Chapter 3735 — Price Competition

"Oh, let me think it over," Wei Zhao answered noncommittally, without coming right out and saying how exactly he meant to sell it.

The bearded middle-aged man had spoken earnestly enough, and on the face of it his words did make sense. But he was a merchant of this place after all, and when dealing with merchants one must never seem too eager—especially with so many others still coming over to ask after a price. If he rashly gave the man some promise now, he would have a hard time talking the price back up later.

Seeing Wei Zhao's immovable expression, the bearded man could only sigh in resignation. He had noted Wei Zhao's unfamiliar face and meant to get ahead of the others, to smooth-talk him into selling at a flat price. If Wei Zhao so much as nodded, then by the rules of this market, no one else would be permitted to compete with a higher bid afterward.

Unfortunately for him, Wei Zhao might be young, but he had seen far too much of this sort of thing to fall for such a trick so easily.

Within moments, no fewer than five or six merchants had gathered around Wei Zhao expressing interest in the carcass of the Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard. Wei Zhao laughed inwardly—this might as well be a small auction.

Still, that was all to the good. With so many people competing against one another, at least he need not worry about selling at a loss.

Seeing that the crowd was about right and not wanting to drag things out and make too great a stir—he still had proper business to attend to afterward—Wei Zhao cupped his hands to the merchants and said, "Gentlemen, I intend to sell this Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard carcass whole. Any who are interested, please name your price. By the rules of the market, the highest bid takes it."

The reason he chose to sell it whole rather than piece by piece was, of course, to save time. Otherwise, to say nothing of finishing within the hour before the inner street opened, he might spend an entire day here and still not sell it all.

And more than that—even if time were not a concern, purely out of consideration for keeping his identity concealed, Wei Zhao would not covet the extra spirit jade. After all, he had only one Thousand-Silk Mask. If this face of his became familiar, then later, when he wished to use it to hide his identity and get something done, it would be far from easy.

The merchants exchanged glances, helplessness in every eye. The highest bidder wins was the most common rule of the market, and as sellers they were usually glad enough to see such a scene. But now they stood in the buyer's position, and that put them at a disadvantage.

For if they fought one another to the bitter end, the one who profited in the end would be none of them—only Wei Zhao, the seller.

Yet even knowing the deal would be a hard one, they had no choice but to grit their teeth and press on. Who could help it, when this Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard was a strategic scarce resource with the power to draw the eye? If they simply let it go and a rival in attendance bought it, they might well lose a great mass of customers because of it later. That would be the truly disastrous loss!

Originally Wei Zhao had merely thought the carcass useless to himself, taking up space for nothing in the jade pendant's space, and that he might as well sell it for some spirit jade while he had the chance. He had never imagined it would create such a favorable situation.

It seemed his luck was not bad today, and he ought to earn a fair amount of spirit jade—just the thing to build up a little more capital for bidding on that Star-Ink Stone in the inner street.

"Brother, before we bid, might we first examine the carcass to see whether it is intact?" one of the merchants spoke up.

Wei Zhao nodded. "Of course. Apart from the inner core, which I have already removed, I haven't touched any other part. You may examine it as you please."

These merchants were all connoisseurs; whether the carcass had been tampered with would be obvious at a glance, and there was no possibility of pulling the wool over their eyes.

The men looked it over once and nodded slightly in satisfaction. Normally, of course, the most important and valuable part of a spirit beast's carcass was the inner core within it, and once the core was dug out, the rest could not be called utterly worthless—but it would lose at least half its value.

But to these merchants present, whose aim lay elsewhere, it was enough that the carcass was intact, that it could prove itself to be a Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard, and that it could draw the eye thereby.

Whether the inner core was still there was a secondary question. After all, even the core of a Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard was only that of an early Foundation Establishment beast, no different in essence from the cores of other spirit beasts of the same rank—valuable, to be sure, but hardly anything rare.

Still, these people were merchants, and such an obvious chance to haggle was not to be missed. "The carcass of a Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard is rather rare, true, but since the inner core has been removed, the price must suffer a considerable discount. How about this—I bid eighty spirit jade."

"Eighty spirit jade?" Wei Zhao raised an eyebrow without betraying a thing, and said nothing.

On his first two visits to the market, he had caught sight of the prices marked on some spirit beast carcasses. Those of the early Foundation Establishment rank generally went for over a hundred spirit jade, and those too were carcasses without inner cores.

For a rare commodity like the Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard, even allowing these merchants their margin, there was no possibility the price could be pressed down so low.

A price of eighty spirit jade was nothing short of an attempt to take advantage of him as an outsider!

Wei Zhao said not a word, but his disdain was plain enough. The merchant who had made the bid cursed inwardly at his own misstep and could have boxed his own ears on the spot.

By force of professional habit he had instinctively tried to squeeze the greatest advantage out of Wei Zhao, and for a moment had failed to realize that with so many of his fellow traders eager to jump in beside him, this was hardly an occasion on which he could press the price down—if anything, he ought to be bidding it up!

Sure enough, the bearded middle-aged man who had been a step ahead of them all gave a snort of laughter. "Eighty spirit jade? I suppose you're used to buying scrap. Brother, don't waste your time on these penny-pinching wretches and their endless quibbling—just sell it to me and be done with it. A flat price of one hundred fifty spirit jade. What do you say?" (To be continued...)

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