Chapter 364 - A Frightened Seller and a Frozen Crypt

Chapter 364: Chapter 364 - A Frightened Seller and a Frozen Crypt

Su Bai crossed the street toward the alley, and Ning Shuang followed beside him.

The man sat behind a worn carpet spread along the wall.

Sealed boxes occupied one corner, while several small artifacts rested beside jars of unidentified materials. A few objects had been polished carefully enough to catch the light from the street. Others appeared to have been placed there in the hope that someone would mistake their condition for proof of antiquity.

The seller noticed them approaching and straightened immediately.

"Welcome, Fellow Daoists. Please look around. There may be something here that suits you."

Su Bai crouched beside the carpet.

He examined the sealed boxes first, then let his spiritual sense pass carefully over the other wares. The seller watched his movements with growing anticipation.

A customer who took his time was usually deciding what to buy, and the young woman accompanying him had shown no sign of impatience.

Unfortunately, Su Bai found nothing resembling the cursed slip.

There were damaged objects and a few things he could not identify at a glance, but nothing carried the same promise of danger.

He finished examining the last jar and sighed quietly.

Apparently, this man did not regularly keep treasures that wanted to kill their owners.

The seller leaned forward.

"Is Fellow Daoist looking for something particular?"

"In a way."

Su Bai stood and lowered the Glacier-Lung Bone Mask. He waited until the man looked up before smiling.

"Do you remember me?"

The seller’s expression froze.

His eyes moved over Su Bai’s face, and the welcoming smile slowly disappeared.

For a moment, he seemed to be searching for a different explanation. Then his hand slipped against the carpet, and he stumbled backward into the wall.

Su Bai blinked.

The reaction was considerably stronger than he had expected.

A year had passed since their encounter.

The seller had long since stopped thinking about the young disciple who had taken the cursed jade slip. He had left it on the ground, made his position clear, and allowed the boy to decide whether to pick it up.

He had even refused payment.

Surely that should have settled the matter.

Yet the same face had appeared before him again.

The seller’s gaze dropped briefly toward Su Bai’s robes. He remembered that the boy belonged to Radiant Sky Sect. Perhaps an elder had discovered the curse in time and saved him. Perhaps the young man had spent the intervening months recovering and finally found an opportunity to settle the account.

Neither possibility improved his situation.

Beside Su Bai, Ning Shuang watched the man press himself against the wall.

"Brother Su," she murmured, "what did you do to him?"

"I have been wondering the same thing."

Su Bai looked at the seller’s frightened face and finally understood.

The man had expected the jade slip to bring him trouble. Seeing its recipient return alive had apparently convinced him that the trouble was about to change hands.

He gave a small chuckle.

"Fellow Daoist, please relax. I came to ask a few questions."

The seller held his breath.

"I am not here to seek revenge," Su Bai added.

There was a soothing resonance in his voice that eased some of the seller’s panic. Only then did the man begin to consider what he had actually said.

He looked at Su Bai’s unhurried expression, then toward the street, where people continued passing without paying them much attention.

No weapon had appeared.

The young woman was watching him with interest, but she had made no attempt to block his way.

He remembered Radiant Sky Sect’s reputation and felt a little ashamed of how quickly he had imagined himself being dragged away.

"My apologies," he said. "I was startled."

Su Bai allowed him a moment to sit properly again.

"Do you have anything similar to that cursed jade slip?"

The seller stared.

His mouth opened, then closed before he managed to answer.

"No. Nothing like that."

He shook his head emphatically.

"I have been much more careful about what I bring out for trade."

Su Bai looked over the carpet once more. The disappointment on his face was difficult to misunderstand, which made the seller increasingly uncertain about what was happening.

He had prepared an apology.

He had not prepared to explain why he lacked another curse.

Su Bai returned his attention to him.

"You mentioned that you dug it out of a frozen crypt. Where exactly was it?"

The seller hesitated.

This time, the reluctance had a different quality. He glanced toward the nearby stalls, then looked down at the wares spread before him.

Su Bai waited without repeating the question.

After a while, the man drew a slow breath.

"I should have explained more before you took it."

