Chapter 1756 — Night Market Sightings, Part Two: Sure Enough, a Crowd Was Gathered Before a Stall Watching the Commotion
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Darknight Spirit Mountain?" Wei Zhao was slightly startled. Why did it sound so much like the Ice-Snow Spirit Mountain? Could it truly be a place brimming with spiritual energy? At the Ice-Snow Spirit Mountain there were spirit beasts about—this Wei Zhao knew well. The white giant serpent Yang Qiqi had encountered, for instance, was a kind of spirit beast; at the very least, Wei Zhao knew of no species that matched the white giant serpent. It was a thing that was a snake and yet not a snake.
The same went for the Thunder Pig at Wei Zhao's side. Call it a pig, and yet it did not much look like one—what pig was ever so small? It was more like a chibi pig out of a comic. These were all spirit beasts that had undergone mutation, and they too lived in places rich in spiritual energy! So it was in Zhang Lifeng's ancient tomb as well.
"That's right. According to the old folks, long, long ago there was a sect on Darknight Spirit Mountain called Darknight Palace, a very, very formidable sect. The people there were all masters of martial arts, and they could live forever without growing old..." Wang Laoba said. "And around Darknight Palace there lived certain spirit beasts. These spirit beasts were different from ordinary wild beasts—they had spiritual intelligence, and like the people of Darknight Palace they too could become immortals... Among them the most famous was a kind of black phoenix called the Dark Phoenix. They say whoever eats the black phoenix will live forever without growing old..."
"Wang Laoba, are you trotting out the bedtime stories you tell your children to hoodwink people?" A woman selling goods at another hunter's stall beside Wang Laoba's could not resist a jab. Today Wang Laoba had bagged such a strange pheasant; though the pheasant had not sold, plenty of his other game had, and it had hurt her own business, so the woman was rather displeased.
"A fairy tale isn't necessarily untrue. Didn't you hear the same story when you were little? We grew up together as bare-bottomed brats, all listening to the popcorn-selling grandpa tell stories under the same big tree, and you believed it then too, didn't you?" Wang Laoba shot back. "And I've already said it was the old folks who told it, not something I made up myself. What are you getting so worked up for?"
"Hmph..." The woman had nothing to say, but she still gave a sniff.
"All right, Uncle Wang, why don't you go on?" Wei Zhao said with a smile. "I find it rather interesting!"
"Fine, then let's go on. They say whoever eats that black phoenix will live forever without growing old, and can even become a master of the martial arts..." Wang Laoba said.
"If it's so wonderful, why don't you eat it yourself?" The woman curled her lip in scorn.
"I... a rough fellow like me would get no use from eating it, and I wouldn't know how to eat it anyway. Better to sell it for hard cash..." Wang Laoba flushed. In truth, he did not much believe in legends and such either—otherwise, would he be offering it up for sale?
"It does sound rather good. Then we'll buy it. Can you make it a little cheaper?" Wei Zhao asked, his face betraying nothing, while in his heart a mighty storm was rising! Legends were not necessarily baseless. On Darknight Spirit Mountain there might well be a Darknight Palace!
Perhaps it was something like the Ice Palace—one of those ancient sects that simply kept no contact with the mundane world, so that people took it for a legend...
"Cheaper I can't do. I, Wang Laoba, have already made my bold claim—if it won't fetch ten thousand, I'll take it home and stew it into soup myself." Wang Laoba was one of those blunt, single-tracked men, and rather fond of saving face.