CH 21

Chapter 21 Have fun

The hall instantly became chaotic, and all sentinels rushed towards Xiào Mu’s counter; their eyes frenzied. Xiào Mu’s heart was beating wildly. He quickly gathered the pills in the paper container, wrapped it up, and retreated to the wall. If he got robbed at this moment, he would suffer a big loss. This matter makes him a little upset. He couldn’t smell the guide’s scent they keep talking about, so he didn’t think much about it. It now appears that though a pill has a faint scent taste, the smell will become thicker when piled together.

Countless scorching eyes fell on him, and one after another shouts came from the crowd, “It’s 6,000 per pill? How much do you have in total? I want it all.”

“I want! I want!”

The people in the back pushed the people in the front to the counter, and the people in the front sprawled on the counter while stretching out their hands desperately. Xiào Mu trembled as he stood against the wall, hoping that the counter could hold on. Otherwise, he would definitely be crushed by so many people.

“Disperse, disperse.” Soon, the staff of the black market appeared and separated the crowd. A tall man in a suit and leather shoes walked to the front of the Xiào Mu counter.

Xiào Mu was shocked. A majestic lion stood beside the man, roaring towards the left and right sides.

“Apologies,” the man said in a gentle voice, “please don’t be afraid. Anyone who makes trouble will be dealt with by the black market.”

Calming down, Xiào Mu nodded and glanced away. Then he saw the people who had been crowded together earlier standing by the side obediently, looking at the man with fear in their eyes.

“Manager Zhao, you are misunderstood. We are not making trouble, we just want to buy medicine.” Someone said.

“Yeah, yeah.” A lot of people echoed the statement.

The man in white stepped to the front at this moment, “I have paid for the medicine, and he sold it to me.”

Manager Zhao asked Xiào Mu, “Is that right?”

When Xiào Mu nodded, Manager Zhao chuckled and looked at the others, “This shop is sold out. There are still many good products on the black market. You might as well shop around.”

Some people left after hearing this, while others were not reconciled, and asked Xiào Mu, “Are you coming next week? I want to make a reservation.”

Xiào Mu: “Not necessarily.”

Tonight’s sale is too noticeable. He made so much money at once and will not come to the black market again for the time being. Seeing the people slowly dispersing, Xiào Mu put the paper that contained the pills back on the counter before opening it, and he felt a lot of gazes directing at him.

Manager Zhao’s nose moved slightly and sounded surprised, “No wonder, it’s the scent of a guide.”

Xiào Mu asked the man in white, “Do you have a box?”

The man in white said, “Sell me the porcelain bottle too!”

Xiào Mu smiled, “Forget it then, consider it a freebie for you. I’m going to count them now, please look clearly.” He put the pills one by one into the porcelain bottle. After counting until 1501, there are 2 little blue ones left on the paper. It should be the low-grade boost pill that accidentally got mixed in when he is storing the pills. Xiào Mu gave the porcelain bottle to the man in white. After that, he took out another porcelain bottle which stores the boost pill from his backpack; preparing to return the 2 blue boost pills back to the bottle.

“Wait,” Manager Zhao interrupted Xiào Mu’s movements aloud, “You didn’t sell this medicine to him, right?”

The white-clothed man also chipped in, “Didn’t you say that there is only one type of medicine? I want those in your hand as well.”

Both men’s actions make Xiào Mu felt amused, “This medicine is not for recovering spiritual power. It’s for my own use and I am not going to sell it.”

Manager Zhao gently asked, “Could you tell me what it is for? Since you still have a porcelain bottle of it, can you sell me these 2 in your hand?”

The man in white said, “I want too.” In his mind, he thought, since the quality of this man’s medicine is great for spiritual power, the rest of his medicine is definitely not bad.

Xiào Mu: “This is to restore physical stamina, and the recovery value is very low. So it won’t be useful to you.”

Upon hearing the effect, Manager Zhao’s eyes flashed, “I have a friend with very low physical strength. Can you sell 1 to me?”

