12dz Chapter 103 West District Rat Alley and the Blind Old Woman
Chapter 103 West District Rat Alley and the Blind Old Woman
Chapter 103 West District Rat Alley and the Blind Old Woman
The bustling city that never sleeps is like a magnificent robe crawling with lice. Outsiders can only see the dazzling white jade tower and the endless singing and dancing, but they cannot see the festering sores beneath the robe.
The West District is the biggest blemish in this city that never sleeps.
There are no suspended pavilions here, nor dazzling arrays or neon lights. Here, there are only low, damp shacks, a tangled mess of illegal structures, and a perpetual musty smell in the air. This is the sewers of the city that never sleeps, the outlet for all filth and sin, and the last refuge for countless penniless and desperate rogue cultivators like Gu An.
Three full days have passed since Gu An brought Shen Wan to check into this slum known as "Rat Alley".
For the past three days, Gu An has been like a real mouse, cautiously probing everything around him with his antennae. He didn't rush to find ways to make money, but instead devoted all his energy to familiarizing himself with the environment and concealing his whereabouts.
In the early morning, the rat-infested alley was shrouded in a layer of hazy miasma.
Gu An pushed open the rickety wooden door, and a damp, cold wind carrying the stench of rotting fish and excrement rushed in. He tightened his patched gray Taoist robe, pulled down the brim of his straw hat to cover his half-festering face, and walked out carrying a tattered bamboo basket.
The alley was already filled with pedestrians.
Most of them were low-level cultivators with sallow complexions and numb eyes. Some were washing discarded artifact fragments they had picked up from who-knows-where in the dirty ditches by the roadside, while others squatted in the corner with a few withered low-level spiritual herbs in front of them, hoping to exchange them for even a single spirit stone.
There are no law enforcement teams patrolling here, and there are no rules or regulations.
Gu An witnessed firsthand that just last night, an old cultivator at the second level of Qi Refining was dragged into a dead end by two thieves hiding in the shadows for flaunting his wealth. The next morning, the old cultivator's body was thrown into the sewer at the end of the alley, his storage bag and clothes were stripped clean, and even his two gold-plated dentures were knocked out.
People around ignored it, and some even went up to examine the body to see if any scraps of food had been left behind.
This is the survival rule of the West Side: the strong prey on the weak, and indifference prevails.
Gu An withdrew his gaze and walked with slightly stiff steps towards the alley entrance along the slippery bluestone path.
He's going to buy rice.
It wasn't the kind of spiritual rice imbued with spiritual energy—that was something only the gentlemen of the inner city could afford. What he wanted to buy was a kind of scrap called "chaff rice." It was the residue left after the spiritual rice was hulled, mixed with ordinary grains. Although it contained negligible spiritual energy and tasted like chewing wax, it was cheap and could barely sustain a cultivator's abstinence from grains.
"Three catties of bran rice, two stacks of yellow paper, and a box of cinnabar."
In front of a general store at the alley entrance, Gu An tossed out two small pieces of spirit stone, each the size of a fingernail, and said in a hoarse voice.
The shopkeeper was a fat man with a face full of scars, who was trimming his nails with a boning knife. He glanced at Gu An's rotten face, a hint of disgust flashing in his eyes, and casually grabbed a bag of moldy rice and several stacks of cheap talisman paper, throwing them on the counter.
"The price has gone up. You'll need to add another piece of Soul Shard," the fat man said without looking up.
"It was the same price yesterday." Gu An placed his hand on the counter, his tone calm.
"Yesterday is yesterday, today is today." The fat man blew the crumbs off his fingernails and sneered, "I heard the Black Shark Gang has been fighting at sea lately and a lot of people have died, so shipping costs have naturally gone up. Buy it or don't, if you don't want to, get lost."
Gu An remained silent for a moment.
He neither argued nor got angry. He simply took out an even smaller spirit stone from his pocket, placed it on the counter, picked up his things, and turned to leave.
In this place, arguing over a few spirit stones is the most foolish thing to do. Because you never know if behind this seemingly ordinary general store owner is a gang leader.
endure.
This is what Gu An has done the most in the past three days.
Back in the depths of Rat Alley, Gu An did not go straight back to the house.
He circled the maze-like shack area twice, and only after making sure there were no tails behind him did he squeeze into an extremely narrow crevice, barely wide enough for one person to pass through.
At the end of the narrow passage was a wide underground culvert.
This is one of the main drainage systems of the city that never sleeps, flowing year-round with wastewater discharged from the inner city. Above the culvert, several stone chambers, resembling bird nests, are suspended in mid-air.
This is Gu An's current "home".
The reason for choosing this place is not only because the rent is cheap—only five spirit stones per month—but more importantly, because of the environment.
