Chương 64: The Market of No Return (3/3)

She stood up, the faint rustle of silk against wood punctuating the motion as she rose from her chair. Her slender fingers trailed momentarily along the edge of the mahogany desk—skirting carefully around the hissing pool of corrosive blood—before she turned and walked with measured steps around its length. Her posture straightened as she moved, the controlled grace of a merchant who had navigated a thousand dangerous negotiations settling over her like a second skin.

She came to stand near the ironwood window frame, her silhouette framed by the amber lamplight that flickered weakly against the rain-slick panes. Beyond the paper lattice, the flooded, miserable depths of the Outer Wards sprawled in sodden darkness—a landscape of half-collapsed rooftops, murky water pooling in the gutters, and the distant glow of sputtering oil lamps struggling against the downpour.

"The forge you require cannot be found in the Jade Terraces or the Ash Ring," Su Yin explained, her voice dropping to a near-whisper, as if she feared the heavens—or the earth beneath them—were listening. The cassia incense smoke curled between them, drifting lazily upward before dissipating into the shadows clinging to the ceiling beams. Her breath misted faintly in the cold air radiating from the black-jade token still resting on the desk.

"To forge a weapon from demonic bone of that caliber, you must go to another place. Specifically... the Midnight Ghost Market."

So, a black market, Shi Yan translated internally, his expression unchanging beneath the woven veil. Perhaps it's as scary as it sounds, crueler than the slums, and more inhumane.

But to me? Which is crueler: a market or a trench war? It's just another underground bazaar for stolen goods, fenced assets, and desperate men.

He sat perfectly still, his rain-soaked cloak no longer dripping but clinging heavily to his shoulders and back. The dense musculature beneath the sodden fabric remained coiled, ready, though his breathing was slow and even. He let the silence stretch, the only sound in the room the faint patter of rain against the paper windows and the low, venomous hiss of demonic blood eating into the wood grain.

He gave no reaction aside from a slow blink beneath the shadow of his bamboo hat, pale eyes tracking Su Yin's silhouette without urgency. He expected her to outline bribe costs, password phrases, or cartel territories.

"More than a black market," Su Yin corrected sharply, her voice suddenly edged with something harder—almost brittle. She turned her head, obsidian eyes catching the amber light as they fixed on him with an intensity that hadn't been there before. For the first time since they had met, a hint of genuine, superstitious dread bled into her normally pristine tone, seeping through the cracks in her merchant's mask like water through stone.

"Daoist Shi, you must abandon standard logic. It is not merely hidden beneath the streets. It is a spatial anomaly. A splintered fragment of the ancient Netherworld—the true, mythological Yellow Spring—that has overlapped with the living realm."

Shi Yan's gaze sharpened, the faint shift in his posture barely perceptible—a slight tilt of his head, the barest tension in his shoulders. It was that obvious? he thought, noting how quickly she read his passive demeanor. But her words triggered an immediate response in his analytical mind, gears turning behind the veil with cold precision.

Hmm... Spatial anomaly. Overlapping realms. A localized breach in planar geometry?

Rather than showing any amazement, Shi Yan merely leaned slightly forward, his elbows coming to rest upon his knees. The motion was deliberate, controlled, the bamboo hat's woven brim dipping lower as his weight shifted. The carpet beneath his boots absorbed the slight creak of his movement.

"Speak more clearly," he said, his voice calm and without the slightest ripple, as flat and unbothered as still water.

"This 'overlap' you speak of—what exactly is it?"

His pale gaze remained steady, unblinking, fixed on her with the clinical focus of a man dissecting a tactical briefing rather than confronting myth.

"Is it some kind of illusion formation? A hidden place concealed beneath the mountain? Or do you mean that there is truly a tear in the world itself, one that can be entered directly?"

