Douluo Continent: Simulating Douluo Dalu III, Exclusively Screwing Over Tang San, Chapter 19

Gong Yu raised his head and looked around.

When the girls heard that Xiao Wu was a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, every one of them grew excited.

"Hey, hey, hey," Gong Yu said, "why are you all staring at her like that? Don't scare her away. I've already reserved her as my Sixth Soul Ring."

But Na'er said, "Brother Yu, that rabbit's Soul Ring actually isn't a good match for you."

In fact, none of the Soul Rings Gong Yu had absorbed so far seemed to be a good match for him.

His First Soul Ring was lightning-attributed, his Second Soul Ring was ice-attributed, and his Third Soul Ring was fire-attributed. Yet in another sense, they were all a match, because the Soul Beasts they came from were flood dragons, snakes, spiders, and the like, so he didn't mind adding a rabbit to the mix.

Gong Yu nodded thoughtfully. "That's true. Apart from Yue'er's cabbage Martial Soul, none of us seems suited to it. But with Yue'er's physical strength, she probably couldn't absorb a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring until she gets her eighth ring at the earliest, unless that rabbit is willing to sacrifice herself."

"Young master, are you planning to get me a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring?" Gong Yue was a little surprised to be mentioned.

Gong Yu said, "Your constitution is too weak. You can't absorb a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring anytime soon, and the future is unpredictable. No one can say whether someone else will hunt that rabbit down."

"That really is a pity," Gong Yue said with a sigh.

"It is a bit of a pity, but it's no big deal. It's just a rabbit," Gong Yu said calmly. It was only a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring, after all; there would be plenty of places to get one in the future.

While they were talking, the battle between Gong Lan and Dai Mubai had already ended. Dai Mubai was now wrapped up in Gong Lan's Blue Silver King like a rice dumpling.

After Dai Mubai's entire body turned purple with bruising, Gong Lan simply threw him aside.

The purple bruising all over Dai Mubai's body wasn't from Gong Lan beating him; it was because he had been poisoned. Gong Lan's first Soul Skill, Entanglement, carried the Mamba Silver-Banded Snake's venom. Unlike Tang San's paralyzing poison, that venom could actually kill.

Gong Lan hadn't intended to kill Dai Mubai, though, so before the venom reached his heart, she used Blue Silver Grass to draw it out of him. Otherwise, he would already have been a corpse.

Dai Mubai lay off to one side, where he had been tossed like a dead body, while Gong Lan walked over to Gong Yu. She smiled and said, "Young master, I'm done fighting."

Before Gong Yu could speak, Gong Xue piped up. "Sister, you always say I hit too hard, but it looks like you weren't exactly gentle this time either!"

Gong Lan's face flushed red. She gave an awkward laugh and said, "That guy was a little troublesome, and I didn't want to reveal too much of my strength, so I couldn't quite hold back this time and hit a little too hard. But he really was weak. He couldn't even withstand my first Soul Skill, and I didn't even use my second."

A hint of smug pride appeared on Gong Lan's face. She often took part in matches at the Soul Arena, and she mostly fought opponents above her level, challenging Soul Ancestors. Soul Elders no longer interested her.

Gong Xue pressed her advantage. "Hmph, so there are times when even you can't hold back, Sister. Don't fight me for prey anymore, then. At most, I beat people half to death, and a healing Soul Master can patch them up. But if someone is poisoned by you, even after the poison is removed, there's no way they can recover in less than a month or so."

"All right, all right. I won't fight you for prey anymore." Gong Lan was too embarrassed to argue with Gong Xue.

Gong Yu glanced at Dai Mubai lying on the ground and told the hotel to send word to Shitrek Academy to come and collect him. Then he took the girls out for a stroll.

After strolling for a while through streets filled with a dazzling array of goods, they came to a shop. Its storefront wasn't large, but it bore an unusual sign.

A circular emblem was carved into the sign, bearing several special symbols identical to those on Spirit Hall's token: a sword, a hammer, and a Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon.

Anyone who didn't know better would think Spirit Hall owned the shop, but Gong Yu knew otherwise. It was just a crooked merchant's shop, hanging up a sheep's head while selling dog meat, flaunting Spirit Hall's name to deceive people.

"Young master, are we going in?" Gong Lan asked.

Gong Yu nodded and stepped into the shop first, with everyone following him inside.

The shop was rather dim. The moment they entered, a peculiar fluctuation of energy caught their attention. It came from the Soul Tools.

