Chapter 16: The City Market Hides Dragons and Snakes

The qingmu spirit pearl pulsed with fish-scale patterns in Lu Qingyang’s palm. He squatted before a black market stall made of red flood Dragon bones, his fingertips fiddling with three withered Dragon Blood Fruits.

Across from him, the stall owner, wearing a bronze ghost mask, was haggling with a Xuanyin Sect Disciple.

The jade-inlaid sword sheath occasionally knocked against his lower back—a trophy he’d taken from a Taiyi Pavilion scout last night.

“Fellow Daoist, these Dragon Blood Fruits…” He deliberately drew out the last syllable, as rotten bone flower powder, secretly released from his sleeve, sprinkled onto the wrinkled fruit skins. “I’m afraid they were picked from the west bank of the Nether Abyss, weren’t they? The earthy smell there can penetrate three inches deep into the fruit’s core.”

Upon hearing this, the Xuanyin Sect Disciple retracted his hand, which had been reaching for Spirit Stones.

The ghost-masked stall owner abruptly stood up, his nine-section whip lashing out with a whooshing sound: “Where did this rogue cultivator come from to ruin my business!”

The gale whipped up by the whip’s tip overturned the neighboring stall, sending dozens of low-grade foundation establishment pills rolling into the gutter.

Lu Qingyang leaned back with the momentum, and the Treasure Seeking Rat in his arms seized the opportunity to snatch two pills.

“Tiger Lord, calm your Qi.” He chuckled, tossing over a wine gourd. The gourd’s opening, secretly containing pulse-eroding powder mixed with inferior wine, splashed all over the other man’s face. “Try the snakeberry brew, a specialty of the Eastern Wilderness. It clears heat and brightens the eyes.”

While the stall owner clawed at his festering face, Lu Qingyang slipped into a dark alley.

Inside the Treasure Seeking Rat’s bulging cheek pouches, two foundation establishment pills were seeping strange green patterns—these were pill patterns he had faked using the sap of poisonous Dragon grass, matured by sacrificing three days of his lifespan.

When he had experimented in the qingmu spirit pearl space last night, the burnt smell of ten withered poisonous Dragon grasses still lingered in his nostrils.

The notice board at the corner was covered with wanted posters, and the top portrait’s features were seven-tenths similar to his own.

The bounty had risen from three hundred Spirit Stones to eight hundred, and the Taiyi Pavilion emblem at the bottom glowed with a bloody light.

Lu Qingyang tore down the poster and wrapped his newly bought roasted chicken in it. The ink mixed with the aroma of meat stirred the gluttonous worms in his belly.

Ever since he accidentally consumed the Millennium Drunken Dragon Grass half a month ago, his appetite had become terrifyingly large.

“Daoist Lu, wait.” Su Li’s alluring voice, sweet to the bone, drifted from a cosmetic shop.

She leaned against the doorframe, her skirt slit revealing a jade leg wrapped with an immortal binding rope.

“I have a business proposition…” The bronze fragment she held between her fingertips resonated with the one in the qingmu spirit pearl space, making his Dantian tingle.

Lu Qingyang gnawed on a chicken leg and mumbled, “Su Gu Niang’s business has always been life-threatening. The account from the last Burial Dragon Abyss hasn’t been settled yet…”

Before he finished speaking, three sword lights shattered the blue bricks where he had just stood.

Ye Wuchen’s white jade sword sheath reflected his oily face, and three Taiyi Pavilion enforcement Disciples formed a formation to block his retreat.

“Hand over the qingmu spirit pearl!” The moment the sword formation was activated, twelve Exploding Flame Talismans, all defective ones he’d bought from the market, flew out of Lu Qingyang’s sleeve.

The talismans spontaneously combusted into ash in mid-air, instead choking the enforcement Disciples, making their eyes water and noses run.

He took the opportunity to crash through the back window of the cosmetic shop, casually grabbing a box of rouge from the counter.

Su Li’s charming laughter chased the wind into his ears: “The Burial Dragon Abyss map is hidden at the bottom of the rouge box. If you want the second half…” Her voice suddenly turned shrill, “Be careful of the little beast in your arms!”

The Treasure Seeking Rat suddenly bristled, the bronze fragment in its mouth glowing with a bloody light.