Su Yin blinked, her shoulders stiffening as if struck by an unexpected gust of wind. Her lips parted slightly, breath catching in her throat as she processed the sheer audacity of his tone. Startled by how boldly he asked, as if he were asking whether this was just some market he would visit—a place to purchase grain or oil, not a cursed fragment of the afterlife.

In her view, most cultivators would be trembling or reciting Daoist sutras at the mention of the Yellow Spring, hands clasped in prayer, voices chanting protective mantras to ward off spiritual corruption.

But... this man was asking... like a clerk confirming inventory.

Right, why did I judge him by normal standards again? She sighed, the exhalation slow and weary as she lifted one hand to massage her temple, slender fingers pressing against the delicate skin there. Yet despite herself, a faint smile ghosted across her lips—wry, resigned, edged with something uncomfortably close to admiration. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"It does not exist in our spatial realm under normal conditions," Su Yin continued, turning fully back to face him. Her silhouette shifted against the rain-darkened window, the amber lamplight casting sharp angles across her porcelain features. The frost spreading outward from the black-jade token glittered faintly on the mahogany surface, tiny crystalline veins creeping across the polished wood.

"The market rests in the rotting fold between the living dirt and the ruined cycle of reincarnation.

"The intersection only aligns when the ambient Yin energy reaches its absolute peak. Specifically, on the night of the New Moon, exactly at the Hour of the Tiger—three in the morning."

Such complicated geographical conditional triggers... Shi Yan's mind catalogued the variables automatically, filing them into mental grids like coordinates on a map. Time-locked. Environmentally dependent. Likely unstable entry window. Extract time unknown. No margin for delay.

Meanwhile, Su Yin's dark eyes drifted downward, staring at the black-jade token resting dangerously close to the hissing pool of blood still seeping from the severed Demonic Arm. The sulfurous stench rolled across the desk in waves, mingling with the cassia incense until the air itself felt thick, cloying, almost tactile against the skin.

"The New Moon is exactly three days from now. With that token acting as your toll, the entrance will present itself to you deep within the flooded Sump of the Outer Wards. But heed my warning carefully, Daoist Shi. The rules of the living do not apply there."

Su Yin stepped closer, her footsteps soft but deliberate against the wooden floor. The hem of her robe whispered across the planks as she moved, her expression fracturing into something far more raw—grave, intense, stripped of the merchant's polish. Her obsidian eyes locked onto his pale gaze with an almost desperate urgency, as if willing him to understand the gravity of what she was about to say.

"There are laws tied to the ancient, broken cycle of Samsara. First, you must cover your face. Wear a wooden mask. The lingering breath of the living is a rare, intoxicating delicacy to starving ghosts. If the masked entities patrolling the stalls smell your Yang breath, they will swarm you like locusts."

It would be a pity if this man—the one she hoped could handle the situation—were to fall in such a place. She looked at Shi Yan with a complicated gaze, her brows drawing together, lips pressing into a thin line. Her hands folded before her waist, fingers interlacing tightly as if physically restraining herself from reaching out.

Camouflage and scent discipline, Shi Yan categorized instantly, his mind already mapping countermeasures. Environmental blending. Olfactory signature suppression. Standard recon protocol in hostile territory.

Despite his calm expression, his heart gave a slow, measured thud—not from fear, but from something far more dangerous: anticipation. He didn't even notice that his fingers, resting on his knees, twitched a fraction of a millimeter—not in terror, but in excitement. The motion was so minute it was nearly invisible, a tell only the most observant would catch.

Let's say... my [Phantom-Ash Veil] can dial my pulse, heat signature, and respiration down to near-zero.

But relying solely on active camo is a rookie mistake. So adding a physical barrier—a wooden mask—creates a secondary layer of operational security. Hmmm. He nodded at the thought, the bamboo hat shifting slightly with the motion.

"Second," Su Yin said, her voice dropping even lower, nearly swallowed by the rain's steady rhythm against the paper windows. Her breath came shallower now, each word weighted with ancestral dread passed down through generations of ghost-fearing mortals.