Soul Tools all contained fluctuations of Soul Power. If no one had used one and bound it to their own Soul Power, its Soul Power would leak out.

"Everyone, have a look around. As long as it's something strange or unusual, we'll buy it," Gong Yu told them. They scattered through the shop and began looking through its wares.

Gong Yu walked over to a wall, where his gaze fell on a crystal the size of a human head. He didn't know whether it was Plate Crystal, but it was the only yellowish crystal in the shop, so he guessed it must be.

Although it was of no use to him, he had to take it. It could be turned into Dragon Whisker Needles, after all.

He just didn't know whether Tang San would still be able to beat Zhao Wuji without the Plate Crystal and the Dragon Whisker Needles.

Seeing them walking back and forth, picking things up and putting them down, the Four-Eyed Cat Owl, who had been lying there, grew a little annoyed and suddenly said, "If you're not buying, don't touch things."

Gong Yu looked at the others and saw that they hadn't found many strange or unusual things either, so he signaled to them to take what they had selected to the counter.

Gong Yu also took the yellowish crystal over to pay for it.

"Five thousand Gold Soul Coins altogether. The price is nonnegotiable." The Four-Eyed Cat Owl picked up his glasses and took a look, then spoke in a lazy voice.

"Let's go. It's just a pile of junk. It's not worth that much." Hearing the price of five thousand Gold Soul Coins, Gong Yu couldn't even be bothered to pay the Four-Eyed Cat Owl any attention and prepared to leave with the girls.

This made the Four-Eyed Cat Owl anxious instead. He hadn't had customers for days, and now that a group had finally come, it would be a terrible loss if he scared them away with that price.

He immediately scrambled out of his recliner and put on the face of a crooked merchant, saying with a smile, "Oh, don't be in such a hurry to leave! If you think the price is too high, you can always bargain!"

Gong Xue retorted out of the blue, "Didn't you say the price was nonnegotiable? How are we supposed to bargain?"

"Well..." The Four-Eyed Cat Owl was instantly embarrassed, but a moment later he smiled and said, "A misunderstanding, it's all a misunderstanding. You can bargain, of course you can. Who doesn't allow bargaining when people buy things, right?"

Only then did Gong Yu speak. "We can bargain, right? Fine, we'll offer a hundred Gold Soul Coins for all of it."

Chapter 44: Tang San's Wild Overthinking

"A hundred Gold Soul Coins?" The Four-Eyed Cat Owl stressed the words, then immediately shook his head. "No, no, I absolutely can't sell it for a hundred Gold Soul Coins. You... that's not how you bargain! You've cut straight to the bottom. I won't even make back my costs."

"Oh... Then how much do you want?" Gong Yu asked.

The Four-Eyed Cat Owl raised his right hand, curled in his thumb, and held out four fingers. "Four thousand. Just four thousand Gold Soul Coins, and you can take everything."

Gong Yu immediately waved to the girls beside him. "Let's go. This owner isn't sincere, so there's no need for us to waste any more time."

"Hey... wait, wait, wait! Let's talk some more, talk some more," the Four-Eyed Cat Owl hurriedly called out to stop them. "How about this? What do you think of three thousand?"

Gong Yu sighed. "I don't want to waste time haggling with you either. Let's get down to business: a hundred and fifty Gold Soul Coins. If you're willing to sell, I'll buy. These things of yours aren't worth anything. I just thought they looked strange and wanted to buy them to study."

"But a hundred and fifty is far too little. You have to understand, I went to a lot of trouble to get these things. I even risked life and death for some of them. Please raise your offer a little." To get a higher price, the Four-Eyed Cat Owl was pulling out all the stops and making up anything he could.

"One hundred and fifty. Take it or leave it. If you won't sell, I'm leaving." Gong Yu refused to yield an inch. In any case, there was no way he would pay extra to support Shitrek. Flender's main purpose in opening a shop to sell junk was to help cover Shitrek Academy's expenses.

Shitrek Academy had only a handful of students and no source of income. It was kept running almost entirely by Flender swindling and cheating people.

"Fine, a hundred and fifty it is." Flender gritted his teeth and agreed. He hadn't expected to run into a group who knew their stuff today, but he really couldn't sell many of these things. If he still refused to sell, they could only stay here gathering dust.

"Lan'er, pay him," Gong Yu told Gong Lan, then put the things away in his Soul Tool Ring.

The group of ten then walked out of the Four-Eyed Cat Owl's black shop.

Once outside, Gong Xue asked in bewilderment, "Big Brother, what do you want those things for? You're a Level 3 Soul Engineer yourself. If you want something, couldn't you just make it? What use is buying a pile of junk?"

