Stranger Danger

Chapter 172: Pawn Shop No. 8

“This isn’t funny anymore!”

Right before the stall owner would get a new brain piercing, he abruptly screamed and made a grab for a pedestrian a short distance away for him. The next moment, the pedestrian abruptly appeared at his location, and he at the pedestrian’s location.

Somehow, the two men had switched places in the blink of an eye!

“Come back!”

When Lightning Bolt was an inch away from the pedestrian’s forehead, Ye Qing realized what happened and stopped his mini sword just in time. While he was doing this, the stall owner whistled again at his stall. The tattered cloth on the ground abruptly folded unto itself and wrapped all of his possessions in a neat bundle. Once the knot was tied, it automatically flew toward the stall owner.

At first, the bundle was very huge, but as it flew toward the stall owner it shrank more and more until it was the size of a normal bag. After the stall owner caught the bundle and carried it behind his back, he saluted Ye Qing mockingly and said, “Hehe. Until next time, brother!”

His body started turning transparent. He was clearly planning to leave the Strange Market.

“Interesting,” Ye Qing chuckled, but his tone was cold enough to freeze the Nether. He made a grasping motion, and a sea of Blood Shadows suddenly appeared in the sky. They then shot toward the stall owner from every direction.

“Holy mother of heavens!” The stall owner exclaimed in shock and turned transparent faster. Right before the Blood Shadows would hit him, he abruptly disappeared and left the Strange Market.

“Phew! That was too close!”

In a small alleyway of Luo Shui, a stout thirty plus years old man wiped the non-existent sweat on his forehead after returning to the real world.

The man had a stout body and an honest-looking face, but his voice was naturally flippant and deceitful. He could pretend to be simple and honest if he kept quiet, but as soon as he opened his mouth he automatically gave off a treacherous, untrustworthy impression not unlike a wolf in sheep’s skin.

“I went for wool and came back shorn. What horrendous luck!” The middle-aged man shook his head dejectedly but quickly regained his spirit. “Oh well! I can’t always have my way. Time to seek out Young Cui and discuss the meaning of life with her [1], hehehe…”

“A day’s work happens in the morning, and a day’s relaxation at night. Oh, I can hardly wait…”

The middle-aged man was skipping down the road and whistling when suddenly, he noticed something strange, “Huh? Why is my bundle so light?”

When he looked behind his back, his eyes widened like saucers as he let out a devastated scream, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

As it turned out, there was a hole in his bundle, and most of his items had fallen out since heavens-know-when!

“Ahhhhhhh! My precious! My precious!”

“I’ll find you, thief… I, Tang Shi, will definitely find you!”

……

“Why is he keeping such garbage? Trash, useless, trash, useless…”

After the fourth stall owner had left the Strange Market, Ye Qing finally found the time to have a “friendly” chat with the stall owner who sold him the Warding Pendant in the first place. It went without saying that the stall owner packed his stuff and ran as soon as the conversation was over. After that, Ye Qing happily went through the items the escaped stall owner had left behind.

He had done it on purpose, of course. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to kill the stall owner in time, he instead directed his Blood Shadows to attack the bundle. To be honest, he didn’t really think it would work. If was a-tenth of a second slower, then he might have ended up with nothing at all. But it did, so it was looting time.

Ye Qing felt zero guilt claiming these items as his own since the guy had tried to kill him. In fact, he never minded killing people who wished to kill him such as the three stall owners who tried to kill him just now. They had turned greedy when they learned that the jade pendant was none other than the famous Warding Pendant, and admittedly their tactics and timing were pretty good. They had chosen to attack him using traceless methods while he was fighting against the cloaked man. If his spirit wasn’t as strong as it was, there was a good chance he actually could’ve died here.

Unfortunately for his wannabe killers, he was not someone to be trifled with. It was why he lived and they died.

The last stall owner was pretty tricky though. His ability to keep himself alive in particular was downright exceptional. That said, he managed to steal most of the bastard’s possession and make it hurt, so he counted it as a win.

He wasn’t referring to physical pain, but psychological. Warriors healed quickly from their wounds, so physical pain was temporary at best. Psychological pain though, now that was something that could last a long time even if you were the strongest warrior in the world.

Thanks to Ye Qing’s display of ruthlessness, no one dared to pick up the stall owner’s items even if they were right next to their feet. Everyone was terrified that Ye Qing would just up and murder their asses. It was why Ye Qing could collect the items at his leisure and even rate how shitty they were from time to time.

The stall owner’s items were mostly garbage, but there were some good stuff in it. For example, there was the cocoon of the Red-class Cocoon Tree, the eyeball of the Blue Pupil Cat, and spirit materials such as the Star Mushroom, the Snake Favored Grass, the Fire Lotus and so on. These items alone were worth the trouble.

“Wait this is… the Star Lotus! Hell yeah!” Ye Qing’s eyes lit up when he picked up a nail-sized lotus that was shaped like a star and glowing silver.