Seeing that the man has been so polite to him, Xiào Mu thought for a while, and agreed with a nod, “Each pill is 1,000 star coins.”

Manager Zhao swiftly transferred the money to Xiào Mu. The man in white quickly expresses his intntion to buy 1, so Xiào Mu sold him the other one.

After receiving the payment, he took a look at his balance and put away the porcelain bottle in his backpack. Then he went to the other side to pay the handling fee.

Manager Zhao turned to look at the man in white, “You bought 150 mid-grade healing pills, right? How about selling 1 to me? I’ll double the price.”

The white-clothed man smiled and said, “Since Mr. Zhao has spoken, I will not refuse the request.”

Xiào Mu finished paying the handling fee and was about to leave. Before reaching the door, Manager Zhao’s voice came from behind, “Wait a minute, is this your first time in the black market?”

Xiào Mu turned his head and nodded, “Did I not complete the procedures?”

Manager Zhao chuckled, “No, it’s fine as long as the seller submits the handling fee. But it’s the first time you are here, it would be a shame not to go and check downstairs.”

“Downstairs?” Xiào Mu puzzledly asked.

Suddenly, a person draped his hand across Xiào Mu’s shoulders. When he turned his head, he heard the white-clothed man saying with a smile, “Didn’t you just make money? Let’s go, I’ll take you down to have fun.”

Manager Zhao smiled and said, “I wish you two have a good time.”

Being held at the shoulders by the white-clothed man, they walked to a flight of stairs heading down. Xiào Mu quickly bent down and took a few big steps to the side, pulling the distance between them. The man in white probably does not have a high match rate with him, as skin contact does not affect his spiritual barrier, but he is not used to being too close to strangers.

“Sorry, I have to go home.” As he said that, Xiào Mu turned and walked towards the door.

“Hey, hey, you are already here. It’s a shame not to go down and see,” the man said and grabbed Xiào Mu’s arm after 2 steps. He continued, “A fight won’t last more than 10 minutes. To thank you for selling all the medicine to me, I’ll show you around.”

When they were talking, a few guests passed them and soon disappeared down the stairs.

Xiào Mu guessed that it’s probably a common thing to go downstairs when coming to the black market. He said, “I’m not interested, let me go.”

“If you are a man, you won’t be uninterested.” The man in white looked at Xiào Mu and pulled him down the stairs.

The statement caused Xiào Mu’s heart to tighten. Is it possible that this man is doubting his identity? He compromised, “I’ll go and see with you, but I will leave in 10 minutes.”

The white-clothed man smiled, “I promise, as long as you watch it, you won’t even want to leave if I tell you to go after 10 minutes.”

Following the man in white down to the lower level floor, they walked through a long corridor, and come to an iron gate. 2 tall men in black clothes stood in front of the door. When they approached, the iron gate slid open automatically, and deafening shouts rushed toward them. Xiào Mu paused, and the white-clothed man’s voice sounded excited, “Have you never seen such a scene?”

An underground type battledome?

Xiào Mu was pulled into the door, and the iron door closed behind him. He looked around and found that it looked like a Colosseum. The ground was an inverted trapezoid. There was a large flat ground in the middle of the bottom and 2 men were fighting in the middle. Surrounded by gradually rising stairs, there are rows of seats, but no one is sitting. All the audience is standing, shouting their cheers. The number of audiences was large, and almost none of them wore masks. His current position is at the most top, and the man in white drags him down, and shouted, “Isn’t it cool? This game has already started, you can place a bet on it.”

As he said, he stopped in front of the nearest vacant seat and turned on the black LED screen on the back of the front seat. A list of names appeared on the screen, two in parallel, connected by the word ‘VS’ in the middle. The three groups on top are greyed out, each pair has a name highlighted with the WIN logo. Xiào Mu immediately understood that this is an arena casino.

The man in white neatly placed bets on the next three rounds, all choosing the name on the right. Seeing that Xiào Mu didn’t move, he said something to him, but the surrounding voices were too noisy and Xiào Mu heard nothing.