Although the wastewater flowing in the underground drains was filthy, it was also extremely cold and damp because it gathered the city's yin energy. For ordinary cultivators, living here for a long time could lead to blocked meridians or even demonic possession.
But for Gu An and Shen Wan, this place was a natural sanctuary.
Gu An pushed open the door and entered.
The stone chamber was dimly lit, and the walls were covered with water droplets.
Shen Wan sat cross-legged on the only broken wooden bed, with the chipped alchemy furnace in front of her. The dim firelight illuminated her face, which was covered in disguise mud.
Hearing the door open, Shen Wan opened her eyes, a glint of light flashing in her previously cloudy eyes.
"You're back?"
"Um.
""
Gu An tossed the rice he had bought into a corner, walked to the table, and poured himself a glass of cold water. "The situation outside is getting tense. The Black Shark Gang doesn't seem to have given up the search. I saw a few unfamiliar faces loitering around the alleyway."
"They can't find this place."
Shen Wan said calmly, reaching out to lift the lid of the alchemy furnace.
A pungent, spicy smell instantly filled the air.
At the bottom of the furnace lay a dozen or so bright red pills, each only the size of a soybean, their surfaces covered with irregular cracks, as if they might explode at any moment.
"Blood-Exploding Powder has been successfully prepared."
Shen Wan picked up a pill, a weary but relieved look in her eyes. "Although the ingredients are inferior, only of low grade, the medicinal effect is powerful enough. Taking one will burn your essence and blood within half a cup of tea's time to forcibly increase your spiritual power by 30%. The side effect is that you will be weak for three days afterward, and your meridians will suffer irreversible damage."
"That's enough."
Gu An picked up a pill and sniffed it. The violent, bloody stench caused the spiritual energy of the Azure Sea Dragonwood within his body to stir slightly.
"In the eyes of those desperados, this kind of thing is a second life."
Gu An carefully put the pills away, then frowned as he looked at Shen Wan's increasingly pale face. "How are you feeling?"
"He won't die."
Shen Wan coughed twice and pointed to the floor beneath his feet. "The Yin energy down here is very strong, which can suppress the fire poison in my body. As long as I don't recklessly use my spiritual power, I can hold on for a while longer."
Gu An nodded without saying anything more.
He walked to another corner of the room and lifted a loose stone slab. Below was a hole leading directly to a culvert, and a cold, eerie wind howled into the room.
Gu An sat cross-legged beside the hole and began to circulate his internal energy.
In this dark and damp underground, his mutated meridians thrived like a fish in water, greedily absorbing the free-floating watery evil energy in the air, gradually repairing his damaged dantian.
Time passed in silence.
Dusk fell in the blink of an eye.
Although the sun is not visible underground, Gu An knows from the changes in the water level in the underground channel that night has fallen in the outside world.
"I'll go and take care of these medicines."
Gu An stood up, straightened his robes, and said, "While I'm at it, I'll scout ahead and see if I can get any information about the Dragon Transformation Grass."
Shen Wan nodded without saying anything, and simply closed her eyes again.
Gu An pushed open the door and went out.
At this time, Rat Alley is more lively and more dangerous than during the day.
The dim lanterns swayed in the wind, casting long shadows of pedestrians. The air was thick with the smells of cheap cosmetics and blood.
Gu An walked along the boardwalk above the culvert toward the alley entrance.
Just as he passed the stone chamber next door, whose door was always tightly closed, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
The stone chamber was in an excellent location, situated directly above a backwater bend in a culvert, where the yin energy was at its strongest. Gu An had been living there for three days and had never seen the other residents. He had only heard the one-eyed old woman who was the landlady mention it once, saying that a strange person lived there with a very peculiar temper.
At this moment, the wooden door that had been closed all year round was actually half-open.
A strong, pungent smell of blood, carrying a peculiar, metallic odor, wafted out from under the door.
Gu An frowned subconsciously.
This smell—it doesn't taste like human blood, but rather like the stench of some deep-sea monster's entrails.
Out of caution, Gu An instinctively wanted to quicken his pace and leave.
However, just as he took that first step...
"Squeak—"
The half-closed wooden door was suddenly pushed open from the inside.
A hunched figure appeared at the doorway.
It was an old woman with a full head of silver hair, dressed in coarse linen clothes. In one hand she was carrying a rusty pair of scissors, and in the other hand she was holding a strange fish that was still struggling desperately.
The fish was entirely black, had four legs, and was covered in slime; it was clearly a mutated aquatic beast caught from the underground ditch below.
The old woman did not look at Gu An.
Or rather, she simply couldn't watch it.
Because her eye sockets were empty, without eyeballs, only two dark, fleshy holes, they looked particularly eerie in the dim light.
"Pfft!"
The old woman skillfully pierced the strange fish's abdomen with her scissors and made a forceful cut.
