Treasure Forest

After a brief meeting, Yue Wen took on the commission. The man's name was Guo Yang. He worked as a skilled technician at a factory on the city outskirts. His wife had died young, leaving father and son to rely on each other, and their days had never been more than scraping by. Then misfortune had come in pairs: not long after he lost an arm in an accident, his son disappeared as well. That was why he looked so haggard. The time he had agreed on with his crooked boss was seven that evening, and Yue Wen had promised to go early and lend him some weight. If the boss had not kidnapped the boy, he would help Guo Yang stand up to the underworld threats and get the compensation paid out properly. If the boss had kidnapped the boy, then no matter what, the child had to be brought out. Once the evening's time was settled, Yue Wen left Zhao Xing'er to mind the agency and rode off on his little electric scooter. There were only three immortal goods shops in all of Seventh City, and Yue Wen had picked the biggest and best regarded of them, a place called Treasure Forest. The scooter carried him toward the city center, past a ridiculous number of traffic lights, which made him think that living out in the suburbs was not so bad after all. Among the row of high-rises along the river stood a three-story building with a pointed roof, imposing even from a distance. The moment he stepped into the grounds outside the building, he felt the ripples of a formation washing over him. Outsiders could see the landscaping of the grounds but not the customers moving through them, and the grounds had more than ten exits, keeping comings and goings as private as possible. Yue Wen had chosen this place not only for its size but because Treasure Forest was a big chain, the best in the business at protecting its customers' privacy. He had nothing to hide himself, but the thing he had come to appraise had been taken by killing someone, and he did not want to draw attention and invite retaliation. The identity of the man in black he had killed last night was still being confirmed, but if Qi Dian was right and the man really had been a heretical cultivator of Flame Ghost Hall, then he had better be careful. Flame Ghost Hall was one of the more active heretical sects in Tianbei Prefecture, practicing corpse control, puppet refining, yin souls, and other sinister sorcery. The Supernatural Management Bureau had been cracking down on them relentlessly, but their methods could give a cultivator top-tier combat power for their level in the early stages — and even though it came at the cost of their future prospects, plenty of people with mediocre talent and a hunger for quick results were still eager to join. In the ground-floor lobby, once the front desk learned that Yue Wen wanted an appraisal, they immediately gave him a mask and a number tag and told him to queue outside the assigned room. Yue Wen went up to the second floor. After waiting about half an hour, the screen by the door finally showed his number. "Hello." Wearing the silver mask, he stepped into the room. The room was simply furnished: a single desk draped in red silk, and behind it a young man with small eyes and glasses. "Welcome, customer. I'm Appraiser No. 116, Ting Bo." Seeing Yue Wen come in, the man introduced himself. "I'd like you to take a look at something, Master Appraiser." Yue Wen wasted no words and produced the half black-gold skull. Every second in this room was billed, and billed at no small price. "Oh?" Ting Bo pulled on white gloves, took the half skull, and studied it in silence for a while. Then he said slowly, "This is... half a black skull." "I know what a skull is, Master Appraiser," Yue Wen said, momentarily speechless. "And I know it's half of one." I could even tell you your father's surname and yours. Good grief. I'm the one paying here — at least tell me something I don't know. "Haha, my apologies. I'll get straight to the point." Ting Bo pushed the skull back across the desk to Yue Wen. "From what I can see, there are no refinement formation patterns on this skull, so it isn't a magic implement. But the material is genuine Blackwater Dragon-Pattern Gold, which is quite valuable. It looks like some kind of token." "I see." Hearing that, Yue Wen guessed it might be an internal token of Flame Ghost Hall, in which case it was of little use to him. So he asked, "Do you buy this kind of thing back?" "Sorry." Ting Bo raised a hand. "Judging by its design, this object may be connected to a heretical sect. We don't buy back treasures of unclear provenance." Immortal