WU DONG QIAN - KUN
Chapter 32: The Underground Bazar

The bazaar is located in the north square of Qingyang City. Coincidentally, this was where many influential factions met each other. And because of the various conflicts between the groups, none of them were able to control this region. Thus, the bazaar was established.

In the bazaar, there were various establishments established by different factions in Qingyang City. Due to this favorable arrangement, most factions tolerated the existence of the bazaar and eventually a strange and fragile balance was achieved.

Even outside the city, the Qingyang City bazaar was extremely famous. Therefore, in addition to the local crowd, it also attracted some bandits from the neighboring villages. However, this helped increase the diversity of the crowd and hence even the local tyrants, the Lie and Xie Families, did not dare to seize this area for themselves for fear of destroying their dairy cows.

…

When Lin Dong and Qing Tan arrived at the entrance of the bazaar, they could only gasp at the sight of the flood of people and commotion within the bazaar. This bazaar was definitely the largest market around Qingyang City and the crowd was indeed intimidating.

"Let's go."

Lin Dong looked at the bazaar with a curious look. These days, he rarely ventured into these kinds of places. Nonetheless, as a young man, he was still curious about them.

After he spoke, he grabbed Qing Tan's small hand and walked into the market.

In the bazaar, the various items displayed were dazzling. Although the streets were relatively wide, due to the large number of people present, they still felt somewhat claustrophobic.

Qing Tan and Lin Dong dripped in sweat after just walking through a small alley. However, Qing Tan was extremely excited and her tiny face flushed red with excitement. Along with her adorable laugh, she looked extremely cute and inadvertently attracted a lot of attention from the crowd. As they turned to look, many of them were gasping for breath when they saw his picture looking perfect and snowy white.

Finally, the two of them stopped at a luxurious building located at the end of the street. This part of the bazaar is considered a rather luxurious district. The Lei Family, the Xie Family, and the Raging Blade Dojo all had shops here.

“Qing Tan, wait for me here. I will be right back.” Lin Dong reminded Qing Tan while observing the surroundings. Then, he slipped into the crowd and disappeared from sight.

As he crossed the crowd, Lin Dong casually bought a bamboo hat from a small shop, giving him peace of mind before he returned to one of the main streets. Finally, he stopped in front of the giant black door.

There are all kinds of people in the bazaar. Of course, some of the items sold here can attract unwanted attention for a variety of reasons. Therefore, an underground bazaar was born.

The place where Lin Dong arrived was one of the underground markets. In this place, one could easily sell their items at a reasonable enough price, no questions asked.

Outside the giant black door, there was a constant stream of visitors. However, like Lin Dong, all of these visitors wore black bamboo hats to hide their identities.

As he lightly sighed, Lin Dong suppressed the anxiety in his heart and calmly walked through the door. As he stepped through the door, he could feel an ominous aura that caused a chill to be felt on one's skin.

Behind that door was a long alley. Following the path, Lin Dong found several tightly shut doors along the way. He knew that this was where the transaction happened and he quickly searched for the half-opened door before entering.

When he entered the room, he saw that the room was rather dim and a large table stood in the middle. The center of the table was blocked by a black metal grille and just a few inches below it was a small hole.

"Please sit. If you have items to exchange, please put them in the slot. ” Seemingly old voices are heard from behind the black metal grille.

Now, the fear in Lin Dong's heart had subsided. As he sat down, he took out a transparent bottle from his sleeve. Contained within the bottle were ten drops of Stone Talisman Ling Liquid. However, these drops were not pure because they had been diluted by Lin Dong.

“Cure medicinal waters of the herb. It is excellent for Tempered Body practitioners and can be used for medicinal purposes as well.” Lin Dong was deliberately hoarse with a strange voice. Although it sounded terrible, it helped mask his original voice.

A wrinkled palm reached out and took out a glass bottle. Immediately after, Lin Dong heard a dripping sound as the man inside tried to check on the properties of the Ling Liquid.

This examination took nearly ten minutes before a sound was once again heard from behind that window: “The liquid of this medicine has an amount of Ling Qi that is roughly equal to a level 2 herb. It is also gentle in nature and thus very suitable for Tempered Body practitioners. Since it also has medicinal properties, I am willing to pay you a higher price. What do you want instead?”

Lin Dong's fingers trembled as he admired the shopkeeper's ability. After a slight hesitation, he replied: "Seven bars of grade-3 potions".

