"I wouldn't buy anything from here if I were you," came a voice from right beside him.
Gu Chenling had not noticed someone had stopped beside him as he had been deep in thoughts. So he turned his head visibly confused.
The middle-aged-looking man in regular, albeit a bit old-fashioned modern clothes, who had just spoken continued while now looking at the stall owner as if looking at a criminal, "There are way too many scammers selling fakes or scrolls with low quality skills and making them out to be genuine high grade skills."
Gu Chenling could hear a bit of bitterness in the other party's mocking voice.
'Ah… Someone seems to be talking from experience…'
"What are you glaring at me for. It's not like the one who scammed you was me," the stall owner bit back with contempt, "my scrolls are the real deal. If you don't want to buy, then scram."
"Someone like you who is hiding their aura can only be some low order ghost," the middle-aged man countered with a sneer. "Where would a fifth or fourth order ghost find real skill scrolls from? All you people who open stalls and hide your faces just like to rob people of their hard-earned merit points. Why else would you hide your face other than to not get tracked down by the people you scammed?"
Gu Chenling watched the exchange with interest. He also concentrated yin energy into his eyes since that bitter uncle had already mentioned auras. When he saw that the man who was acting aggressive towards the stall owner only had the aura of a lower third order ghost, Chenling did not know how to feel.
Having had bad experience before was one thing, but generalizing everyone who sets up a stall and hides their identity and verbally attacking them based on that one bad experience was another thing. Seeing the man acting like that, Chenling could only nod his head at heaven's and Yanluo Wang's judgment of making the man a lower third order ghost.
The man might not have committed any serious crimes during his lifetime, but his narrow-minded views and his proficiency in harassing the stall owner showed that he must have had a lot of experience doing this kind of thing.
From what Gu Chenling had seen during his prior exploration of the bazar there were a variety of people setting up stalls to sell things. There were some with third order auras and even a few with second order auras. Then there were those who hid their auras through some means he was not familiar with.
Intuition told Gu Chenling that those cloaked figures also varied in order levels like it was the case with those who did not hide their identity.
Gu Chenling was not all too familiar with the underworld. But he still had some common sense. Those people must have their own reasons to set up a stall and hide their identity. When someone weak was able to sell something very valuable, it might attract unwanted attention for example. Or maybe some pretty ladies just wanted to avoid harassment from hooligans.
Who knew? Chenling certainly did not. Therefore, he did not intend to judge for wanting to maintain anonymity and keep trouble at bay.
As Gu Chenling saw it, while the middle-aged man had every right to be pissed for having been screwed over before the way how he acted all aggressive and entitled did not sit well with Chenling.
"Sir," Gu Chenling spoke up, trying divert the man's attention from the stall owner, "Where would you recommend I go to buy skill manuals?"
His attempt was a success as the man turned to him, his expression turning much friendlier, maybe even a bit flattering. "This young sir, I would recommend Jinwang Auction House. I guarantee you that they only sell stuff of good quality."
Maybe it was obvious that Gu Chenling was new to the city as his eyes did not show that he recognized the name of the auction house. So the man continued to butter him up, rubbing his hands together like a shrewd businessman, "Young sir, you must be new to Tranquil Lake City if you don't know about it. But don't worry. If you want, I can guide you there."
'How come I feel like this guy is trying to scam me instead of the stall owner?'
Still Gu Chenling decided to humor him. "Lead the way then."
For a second he could see greed flash in the man's eyes as the man nodded eagerly and turned to lead the way as ordered.
Gu Chenling smiled wryly to himself, gave the stall owner a curt nod and then followed the middle-aged man. They walked through several streets and roads until they reached a luxurious-looking building. The signboard above the entrance read "Jinwang Auction House" in flamboyant calligraphy.
When they entered, the middle-aged man excused himself and told Gu Chenling to look around. Once having made sure that Chenling was occupied the man then walked straight to what looked like to be the manager. He spoke to the other in a hushed voice and even pointed to Gu Chenling who stood a few meters away looking at some products on display.
The manager gave a satisfied nod and touched his jade pendant to the middle-aged man's. The jades gave off a dim glow for a second which then disappeared.
A happy grin adorned the middle-aged face and he spoke a few more words to the manager before leaving without sparing Gu Chenling even a glance.
Gu Chenling had seen it all happening from the corner of his eye. He finally knew why the middle-aged man had been acting so eager to not let him spend his merit points at the previous booth. If he did not spend his merit points there, he would have more to spend it here at the auction house.
Soliciting potential customers must have earned the middle-aged man a good amount of merit points if one judged based on his happy face expression before he had left.
Soon the manager approached Gu Chenling with obvious intentions.
"Hello, sir. Is there anything specific you are looking for?"
Gu Chenling looked at the store manager, scanning the man for a brief moment, subconsciously noting that the man had a third order aura. But something did not feel quite right. So Chenling looked for the man's jade pendant, but could not find it where people usually hung their pendants. Something was fishy about the store manager and the fact that he hid his jade pendant did not help in making his doubts go away.
However, Gu Chenling did not let his suspicions show on his face. Instead, he showed a friendly smile and said, "I'm just looking around. But can I have a look at your skill manuals?"
"Certainly. Is there any specific kinds you are interested in?", the store manager answered in the affirmative.
"Movement skills will do."
The store manager nodded and quickly called a female employee, telling her to get the list of movement skill manuals which she swiftly brought over.
