Chapter 3581 — A Trip to the Market Again
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
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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