Chapter 1756 — Night Market Sightings, Part Two: Sure Enough, a Crowd Was Gathered Before a Stall Watching the Commotion
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Behind the stall stood a burly, thick-limbed fellow, and above his head hung a signboard bearing the large characters "Wang Laoba, Hunter's Specialties." Beside Wang Laoba was a butcher's block, and on it lay a jumbled heap of animal carcasses.
There were wild boar, roe deer, pheasant, and other game, but at the very front of the block, in the most conspicuous place of all, lay the carcass of a creature black as coal, something like a pheasant.
"Wang Laoba, I say—have you gone mad for money? You're calling this a black phoenix?" A young man pointed at the black pheasant's carcass and addressed the fellow called Wang Laoba.
"I checked it against the picture book. This is plainly the legendary black phoenix. If you don't want to buy it, then stand aside and watch—there's always someone who knows quality when he sees it!" Wang Laoba seemed unwilling to argue the matter with the young man, and spoke with an angry huff.
"Tsk. The black phoenix is a legendary spirit beast. I don't know what a spirit beast is either, but if it's a spirit beast, it must be formidable. With your skill, you could kill a spirit beast?" the young man retorted, unconvinced.
"I..." Wang Laoba's face fell into embarrassment, but he said, "You say it isn't, so it isn't. I'll sell it just the same—ten thousand yuan, take it or leave it! If you don't want it, I'll take it home and stew it into soup myself!"
Wei Zhao looked at the black phoenix and frowned. Wei Zhao had come out of a mountain village himself; his little brother Ergoudan's family made its living by hunting, so Wei Zhao knew a thing or two about pheasants. This thing before him was absolutely not a pheasant!
The two were somewhat alike, but absolutely not the same! What exactly it was, Wei Zhao could not say, so he could not rule out the possibility that it was a spirit beast. As for whether Wang Laoba could have killed a spirit beast, that was not so strange—a spirit beast with no attacking ability, like the Thunder Pig, was easy enough to kill. Not all spirit beasts had the power to attack.
Moreover, spirit beasts differed in strength according to their grade.
Only, Wei Zhao was somewhat puzzled: could there really be a spirit beast in these parts? Places where spirit beasts appeared were generally places where the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was extremely dense, and such places were usually occupied by sects and clans. Could there be some sect nearby?
Ten thousand yuan was not much to Wei Zhao, but to these simple mountain folk it was already an astronomical price, and so the looks they cast at Wang Laoba were mostly mocking. Most of the people nearby had come for the spectacle; there was not one who truly meant to buy.
If Wang Laoba had asked a few hundred yuan, perhaps someone would have bought it to try something new, but ten thousand yuan for a pheasant to eat was far too poor a bargain.
"This is a phoenix?" Wei Zhao spoke up and asked.
Wang Laoba had faced too much of this sort of doubt today, and had not meant to answer Wei Zhao at all, but when he looked up, Wei Zhao and his companions were plainly dressed in the clothes of a great city—out-of-town tourists for certain. His eyes lit up. Perhaps these city folk knew quality when they saw it. So, all smiles, he said, "You're tourists from out of town, aren't you?"
"That's right. That's why I'm curious." Wei Zhao nodded with a smile.
"Then that explains it. You don't know the legends we have here..." Wang Laoba said with great solemnity. "The little town we live in is called Darknight Town, and near here there is a mountain called Darknight Spirit Mountain. The outer ranges around it are called the Darknight Mountains. That's where I do my hunting."