"Number Eight, you just don't like using your brain." Gong Miaomiao immediately retorted, "The young master bought those strange things not because he cared about the Soul Tools themselves, of course, but because he was interested in the formation patterns and inscriptions in them."

Gong Xue had no answer to that. She immediately turned her face away to show she didn't want to talk to Gong Miaomiao.

After strolling around a little longer, they all returned to the Rose Hotel.

Downstairs, they ran into Tang San and Xiao Wu, who were preparing to go out. Gong Yu even deliberately took out the piece of Plate Crystal to show off, and Tang San's eyes secretly lit up at the sight.

Without Dai Mubai fighting Tang San and Xiao Wu for a room, the pair had ended up staying at the Rose Hotel after all.

Seeing the Plate Crystal in Gong Yu's hand, Tang San was now a hundred percent certain of his own conjecture. He was sure that Gong Yu's group belonged to the "Tang Sect," because only Tang Sect members knew the true uses of Plate Crystal and Hair Crystal.

Back at the door to his room, Gong Yu called everyone inside, placed the Plate Crystal on the table, and took a forging hammer out of his Soul Tool Ring.

"What are you going to do, young master?" Gong Xiao asked from the side. Because she was quite strong, she usually learned how to make Soul Tools and the like from Gong Yu. She was now a Level 2 Soul Engineer herself, though only barely qualified.

So when she saw Gong Yu take out the forging hammer, her interest was piqued.

"Of course I'm going to show you something good!" Gong Yu revealed an unfathomable smile.

Hearing that they were going to see something good, the girls all looked at him expectantly.

"What do you think I bought this crystal for?" Gong Yu asked with another faint smile.

"Big Brother bought it because he has a use for it, of course." Gong Xue stated the obvious, and everyone rolled their eyes at her. She might as well have said nothing.

"Now is the time to witness a miracle." With that, Gong Yu raised the forging hammer, channeled Soul Power into it, and brought it down fiercely on the Plate Crystal.

With a thunderous bang, the entire Rose Hotel shook. A crisp cracking sound rang out beneath the hammer, and under Gong Yu's full-force blow, the Plate Crystal was smashed to powder.

But just as the Plate Crystal turned to powder, a strange sight appeared.

Countless specks of golden light burst out of the Plate Crystal and scattered through the bedroom, as if the entire room had been veiled in a golden glow.

Everyone jumped in fright and hurriedly circulated their Soul Power to block the golden specks, but the specks didn't shoot out with much force and caused them no harm.

The brilliant golden lights filling the room were dazzling, and clear, pleasant tinkling sounds rang out as they fell everywhere. The entire bedroom was covered in a layer of golden light.

The crystal turned to powder on the floor, while the golden lights gradually fell, leaving a layer of golden specks-or rather, golden grains-on the floor and bed.

Every golden grain was remarkably uniform in size, about the size of a grain of rice. They were round all over and shimmered with a faint golden light. They were slightly soft and highly elastic; even using Soul Power, one couldn't squash them flat.

"Young master, what exactly are these?" Even Gong Qianqian, who usually disliked tinkering with such things, suddenly asked in curiosity.

Gong Yu explained patiently, "There's a kind of crystal in this world called Hair Crystal. In ordinary people's eyes, Hair Crystal isn't worth a cent, but to someone with certain special skills-like Tang San, whom we met at the hotel entrance just now-if he got his hands on this crystal, I reckon he'd be too excited to sleep for days."

"So what exactly is Hair Crystal?" Gong Qianqian asked again.

Gong Yu said, "Hair Crystal forms when certain natural crystals are affected by external influences under particular circumstances, causing golden, threadlike strands to appear inside them. Those golden threads are called Crystal Hair, also known as Hair Gold, just like the crystal's hair.

"No matter what color the crystal is, as long as a single strand of Crystal Hair appears inside it, its value exceeds that of the finest natural crystal-provided you find someone who knows its worth. A crystal containing Crystal Hair is called Hair Crystal."

"So this lousy crystal is Hair Crystal?" Gong Xue said, looking bored. "What use is it? Can you hammer out these little golden beads and use them as gold?"

Gong Yu smiled. "This isn't just any Hair Crystal. It's Plate Crystal, the finest kind of Hair Crystal."

"Hair Crystal and Plate Crystal... I don't get it." Gong Xue, who disliked using her brain, was immediately confused. It was clearly one thing, yet it had two names, and the key point was that the two names differed by only one character.