Lu Qingyang slammed on the brakes, nearly crashing into a sugar painting stall.

The Dragon pattern outlined in sugar syrup actually overlapped with the hourglass illusion in the qingmu spirit pearl space.

The old man at the stall, whose eyes were cloudy, flashed a golden light. His withered finger traced the sugar painting: “Young man, would you like to buy a sugar painting to ward off disaster?”

“Ten coins for three?” Lu Qingyang fumbled for copper coins, but the sugar painting stuck to an old injury on his palm, where the qingmu spirit pearl was located.

The old man licked his toothless gums and chuckled softly: “Qingmu encountering Dragon, great misfortune and great fortune.”

The sugar painting Dragon suddenly came alive and wrapped around his wrist, the golden light bursting from its Dragon eyes causing a sharp pain in his Sea of Consciousness.

When the immortal binding rope of the enforcement Disciples came, Lu Qingyang was staring blankly at the sugar painting.

The subtle runes at the Dragon’s tail were identical to the rust on the qingmu spirit pearl.

Enlightened, he bit his tongue, spitting essence blood onto the sugar painting.

The sugar syrup transformed into three blood Dragons that lunged at his pursuers, but the old man had already vanished, leaving only melted malt sugar on the ground, smelling of rust.

By the time he escaped to the mass grave on the outskirts of the city, the Burial Dragon Abyss map at the bottom of the rouge box began to bleed.

Lu Qingyang used poisonous Dragon grass sap to make a copy, discovering that the missing part perfectly matched the turtle shell left by the Old Drunkard.

The Treasure Seeking Rat suddenly scurried onto a tombstone, its paws repeatedly gesturing at the inscription “Tomb of Beloved Wife Su Wan’er”—the handwriting was identical to the inscription on Su Li’s bronze box.

“No wonder that woman always runs to the coffin shop…” He stuffed a handful of refreshing grass into his mouth, the bitter sap mixing with the bloody scent of the Burial Dragon Abyss map churning in his throat.

The hourglass in the qingmu spirit pearl space suddenly inverted; three hours in the outside world were equivalent to thirty days inside the pearl.

As he hastened the growth of the sixth batch of poisonous Dragon grass in the medicinal field, he discovered dark golden mycelium growing at the base of the withered grass roots.

As the sound of the night watchman’s gong drifted in, Lu Qingyang squatted on the rafters, tallying his gains: eight hundred Spirit Stones in wanted bounty, half a volume of the Burial Dragon Abyss map, and three boxes of rouge mixed with Gu worms.

A faint gnawing sound came from below the window; the Treasure Seeking Rat was tearing at Su Li’s communication paper crane—this was already the seventh one this month.

The paper scraps, forming “Xu Shi San Ke, Drunken Immortal Pavilion,” glowed with phosphorescence.

He flicked his finger, igniting it to ash, but saw the true secret message emerge from the ashes: “When Dragon blood refines the pearl, Taiyi severs the soul.”

The roof tiles suddenly clinked, and three dark figures hung upside down from the eaves.

Lu Qingyang swallowed the last piece of mung bean cake, and a poisoned ox-hair needle slid from his sleeve.

When the enforcement Disciples’ spirit-peering mirror shone on him, he deliberately revealed the rouge box in his arms; Su Li’s lip print on the lid was alluringly vibrant in the moonlight.

“You dare to touch Senior Brother Ye’s mistress?” The leading enforcement Disciple sneered, yet his sword hesitated for half an inch.

Lu Qingyang took the opportunity to flick out mung bean cake crumbs, mixed with itching powder, onto the three men’s necks.

While they scratched, he flipped off the rafters, but the gliding talisman hidden in his boot spontaneously combusted in mid-air.

“Next time, I’ll have to ask Crippled Chen for a refund…” He cursed, tumbling into the latrine, where a pitchfork brought up a bronze box.

The patterns on the box perfectly fit the qingmu spirit pearl, and the burst of green light upon opening startled the night owls into flight.

When the enforcement Disciples broke in, they only saw the rouge box floating in the cesspit, and a line of weeping blood script at the bottom of the box: “When Qingmu appears in the world, Taiyi perishes.”