Bai Guo remained impassive. "I really can't help either. Please take this back."
He didn't even say, "Why don't you try asking around at other shops?" That told He Lingchuan all he needed to know about his stance.
"What illness?"
Old Man Wang snapped his head toward He Lingchuan. "A high fever that won't break! I got two doses of medicine from the clinic, but neither did any good!"
His eyes filled with hope. "This is an authentic relic! Please, buy it!"
He Lingchuan asked him, "What's written on this scroll of yours?"
"My ancestors said it's an advanced divine ability!" Old Man Wang gave a bitter smile. "But I can't read it, and no one in my family cultivates, so we have no choice but to sell it."
"May I have a look?"
"Can you read it?" Old Man Wang peeled back the animal-hide parchment slightly—just a tiny bit. "Then take a look."
"Bring the child here, and I'll find someone to treat him," He Lingchuan said after glancing at it a few times. "If he's cured, you give this parchment to me."
"Ah?" Old Man Wang blinked in surprise. "Bring him here?"
"That's right. I'm meeting a friend here. His medical skills are exceptional; treating a child's fever is effortless for him."
"Oh—" Old Man Wang nodded repeatedly, beaming from ear to ear. "Right away! I'll go bring my grandson over!" With that, he rolled up the parchment and headed out.
Neither of the two men behind him made a move to stop him.
Once Old Man Wang stepped out of Yunling Island, the sorrow vanished from his face. Only after walking thirty or forty yards did he turn back to see if anyone was following him.
No one.
He spat toward Yunling Island.
Then he strolled leisurely all the way down the main street, looking not at all like a man with a sick child at home.
He even bought two steamed buns and munched on them as he walked. Soon, he turned off Wanglin Avenue and ducked into another street.
The foot traffic here was far lighter than on Wanglin Avenue, and the shop signs weren't nearly as polished, but the street was long and connected to alleys in every direction. Old Man Wang tossed aside the greaseproof paper, wiped his mouth and hands, patted his cheeks to adjust his expression, and ducked into several shops one after another.
By the time he came back out, his face wore a smug look of utter satisfaction.
Now he headed straight for the city gate at a brisk pace.
Once outside, he would be safe.
Yet just as he passed a shallow alley, a hand darted out, violently yanked him inside, and pinned him against the shadows.
Old Man Wang jumped out of his skin. Turning his head, he found the young man from Yunling Island smiling at him with bright cheer.
"You?" Without thinking, he screamed, "Robbery—!"
But the moment his mouth opened, He Lingchuan jabbed lightly at his throat.
The rest of Old Man Wang's words were choked back into his gullet. Clutching his neck, he made strangling "ah" sounds for several moments, his cries no louder than a mouse's squeak.
He Lingchuan fished out five or six sheets of animal-hide parchment from inside the old man's robes. Unrolling them, every single one bore the exact same contents:
Faded writing in ancient immortal script, not even filling the thin sheet.
"What's this?"
Old Man Wang turned ashen.
Only then did He Lingchuan draw out his Gale Army command token and dangle it before the man's eyes. "The victims have already reported this to the authorities. There are prisons in both the west and south of the city. Which one do you prefer?"
The Gale Army token was unmistakable, and He Lingchuan was not afraid to let him examine it closely. Old Man Wang's eyes went wide, his heart sinking with the thought that he was finished.
How had he been exposed so quickly this time? Panlong City really was a cursed place to do business.
With the pain in his throat subsiding, he dropped to his knees with a thud.
"My lord, please spare me! I'll give you the genuine piece!"
"You actually have a genuine piece?" He Lingchuan scoffed. "Never mind. West city it is—closest place to hand you over."
"If you let me go, I'll definitely give it to you!" Old Man Wang panicked. "I really have it!"
"Fine, I won't arrest you." He Lingchuan held out his hand. "Let me see it."
Only then did Old Man Wang fish a scroll out of his boot.
The odor was foul. Pinching his nose, He Lingchuan unrolled it, took one look, and threw it right back at him in apparent fury. "How is this any different from the fakes?! Are you messing with me?"
"I wouldn't dare! This one is real!" Old Man Wang picked up the scroll and unrolled it. In truth, the old parchment was tattered and ragged, mounted onto the scroll backing.
He produced a copper coin and pointed to a beast-head drawing in the upper left corner of the parchment. "Watch closely, my lord."
The drawing of the beast's head was rendered in a vivid, realistic style. It resembled a giant toad with bulging eyes and an enormous mouth, yet it possessed fine, sharp teeth, and the spots on its head resembled plum blossoms. Its wide-open maw was pitch black inside.
Old Man Wang pressed the copper coin against the drawing's open mouth.
A wondrous sight unfolded:
The copper coin abruptly vanished.
He Lingchuan raised an eyebrow. Waiting a few breaths, he asked, "And? What changed?"
"The parchment grew larger! Didn't you notice?"
At his prompt, He Lingchuan noticed that the edges of the parchment had indeed expanded outward slightly—just a hair, impossible to catch unless staring intently at it.
"What's your point?"
"This parchment is alive, my lord!" Old Man Wang pleaded eagerly to prove it. "Only when it consumes money or valuables does it expand to its original size and reveal the words written on it!"
"Really?" He Lingchuan reached into the old man's clothes and actually pulled out several large silver ingots, each weighing twenty to thirty taels.
Who would have thought this ragged old man was wealthier than him!
"Did you swindle these just now?"
Old Man Wang didn't know how to answer. A split second later, he watched He Lingchuan toss two large silver ingots straight into the beast's mouth.
"Aiya, don't—!"
