69novels Chapter 819 - 508: The Peddler, Entering_2
Chapter 819 - 508: The Peddler, Entering_2
[Chamber Pot (Fine)]
[This pot is filled with boy’s urine. It’s quite effective at driving off ordinary ghosts, but powerful ghosts will instead be enraged by it.]
[Ghost Jar (Rare)]
[You’re not seeing things—there really is a ghost sealed in this jar. Although this ghost has been preliminarily tamed and can fight for you, it’s recommended that only someone with proper cultivation drives it, otherwise it’s easy to be bitten back by the ghost inside.]
[Blood Wood Sword (Rare)]
[Made from century-old peach wood and the fresh blood of a healthy adult rooster slaughtered at the peak of pure yang, it has a strong restraining effect against all kinds of ghosts.
The only thing to note is that it’s not very sturdy. Once it’s damaged during use, its effectiveness will drop sharply or even become completely useless.]
...
"Even rare-grade items are just tossed into the basket for sale. This peddler isn’t simple... I wonder what’s in the crate behind him. Could it be Excellent-grade?"
After scanning the descriptions of the items that popped up, Wang Zhifan realized that this old peddler was the NPC merchant mentioned in the opening information of the instance, the kind that could bring players direct benefits. So he said to the peddler, who was still turning the silver ingot over in his hand:
"Old man, this bundle of incense definitely isn’t worth the silver ingot I gave you. I want to buy some more things—take all your goods out and let me have a look."
The old peddler still didn’t take his eyes off the silver ingot in his hand and casually replied:
"All the goods are in the basket. Pick for yourself."
Seeing this, Wang Zhifan had no choice but to spell it out:
"Don’t you still have a box behind you? The stuff inside isn’t for sale?"
The peddler immediately shook his head and answered:
"That’s where this old man stores food, and sometimes items custom-ordered by guests, but those things have already been delivered."
"Alright, then I’ll take six more candles and a wooden sword."
Wang Zhifan immediately stated his choices, testing the peddler’s reaction.
As he had expected, the old peddler finally shifted his gaze from the silver ingot to him, frowned, and said sternly:
"Young man, don’t be too greedy. The silver ingot you gave isn’t bad, but it’s not even enough for a Blood Wood Sword, let alone the other things."
"If it’s not enough, I’ll add another ingot. That should do, right?"
Wang Zhifan started bargaining with him.
A short while later, at the cost of two silver ingots, Wang Zhifan traded with the old peddler for a bundle of incense, four candles, and a Blood Wood Sword.
He chose like this not because he particularly needed these things to clear the instance, but to get ready for the spirit-invoking ritual, so that he’d at least look somewhat normal when he started "dancing the shaman dance."
After all, with his strength and equipment, he really couldn’t care less about a couple of mere rare-grade items. He didn’t think that his full set of Legendary and Epic gear could possibly be inferior to these odds and ends.
And as Wang Zhifan walked down the mountain with his purchases, the players behind him also came over one after another.
These players clearly weren’t going to pass up the chance to buy targeted items. They all started buying candles, glutinous rice, black donkey hooves, red cords, Blood Wood Swords, and the like, which even caused a few small disputes—but none of that had anything to do with Wang Zhifan anymore.
On the way down the mountain, Wang Zhifan stowed the incense, candles, and wooden sword into his Space Ring, then summoned the Red Deer Horse and rode it straight toward the mountain pass Xiaoqiang had indicated earlier.
All the way, he rode over hills and ridges. The first half of the route still felt relatively normal, but the closer he got to that mountain pass, the more he sensed an increasingly thick aura of ill omen in the air. Even the Red Deer Horse beneath him began to show signs of agitation, clearly reluctant to head in the direction he was steering it.
"The Red Deer has gone in and out of battlefields with me. It’s not as skittish as an ordinary horse. For it to be showing this kind of emotion means the Land of the Dead Soul really is bad news."
Realizing that the Red Deer Horse was giving him a warning, Wang Zhifan decisively dismounted and, while still in a safe zone, sent the Red Deer back to the secret realm where it lived. In any case, by now he was already close to the mountain pass leading into the Land of the Dead Soul.