The Star Lotus was an extremely rare spirit material that could accelerate the refinement of one’s astral qi and the fusion between astral qi and true qi. It was a priceless treasure to any Astral Refiner because it could save them years or even decades depending on their innate talent.

Even for Ye Qing, the Star Lotus was extremely valuable because he was in the middle of tempering his astral qi and true qi right now. This Star Lotus was the last push he needed to fully merge his astral qi and true qi, and he could use the Blood Jade Lotus afterward to skyrocket to the late-stage of the Astral Refinement stage.

“Thank you once more for your blessing, daddy heavens!”

The Star Lotus was so good he just couldn’t be bothered to check the rest of the items one by one anymore. He just glanced at them once and shoved it all into his Nature’s Shell.

Of course, he didn’t forget about the possessions of the three stall owners he killed. He put it all into his Nature’s Shell when he passed by the area.

“Hmm? What’s this? It looks like a badge of some sort.”

Suddenly, Ye Qing noticed a shiny black object and picked it up from the ground.

“Pawn shop?”

The badge was mysterious-looking and expertly crafted. Ye Qing couldn’t tell what kind of material it was made of, only that it was icy to touch and almost weightless. It almost felt like he was holding a tree leaf. One side of the badge was engraved with the word “Pawn Shop”, and the other side “No. 8”.

“Pawn shop? Number eight? Pawn Shop No. 8?!” Ye Qing exclaimed in astonishment.

It can’t be the Pawn Shop No. 8 from my world, right? [2]

He had just said this when his surroundings suddenly took a drastic change. One second ago, he was still standing in the middle of a bustling market. The next second, he found himself in a pitch black space where massive, indiscernible shadows swam by from time to time. At the same time, countless hoarse, low, and cryptic murmurs rang beside his ears. A single winding limestone road stretched into the darkness.

“What on earth is this place?”

Ye Qing immediately tensed up with worry and confusion. But before he could make sense of this strange place, he heard a series of strange laughter,

“Hehehe…”

“Hahaha…”

“Kekeke…”

The laughter was eerie and unsettling. The Warding Pendant tied to his waist glowed like it was about to burst into flames.

“Hehehe, welcome to Pawn Shop No. 8, dear customer…”

“Hahaha, just follow the road…”

“Kekeke, and you will see our pawn shop…”

“Hehehe… we wish you… hahaha… a pleasant day… kekeke… customer…”

The three voices completed each other’s sentences while laughing from time to time. As they continued laughing, the surrounding shadows writhed and actually started reaching out to Ye Qing from both sides of the road. He subconsciously summoned the Burning Wind to burn the shadows away, but for the first time ever, the astral qi failed to elicit any response whatsoever. They disappeared as soon as they sank into the darkness not unlike a clay ox that had fallen into the sea.

Nothing happened when the shadows reached under his feet though—at least, not yet. When Ye Qing looked down, the shadows slowly spread out and transformed into countless faces. There were male, female, young and old; joy, sorrow, hatred, anger and malice…

The faces would continue to cycle through all sorts of expressions as if it was an expression of the facades of life. It chilled Ye Qing to the core just looking at them.

“What the hell are these things?” Ye Qing gulped. He made up his mind to follow the road then. He might not know exactly what was waiting ahead of him, but it seemed like a bad idea to hang around. Without further ado, he took off into a small jog and ventured into the darkness beyond.

As he continued along the road, the scenery on both sides of the road and underneath his feet kept changing like a light show. He saw Strangers of all shapes and sizes, fantastical sceneries unlike anything he had ever seen, existences that went beyond the ability of words to describe, treasures that were as priceless as they were rare…

To put it simply, it was a dizzying, terrifying, yet eye-opening experience.

Half a teatime later, a traditional building with flying eaves slowly rose from the horizon. Bronze bells were hung on all eight corners of the rooftop, and a sign board was hung at the top center of the building. It said, “Pawn Shop No. 8”.

What was strange was that the four words were covered in black flames and giving off some sort of transparent smoke. The building itself looked like it was covered by a heat haze, and they combined to form a gigantic, all-encompassing black cloaked figure in the black sky.

“It really is the Pawn Shop No. 8!” Ye Qing’s eyes widened in disbelief. The old memories surfaced, and he even felt a sense of kinship for this place even though it was anything but. Human emotions really were a strange thing!

“I wonder if it’s just like the pawn shop in the TV show; a pawn shop where you can pawn off everything including your soul!”

Ye Qing was still hesitating when the doors of the pawn shop were suddenly flung open. A light shone out of the belly of the building, and numerous black cloaked figures who looked very much like the silhouette in the sky but way smaller filed out into two lines. They then greeted him cordially,

“Welcome to Pawn Shop No. 8, dear customer…”

“Welcome to Pawn Shop No. 8, dear customer…”

“Welcome to Pawn Shop No. 8, dear customer…”

1. He’s implying sex. Also Young doesn’t necessarily mean she’s young, it’s just a nickname like Blackie or something. ☜

2. Pawn Shop No. 8 is a famous 2003 Taiwanese television series. ☜