Chapter 113: A Chance Encounter with Qin Zhaoxue
Chapter 113: Chapter 113: A Chance Encounter with Qin Zhaoxue
「Late at night.」
Chu Zhengxiong drove Lin Yi back himself.
Before Lin Yi got out of the car, Chu Zhengxiong said with a stern expression, "When you get home, don’t say anything to that cousin of yours!"
"Say what?"
"About what happened tonight. Especially, don’t tell her you saw me!"
Chu Zhengxiong looked every bit the tough, unyielding man.
He was the captain of the New District Demon Hunting Bureau’s Fifth Squad.
A 6-star Martial Artist whose martial techniques were incredibly fierce.
And yet, a man like him was actually this afraid of Tang Qinru.
Lin Yi couldn’t help but laugh. "Brother Chu, why are you so scared of Sister Qingru? Don’t tell me you..."
"Don’t talk nonsense! You’re not afraid of her because you don’t know her!"
"You see that ’wouldn’t hurt a fly’ look she has? She’s ruthless.
Back when she was in the New District, she was a terror. Everyone who saw her would steer clear!"
After Chu Zhengxiong finished speaking,
Lin Yi gave him a skeptical look. "Is it really that exaggerated? I think Sister Qingru is a pretty nice person..."
"Nice my ass! That’s just what you think. Let me put it this way: she’s in her late twenties, and she’s not bad-looking, right? So why do you think she doesn’t even have a boyfriend? Why isn’t anyone willing to pursue her? You think about it!"
To prove his point, Chu Zhengxiong even brought up the fact that Tang Qinru didn’t have a boyfriend.
Lin Yi smiled and nodded. "Maybe she’s just busy and doesn’t have time to find a boyfriend?"
"Bullshit! No time? You think that’s a matter of not having time?"
"It’s because she doesn’t have a boyfriend that she keeps herself so busy—to cover up the fact she doesn’t have one... Kid, just listen to me, you can’t go wrong. Just be careful!"
Chu Zhengxiong had a look of pure terror on his face.
It was as if Tang Qinru had left a permanent shadow on his psyche.
As Lin Yi got out and walked into his residential complex, he could still hear Chu Zhengxiong’s warnings from behind him.
After a long moment, Chu Zhengxiong finally stomped on the gas and drove away.
The moment he was gone, Lin Yi turned back.
He then took a White Impermanence mask from his Storage Magical Artifact and put it on.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to wear his clown mask.
It was just that the clown mask had shattered back in the warehouse.
Left with no choice, Lin Yi had to switch to a different mask.
Then, he transformed into a black shadow, darting through the darkness.
Headed straight for the Ancient Tower Black Market...
Ever since the last time the demons had poured out in full force,
They hadn’t appeared in Xinghai City again.
Quite a few people had already sensed that something was off about this strange situation.
The demons hadn’t vanished because they were afraid.
On the contrary, the demons and Blood Drop were definitely setting up a grand game of chess—a game that could destroy the entire Old District.
And Xinghai City, along with the other twenty-four cities of the Old District, were all on the board.
The Martial Artists and ordinary people of the Old District were the pieces in this grand game.
Although they didn’t know when or how this game would be played,
As the chess pieces, they all had a faint premonition.
This would be a game of life and death.
A life-or-death battle for the people of the Old District against the demons and Blood Drop.
If they won, they would continue to survive.
If they lost, the Old District would descend into a living Hell.
The demons would treat the survivors as prey, slaughtering them for sport.
The Old District would become their personal hunting ground.
By the time Lin Yi walked into the Ancient Tower Black Market,
He discovered that the crowd was several times larger than during his first visit.
Both the first and second floors were packed to the brim, with barely any room to stand.
And the merchants were all busy haggling...
Lin Yi didn’t linger on the first floor and went straight up to the second.
He planned to see if the prices for materials had gone back up in the last few days.
In his Storage Magical Artifact, he had over a hundred demon carcasses.
Half of them were 1-star or higher. In his spare time, Lin Yi had estimated that
If he were to sell all of these demon materials,
He would earn several hundred thousand, at least.
Adding the one million he was awarded by the Demon Hunting Bureau today,
He’d have nearly two million in savings.
He once risked his life hunting demons just for a thirty-thousand registration fee.
