Chapter 1871: 848: Judging People_2
Chapter 1871: Chapter 848: Judging People_2
Although the storyteller was extolling its marvelous uses one after another, most of the people below the stage were already showing faintly disappointed expressions.
“This kind of auction is always a bit wild. To have the very first item be a fruit for demons to eat—sure, it can be used as food and as medicinal materials, but in the end it just isn’t dazzling enough.”
“Muddy Shadow Fist? Isn’t that the Muddy Shadow Sect’s non-transmittable Cultivation Technique? But the Muddy Shadow Sect was wiped out more than a hundred years ago, destroyed by the Heavenly List expert Hei Ningyu with a single sword, and not even half a successor could be found. Who the hell knows how to practice Muddy Shadow Fist now!”
“Muddy Heart Fruit, huh? It’s indeed a rare item, but it can’t be directly consumed by Humans, which is still somewhat disappointing. Taking the unorthodox path can be clever, yet this auction is clearly going too far off the main road—too much is as bad as too little!”
Some sighed, some frowned, some ignored it.
But… there were also some whose eyes lit up with interest.
Not for any other reason, but because… within this vast Capital, the number of forces hiding demons is simply immense!
This Muddy Heart Fruit is said to be sold to Human Martial Artists, but in truth it is aimed at those forces that harbor demons, important demons.
These people are the true buyers of these few fruits!
Feed the fruit to demons, strengthen the demons’ power, and that is equivalent to raising one’s own strength.
After years of raising demons, many forces in the Capital have already taken demons as one link in the chain of their family’s power.
But demons are demons in the end. Even if they’re trained to be as docile as dogs, that docility is temporary; demons must eat people! Their current obedience is nothing more than a way to accumulate strength while waiting for the day they erupt.
A dog will eventually turn into a wolf!
Yet some people can’t see this, or even if they do see it, they don’t care! Short-sighted as they are, they only think of boosting their own strength from every angle, and so…
“I’ll take it! Name the starting price!”
“This item is quite good. I’m interested as well. I hope everyone will go easy with their bids.”
“A fine appetizer. I’ll seize the lucky first bid.”
The atmosphere was pulling in two opposite directions. Those who couldn’t read the situation, who couldn’t keep up with the stage, were instead the ones least interested. The ones with real arrangements in place were all determined to obtain this item.
Fang Yu did have some interest in it, but only a little.
Back then he had acquired Muddy Heart Liquid. Once you drink enough of it to maintain a certain concentration in your body, every move you make can carry out a murky fog, with techniques hidden within the mist—quite ingenious.
This Muddy Heart Fruit should work in a similar way.
Unfortunately, after so long a period of bodily exploration on Ding Hui’s side, Fang Yu already understood that even if he really flooded himself with Muddy Heart Liquid until every move produced fog, it wouldn’t last long.
Because his domineering Green Demon Bloodline will suppress all external bloodline modifications. Unless Ding Hui helps suppress that trait and performs a certain bodily adaptation, it’s hard to say how long this stuff could truly remain effective.
“Well? Husband, are you interested in this item?”
By the time Ding Hui’s voice sounded, people below had already started bidding.
“Five hundred taels of Silver!”
“Seven hundred taels!”
“One thousand in silver notes!”
Once these wealthy people of the Capital made a move, money surged up as if it weren’t money at all.
And whether it was because this was the first auction item or not, the price soared violently.
In just a short while, it had already climbed to a thousand taels of silver.
It wasn’t that this item wasn’t worth that price, but at this rate, an inflated purchase was almost inevitable.
“Three thousand taels!”
When the price shot up to three thousand, the speed of increase slowed noticeably, yet people were still raising it bit by bit.
Just as it hit three thousand seven hundred taels, a voice suddenly sounded in Fang Yu’s ear.
“Five thousand taels.”
What?!
Fang Yu jerked his head around, and saw Ding Hui smiling radiantly at him.
And Ding Hui’s bid was instantly displayed at the auction.
The bid from the second floor at once made the people below freeze, and the venue fell into a brief silence.