Smack... Gong Lan slapped Gong Xue on the backside. "You don't need to understand. Just listen carefully and don't make trouble."

Gong Xue puffed out her cheeks in anger, making everyone laugh again.

Chapter 45: Dragon Whisker Needles

After the laughter died down, Gong Yu continued his explanation. "The Hair Gold in Hair Crystal is generally sparse and scattered at random, but in some exceptionally old Hair Crystals, the amount of Hair Gold has a chance to increase.

"When the amount of Hair Gold reaches a certain level and gathers inside the crystal to form something like a golden plate, that Hair Crystal is called Plate Crystal. Because it contains a great deal of Hair Gold arranged in a highly regular pattern, Plate Crystal is considered the finest Hair Crystal."

Gong Lan asked, "Young master, what exactly is this Plate Crystal used for?"

"Let's gather up these golden grains first," Gong Yu said, then began picking them up. Seeing this, everyone joined in.

Before long, a hotel attendant came to ask about the sudden shaking earlier, but Gong Yu made up an excuse and sent the attendant away.

After the attendant left, Gong Yu said to everyone again, "Now I'll show you exactly what these grains are."

With that, Gong Yu opened his hand and placed a golden grain in his palm. Soul Power surged inside him, and a golden light appeared on the surface of his palm. Then a strange sight appeared.

As Soul Power flowed into the golden grain, it slowly stretched out. In moments, it had become a golden thread as fine as a hair, several times thinner than an actual hair, looking like a slender golden needle.

Gong Lan marveled from the side, "It's as fine as a strand of hair. No wonder it's called Hair Crystal."

Gong Yu then withdrew his Soul Power, letting the Hair Gold return to its former shape as a golden grain. He turned his hand over, and the grain vanished into thin air.

"Where did it go?" Gong Xue asked curiously. Her spiritual power wasn't the strongest of those present, but at such close range, she was sure that if the thing in Gong Yu's hand had been moved away, it couldn't have escaped her perception.

"Between his fingers." Na'er had excellent eyesight and immediately spotted a faint golden light between Gong Yu's pressed-together index and middle fingers. Though the light was too faint for the naked eye to catch easily, it couldn't escape her dragon eyes.

Gong Yu smiled and parted his index and middle fingers slightly. Only then did everyone notice a slender golden needle held between them.

"This is called a Dragon Whisker Needle. Watch closely." Gong Yu pressed his middle and index fingers together again, held the golden needle between them, and threw it straight at the bed.

A faint golden light flashed silently and disappeared into the quilt on the bed. Strangely, as the golden thread entered, the quilt quickly twisted, and in the blink of an eye a raised bulge appeared.

Gong Yu looked at Na'er and asked, "Na'er, you have good eyes. Did you notice any change in the golden needle?"

Na'er said, "After the golden needle entered the bed, it curled up again and turned back into a grain."

"That's right." Gong Yu nodded. "Hair Gold is extremely tough and remarkably elastic. Once it loses the support of Soul Power, it curls back up on its own. Now do you understand what it's used for?"

Everyone nodded, except Gong Xue, who scratched her head and said in confusion, "Understand what?"

"Number Eight, you're so stupid."

Gong Miaomiao never missed a chance to take a jab at Gong Xue. "If this thing hit you, what do you think would happen?"

She paused to let Gong Xue picture it, then continued, "After a needle enters your body, it curls up again and twists your sinews and muscles into a ball of thread. If you wanted to remove it, you'd have to cut out the entire twisted mass of flesh."

At that, the girls all pictured the scene, and every one of them couldn't help drawing a sharp breath.

Gong Lan frowned, unable to bear the thought. "Young master, if this thing enters someone's body, is there a way to remove it without cutting away their flesh?"

The thought of cutting a lump of flesh from a living person made Gong Lan shiver.

"There is," Gong Yu said calmly. The girls all breathed a sigh of relief, but before their happiness had faded, Gong Yu changed tack. "Unfortunately, I don't know how either."

The girls immediately felt like deflated balls, their happiness having been for nothing.

Gong Yu added, "Since I don't know that special removal method, I won't give these to you. If you use them carelessly and hurt one of our own, it'll be trouble. Especially Xiao Xue-I trust her the least with them."

Gong Yu really didn't know how to remove a Dragon Whisker Needle. Although he had obtained some of the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record's unique skills through Simulation several years ago, they hadn't included the Hundred Solutions of Hidden Weapon. So at present, Tang San was the only person in this world who knew how to remove a Dragon Whisker Needle.