He lowered his voice and leaned closer.

"The crypt was in Forbidden Yin Valley."

Su Bai’s attention sharpened.

The seller noticed and hurried to continue.

"Near the outer edge. I did not enter the depths. There are old remains around that part of the valley, and I found a way into one of them."

"A frozen crypt?"

"Yes. The cold had reached everything inside. I thought the slip contained a profound inheritance. Then it killed the last four people who tried to read it. Even touching its box made my bones ache."

His eyes flicked toward Su Bai’s face.

"After that, I only wanted to dispose of it without bringing the curse upon myself."

Su Bai remembered their original encounter. He had left the box on the ground and refused payment, making it Su Bai’s choice whether to take it.

Apparently, the seller had given that part of the matter considerable thought.

He asked a few questions about the crypt’s position within the outer ruins. The man answered with growing eagerness, describing the approach as well as he remembered. Whenever his memory became uncertain, he admitted it rather than trying to provide a confident answer.

Su Bai committed the useful details to memory.

Then he glanced toward Ning Shuang.

She understood the look. Her gaze rested on the seller for a moment before she leaned slightly toward Su Bai.

"I think he’s telling the truth. He is frightened of offending you," she whispered. "He seems eager for you to accept what he says and leave him out of the matter."

That was a judgment about his intentions, and Su Bai treated it accordingly. It could not prove every detail of the account, but she had noticed no desire to lure them somewhere or turn the conversation to his advantage.

He nodded.

The seller watched the exchange with obvious anxiety.

Ning Shuang looked back at him.

"You were careful enough to keep a cursed jade slip sealed while leaving the valley?"

"Yes," he said quickly. "Of course."

"And you knew how to carry something out of a frozen crypt without examining it immediately."

The man’s expression stiffened.

Ning Shuang glanced over the old objects on his carpet.

"You seem well prepared for digging treasures out of a forbidden ground. Have you been opening other people’s graves too?"

Su Bai turned his head slightly.

The seller’s face lost color again.

"I would not dare—"

Ning Shuang’s eyes narrowed.

The man stopped.

"I mean, I would not dare do it again," he corrected hurriedly. "Fellow Daoist, some of those places have been abandoned for longer than anyone remembers. I thought there might be things left behind that could still be used."

Ning Shuang regarded him for another moment.

"You seem to have put considerable effort into remaining alive while collecting them."

The seller could find no safe answer to that.

Su Bai pressed his lips together to contain a smile.

She had heard only a brief account of the slip, yet the man’s familiarity with handling dangerous objects had been enough to attract her attention.

Ancient ruins drew treasure seekers from every faction.

Graves were another matter, especially when someone’s descendants still considered them worth defending.

A reputation for disturbing the wrong burial ground could make the seller’s life considerably more difficult.

"You should be careful whose resting place you enter," Su Bai said.

The man nodded at once.

"Yes. Certainly."

Judging by his expression, he had already decided that an empty carpet was preferable to another customer returning after a year.

Su Bai did not press him further. He had obtained the lead he wanted, and there was little reason to frighten the man into becoming less useful.

After confirming the valley’s name once more, he replaced his mask.

"Thank you. That was what I needed to know."

Su Bai smiled beneath the mask and let the conversation settle. His thoughts had already returned to the frozen crypt.

Forbidden Yin Valley was a name he had read before.

Even cultivators passing through its outer reaches spoke of the discomfort caused by the lingering Yin influence. Those who ventured farther needed preparations against a cold that could burden their circulation long before they reached anything worth taking.

For Su Bai, that reputation made the place more interesting.

The crypt gave him a direction in which to investigate the Maw. It did not prove that the technique had originated in the valley. Whoever left the jade slip there might have carried it from somewhere else.

Still, Su Bai finally had somewhere to look.

The prisoner had recognized the technique. The man who passed it to him had survived long enough to explain where it came from.

Between those encounters, a question that had remained distant for months had acquired a place and a path leading toward it.

He would have to visit the valley when the opportunity came.

A forbidden ground filled with dangerous Yin energy sounded like a pleasant place for a stroll.

He was already looking forward to it.

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