cheng invited Fatty Wang to sit down and have some tea.
Then he asked, "Would you like cash or a bank transfer?"
Fatty Wang quickly replied, "Ten thousand in cash, ninety thousand by transfer. Here's my card."
As he spoke, he took out his bank card.
Gu Cheng called over an assistant. "Take this card to Ninth Uncle. Get ten thousand in cash and transfer ninety thousand to this card."
Seeing how readily Gu Cheng handled things, Wang Kaixuan finally relaxed.
He took off the jade pendant and handed it straight to Gu Cheng.
Gu Cheng accepted the pendant and idly turned it over in his hand, asking with feigned casualness, "Are you from Yanbei, Brother Wang?"