Chapter 4

The Black Market of Yanshan

The town of Yanshan did not sleep; it merely rotted under the cover of darkness.

Situated in a narrow gorge between two jagged mountain peaks, Yanshan was a lawless sanctuary where rogue cultivators, disgraced sect members, and contraband smugglers traded in stolen artifacts, forbidden elixirs, and human lives. The air smelled of cheap rice wine, stale sweat, and the sharp, copper tang of raw Qi crystals being forged in underground blacksmith shops.

Ming Xian pulled his dark leather hood lower over his brow as he navigated the crowded, mud-slick alleyway. Beneath his cloak, his fingers remained inches from the hilt of his notch-bladed knife. Every shadow in Yanshan held a potential blade, and every eyeslit in the crowd was calculating the price of his head.

Floating silently beside him, invisible to the mortal eye through a delicate veil of concealment spirit-craft, was Baihua. Her voice, however, echoed directly inside his mind—cool, sharp, and thoroughly unimpressed.

'This place smells like rat poison and desperate mortals,' Baihua noted, her mental voice laced with disgust. 'If a single drop of this filth touches my spiritual essence, I am freezing the entire mountain.'

'Keep your essence contained,' Ming Xian replied silently, his eyes darting across the row of rickety wooden storefronts. 'If an Elder or a senior Enforcer is scanning this market with spiritual sense, a sudden drop in temperature will draw every cultivator in Yanshan directly to us.'

'Let them come,' she scoffed. 'It has been three decades since I last snapped a mortal spine. I am due for some entertainment.'

Ming Xian ignored her bloodlust and stopped in front of a dilapidated, two-story building tucked into the shadow of a sheer stone cliff. A rusted iron sign swung overhead, bearing the faded carving of a three-eyed toad: The Golden Toad Exchange.

This was the secondary outpost mentioned in Deacon Zhao's communication talisman—a notorious front for fencing high-value cultivation assets without asking questions about where the blood came from.

Ming Xian pushed open the heavy oak door.

Inside, the air was thick with purple incense smoke that burned the back of his throat. A dozen men and women—armed to the teeth and wearing mismatched robes—sat at low wooden tables, drinking grain liquor and playing dice with carved bone markers. The moment the door creaked open, the quiet hum of gambling died instantly. A dozen pairs of cold, dangerous eyes locked onto Ming Xian.

Ming Xian didn't pause. He walked with a steady, unhurried stride toward the heavy stone counter at the far end of the room.

Behind the counter sat a squat, balding man with oily skin and a thin mustache that drooped past his chin. His fingers were covered in heavy gold rings, each inlaid with low-grade spirit stones. He was polishing a bronze scale with a dirty rag, but his eyes narrowed sharply as Ming Xian approached.

"We're closed for walk-ins, stranger," the shopkeeper rasped, his voice sounding like dry gravel. "Unless you have a token or a heavy purse, turn around and walk back into the mud."

Ming Xian didn't speak. He reached into his cloak, pulled out the heavy jade token he had taken from Deacon Zhao's corpse, and slammed it onto the counter.

The heavy jade struck the wood with a sharp THUD.

The shopkeeper's eyes widened. The arrogant sneer vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, nervous twitch in his cheek. He leaned forward, examining the deep, serrated groove etched into the back of the jade—the mark of the Righteous Sword Sect's inner circle.

"Deacon Zhao's token..." the shopkeeper whispered, swallowing hard. He looked up at Ming Xian, scanning his rugged face, his wet, unkempt hair, and the dark stains on his cloak. "You're not Zhao. Where is he?"

"Zhao met a sudden change in plans," Ming Xian said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "He sent me to collect the payload."

The room grew dead silent. Behind Ming Xian, three men at the nearest gambling table slowly slid their hands toward the hilts of their sabers. The leather straps of their scabbards creaked in the quiet room.