"That's too much. Your medicinal liquid is too luxurious to be used by a Tempered Body practitioner. On the other hand, despite having some medicinal properties, it is also too wasteful to use it for treatment. Therefore, it is not easy to sell it.” After a moment of silence, the man behind the window replied. He was clearly troubled that Lin Dong had requested such a high amount.

"How about three Grade 3 elixir rods."

"Six rods." Lin Dong firmly replied.

“Five rods. It was the best I could do..” It was as if the man behind the window shook his head as he replied firmly. This was clearly the highest he could offer.

Lin Dong shrugged his shoulders like under a bamboo hat, a smile appearing on his face. Ten drops of Ling Liquid that had been diluted once could actually be exchanged for five Grade 3 Elixir rods. It was a pretty good harvest for him. It didn't matter if the shopkeeper intentionally replaced it, after all he personally didn't care much about the diluted Ling Liquid.

The shopkeeper was very efficient. Within five minutes, an elaborate box was pushed out from under the window. As Lin Dong opened the box, he saw five yellow, thumb-sized fruits quietly resting within it. He could faintly smell a fragrant scent drifting from them.

“Rubuan class 3, Yellow Mud Fruit.”

Lin Dong clearly recognized this dark yellow fruit. After carefully inspecting the item, he nodded his head in satisfaction as he kept the wooden box. Then, he quickly left the room.

After Lin Dong exited the room, the metal barrier was slowly lifted. Behind, stood a gray-robed old man. As he held the bottle, he smelled the scent from within before gently nodding his head.

"Old Shopkeeper, is this thing really worth 5 Yellow Mud Fruits?" Standing behind the old man, a middle-aged man with a bloodthirsty smell growled.

“This medicinal liquid is very beneficial for Angry Body Practitioners. I believe that the Lei or Xie Family, or the Raging Blade Dojo will be happy to buy it at an exorbitant price.” The old man replied with a faint smile.

"Oh? Should I do a background check on that person? ” The middle-aged man was startled for a moment, but the moment his words came out of his mouth, the old man's expression darkened. After witnessing this scene, the middle-aged man immediately covered his mouth.

“Do you not know our rules? If you damage our reputation, how will we proceed in Qingyang City?

The middle-aged man hurriedly nodded after hearing the old man reprimanding him.

"Snorts."

The old man snorted as he stood up and left with the bottle.

…

After Lin Dong came out of the underground bazaar, he walked randomly in the large bazaar for a while before quickly throwing out his bamboo hat and heading towards a certain street.

At where they had originally parted, Lin Dong easily found Qing Tan who was still obediently waiting for him there. Just as he was preparing to take her once again wandering around, the latter suddenly pulled her arm.

Lin Dong averted his gaze only to see a familiar figure walking out from the entrance of the building. Unexpectedly, it was Lin Shan.

As Lin Dong looked at Lin Shan, the latter also found the two of them. Originally, a pleasant surprised expression appeared before his expression suddenly changed as if he suddenly recalled something as he stood glued to the spot.

Lin Dong glanced at the bruises on Lin Shan's face. The latter looked like he had been cruelly beaten ...

Glued on the spot, Lin Shan looked at Lin Dong. It was as if the former wanted to walk but were scared because of their history. In the end, Lin Shan was at a loss as to what to do.

“Hai.”

Lin Dong sighed as he pulled Qing Tan and asked: "What happened?"

Lin Shan was somewhat afraid of glancing at Lin Dong. After some hesitation, the first one finally said: “We met those bastards from the Xie Family, after that, Lin Xia-jie was bullied and then we fought with them.but. I escaped...to find..help.”.

Lin Shan's face reddened as he subconsciously lowered his head down.

"Lin Xia-jie was there too?"

Stunned, Lin Dong quickly recovered as his brows were tightly knitted together. He muttered to himself for a while before commanding Lin Shan as he gestured with his hand: "Take me there."

After all, he had a pretty good relationship with Lin Xia. As for Lin Hong and Lin Shan, all of their past clashes were limited within the family. He was not narrow-minded to look at without lifting a finger when such a thing happened.

Hearing Lin Dong's words, Lin Shan immediately raised his head and looked at Lin Dong in surprise. He obviously never imagined that Lin Dong would ignore their past hostility and lend a helping hand. With slightly red eyes, Lin Shan forcefully nodded.