"Do not speak your true name, and do not answer to it if called.

"In the old folklore, if the Black and White Guards of Impermanence call a mortal's name from the fog and they answer, the karma is bound, and the soul is instantly cleaved from the flesh.

"The merchants there operate on those ancient, cracked laws. Barter with numbers, point with your hands, but remain nameless."

"Understood," Shi Yan interrupted softly, his tone completely dry, as flat and unbothered as gravel underfoot. But he unknowingly raised Su Yin's eyebrows, the twin arcs lifting in sharp disbelief.

She now stared at him, momentarily speechless, her mouth opening and then closing without sound. Her lips twitched, a muscle jumping near her jaw as she struggled to process how utterly unfazed he was. But regardless... she swallowed hard, the motion visible as her throat worked, and pressed on.

"Third," she pushed on, her voice tightening with renewed urgency, "do not barter with your lifespan unless you intend to die. The Paper-Doll merchants will offer you miracles—pills, maps, ancient relics—for 'three years of autumns.' They mean your life. If you accept, your hair will turn white, and you will wither where you stand."

"And how do they extract it?" Shi Yan asked, his eyes narrowing behind the veil, pale gaze sharpening into something clinical, surgical.

"Through physical blood drawn on a contract? A verbal agreement? Or just a nod?"

"A verbal agreement binds the karma," Su Yin answered grimly, her fingers tightening against each other until the knuckles whitened.

Interesting. A verbal transaction of biological time? Shi Yan's mind turned the concept over like a puzzle piece, examining its edges, testing its fit.

He briefly wondered if he even possessed a "lifespan" in the traditional Daoist sense anymore, or if his existence was tied entirely to maintaining his Dao Embers. His metabolism, his healing factor, even his aging process—all of it was fundamentally divorced from the natural laws governing this world's cultivators.

Ehh? Shi Yan's mind suddenly caught on a glaring systemic loophole, his thoughts screeching to a halt like brakes on ice.

The market tracked karma, lifespan, and Yang breath.

But he was fundamentally Daoless. He had no dantian to generate a true Yang aura.

He was a Foreign Soul Merged—meaning his real name belonged to a dead world, and this vessel's karmic name belonged to a dead teenager.

He was categorized as NULL. He wasn't even indexed in this world's cycle of Samsara.

Does the Yellow Spring even register me as a living entity?

If a masked ghost asked for his True Name, would the karmic law simply bounce off his [Anomaly: 10] firewall like a rejected data ping?

But just as the thought crystallized, Shi Yan violently shut it down, his jaw tightening beneath the veil. His fingers curled slightly against his knees, blunt nails pressing into the sodden fabric of his trousers.

It was a brilliant hypothesis.

He was roughly sixty percent sure he was functionally invisible to the market's supernatural physics.

But to a seasoned soldier, a sixty percent probability wasn't a tactical advantage—it was a lethal gamble.

In a war zone, assuming you were bulletproof because the enemy was using an older caliber of rifle was exactly how you got yourself killed.

And the most infuriating part? He couldn't run a field test.

His lips twitched faintly in annoyance beneath the shadow of his bamboo hat, a muscle jumping along his jaw.

A pity. Testing the theory required intentionally breaking one of the market's absolute laws. If his hypothesis was wrong, the penalty was instant, irreversible death. No respawn. No reload. Permadeath.

"And finally," Su Yin swallowed hard, the sound audible in the tense quiet of the room. Her composure slipped further, hands unfolding to press flat against her abdomen as if physically steadying herself. Her breathing quickened, shallow and tight, and for the first time her dark eyes flickered with something raw and unguarded—true, visceral fear.

"Do not stare into the floating green lanterns. They are fueled by corpse-oil and the regrets of the dead.

"If you lose focus and stare too deeply, your consciousness will drown in them, and your physical body will become an empty husk, left to wander the market as a servant forever."