Chapter 20: 《Baby Visits the Black Market》

Yao Beibei dragged her suitcase along, refusing to give up. “Are you really not coming home with me? My bed is huge. There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

Ding Ling sat at the desk with her cultivation history textbook spread out before her. She had barely started the eight-hundred-word essay assigned by Wu Yongli. She gave a cold refusal: “No.”

Beibei pouted, slung her big bag of dirty laundry over her shoulder, and left the dorm building. Father Yao was already waiting at the school gate for his daughter. The moment he saw her, he asked, “Where’s your roommate? Didn’t you say you’d invite her over for dinner? Isn’t she coming?”

“She’s cold. She’s heartless,” Yao Beibei grumbled.

The dormitory building quickly emptied out. Ding Ling was the only female student who had come from the Four Polar Continents to study in the Central Continent. Over the two-day break, everyone was packing their things and heading home one after another.

Once Yao Beibei was gone, Ding Ling immediately opened the closet. She packed a dozen or so small glass vials containing vermilion fruit into the pink sequined bag Yao Beibei had left hanging on the edge of the bed.

Since she was heading to the black market, she couldn’t wear her school uniform. It was too eye-catching.

Ding Ling stuffed the original body’s clothes into her backpack, slung it over her shoulders, and blended into a crowd of girls, slipping past the dorm manager Auntie Liu and out through the school gate.

Zhang Tianyu sat in the fried skewer shop by the school gate. Chewing on a fried sausage, he glanced up and caught sight of Ding Ling walking out of the main entrance.

Ha! He shoved the rest of his half-eaten skewer into his mouth, pulled down the brim of his cap, and followed behind Ding Ling.

He wanted to see what Ding Ling was going to the black market for.

Ding Ling had only taken two steps when she sensed someone following behind her. She deliberately slowed her pace.

In the past, she would never have needed to close the distance intentionally; even from several Li away, she could have pinpointed who it was. Now, she could barely identify someone from a dozen paces off.

It was Zhang Tianyu.

Knowing it was him, Ding Ling was in no hurry to shake him off. She took out the slip of paper Zhang Tianyu had given her, which had the address and the bus route written on it.

Finding the bus stop without trouble, she dropped in a one-Yuan coin.

The money had been lent to her by Yao Beibei, and how to take the bus was something she had learned from cartoons on a toddler’s learning device.

《Baby Takes the Bus》, 《Baby Takes the Subway》, 《Baby Goes to the Mall》, and 《Baby Goes to Kindergarten》; these twenty-odd cartoon episodes covered almost all the everyday knowledge she needed to master.

After getting off the bus, Ding Ling first ducked into the women’s restroom of the nearest mall to change into her Nanzhou clothes. Aside from that outfit, she had no other civilian clothes.

Next, she walked over to the entrance of Xuanyuan Street.

Just a few stops into the ride, she had already noticed that the farther north one went, the older and more run-down the buildings and streets became.

The buildings flanking Xuanyuan Street were even more crowded and dilapidated than elsewhere, with virtually no urban planning to speak of: a square building here, a triangular building there.

At the entrance to the market stood an ancient stone archway inscribed with four large characters: “Taishang Xuanyuan^[1].”

Ding Ling halted abruptly, looking up and gazing deeply into the street.

At the far end of this street, a beam of spiritual light shot straight into the sky.

Ever since coming to this world, spiritual energy had been thin everywhere. She had never seen a place glowing with such brilliant golden light.

Ding Ling could not help but weave her way inside, walking toward the source of that spiritual light.

The deeper she went, the more motley the crowd became.

There were bare-chested men and scantily clad women.

In the sweltering heat, everyone was dripping with sweat. Between the alleys, some were wide enough for vehicles to pass, while others required turning sideways to squeeze through.

The space was already cramped and narrow, and the smell was even more foul.

