Chapter 101: The Poison Valley Bazaar
Nest morning the sun was barely visible through the thick toxic miasma that covered the Poison Valley Town.
Meanwhile, Gu Fan slipped out of the Gu Clan estate’s side gates with a plain black cloth covering the lower half of his face.
He did not really stand out as hiding one’s identity was a very common sight among the rugged rogue cultivators who frequented this town.
So Gu Fan casually dressed in ordinary dark martial robes while he strolled down the streets of the town that reeked strongly cheap medicinal pastes.
Mercenaries wearing heavy armoured sets and massive battle-axes strapped to their backs walked past around him roughly, desperate merchants loudly hawked through the streets wanting to sell low-tier beast cores from their wooden shops.
But Gu Fan just took in all the sights with a highly satisfied smirk. Because hidden beneath his mask Gu Fan could very well feel the panicked under current pulse through the town.
The atmosphere in the streets was incredibly tense and openly hostile since the sudden market crash had everyone completely on edge.
Rogue cultivators constantly looked over their shoulders and tightly gripped their spatial pouches because the sudden, terrifying lack of healing pills meant that a single severe injury in the nearby spirit forests could easily turn into a permanent death sentence.
Soon Gu Fan finally moved through the town and entered the massive, sprawling central plaza of the Merchant Bazaar.
This was the most prosperous part of the town and this was the primary battleground between the Gu Clan and the Bai Clan.
He was immediately greeted by the loud, screaming chaos unfolding directly in front of the Gu Clan’s primary medicinal pavilion, because a massive, incredibly angry mob of rogue cultivators and desperate mercenaries was actively trying to force their way inside.
The heavy ironwood doors were barely holding up as the completely overwhelmed Gu Clan disciples desperately tried to maintain order with their swords drawn.
But the crowd was absolutely not getting into control. They were desperate and furious since the pavilion’s display shelves were almost empty.
The shelves only featured low-quality, rotting herbs and heavily diluted mortal-grade potions and even those were being sold at absolutely exorbitant prices.
Literal fistfights were about to break out right in the middle of the street as cultivators pushed each other just to secure a single, pathetic blood-clotting potion, while the Gu Clan shopkeepers sweated profusely and yelled until their throats bled.
Though Madam Li had managed to secure the raw materials, but the Shops would still need another couple of days to get the supplies of potions and poisons.
"I wrote such a righteous hero... But I myself turned into a despicable guy," Gu Fan shook his head as he enjoyed the sight in front of him, before shifting his gaze directly across the wide street toward the Bai Clan’s massive pill pavilion.
But compared to the Gu Clan Pavilion, it was practically a complete ghost town.
The Bai Clan shops were entirely deserted and their big and massive display shelves had been completely wiped clean of every single spiritual ingredient.
This left the Bai disciples looking utterly defeated and deeply humiliated as they sat on the floor with blank, lifeless expressions.
Their dao heart was absolutely similar to that of their clan’s economic foundation. Totally empty and broken.
Gu Fan had seen whatever he had to and ignoring the screamings, riots and the pathetic weeping as he continued moving further down the bustling bazaar until he finally reached the wealthy, heavily fortified territory that was the reason he was actually here.
It was the pavilion of the town’s only so called neutral Song Clan.
Gu Fan was quick to notice that their massive weapon shops were significantly calmer and incredibly well-stocked compared to the ruined medicinal pavilions of Gu and Bai Clans.
Dozens of elite guards wearing thick, heavy armours stood outside the shop in absolute discipline.
"I should check it out," Gu Fan confidently walked right through the main entrance of their largest, most prestigious weapon store.
He looked at the massive displays of gleaming broadswords, heavy spiked shields, and glowing defensive arrays that lined the high, intricately carved walls.
A young, relatively attractive female staff member wearing the light blue robes of the Song Clan quickly approached him.
