Chapter 67 — The Sleepless City

The blind elder did not know how to explain it to Shen Mu either. He gave a pair of dry laughs and said, "This city is also called the Sleepless Dragon City. Even at night it blazes with lamplight; for a thousand li around, every village brings its trade here. Shen'er, Granny, I won't be going on with the two of you.

Granny — have you any pocket money?

" Leaning on his bamboo staff, his face wreathed in smiles, he stretched out a hand.

Granny Zhu pretended not to see it. The blind elder reached for the beast hides on the cart and said with a laugh, "Shen'er, lend me two hides, and when I win at gambling I'll pay you back double!

" Shen Mu laughed.

"Take them, Blind Grandfather, and no need to repay them.

" "Don't you dare give him any! " Granny Zhu said in a fury. "This old wretch goes to the gambling dens every time he comes here, and every time he loses everything with a clatter!

Two hides of exotic beasts would buy us a fine stock of oil, salt, sauce and vinegar — far better than throwing them in the water!

At least in the water you'd hear a splash!

" The blind elder hastily draped the two hides over his shoulders, took to his heels, and vanished into the crowd. Granny Zhu stamped her foot in anger.

Shen Mu, puzzled, asked, "Granny, what is a gambling den? " Granny Zhu was outraged.

"A moment ago you wanted to play with fallen girls, and now you want to go to a gambling den — Shen'er, you are not learning to be good! " She glared at him and sneered, "And now you want to visit a whorehouse too?

That vixen Fu Qingyun — you had best keep your distance from her.

" Shen Mu was baffled: he had plainly meant to go to a pleasure house to look for someone; how had that turned into visiting a whorehouse? And what sort of place was a whorehouse, anyway? "Come to the city and there are so many rules — this is forbidden, that is forbidden.

" The youth grumbled inwardly. The old woman and the boy drove the ox cart to the marketplace, where the hubbub was even greater.

Goods of every kind dazzled the eye, and there were people of other races too, in strange and outlandish dress, until Shen Mu's eyes swam with the spectacle. Granny Zhu soon sold the ironware and the hides from the cart, trading them for oil, salt, sauce and vinegar. The merchant was likely from the outside world; his accent was peculiar, and he claimed to hail from the Kingdom of Jingping. Granny Zhu, though a woman, had always been free and open-handed and was hopeless at haggling.

She sold the ironware wrought by the Silent Artisan cheaply, and got little enough for the exotic hides as well. The merchant had some conscience in him, and feeling he had taken advantage of Granny Zhu and Shen Mu, he gave them a small pouch of dragon coins, a hundred or so in all. Dragon coins were the currency of Crimson Dragon City, stamped with a dragon-patterned pillar like the dragon pillars at the city's four corners.

Shen Mu sensed that the coins were fortified by a peculiar formation, forged no doubt with a secret art to keep them from being counterfeited. The two of them then sold the oxen and the sheep.

The beasts seemed to know their fate; they could not hold back their tears, and clamped their mouths on Shen Mu's clothes, unwilling to let go.

Shen Mu hesitated. Granny Zhu said in a low voice, "They are all wicked men.

" Shen Mu was startled — these oxen and sheep really had been people, transformed into beasts by Granny Zhu with the Nether Demon Transmutation Art!

"They were a band of brigands," Granny Zhu said, her voice thin as a thread. "Remember when you were small, and I took you out to a neighboring village to deliver a child? By the time we arrived, the whole village was dead. All these years I have been searching for traces of those brigands and never once found any — but a few days ago, I finally found them.

" Shen Mu was shaken to the core. He pulled his clothes free and let the merchant lead the oxen and sheep away. Slaughter or the plow waited for them; though he felt there was something not quite right in it, he could not say Granny Zhu had done wrong.

The Wasteland was that kind of place, where the weak were meat for the strong, and Granny Zhu's way of meting out justice, extreme though it was, was still better than none at all. He was even a little moved.

That affair had struck him hard in those days; he had never imagined that after ten-odd years Granny would still remember it, still keep in mind avenging the people of that village who had died for nothing. The two of them bought more cloth and fine wine and carried it all to the inn where they were staying. Suddenly Granny Zhu stopped short; catching sight of a shop selling rouge and face powder, she could not move her feet.

"Good wares! Only powder this fine could do justice to Granny's peerless beauty.

" The old woman was in raptures, her eyes shining, her toothless mouth whistling as she spoke, which set a gaggle of young girls to giggling without end. Granny Zhu turned a deaf ear, bought a great heap of rouge and powder, and spent nearly all the money that remained. Catching sight of Shen Mu standing to one side with boxes large and small in his arms, she felt a little guilty.

She fished about in her purse, and after a good while drew out the last dragon coin, stuffed it into Shen Mu's pocket, and said gently, "Shen'er, be good to yourself — go and buy something you like. But don't go yet; help me carry the rouge and powder back to the inn. " When Shen Mu delivered the cosmetics to the inn, the innkeeper was all deference, saying that rooms had long since been prepared for them. Shen Mu eyed the innkeeper with suspicion, and his heart gave a small jolt: the innkeeper winked at him and said in a low voice, "This subordinate greets the Young Cult Master. " The Nether Demon Cult's three hundred and sixty halls dabbled in every trade and calling — it had even opened an inn here in Crimson Dragon City. Shen Mu steadied himself and went into the guest room; Granny Zhu promptly shooed him out again, saying, "You so rarely get out — you must enjoy yourself to the full.

And mind you, spend that dragon coin sparingly.

" With the dragon coin in his pocket, Shen Mu went out. By night Crimson Dragon City was ablaze with lamplight, all the more bewitching.

Vendors of every kind and folk from villages near and far had all come out to sell strange wares of every description, and the streets were a sea of people, so thronged that a raised sleeve made a cloud.

"We, father and daughter, are folk of Qijia Village, passing through your honorable district. We seek neither fame nor profit, only that my daughter has come of age and has not yet been promised in marriage.

Hence this martial contest to choose a husband, in hope of finding a hero of surpassing skill. . .

" Hearing this voice, Shen Mu halted and looked, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry, at the raised platform, where the crowd was packed so tight not a drop could seep through. "That father and daughter from Qijia Village have come to hold their martial contest again. Come to think of it, last time they held it at the Granny Temple three years ago — surely after three years they still haven't found themselves a live-in son-in-law?

" "A single dragon coin — what can it buy? " As Shen Mu was turning this over, he heard someone cry out, "Priceless treasures, only three coins apiece!

" He looked toward the voice and saw a lane with a fair crowd in it, spread with all manner of strange and uncanny wares — mostly broken bricks and cracked tiles. "Can all these broken bricks and tiles be priceless treasures? And why would priceless treasures be so cheap?

" Astonished, Shen Mu quietly opened his Skypiercing Heavenly Eye and gazed intently — then shook his head to himself.

These were indeed only broken bricks and tiles, many of them picked up from the ruins of the Wasteland, without a trace of spiritual essence, far inferior to treasures like primal weapons.