The white-clothed man leaned closer and said loudly, “Let’s play some betting. Today is already the last few days of summer vacation. Many sentinels have joined so the fighting is fierce.”

Xiào Mu moved a step to the right. While rubbing his ears, he wrote on his terminal, “Let me take a look first, thank you.”

The man in white quickly grabbed Xiào Mu’s wrist and raised his own left hand. With bright eyes, he shouted loudly, “Let’s add each other’s contact information. The next time you come back, remember to contact me.”

Xiào Mu pulled back his wrist forcefully, finally understood why the man was so enthusiastic. He typed, “Sorry, I’m selling the pills on behalf of someone. Next time he might find other people to help. Do you know where the bathroom is?”

The man in white frowned and pointed to the back corner, “I will take you there.”

Xiào Mu shook his head quickly and typed, “No, you can stay to watch the game, I will look for you later.”

At this moment, there was a loud shout, and the man in white quickly glanced at the fight to see one of the fighters has fallen to the ground. He couldn’t help clenching his fist and waved at Xiào Mu, “Okay!”

Xiào Mu took the opportunity to blend into the crowd. He took off his mask halfway and threw it away. Followed the directions on the wall, he walked towards the exit. When he reached the exit and his hand is on the doorknob, the door was kicked open from the outside.

“Ungh…” Xiào Mu was knocked back a few steps until his back bumped against the wall. There was a shooting pain in his nose. He stretched out his hand to touch it, and his hand was immediately stained with blood.

“Who?” A handsome blond man rushed in while the door is still open. He was about 1.8 meters tall, wearing a black T-shirt, and carrying 2 plastic bags filled with bottled water on his hands.

“I’m… I’m sorry!” The blond man was shocked when he saw Xiào Mu’s miserable appearance and realized what ‘good thing’ he has done. Throwing the bags on the ground, he quickly rushed to Xiào Mu. He stretched out his hand and wiped Xiào Mu’s nosebleed, “I didn’t know there was someone at the door, otherwise I would never do this, I’m so sorry… hmm, you are so short. Even shorter than me.”

Blue veins twitched on Xiào Mu’s forehead. He covered his nose and turned his head, “Stay away from me.”

The blond man moved away, then weakly bowed his head, “I’m sorry.” Then he saw the water scattered on the ground and exclaimed, “Ahhh, is the bag broken?!”

Xiào Mu watched as the young man hurriedly picked up the water bottles on the ground and put them back into the bag. Then his eyes suddenly stopped at something. There is a small yellowish spot on the edge of the blond man’s auricle (ear) and it is extremely tiny. Logically speaking, he shouldn’t be able to see such a small thing, but the fact is he saw it, just like how he discovered his spiritual filaments at that time.

A very thin strip of Xiào Mu’s spiritual filaments floated out and swaying in the direction of the yellow dot. Right before the spiritual filament is about to break through his spiritual barrier, Xiào Mu controlled it just in time and retracted it. This feeling is very strange because it was not as agitated as when he is facing a sentinel with a high match rate, but very kind and gentle.

The blond man carried the bag with an apologetic expression, and whispered, “I’ll take you to the lounge to clean it. If it’s serious, I’ll take you to the hospital later, and I will pay for the treatment.”

Xiào Mu’s hands were covered with blood, and he doesn’t have to check at his face to know that his current appearance looked sorry. He agreed, “Okay.”

The blond man smiled and his big eyes curved up, “So nice, I’m so worried that you will not let me help if you are mad at me, eh…” He tilted his head as he said that. Then he shifted both bags to his left hand and touched his ear with his right hand. After that, he shifted the bag again and turned to the right corridor.

Xiào Mu followed behind the blond man; feeling surprised. After he touched his ears, the small yellow dot on his ears moved behind his ears and was blocked by the long blond hair. And at that moment, Xiào Mu saw a very thin spiritual filament sticking out from behind his ears, touched the small yellow dot, and then it disappeared.

This blond man is clearly a guide.