Looking at the pass amid the dark mountains ahead, Wang Zhifan didn’t notice anything particularly strange at first glance. But at the second glance, he realized that the pass didn’t seem like a dead thing; after a few more looks, he vaguely felt that the pass was a huge black mouth, waiting for ingredients from outside to walk in of their own accord.
If you peered into the pass, you’d see that the air inside carried an inexplicable darkness, constantly surging and flowing, making the expanse of wasteland within seem as if it were trembling as a whole.
"Such intense evil energy—it’s already turned into tangible currents of air."
Even an ordinary person would be able to sense that something was very wrong with a scene like this, but Wang Zhifan had no intention of stopping here. Without the slightest hesitation, he passed through the mountain pass, which was at least a hundred meters wide, and stepped into the Land of the Dead Soul.
Once inside, his first impression was that the air in this place was just like what he’d seen outside the pass: carrying a special darkness. It wasn’t in the usual, completely transparent state, but it didn’t feel like a place shrouded in mist either. It was extremely peculiar.
By his ears, because of the flow of the air—or rather, the flow of evil energy—a chill wind howled without any fixed direction, accompanied by strange and unsettling sounds. Together they created an atmosphere straight out of a horror movie, even though it was still daytime.
What made it even more uncanny was that this eerie atmosphere wasn’t just for show. Wang Zhifan immediately noticed that more than a dozen evil presences appeared around him in short order. Every one of them fixed their attention on him, this newcomer, emanating icy malice.
For instance, several hundred meters in front of him, the figure of a long-haired woman in white suddenly emerged. Her eyes were pure white, the skin of her face was rotting. After giving him a distant look, the corners of her mouth, where the rot exposed her gums, began to stretch wide. Her figure vanished and reappeared in an instant, now much closer to him.
Off to his side, two children with darkened faces climbed up out of the ground. While letting out a string of "ge-ge-ge" giggles, they took each other’s skulls off and started playing a game of toss-the-head.
On another side, the originally flat ground suddenly bulged up, forming the shape of a grave. A crack then split open across its surface, revealing a section of dark-red coffin that slowly slid in his direction.
Other, more distant spots were no calmer. All kinds of monsters and specters revealed themselves and gradually closed in on the spot where Wang Zhifan was standing.
Yet under the pressure of all this evil, Wang Zhifan’s lips just curled up and he let out a laugh.
"Heh heh... a bunch of little spooks, and you dare put on airs in front of your granddaddy? Die for me!"
With that, he suddenly drew his saber. The Cyan Emperor Saber in his hand, its color like jadeite, swept out in an arcing slash. A huge, dazzling arc of blade-light burst forth, instantly blasting apart the female ghost in front of him and the coffin at his side.
The woman in white vanished without a sound, as if turned to dust and scattered. As for the coffin, that was even more ridiculous—half of the broken coffin was left on the surface, while the other half fled, shrinking back underground and never daring to show itself again.
All the other ghosts around him vanished in the blink of an eye as well, obviously scared off by the power of that single strike. They dropped the whole surrounding-and-intimidating act.
"Those two ghosts actually survived my attack... I mean, I only casually tossed out a slash, but the fact that they could barely withstand it is already not bad."
All his first-encounter enemies had bolted in an instant, but Wang Zhifan didn’t underestimate them because of that.
Their performance had exceeded his expectations. Not only had they survived, they also knew when to advance and retreat, possessing basic intelligence.
These ghosts were undoubtedly just small fry on the fringes of the Land of the Dead Soul. Scaring them off wasn’t much of an accomplishment, and even if he wiped them all out, he’d hardly get any gains. So Wang Zhifan ignored them and headed straight for the depths of the Land of the Dead Soul.
He hadn’t been walking long before he noticed the sky rapidly turning dark—night was approaching. That meant the level of risk in this place was about to rise again.
"According to Xiaoqiang’s grandma, the broken-down temple is the safest place at night... Let’s find one."
He deliberately started searching for a safe zone, laying the groundwork to survive the coming month.