The shopkeeper's gaze flicked toward the men behind Ming Xian, a subtle signal passing between them. "Is that so? Zhao knows the rules of the Exchange. Tokens don't mean anything without the secret password. Who are you really, kid?"

'The fat one is channeling Qi into a bell under the counter,' Baihua's voice chimed in Ming Xian's head, sounding casually amused. 'And the three behind you are preparing to lung.'

'I see them,' Ming Xian thought.

Without turning around, Ming Xian shifted his weight backward.

SCHWING!

The man directly behind Ming Xian drew his saber, lunging forward with a brutal horizontal slash aimed at Ming Xian's neck.

Ming Xian didn't even draw his blade. He leaned back at a precise forty-five-degree angle, letting the heavy steel blade pass a hair's breadth above his nose. As the attacker's momentum carried him forward, Ming Xian grabbed the man's wrist, twisted it violently until the bone snapped with a sickening CRACK, and slammed the man's face directly into the stone edge of the counter.

Blood sprayed across the polished wood.

Before the other two mercenaries could react, a sudden, unnatural gust of freezing wind swept through the tavern.

FWUMP!

The candles scattered across the tables flickered and died out, plunging the room into darkness. The temperature dropped by thirty degrees in a single second. Thin layers of blue frost instantly crawled up the walls, freezing the alcohol in the mercenaries' cups solid.

"What the—?!" one of the mercenaries yelled, his breath turning into thick white mist. "My legs! I can't move my legs!"

Floorboards cracked open as thick, needle-sharp roots of ice burst upward, pinning the remaining mercenaries against the wall, their weapons freezing solid in their hands.

The shopkeeper shrieked, dropping his polishing rag as his hands froze to the top of the stone counter. He panicked, trying desperately to smash a bronze alarm bell hidden under the desk, but a sharp, notched hunting knife was suddenly pressed firm against his throat.

Ming Xian stood over the counter, his eyes completely dark in the moonlight filtering through the frost-covered windows.

"I'm going to ask you once," Ming Xian said softly, his blade pressing just enough to draw a thin bead of crimson from the shopkeeper's neck. "Where is the vault?"

"In... in the cellar!" the shopkeeper stammered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably from the supernatural cold. "Behind the wine casks! The iron door with the three keyholes!"

"Who else is down there?"

"Just... just Master Chen!" the man sobbed, tears freezing on his cheeks. "He's the array master sent by the Sect! He's processing the shipment from the northern province right now! I swear, I'm just a middleman! Don't kill me!"

Ming Xian glanced toward the back corner of the room, where a heavy wooden trapdoor led down into the earth. Pale green light flickered through the cracks in the wood, accompanied by the faint, rhythmic sound of a beating heart—slow, heavy, and unnatural.

THUMP... THUMP... THUMP...

Baihua's physical form materialized beside Ming Xian, her white robes glowing softly in the dark. Her pale green eyes were fixed on the trapdoor, her face cold and stone-like.

"That sound..." Baihua whispered, her voice dangerously calm. "They have gathered at least twenty spirit hearts down there. They are weaving them into a core."

Ming Xian pulled his knife away from the shopkeeper's throat and struck the man hard behind the ear with the heavy pommel, knocking him unconscious. He turned toward the trapdoor, drawing his stolen sword with his right hand while keeping his hunting knife in his left.

"Master Chen is a Grand Scholar of Array Formation," Ming Xian said, checking the edge of his steel blade. "He doesn't fight with swords. He fights with defensive barriers, elemental traps, and puppet arrays."

"Let him bring his puppets," Baihua said, stepping toward the trapdoor, her fingers curling as frost gathered around her knuckles like jagged claws. "I have twenty spirit hearts to avenge."

Ming Xian kicked the trapdoor open. A wave of heat, smelling heavily of copper, sulfur, and ancient blood, blasted upward into the frosty room.

Without a second thought, Ming Xian dropped down into the dark stairwell, with the ancient spirit drifting right behind him into the depths of Yanshan.