Ding Ling looked a little too closely, and a woman inside glanced over. One look at Ding Ling’s clothes told her she was from Nanzhou. The woman rolled her eyes at the unsophisticated country bumpkin who had never seen the world; had she never even seen a slip dress before?

Zhang Tianyu had no idea how Ding Ling had managed to wander in here. The shop address he had given her was clearly right at the street entrance, just a couple steps away. Why was she burrowing so deep inside?

Zhang Tianyu followed closely behind, afraid Ding Ling might get taken advantage of in a place like this.

Going deeper and deeper, where on earth was she heading?

Just as he was about to step forward and stop her, he saw her halt and look up ahead. Zhang Tianyu looked up as well and let out a sigh of relief.

After all that fuss, she just wanted to visit the Taishang Xuanyuan Temple!

So she just wanted to do some sightseeing. Why hadn’t she taken the tourist route instead of winding through back alleys?

Ding Ling stood in place. A group of elderly people sat by the temple entrance, each holding incense and candles. Seeing Ding Ling standing still, they peddled their wares to her: “Five Yuan a bundle! Want to buy one?”

“Burn a bundle of incense inside the temple, and you’ll be blessed to awaken your spiritual root.”

When other tourists walked in, the old folks switched their pitch: “It will bless your child to awaken their spiritual root! Emperor Xuanyuan is the most efficacious!”

Zhang Tianyu was dying of the heat.

He didn’t dare buy anything to eat or drink here. One look at the filthy wastewater flowing through the alley told him it wasn’t sanitary. Tugging at his collar to fan himself, he swallowed saliva to quench his thirst and watched Ding Ling from a distance.

She had been standing in front of the temple gate for quite a while now. Didn’t she feel hot?

The admission ticket was twenty Yuan, and the incense was five Yuan. Ding Ling had borrowed fifty Yuan in total from Yao Beibei; counting the bus fare, she had already spent more than half of it.

Seeing Ding Ling buy a ticket, Zhang Tianyu bought one too and went through the gate. In the blink of an eye, Ding Ling was gone.

Having shaken off Zhang Tianyu, Ding Ling looped back to the alley she had just walked through.

Judging by the storefronts alone, every single shop here looked shady.

Even in the middle of summer, this place was gloomy and dark, with hardly any lights on inside the shops. Some had cardboard signs pasted on their doors, while others had simply written on the walls in red paint.

“High Prices Paid”

The first time Ding Ling walked past, she had already chosen a shop; this one had the least amount of black qi on its sign.

Pushing the door open, the copper bell hanging from the door chimed twice. The woman sitting behind the counter scrolling through videos looked up, sweeping her eyes over Ding Ling’s outfit.

Another one pretending to be from the South Polar Continent to sell spiritual plants?

“What do you need?” The woman yawned. She continued scrolling through videos while applying polish to her fingernails, the bold red matching the red silk slip dress she wore.

As she finished painting her last nail, she thought, Flat chest… a boy? He’s way too pretty.

With so many people coming and going on this street, has no one targeted him?

Looking closer, she realized why no one had targeted this kid of indeterminate gender. Pretty as they were, weren’t they a total lunatic?

Ding Ling had no clue what an eye-searing assault she presented: a buzz cut, a figure flat as cardboard, a floral Nanzhou homespun outfit, and a tiny pink sequined backpack.

She rummaged through her pink sequined backpack. “Do you buy vermilion fruit^[2]?”

The woman knitted her brows. “Vermilion fruit?” Who buys that? Did she think this was a charity?

Just as she was about to refuse, a glass bottle was already set before her.

The vermilion fruits inside were a vibrant crimson, round, clean, and crystalline. One look was enough to tell they were top quality.

The woman cast an intrigued glance at it, picked up the glass bottle, and asked casually, “These aren’t dyed, are they?” Without waiting for Ding Ling to answer, she pulled out the stopper and brought the bottle under her nose to take a sniff.

Then she sniffled a little awkwardly. Having just applied nail polish, her hands smelled strongly of it, making it impossible to tell their quality by scent alone.