Black entrails spilled onto the ground, instantly intensifying the stench tenfold.
Gu An held his breath, kept his eyes straight ahead, pretended not to see, and wanted to pass by quickly.
In this rat-infested alley, the best way to deal with such a strange person is to pretend you're deaf and dumb.
However, just as Gu An was about to brush past him...
The blind old woman who was concentrating on gutting the fish suddenly stopped what she was doing.
Her wrinkled face slowly lifted, her two empty eye sockets staring straight at the direction where Gu An was.
A gust of cold wind blew by, stirring up the dust on the ground.
"young people----"
The old woman's voice was hoarse and dry, like two bones rubbing together, "The smell of blood on your body—you haven't washed it off properly."
Gu An's steps suddenly froze.
His pupils instantly contracted to pinpoints, and all the muscles in his body tensed to their limit. His right hand, hidden in his sleeve, had already gripped the hilt of the broken sword with lightning speed.
The murderous aura almost burst forth from his body in that instant.
The smell of blood on him?
He had clearly masked all the smells with corpse oil and putrefying fluid, making it impossible even for divine sense to detect. How did this blind old woman manage to smell it?
Moreover, what did she mean by that?
Is it a warning? Or a test?
Gu An stared intently at the blind old woman, his Canghai Dragon Wood spiritual power surging wildly within him, ready to strike and kill at any moment.
On this narrow plank road, if the other party made any unusual move, he was confident that he could cut off her head in a single breath.
However, after saying those words, the blind old woman acted as if nothing had happened and lowered her head again.
"The fish in these culverts just love to eat things that are bloody."
Muttering to herself, she tossed the gutted, strange fish into the wooden basin beside her, then reached for the next one. "The meat is fresher when it's bloody. It's a pity that young people these days don't understand this principle—"
"Click."
The sound of scissors cutting fish bones was particularly crisp in the quiet alleyway.
Gu An slowly loosened his hand from the hilt of the sword.
His back was already covered in a layer of cold sweat.
This old woman is no ordinary person.
Although she showed no signs of spiritual energy and appeared to be an ordinary old woman, her composure in the face of murderous intent and her almost supernaturally sharp perception were qualities that no ordinary blind person could possess.
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
These four words flashed through Gu An's mind.
He glanced deeply at the figure still intently gutting the fish, said nothing, and didn't linger. Instead, he quickened his pace and left the area.
It wasn't until he had walked quite a distance and blended into the bustling crowd that Gu An felt the oppressive feeling of being constantly on someone's back lessen slightly.
"This western district is definitely not as simple as it seems."
Gu An secretly became wary.
The appearance of that blind old woman served as a wake-up call for him. Who knew how many other oddballs like her were lurking in the shadows of this city that never sleeps? His disguise might fool most people, but to true experts, it would likely be riddled with flaws.
"We must improve our strength as soon as possible."
Gu An clenched his fist and strode towards the black market.
late at night.
After dealing with the Blood Explosion Powder, Gu An exchanged it for dozens of spirit stones and some urgently needed materials, and returned to the stone chamber.
He didn't tell Shen Wan about meeting the blind old woman, so as not to add to her psychological burden.
After a brief rest, Gu An returned to the hole that led directly to the underground canal.
It was already midnight, the time of day when yin energy was at its strongest.
Gu An sat down cross-legged, took out the broken jade pendant from his bosom, and placed it on his knees.
He planned to try to use the Yin energy underground to nurture the jade pendant and see if he could get more clues about the Nine Dragon Cauldron or the Ancestor.
However, just as he activated his cultivation technique and infused a wisp of spiritual energy into the jade pendant...
"Buzz"
A sudden change occurred.
The dragon energy that had been dormant deep within Gu An's dantian suddenly began to stir without warning.
Unlike the angry roar it gave when encountering the Ghost-Faced Black Fish, this was a kind of resonance.
It evoked a powerful resonance, as if a traveler were hearing his mother's call.
"What happened?"
Gu An's expression changed, and he hurriedly tried to suppress his agitation.
But that wisp of dragon energy was completely out of control. It surged wildly through Gu An's meridians, eventually flowing up his arm and into the broken jade pendant.
"Ang Yi"
A faint dragon's roar, audible only to Gu An, echoed in the stone chamber.
Immediately afterwards, an invisible wave, centered on the jade pendant, spread rapidly into the depths of the earth along the hole that led directly to the underground channel.
Gu An's consciousness subconsciously attached itself to this fluctuation, following it downwards.
Passing through murky culverts, through thick layers of rock, through a complex network of underground pipes —
Keep going down, down.
until----
Gu An's divine sense "saw" a huge, bottomless underground cavity.
In the deepest part of that void, in that endless darkness, it seemed that a pair of huge, star-like eyes slowly opened a crack.