It was just that he absolutely could not buy this Biluo Token under the identity of Gu Yang.
If a cripple who had just been demoted to a handyman swaggered into the market to hunt for treasures, it would not only arouse suspicion but also likely invite a fatal disaster.
An innocent man falls into danger because of the treasure he holds.
Gu Yang's gaze fell back onto that green piece of intelligence.
First, obtain the Withered Wood Breath Concealment Technique, then snatch the Biluo Token.
...
...
The next day, at the second quarter of the Wei hour.
The outer sect market of the Falling Cloud Sect.
A strange smell of cheap rouge mixed with rusty iron filled the air.
The scorching sun beat down like fire, baking the bluestone paved road until it seemed to smoke, but this did not diminish the cultivators' enthusiasm for setting up their stalls in the slightest.
Cries of peddlers and sounds of haggling rose and fell continuously, making the place as noisy as a boiling pot of swill.
In the western corner of the market, in front of an inconspicuous Grade C stall.
The originally narrow aisle was surrounded so tightly that not a drop of water could trickle through.
"Three spirit stones! Only three! What else is there in this pile of your junk besides these few pieces of waste paper?"
A fat man wearing a brocade robe with a face full of fierce-looking flesh stood with one foot stepping on the stall, roughly grabbing a yellowed painting scroll in his hand.
His other hand wasn't idle either; that plump thumb wearing a jade archer's ring rubbed against the back of the stall owner girl's hand, seemingly intentionally or unintentionally.
The skin felt smooth and delicate.
Zhou Tong narrowed his eyes, the depths of his gaze filled with a lecherous light.
The stall owner was a young girl who looked only sixteen or seventeen years old. She wore a washed-out disciple uniform and had a figure so frail that it seemed a gust of wind could blow her over.
At this moment, she clung tightly to the other end of the painting scroll. Her eye sockets were red, and tears welled up in her eyes but she dared not let them fall.
"Senior Brother Zhou... This, this is a relic left behind by my late father, it really cannot be sold..."
Ruan Xiaoruan's voice was trembling.
Her father was seriously ill and urgently needed spirit stones to buy life-sustaining pills, which was why she had no choice but to come out and sell her savings.
But she never expected that as soon as she set up her stall, she would be targeted by Zhou Tong, a local tyrant in this area.
"A relic?"
Zhou Tong sneered, squeezing out a sickening wrinkle on his greasy face.
"Since it is a relic, then it is even more valuable. I, your senior brother, am the most kind-hearted person and cannot bear to see my junior sister suffer."
He suddenly leaned closer, and that nauseating stench of alcohol sprayed directly onto Ruan Xiaoruan's face.
"Three spirit stones, and I'll buy your entire stall. By the way... your senior brother also has a few bottles of holy healing medicine at his place. Why don't you come with me to my cave dwelling to fetch them? We can... deeply exchange our knowledge of pharmacology?"
The surrounding disciple onlookers pointed and whispered, but no one dared to step forward.
Who didn't know that Zhou Tong's uncle was a deacon of the Law Enforcement Hall?
If anyone offended him, they could forget about surviving in the outer sect in the future.
Ruan Xiaoruan looked despairingly at the cold and indifferent crowd around her, the joints of her fingers turning white from the force of her grip.
Just at the moment when Zhou Tong's fat hand was about to touch her cheek.
"Hold on!"
A sharp shout, like a sudden clap of thunder on flat ground, fiercely exploded within the crowd.
Zhou Tong was startled and shivered. Just as he was about to lose his temper, he saw a slender and powerful hand suddenly reach out from the side and snatch the scroll of the Old Pine and Withered Stone Painting from his grasp.
"Which blind fool..."
Zhou Tong was just about to start cursing, but when he saw clearly who had come, he was instantly amused out of anger.
"Oh, who did I think it was? So it's Junior Brother Gu. What, not behaving yourself after being demoted to a handyman, and wanting to play the hero saving the beauty like others?"
Gu Yang had actually arrived a long time ago.
He had originally planned to intercept Ruan Xiaoruan early and quickly finish the transaction.
But he didn't expect Zhou Tong and his lackeys to arrive so quickly; it seemed they had their eyes on her from the very beginning.
Having no other choice, he had to change his approach.
Gu Yang ignored him.
At this moment, Gu Yang's brows were tightly furrowed, and his face was deathly pale. His eyes were fixed on the painting scroll in his hand as if he had seen some terrifying monster.