“Wait here.”

Ding Ling watched as the woman walked to the counter, pulled out a square glass box, and plugged it in.

She poured the vermilion fruit from the glass bottle into a small silver bowl inside the square box. The machine rumbled briefly, and the appraisal result came out in no time: S+ grade.

The woman looked up in shock. “Where did you get these? Were they really grown in Nanzhou soil? Are you really from Nanzhou? Did you bring them out of Nanzhou?”

Ding Ling did not answer her, asking only, “How much are you offering?”

Not getting an answer, the woman didn’t mind. This kid was probably a girl, wasn’t she? A young girl, coming this deep into the alley to sell goods.

“How many shops have you asked before this?”

“This is the first.”

“You sure have good luck. Everyone on this street knows that I, Sister Hong, give the fairest prices.” She raised a hand and made a few gestures. “Cash, spirit coins, spirit stones, which one do you want?”

Ding Ling thought for a moment. “In three parts. I want all of them.”

The woman scoffed. “How many do you have? Three or five? Is that even enough for me to split three ways?”

Ding Ling pulled more than a dozen glass bottles from the sequined bag. “Two hundred.”

“Two hundred? All S+ grade?” The woman gasped. S+ grade spiritual plants were hard to come by these days; the most commonly circulated grade on the market was B-grade, with A+ being the highest.

S+ grade spiritual plants were virtually monopolized by major corporations. Of course the black market had some, but supply was low and prices were high.

And this young girl could produce two hundred S+ grade fruits at once?

“You can inspect them one by one.”

The woman called Sister Hong looked Ding Ling over once more and said with a beaming smile, “Just now I thought you only had a few. Since you have this many, I’ll give you this much.”

She held up one more finger.

Vermilion fruit had a short growth cycle. For this sort of item, no matter how high the quality was, the price could only go so high. To be selling these, this girl had to be short on cash.

“Just arrived in the Central Continent? With a skill, you won’t starve here.” Sister Hong could not resist boasting a bit. “I’m not lying to you, only my prices are the fairest on this entire street.”

“I know.”

Sister Hong would never have imagined that Ding Ling had sensed the qi before stepping through the door, assuming Ding Ling was just being polite. Smiling, she walked to the cooler, grabbed a bottle of Coke, and handed it to Ding Ling. “On such a hot day…”

She was about to say that on such a hot day, Ding Ling must be sweltering, but looking closely, Ding Ling hadn’t broken a single drop of sweat.

“Quench your thirst. Do you have anything else? If not right now, I can place an order and give you an advance payment. How about it?”

“Your quote?”

The young girl didn’t say much, but every word hit right where it mattered. Seeing Ding Ling hold the bottle of Coke without drinking, Sister Hong knew that despite her young age, she was not easy to fool.

Just as well, she didn’t feel like fooling her anyway.

“The higher the grade, the rarer it is, and naturally the more money it brings. Do you have seeds? If not, I can provide them. But for seeds I provide, we’ll split the sales forty-sixty.”

Ding Ling pondered briefly, then nodded. “Agreed.”

“You’re a straightforward one.” Sister Hong randomly picked out over thirty vermilion fruits, and every single one was S+ grade. She didn’t bother testing the rest, briskly pulling open a drawer and taking out her wallet.

1 standard spirit stone = 10 spirit coins = 100 Yuan

For two hundred S+ grade vermilion fruits, Ding Ling took in a total of six thousand.

Her empty pouch was finally filled with a little money.

Ding Ling slung Yao Beibei’s pink sequined backpack back on, now packed with spirit stones, spirit coins, cash, and the seeds Sister Hong had just given her.

“Don’t worry. When you sell goods and take money at my place, no one dares rob you.”

Ding Ling nodded. Just as she was about to step out, Sister Hong hesitated and said, “Little girl, why don’t you… go buy some clothes on Women’s Street^[3] next door?”

What she was wearing was, honestly, pretty terrifying.