bookbashuk Chapter 118 A Storm Begins from the End of a Floating Stream
Chapter 118 A Storm Begins from the End of a Floating Stream
The two walked through most of the market.
The aroma of meat grew stronger and stronger.
A large group of strangely shaped "diners" surrounded a stall with a sign that read "Meng Po's Soup Shop" (but the sign was crossed out and replaced with "Li's Steamed Buns").
A huge iron pot, as tall as two people, was placed on the stove.
The pot was filled with milky white broth, and fist-sized buns floated in the soup, bobbing up and down with the boiling water, like cooked human heads.
The stall owner was a shirtless, burly man wielding a boning knife, cutting into something that looked like the thigh meat of some kind of creature.
"Mr. Li!"
The burly man spotted Li He approaching at a glance, and his face immediately plastered with a greasy smile.
His fat jiggled with his laughter, making him look like a pile of lard about to melt.
"What brings you here today? Would you like a couple of freshly steamed buns? The filling is incredibly fresh; it's made with chopped-up 'Greed,' which just died not long ago. One bite and it'll sizzle with oil!"
Li He frowned, seemingly uncomfortable with the pungent smell of meat.
He covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and replied coldly:
"No need."
"We will not engage in business that caters to our appetites today."
"I've come to find 'The All-Knowing Scholar'."
Upon hearing these three words, the burly man paused in his meat-cutting motion.
A glint of shrewdness flashed in his small eyes, which were squeezed into slits by his fat.
Then, he pointed with the oil-stained knife in his hand to a small dark room behind the stall.
"The usual rules."
"He's in there doing the accounts. But he's in a bad mood today; he's saying there's a missing bead on his abacus and he's getting angry."
Li He nodded, without saying anything more, and led the black swan around the big pot, directly into the small house with the black curtain hanging on it.
The room was very dark.
Only a single oil lamp, as small as a bean, cast a faint glow on the corner of the table.
The air was filled with the smell of musty, old paper mixed with the fresh scent of ink, a stark contrast to the foul odor outside.
An elderly man wearing a long gown and thick round-framed glasses was leaning over a table, fumbling with an abacus in his hands.
His movements were incredibly fast; his fingers were practically blurry, and the sound of the abacus beads clattering together was like a rapid rain.
"The All-Knowing Scholar"
Li He called out.
The old man didn't look up; he simply stretched out a withered hand from the mountain of account books and waved it.
"Quiet! Quiet! We've just reached the crucial point!"
"These 7,244 years of messy accounts just don't add up no matter how you calculate it! Where exactly is this missing item?!"
The black swan had a sudden thought.
7,244 years.
This is exactly the duration of the war between the Azure Immortal Ship and the Calamity mentioned by Fu Xuan.
It seems that even in this chaotic memory, some core data about that war has been faithfully recorded.
Li He clearly understood this man's temperament. He didn't urge him, but simply stood quietly to the side and waited.
A long time passed.
The old man finally stopped what he was doing. He sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed his dry eyes.
"That's enough, that's enough."
"If it can't be calculated, then it's fate."
He looked up, revealing a wrinkled face that looked like a walnut shell.
Although those eyes were cloudy, they revealed a shrewdness that seemed to have seen through the ways of the world.
"Hey, isn't this Chokichi?"
Bai Xiaosheng grinned, revealing a set of incomplete, yellow teeth.
"Did you bring a stranger today?"
His gaze fell on the black swan, and he looked her up and down.
"The scent on this girl... is quite interesting."
"It doesn't belong here. It carries a sense of 'present' time. Is it from outside?"
The black swan stepped forward, perfectly capturing the composure that belongs to the one who remembers.
"Mr. Bai Xiaosheng has a discerning eye."
"I came here to buy some intelligence."
"About... Zhulong. And... that erased history."
Upon hearing the name "Zhulong," Bai Xiaosheng's smile vanished instantly.
The temperature inside the room seemed to drop a few degrees at that moment.
He put his glasses back on, pulled a tattered scroll from under the table, and slowly unrolled it.
"Zhulong..."
"That's a huge taboo."
"When we look at each other, it is day; when we close our eyes, it is night. When we blow, it is winter; when we exhale, it is summer."
"In this godforsaken place, it is 'heaven'."
Bai Xiaosheng stretched out two fingers, rubbed them together, and made a teeth-grinding friction sound.
"This information isn't cheap."
Li He stepped forward and took out a coin from his pocket...
It's not the kind of money you used to buy your life.
Instead, it was a crystal-clear ice crystal that exuded a faint chill.
Inside the ice crystal, a plum blossom bud was sealed, and even through the ice, one could almost smell its chilling fragrance.
"How about we use this item as the price?"
Li He's voice was clear and cool, like a mountain stream.
"This is a wisp of essence that remains even after being scattered into mud and crushed into dust. Even in this filthy ghost market, it is a rare and elegant item."
Bai Xiaosheng's eyes lit up.
He grabbed the ice crystal, examined it closely, and a greedy and intoxicated look appeared on his face.
"Great stuff! Great stuff!"
"Changji's move is indeed extraordinary!"
He carefully put away the ice crystals as if they were the most precious treasure in the world.
Then, he pulled out two bamboo slips wrapped in black cloth from the messy pile of scrolls.
"Take it."
"One document concerns the true form of 'Zhulong'."
"One document is the last record of planet 4546 before it collapsed."
"but......"
Bai Xiaosheng lowered his voice, his tone becoming somewhat sinister, and a warning glint flashed in his cloudy eyes.
"After seeing these two things, if you have nightmares at night, or if something comes knocking on your door..."
"This store is not responsible for any issues."
......
When Black Swan left the Ghost Market, she clutched the two heavy bamboo scrolls tightly in her hands.
The feeling of being watched still lingered, but with Li He by his side, the demons and monsters lurking in the shadows seemed to be wary and dared not easily step forward to cause trouble.
"Where to next?"
"The black swan asked."
This is, after all, a bustling area. Even though it's a ghost market, it's still crowded and noisy.
This is clearly not a good place to decipher these two top-secret intelligence documents.
"Back to my humble abode."
.....................................