“It’s an esteemed guest from the second floor! Five thousand taels! A single bid of five thousand taels! Any higher offers? Five thousand taels once! Five thousand taels twice! Five thousand taels three hundred taels! It’s our distinguished guest number 705! Five thousand taels three hundred taels once…”
Ding Hui shrugged at Fang Yu. It was obvious she had done her best: that was her psychological price point, and she had no intention of going higher.
“Husband, it’s not that I don’t want to buy it, it’s just a bit too outrageously expensive, and this item won’t be of much use to you.”
The one who understood Fang Yu’s body best wasn’t Fang Yu himself, but Ding Hui, who spent all day studying it!
If she said it wouldn’t do much, that basically meant it wouldn’t.
Though Ding Hui didn’t understand Martial Arts, in truth this kind of slightly deceptive technique could have a surprising, unprepared-for winning effect if used at a critical moment. It was just that Fang Yu himself didn’t care much about this item.
In the end, the money in hand still had to be saved for buying rare materials to rebuild Second Sister’s fleshly body—that was the most important mission of this trip to Shangjing.
“Eight thousand five hundred taels! Let us congratulate our distinguished guest number 705 on buying these Muddy Heart Fruits! Those guests who failed to win them, do not worry. Up next we shall welcome a heavyweight second auction item!”
The storyteller-host was still speaking, while behind him staff members were beginning to lead over a young woman crawling on the ground, moving on both hands and feet.
Though she still wore a thin veil of green gauze, it only better accentuated her figure.
Truly worthy of an underground auction—they dared sell anything.
That was Fang Yu’s first thought.
The trade of slaves had long ceased to be any sort of secret, but to flaunt it openly onstage for everyone to buy and sell was still far too ostentatious, practically trampling the court’s laws into the mud.
Yet soon Fang Yu realized something was wrong.
For the woman creeping with her limbs on the ground, the big toes of her feet were raised on their tips, her soles not touching the floor, and her five fingers were likewise like those of a beast, only the fingertips touching down. It was entirely different from the way ordinary people crawled.
Wait… could it be…
[Shen Jin Yue: 1354/1354.]
That blood volume in the thousand range was truly deceptive, so much so that it had made Fang Yu subconsciously assume she was merely an ordinary Martial Artist, and he hadn’t thought along any other lines at all.
But seeing her now…
Fang Yu’s eyes narrowed slightly.
The storyteller on stage had already begun his introduction.
“I believe many of you have already noticed: this woman is not a Human, but a demon!”
“And what’s more, a Thousand Delicate and Mysterious Body Demon!”
“The Thousand Delicate and Mysterious Body Demon—its body is soft, its hair smooth, as comfortable as heavenly velvet.”
“Its dainty frame can be easily subdued even by common Martial Artists, raised as a plaything—perfectly suited for that purpose, and it is also the current trend among women. To win a beauty’s smile, what is a little money worth? To find and capture this demon, our auction house expended tremendous effort, so the starting price might be a bit high.”
The storyteller spoke on and on, drawing delighted smiles from the crowd below.
Yet not a single person cared whose body this demon had taken over.
What the prerequisite was for a demon to change skins.
No one cared, no one paid any mind, they even… took it as the norm!
Which showed that this was far from the first time such a thing had been done!
Such a terrifying act, such an utterly heartless atrocity, had already become… routine in the Capital!
For a brief moment, Fang Yu felt dazed.
He suddenly didn’t know whether the people below the stage looked more like demons, or the woman curled up onstage looked more like a demon.
The stance of Human and demon was always so blurred, so unpredictable. In different situations, even Fang Yu himself found it hard to remain firm.
But without question, demons eat people.
And he cannot bear that.
“Five thousand taels!”
The people below had already started bidding, and their opening moves were big-spending.
Clearly, bids rising above ten thousand were inevitable.
But that no longer had anything to do with Fang Yu.
He would not save a demon, nor did he intend to stop others from buying this demon.
No matter how pitiful a demon looked, who knew how many people it had eaten before ending up like this?
Dong dong dong.
Just then, the sound of knocking suddenly came from outside the door.