And now, he had become a millionaire in a single leap...
But just as he arrived on the second floor,
Someone suddenly tapped him lightly on the shoulder from behind.
Lin Yi’s heart jumped. He quickly sidestepped to create some distance.
Only then did he turn to look back.
"Sister Xue? What are you doing here?" Lin Yi said, getting a clear look at the person behind him.
It was Qin Zhaoxue, dressed in leather and wearing a pitch-black, patternless mask...
Her eyes glittered as she said softly, "Didn’t your sister tell you to stay home? Why did you sneak out? Aren’t you afraid of Sister Qingru finding out?"
"No, I just wanted to come take a walk..." Lin Yi quickly explained.
"Come on, I’ll take you to a place that buys demon materials!"
Before Lin Yi could finish his explanation, Qin Zhaoxue had already guessed his intentions.
She then started walking deeper into the second floor.
Lin Yi gave an awkward smile and followed her inside.
Before long, Qin Zhaoxue stopped in front of a shop called "Qi Yuan Studio."
She glanced back at Lin Yi. "Come on in!"
Lin Yi nodded and followed Qin Zhaoxue inside.
The shop was quite large; the main hall alone was over a hundred square meters.
In the Ancient Tower Black Market, that was considered a relatively large store.
The few shops Lin Yi had visited before, including Sister Hua’s, were only about fifty or sixty square meters.
Like the other shops, this one also had many masked people inside.
However, most of them were here to buy various pills and medicinal concoctions.
"Hey, what can I get for you two? Come and take a look?"
Just then, a shop assistant hurried over.
Qin Zhaoxue glanced at him. "We’re here to sell. Is your boss in?"
Hearing this, the assistant paused for a moment.
He sized up Qin Zhaoxue and Lin Yi.
Then he said with a smile, "What are you looking to sell? What’s the quality? You can just talk to me!"
Qin Zhaoxue frowned slightly and glanced at Lin Yi.
Lin Yi understood her meaning and directly took out three 1-star Demon Cores from his Storage Magical Artifact.
"Can you make the call?"
"Whoa, 1-star Demon Cores? Brother, how many of these do you have?"
Although the shop assistant was wearing a mask, the look in his eyes changed.
Lin Yi smiled and took out a few more 1-star Demon Cores.
"I have dozens more of this quality. Oh, right... do you buy 2-star ones?"
He then produced a 2-star Demon Core.
The difference between a 1-star and a 2-star was that the latter contained a denser source of Qi.
He had heard from senior students before about the quality of Demon Cores.
It was mainly determined by how dense and pure the source Qi inside was.
Generally, Demon Cores below 1-star had a much thinner concentration of source Qi.
Their value wasn’t very high either. A 1-star Demon Core was clearly much denser and richer than an unstarred one.
When it came to a 2-star, it was as if a liquid was slowly flowing inside.
And its price was in a completely different league from a 1-star’s.
When the shop assistant saw the 2-star Demon Core, his expression changed dramatically.
His attitude also became much more polite than before. "You two, please follow me!"
The assistant carefully returned the Demon Cores to Lin Yi.
He glanced around, making sure no one with ill intentions had noticed them.
After whispering, he led Lin Yi and Qin Zhaoxue deeper inside.
They went all the way to the back of the hall, where there was a hidden door behind a screen.
The assistant pushed open the hidden door, entering a space that resembled a living room.
There were two sets of sofas and a coffee table.
A woman wearing a qipao and a cat-face mask came over to greet them.
"Please entertain our guests. I’m going to get the owner!"
"Yes..."
The woman nodded lightly, inviting Qin Zhaoxue and Lin Yi to sit on the sofa.
Then, she served them tea, fruit, and snacks.
’But we’re wearing masks. How are we supposed to eat any of this?’
Just as Lin Yi was complaining about this in his head,
Qin Zhaoxue went ahead and took her mask right off.
"Sister Xue? You..." Lin Yi said, looking at the stunningly beautiful face before him.
He wanted to warn her out of concern.
This was the black market, after all. People’s intentions were hard to read.
If someone targeted them and saw her real face,
It would inevitably lead to endless trouble in the future.
Qin Zhaoxue didn’t seem to care. She smiled knowingly and said, "How can I eat with my mask on? Aren’t you thirsty?"