But when her eyes darted toward his plain dark clothes and his heavily concealed face, their was an obvious hesitation in her eyes since he looked exactly like a poor, wandering rogue cultivator who couldn’t afford a single decent spiritual weapon.
"I want to see your absolute best offensive weapons, and don’t waste my time with any low-tier mortal grade trash," Gu Fan demanded before the female disciple could even speak.
The female disciple flinched slightly, but in her eyes, Gu Fan looked like most of the obnoxious wandering Cultivators who were all talk and no show.
So while not showing the disdain in her eyes, but to save her time, she reached under the counter to bring out a Mortal-grade longsword that barely pulsed with any weapon Qi at all.
"This is a reliable blade forged from tempered steel, sir, which is quite suitable for hunting basic spiritual beasts in the outer forests," she explained to him.
Gu Fan’s eyes instantly narrowed as he looked at the pathetic piece of scrap metal resting on the counter.
"What is this?" Gu Fan didn’t even try to hide his irritation as he grabbed the piece of cheap metal, looked at it from all sides and threw it back on the counter
"Are you fucking blind, or is the great Song Clan really just this pathetically cheap?!" Gu Fan’s voice echoed through the store and immediately drawing the shocked stares of every single customer and heavily armored guard in the room.
’Who dates to make trouble in the Song Clan territory?’
"I asked for your absolute best, and you bring me a rusty butter knife that wouldn’t even pierce the skin of a crippled slime beast?"
"Is this kind of absolute trash what you at the Song Clan consider extraordinary, or are you just hiding the fact that your pathetic blacksmiths don’t actually know how to forge a real weapon?!"
"Sir... Please don’t make a scene..."
Gu Fan’s loud taunts instantly caused a massive uproar, and before the terrified female shopkeeper could even stutter an apology, the heavy wooden door behind the counter flew open.
"Who dares to insult the Song Clan’s forging arts in my pavilion?!" the elder snarled furiously, as he aggressively flared his 5th Stage Spirit Realm cultivation base, instantly causing the heavy air in the room to turn incredibly suffocating as he locked his murderous gaze onto the arrogant customer.
"You are just a foolish junior courting death, so I will break your legs and throw you into the street like the absolute trash you are!" the elder roared before he aggressively lunged right across the counter, his right hand reached out to grab Gu Fan by his throat.
However, before the elder could get a hold of Gu Fan, he effortlessly activated the footwork of his movement technique, casually taking a single half-step backward so the elder’s deadly martial art harmlessly swiped through empty air, completely missing his neck by a mere fraction of an inch while leaving a deep gouge in the wooden floorboards.
"Is that really all the speed a 5th Stage Spirit Realm elder can muster, or are your old bones just too brittle to catch a simple junior?" Gu Fan mocked ruthlessly, easily dodging two more frantic, highly aggressive Qi strikes from the furious old man with completely effortless sways of his waist.
"Are you going to get serious? Or we doing tango for the audience?"
"You?!" The elder’s face turned completely purple with sheer rage and utter humiliation.
In front of all these people, he couldn’t even touch the masked man’s clothes.?
This did not only showed him in bad light, it was an impression of the Song Clan as well.
He could absolutely not let the name of the Song Clan drag through the mud.
"You are going to regret this," The elder gathered a massive surge of spiritual Qi into his palm, fully preparing to unleash a devastating attack.
But just as the elder raised his hand to strike and the guards rushed forward with their spears drawn, a calm authoritative voice suddenly echoed softly from the top of the grand wooden staircase, cutting through the tense atmosphere like a sharp blade.
"Stand down immediately, because you are embarrassing our clan," the voice echoed smoothly, prompting the elder to instantly freeze his deadly attack and lower his head in absolute submission, "Is this how we treat the customers?"
Don’t you remember the Song Clan motto?
"Yes, Master, I do..." The elder averted his gaze away from the source of the voice, "Customer is God!"
Gu Fan stopped asking well, and looked up toward the stairs, as a satisfied smirk spread widely across his face underneath his black cloth mask.
"And we meet..."