"Here you go. This is the list of every movement skill manual we have in store. Once you have decided on one, you can just pay and an employee will bring the skill manual scroll right out to you."
Gu Chenling inwardly narrowed his eyes at the manager. So he was supposed to buy something before getting to inspect the product? This was even worse than buying from a booth at the bazar. At the bazar he at least got to examine the product first before buying it.
"I would prefer being able to look at the product first before buying instead of only looking at a list," Gu Chenling said, his voice gentle and his lips forming a smile. But his gaze had cooled down a bit.
However, the store manager did not notice the little anomaly as he was busy with his own emotions as he was visibly irked by this uncooperative customer.
"Sir, our auction house is reputable and reliable. Looking at the list will suffice. You can't possibly be questioning the quality of the products we sell, can you?"
After these words from the manager two store guards who looked more like thugs stepped out from god knows where. They looked at Gu Chenling threateningly, obviously trying to get Chenling to comply and just go with whatever they wanted.
Seeing this, Gu Chenling's smile only became deeper and his eyes colder.
"Are you threatening me?"
"Oh, dear customer. You are mistaken. We just want you to not question our auction house's integrity and follow the established procedures," the store manager replied with a hypocritical smile.
"You would be more convincing if your guard dogs weren't blaring their teeth at your so called dear customer."
Gu Chenling almost could not stop himself from rolling his eyes.
"Hiring people to solicit naive customers and then forcing them to buy goods of questionable quality, not even letting them inspect the product before buying and you call that good business practices and boast about being reliable?" Gu Chenling gave a sharp laugh.
"What would you do if I did not buy anything and just walked out the door?"
The hypocritical smile vanished from the store managers mouth as a sneer took its place. "Dear customer, we can't have that, can we? Our auction house prides itself for selling something to every single customer who steps foot into our humble establishment. You will certainly not be an exception. Right?"
The threat was poorly veiled at this point. Even the thuggish guards stepped closer menacingly.
"But what if I insist?" Gu Chenling still would not budge.
While he had always been flexible and adapted to new circumstances easily he disliked being forced to do something he did not like. And once he had decided on something he could be as stubborn as a mule.
"Do you want to use violence to force me to buy your products?" Gu Chenling eyed the store guards as they got closer.
"It's not us forcing you. It's you forcing us to resort to such vulgar means. So you can't blame us. Blame yourself for being stubborn," the store manager barked out.
"So you aren't even going to pretend anymore," Chenling noted with a sarcastic smile.
"Quit the bullshit." The store manager turned to glare at the guards. "What are you guys waiting for. Grab him!"
As if on cue, the guards lunged at the uncooperative customer.
Gu Chenling quickly dodged to the side and raised his fist, giving a sharp uppercut to one of the bulky men. Not even a second later his leg stretched out and kicked the other one in the stomach.
Both thugs were stunned for a second. They definitely had not expected any strong resistance from someone scrawnier than them.
Before they could recover Gu Chenling raised his leg again. This time he aimed at the middle of the first guy's legs. His leg managed to connect and the bulky thug crumbled to the ground with a twisted expression.
When he tried to do the same to the other man, however, he was not as successful. The man swiftly avoided his incoming attack and put some distance between them using some weird movement skill.
Looking at the man use this weird movement skill, Gu Chenling felt that he had been really lucky earlier for catching the men off guard. If the men had been just a little bit more alert and had not underestimated him, he doubted he could have incapacitated one of them.
Gu Chenling was a normal guy after all and only knew a bit of martial arts for self defense purposes. And it was far from enough to reach the skill level that the thug had displayed just now.
Chenling's eyes became more serious. They briefly flitted towards the entrance door of the store as he calculated his chances of escaping.
"What are you doing?! Get him! What am I paying you for? Can't you guys even catch one scrawny ghost that doesn't even have any skill techniques?!" The store manager's voice had become shrill with anger and the veins at his temple looked like they were about to pop out.
The thug that was still standing froze for a second and then he observed Gu Chenling, realizing that the other really did not seem to have any martial arts energy on him. He started grinning and licked the corner of his mouth, looking at Chenling as if looking at prey.
Gu Chenling felt goosebumps forming on his arms at the other man's gaze. He tensed up and looked at the man guardedly, ready to dodge or pounce at any moment.
But despite having his guard up, he still seemed to underestimate what a difference skill techniques could make.
One second the thug was still standing a few meters away from him, but in the next second he disappeared from that spot in a blur and reappeared right in front of him. A big and rough hand grabbed his throat and lifted his body until Gu Chenling could not feel the ground under his feet anymore.
Gu Chenling struggled to get away, grabbing and squeezing the man's wrist and hand in attempt of making the other let go. But the man had an iron grip on him.
"Struggle a bit more. Come on. Weren't you so arrogant before?" The thug taunted him, "do you think you are something better just because you own a second order jade? How does it feel losing at the hand of someone of the forth order?"
The thug sneered, expecting to see desperation and humiliation in his victim's eyes. But when he saw Gu Chenling's ever so calm eyes look down and meeting his eyes, it felt like the other was the one to humiliate him. What right did this fucking second order weakling have to look down on him?!
The man was enraged. He formed a fist with his free hand and raised it to punch Gu Chenling. Energy was accumulating around his fist. He could already see the result, a face that used to be good-looking all bloody and marred until it was unrecognizable.
But unfortunately for him this was to remain a figment of his imagination.
"Halt!" A booming voice resounded in the auction house.