goods shops were cautious about anything connected to heretical cultivators, and Yue Wen understood the refusal. He lowered his voice again. "If I sold it outside, how much would it be worth?" "If I had to put a value on it, setting aside the uncertain value of it as a token, this half skull is essentially a large piece of fairly pure Blackwater Dragon-Pattern Gold. For an outside buyback price, I'd recommend around a hundred thousand, or a thousand talisman currency," Ting Bo said precisely. Talisman currency was a kind of coin circulated among the immortal sects. For many sect cultivators, ordinary money had lost much of its appeal, while anything that could raise one's cultivation level could be bid up to astronomical prices, throwing the market into chaos. So several major immortal sects had banded together and asked the Supernatural Management Bureau to take the lead in issuing a coin that could not be counterfeited — "talisman currency" — made specifically for cultivators trading immortal goods. Talisman currency could be exchanged at the top sects for hard goods like talismans and elixirs, which anchored its value. But it was a fairly high-end currency, generally used only in transactions involving valuable immortal goods. Yue Wen had never handled any. Hearing this, Yue Wen had a rough idea now. He asked, "Does Treasure Forest sell Purple Jade Branch?" Preparing the Chaos Dragon Gang required four materials, and of course Yue Wen could not ask about all of them at once — wouldn't that be handing over the recipe? So this time he inquired only about the first, Purple Jade Branch. The others he planned to obtain through different channels. "Sorry, Purple Jade Branch is the highest grade of elixir-fire consumable; our Seventh City branch doesn't stock it. I can ask the main city branch for you," Ting Bo answered at once. "If they have it, I'll have it transferred over." "Thank you, I'd appreciate that." Yue Wen nodded. Ting Bo glanced at him and added, "That kind of consumable is normally only used when refining gang qi with a great fire. Honestly, unless it is paired with the finest cultivation method in the world, there's no need for material of that caliber. Our shop carries the finest grade of Welcoming Immortal Willow and Azure Sky Wood, which should meet your needs. You might consider them." "I'll think about it. But if you have any Purple Jade Branch in stock, let me know first." Yue Wen rose. He had no doubt the material was necessary. Perhaps the appraiser simply assumed that nobody in an entire satellite city could be cultivating the finest cultivation method. But Yue Wen had the True Dragon Dao Method. Back at the agency, it was only a little past four in the afternoon. Yue Wen left Zhao Xing'er to mind the shop and went up to his room to study the curse-breaking method. He was beginning to regret having hired an assistant so late. It was nearly six when the two of them set out together for the place he had agreed on with Guo Yang, to meet his boss. "Want to ride my scooter?" Yue Wen asked before they left. "If you'd rather not, you can take a taxi." "I'll take the back seat," Zhao Xing'er said with a gentle smile. "I hardly ever take taxis." In the deepening dusk, a handsome young man rode a little white scooter, a beautiful girl with long hair streaming in the wind riding sidesaddle behind him. Threading along the elevated highway, the two of them became a striking sight on the city streets. A middle-aged man in a luxury car drove past, and the sight made him grit his teeth and slam a fist on the steering wheel. Yet his voice stayed honey-sweet as he talked on the phone. "Darling, I know today is your son's sixtieth birthday. I'm on my way over right now, I won't be late, love you." "Oh, there's no problem on my wife's side. After all, that's her own father, isn't it." ... Meanwhile, in a factory on the city outskirts. The pot-bellied boss opened the door to admit two burly men in black suits and sunglasses with coarse, fleshy faces, and greeted them with a smile. "Brothers, I'll be troubling you again today." "Boss Chen is an old friend of the Tiger Head Gang. When he has a problem, we're supposed to step in and settle it," one of them said coldly, flashing a row of gold teeth as he spoke. "We're handling a cripple who's after compensation, right?" The other cracked his neck. "We do this kind of job all the time." "That's right." Boss Chen smiled. "But hurry up and finish with that cripple — there's something else I need you two for afterward... Someone smashed up the car my son just bought today!"