Chapter 3581 — A Trip to the Market Again

"That is so, Senior Brother Meng," Brother Kubi agreed with a nod. It was an annual custom for the steward senior brothers to take the newcomers around and familiarize them with the surroundings, so it was hardly surprising that Meng Jueming should bring the matter up now.

"Mm. Since Junior Brother Lin is already here, Brother Kubi, you may take him over to the market and wait for us there. I will go and gather the rest of the newcomers," Meng Jueming instructed.

"Uh... Senior Brother Meng, perhaps I should be the one to fetch the newcomers?" Brother Kubi asked cautiously.

As a rule, such tedious errands fell to him—why else would people call him Kubi, "the miserable one"? He had long since grown used to it. Yet this time Meng Jueming had, for the first time in living memory, made ready to run the errand himself and summon them in person. Had the sun risen in the west?

To his surprise, Meng Jueming waved a hand and cast a mocking glance at Wei Zhao beside them. "No need. You had best take our strongest newcomer over first—spare him his precious time, heh heh!"

With that, giving Brother Kubi no chance to speak again, Meng Jueming left with Meng Zhou.

Watching the two figures recede into the distance, Brother Kubi could not help muttering in bewilderment, "Senior Brother Meng's manner today... it feels rather different from before."

Wei Zhao shook his head as well. Meng Jueming had just now been sneering at him as usual, yet he had not seized the chance to make him run errands alongside Brother Kubi—that was indeed strange. By any normal logic, such an opportunity should at least have been used to needle him, even if it could not do him any real harm. Given Meng Jueming's temperament, why would he let it slip by so easily?

Wei Zhao and Brother Kubi exchanged a glance, but for the moment neither could make sense of it. The two had no choice but to do as Meng Jueming had said and head for the market to wait for them.

Though Wei Zhao had only just visited the market a short while ago, he still had to feign the air of a first-time visitor so as not to give himself away. After all, strictly speaking, in his own true appearance this was indeed his first time in this market.

The two waited a moment at the market entrance, and presently saw Meng Jueming leading a whole company of newcomers toward them from afar, a grand and imposing procession. Meng Zhou, however, seemed to have fallen behind over some matter and came trotting up at last; he shot Meng Jueming a look, and Meng Jueming nodded in understanding.

Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai were among the crowd as well. Catching sight of Brother Kubi and Wei Zhao, they breathed a sigh of relief as though they had found their organization, came up to greet the two, and only then began looking curiously about.

At the sight of this bustling, clamorous market, every newcomer's face lit with eager excitement. True, many a marketplace in the mortal world was a hundred times livelier than this—but this was a cultivators' market! Every person who came and went at will was at least a Heaven-rank expert, and the goods here—martial techniques, pills and medicines, and all manner of rare treasures of heaven and earth—could not be bought anywhere else. There was simply no comparing the two.

Though each of these newcomers held only a single spirit jade—and one whose spiritual energy had for the most part already been spent—so that it was all but impossible for them to afford anything in this market, the purpose of this outing had never been to shop, only to grow familiar with the place. So Meng Jueming patiently introduced them to a good many of the market's rules.

Of course, Meng Jueming was not so kind-hearted as all that. He merely wished these disciples to regard him as widely experienced and to look up to him—otherwise, this drudgery would long ago have fallen to Kubi.

This, however, benefited Wei Zhao considerably. After all, when he had come on his own earlier he had concealed his identity, and though he had wandered several rounds, in the spirit of saying as little as possible, he had learned nothing of the market's specific rules. Now, having heard Meng Jueming's explanations, he finally had some notion of how trade was conducted here.

In this market, barter did occur, though not often—after all, it required that both parties take a liking to each other's goods and that their values be roughly equal, a coincidence hard to come by. More often, trade relied on a common currency: the spirit jade.

This too was easy to understand. For one thing, spirit jade was exceedingly common on Cloud-Tier Island; for another, it was a precious thing of great use to all cultivators. Apart from rare exceptions like Wei Zhao, who possessed a jade pendant's space, even experts of higher rank still relied heavily on spirit jade in their cultivation. Thus there was no risk of its depreciation, and in time it naturally became the common currency of exchange—a matter of course.

Yet even with all acknowledging spirit jade as the common currency, there were still finer points to observe, the most crucial being the quality and size of the jade.

By quality was meant the concentration of heaven-and-earth spiritual energy within the jade.

The market decreed that spirit jade used in trade must be full and unused. Should anyone be found passing off spent jade as new, the market's overseers would impose severe punishment—the aim being to prevent anyone from fishing in troubled waters through this loophole and sullying the market's good name.

After all, to a cultivator the value of a full spirit jade and that of a used one were worlds apart. Should a buyer carelessly take in jade whose spiritual energy was largely spent, would the seller not lose out terribly? Beyond that, the waste jade from spirit jade mines, naturally deficient in spiritual energy, was even less fit to be brought out for use—in the mortal world, it would be plain counterfeit banknotes.

As for the size of the spirit jade, that was even easier to grasp: even if the concentration of heaven-and-earth spiritual energy within were identical, jade of differing size would naturally differ in value, high and low.

Generally, prices in this market were set according to the most common, average-sized spirit jade. As for a piece like the one in Wei Zhao's hand, only the size of an egg, its true value counted as a little more than half a piece—three of them would be accepted as two, and only grudgingly at that. Whereas the large spirit jade like the one earlier given to Meng Zhou—even at a rate of one counted as two, people would gladly accept it.

There was, of course, one more rule to heed: never, under any circumstances, play the sneak thief. Once caught by the patrolling overseers, having one's cultivation crippled on the spot would be the least of it—one could be beaten to death outright with no place to plead one's case!

These overseers were all experts of the Law Enforcement Hall, holding power over life and death for the disciples of Cloud-Tier Island. So no matter how coveted a thing might be, one must trade by the rules!

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