His hands were trembling slightly, and a look of extreme shock appeared on his face.
"Senior Brother Zhou! You are so foolish!"
Gu Yang suddenly raised his head, looking deeply pained and distressed. He lowered his voice, but just enough so that the circle of people around him, especially Zhou Tong, could hear him loud and clear.
"This thing... you actually dare to accept it?!"
Zhou Tong was taken aback by his mysterious and dramatic manner. "It's just a torn painting, what's there to be afraid of accepting?"
"A torn painting?"
Gu Yang took a deep breath, looked around warily to his left and right, and only then mysteriously unrolled a corner of the scroll.
He pointed to a smear of dark red ink in the corner of the scroll, shaped like a withered plum blossom.
"Senior Brother, look. The brushwork of this red outline looks like a plum blossom at first glance, but if you look at it upside down..."
Gu Yang's fingertip traced a bizarre symbol in the air.
"This is clearly the secret contact signal of the demonic sect, the 'Blood Demon Cult', which was eradicated a hundred years ago—the Weeping Blood Setting Sun Seal!"
The Blood Demon Cult?!
In an orthodox sect, privately hoarding demonic items was a grave crime!
Zhou Tong's face instantly turned green.
Although he was a good-for-nothing, he was most sensitive to this kind of thing. His uncle in the Law Enforcement Hall would constantly drum into his ears the most—don't get involved with demonic cultivators, and don't touch taboos!
"You... you stop talking nonsense!"
Zhou Tong's voice changed its pitch, and he subconsciously wiped his hand fiercely on his clothes, as if the painting scroll was poisonous.
"How could I, your junior brother, dare to joke about such a matter?"
Gu Yang had a serious expression and spoke extremely fast, not giving Zhou Tong any time to think at all.
"Sect Codex, Volume Three, Article Seven: Anyone who privately hoards the tokens of a demonic cult shall be deemed as colluding with demonic cultivators. Their cultivation will be crippled, and they will be expelled from the sect! In severe cases, they will be killed on the spot!"
As he spoke, he pointed at the other miscellaneous items in Zhou Tong's hand that he hadn't had time to put down.
"Senior Brother Zhou, didn't you just say in public that you were going to buy the whole stall? If a patrol envoy from the Law Enforcement Hall saw this and said that you were massively purchasing 'demonic cult relics'..."
Speaking of this, Gu Yang paused and glanced meaningfully towards the entrance of the market.
"I heard that the one patrolling today is precisely that impartial and incorruptible Deacon Li."
Clang!
The miscellaneous items in Zhou Tong's hand instantly fell to the ground.
Although he was arrogant, it was all relying on his uncle's power. If he was really labeled with the hat of "colluding with the demonic cult," his uncle would be the first to righteously execute his own relative and chop him down!
"I didn't! I'm not! Don't spout nonsense!"
Zhou Tong was so scared that the fat all over his body trembled wildly. He pointed at Ruan Xiaoruan: "It's her! This demonic witch is selling demonic cult items to harm me!"
Ruan Xiaoruan was already scared silly, her whole body slumping limply to the ground, her face as pale as paper: "I... I didn't know... This was left by my dad..."
"Those who do not know are innocent."
Gu Yang sighed, took a step forward, and stood in front of Ruan Xiaoruan, putting on a righteous and awe-inspiring appearance.
"If this thing spreads out, I'm afraid neither Senior Brother Zhou nor this Junior Sister will be able to keep their lives."
He tightly gripped the painting, a trace of "resolve" flashing in his eyes.
"Never mind! Blame it on me, Gu, being too soft-hearted."
"This 'demonic cult evidence' will be secretly destroyed by me."
Saying this, he turned his head to look at Zhou Tong with a sincere gaze.
"Senior Brother Zhou, only heaven and earth, you and I know about this matter. Today's incident never happened, how about it?"
Hearing that someone was willing to take this hot potato, Zhou Tong was so moved he almost cried.
"Junior Brother Gu! Good brother!"
He grabbed Gu Yang's hand, so excited that he spoke incoherently: "Your older brother wrongly blamed you before! You have saved your older brother's life! In the future, in the market, if anyone dares to bully you, just report my name!"
With that said, he scrambled away with his lackeys as if fleeing a plague, stumbling and crawling without even daring to look back.
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