Too late. The silver sank into the beast's maw and disappeared instantly.
Old Man Wang's vision went black, his heart twisting in agony.
Sure enough, He Lingchuan saw the parchment expand outward a bit more—by about... half an inch?
A few more words had indeed appeared on the sheet.
"What else? Keep going."
Old Man Wang said with a miserable face, "My lord, please stop throwing things in! No matter how much you feed it, it'll never be full!"
"You've tried? What's the most silver you ever threw in?"
"Over time, I've thrown in two thousand taels of silver! Once, I tossed in seven hundred taels all at once, along with two large eastern pearls!" Old Man Wang spoke with deep bitterness. "I had a modest family fortune once. If not for this bottomless pit, I never would have been reduced to this state!"
He Lingchuan inquired about the whole story.
It turned out Old Man Wang was an outsider from another region who had served as a village tutor for many years, accumulating some modest savings. One day after a heavy rain, he went up the mountain to dig for wild herbs. Before he had even filled half a basket, he stumbled upon a corpse.
The dead man had died suddenly in the wilderness for reasons unknown. Searching the body, Old Man Wang found only a few bits of broken silver and a piece of animal-hide parchment.
After giving the body a proper burial, he carried the parchment down the mountain.
Being educated, Old Man Wang recognized the writing as the ancient immortal language. Unfortunately, the parchment was ragged and incomplete, making it impossible to read the whole text. When he took it into town to sell, nobody wanted it.
Later, he found a capable expert to appraise it, who told him that it was the hide of a gold-devouring beast.
Even in ancient times, the gold-devouring beast was an extraordinarily rare exotic creature. The value of a divine ability transcribed onto its hide went without saying.
Such hide could withstand the ravages of time, retaining the ability to expand again even two or three millennia later.
However, in life, the gold-devouring beast greedily devoured all precious things. In death, its soul lingered within its hide, retaining that insatiable greed. If Old Man Wang wanted to read everything written on the parchment, he had to satisfy its appetite.
From then on, Old Man Wang embarked on the path of no return, constantly feeding the gold-devouring beast...
He couldn't explain why he had lost his mind like that, but feeding the thing was genuinely addictive. He was intoxicated by visions of what would happen once the gold-devouring beast was fully fed, believing he stood a chance of obtaining a priceless divine ability.
When that day came, the complete technique would surely fulfill his dreams, selling for an astronomical price that would keep him in comfort for the rest of his life.
Reality, of course, was brutally harsh. After swallowing gold and silver, the thing didn't stay expanded permanently; fifteen to thirty minutes later, it would shrink back down until it returned to its original, tattered state!
In other words, unless you could sate its hunger all at once, it would never reveal the full divine ability to you.
"What a scam," He Lingchuan couldn't help remarking. "Knowing full well it was a bottomless pit, why did you keep throwing money in?"
"If I didn't keep feeding it, wouldn't all the gold and silver I threw in before have gone to waste?" Old Man Wang squeezed out a couple of bitter tears. "Only later did I discover a legend saying that mortal treasures can never satisfy it!"
"Unfortunately, I learned it too late. By then, I had already lost my entire fortune!"
Just to scrape by, Old Man Wang decided to copy the contents of the parchment, disguise them as a complete divine ability, and sell them for money—using the very same pitch he had tried at Yunling Island.
Quite a few customers fell for the trick.
He only had to pull the con two or three times before quickly moving to another place to avoid prison.
After hearing the tale, He Lingchuan said, "You brought this entirely on yourself."
Old Man Wang's obsession was just another form of gambling addiction. When a person blindly indulged their desires without restraint, rarely did anything good come of it.
He bowed repeatedly to He Lingchuan. "I beg you, my lord, please let me go!"
"Don't worry, I won't arrest you." He Lingchuan gave him a broad grin, shoved the fake parchments back into his robes, and then abruptly gave him a push back into the center of the street.
He was really letting him go? Old Man Wang was overjoyed.
Just then, two shouts rang out from nearby:
"Hey, that looks like him!"
Old Man Wang startled, turned, and saw two patrol guards sprinting toward him. Guilt spurring his feet, he bolted.
"Stop right there!"
Old Man Wang ran even faster.
Though short and slight, he was swift, and he deliberately darted into the crowds. It took the two patrolmen several minutes to catch him:
"Someone reported you for fraud and selling fakes!"
Along the way, they had even picked up several fake parchments that had dropped from the old man's robes.
The old man had no defense left.
With the genuine article gone, no one would believe a word he said now.
...
Watching Old Man Wang get dragged away, He Lingchuan turned and walked back to Yunling Island.
The chubby shopkeeper asked with a smile, "That old fellow was a con artist, wasn't he?"
He Lingchuan gave a noncommittal grunt and asked him for a quiet room to spend a little time in.
It was a minor request from his landlord, so the chubby shopkeeper naturally obliged. Within a dozen breaths, He Lingchuan was led into a small appraisal chamber furnished with a table and chairs, its corners cluttered with miscellaneous goods.
He sat down, took out the original parchment, smoothed it across the table, and lit a lamp to inspect it closely.
Why go to so much trouble over an old fraud and a scrap of gold-devouring beast hide?
Because the parchment genuinely recorded a divine ability:
Avatar Shadow Art—shortened to the Avatar Art.
The visible summary on the parchment stated that mastering this technique allowed one to briefly summon an avatar that obeyed one's commands.
At a glance, it seemed very similar to the Mirror Image Art that He Lingchuan originally intended to redeem from the Pengcheng Office—a choice even General Red had recommended.
Chapter 332