Something that looked like a purple leathery rope wrapped itself around the thug's fist before it could reach its target. Even the martial arts energy had dissipated upon being shackled.
The thug was agitated and pulled on the rope around his fist. But all efforts were in vain as the rope did not budge. Finally, his eyes followed the length of this rope-like thing to see who had dared to stop him.
But when he was met with the sight of two stern-looking city guards, his face paled.
The underworld was not ruled by anarchy. There were rules. And the ones reinforcing those rules and kept order in the underworld were the city guards patrolling each city and general underworld guards outside the cities' jurisdictions. Everyone knew not to mess with them as the consequences would be dire.
"I said halt so you fucking halt!" The city guard in typical blue uniform and the iconic black hat on the other end of the rope-no, on the other end of the whip barked out. "Now let go of the young man and kneel down, hands raised."
The thug did not dare to disobey and let go of Gu Chenling while his face grew more and more pale. It seemed like the whip's functions were not only limited to restraining martial arts energy. It also seemed to weaken the ghosts directly as could be seen from the thug's aura that was much more faint.
Meanwhile the store manager's face expression had turned ugly. He knew he wouldn't be able to get out of this situation unscathed easily. But he had no choice but to try anyway.
"Sir, there must be a mistake somewhere. My store guards was just apprehending a thief," he said to the city guards, sweating profusely. Uneasiness and nervousness was practically written on his face by this point.
The city guards, however, just gave him a cold look. Judging from their attitude they did not buy his bullshit because it was not the store manager who had called for them. One of them walked over to Gu Chenling after identifying him as the one who had called for help. What kind of stupid thief would call the city guards on himself?
"This young gentleman, you have released a distress signal. Would you please explain the situation," he addressed Gu Chenling who had just stopped rubbing his aching neck.
"Yes, thank you for your fast response," Chenling thanked the guards first. He was glad to have remembered to use his jade pendant to send out a distress signal after he had seen that he had been outnumbered by the thugs.
After speaking his thanks he started explaining, "I was lured into this auction house by a middle-aged man with the promise of being able to buy skill manual scrolls from a reliable seller. I was then approached by the store manager while looking around. He tried to make me buy things off of a list without me being allowed to inspect the goods. When I raised my doubts and demanded to look at the goods first, the manager threatened me and then made the thugs use force when I still refused to comply. You saw the end result."
The store manager grew agitated the more Gu Chenling talked. "No, sir! That man is lying. He tried to steal something, but was caught by our store guard. We would never do something like what that man has described. I assure you our auction house is a reputable establishment," he interjected, still hopeful to get out of this sticky situation somehow.
But Gu Chenling was not beneath dashing his hopes. "Nonsense. The store manager is the one who started all this and he was also the one who commanded his guards to attack me. I have recorded everything with my jade pendant since I entered this building as proof."
Gu Chenling lifted his left wrist from which his jade pendant was dangling and played the voice recording. Soon the voice of the store manager and Gu Chenling filled the room, replaying the prior interaction word for word.
The store manager's face paled as he recognized his own voice in the recording. And just as Gu Chenling had stated, it was obvious from the recorded exchange who exactly was at fault here.
By the time the recording ended both of the two city guards' expression had grown even more stern. Their eyes exuded coldness and also a hint of anger as they glared at the store manager who had obviously offended them by trying to deceive them.
"You are under arrest for immoral business practices, blackmail and use of excessive force within city premises," the one city guard whose hands were still free said coldly and pulled out a purple whip exactly the same as his colleague's. He swung it once and it wrapped itself around one of the store manager's wrists only to magically move on its own to also bind the other wrist.
As for the thugs, they were handled by the first city guard who had intervened in the fight. The two thugs were also restrained using the a whip which seemed to serve many purposes.
'Such a convenient tool…'
Gu Chenling accompanied the city guards to the city magistrate's office and gave a witness report, also providing the voice recording on his jade pendant.
When they ran a background check on the store manager using his jade pendant which had the automatic function of recording daily activities and other types of information that was not available to the general public, something unexpected happened.
"Young man, you are quite lucky," the captain of the city guards, a forty something looking bearded uncle with a scar running down his left cheek and neck spoke to Gu Chenling, "the store manager has committed a lot of crimes in the underworld. He used to be a fourth order ghost, but forcefully seized merit points from innocent people by killing and eating them to upgrade his aura to appear like that of a third order ghost."
Gu Chenling had a moment of realization upon hearing that. No wonder he had felt that something was off about the store manager. Despite his third order aura he did not seem like a regular third order ghost. Chenling had not been able to pinpoint what exactly had given him a feeling of incongruity about that man because he was still new to the underworld and had not come into contact with a lot of third order ghosts before. But now he knew.
The fact that one could seize another ghost's merit points through killing and cannibalizing also shocked him. This knowledge along with the past events made him reaffirm the fact that the underworld seemed to be more dangerous than expected. It also made him realize that it would probably be better for him to get stronger.
Not minding Gu Chenling's shock, the guard captain continued speaking, "There is a bounty out on his head. Since you helped us find and apprehend the criminals, you get some merit points as reward. If anything like this happens again feel free to call the city or underworld guards. It helps keep the underworld in order and you might get some reward points in exchange."
"What happens to the criminals?"
"They will get demoted to fourth or fifth order ghosts depending on the gravity of their crimes and then put into the 18 Levels of Hell Concentration Camp located at the very bottom of the underworld. There they will have work until they earn enough merit points for reincarnation," the guard captain explained patiently.
They talked some more, but Chenling's mind was not entirely on the conversation. It was just a lot to take in.
By the time Gu Chenling left the city magistrate's office, he was still feeling baffled by all the previous events and new information. That feeling only got stronger when his jade pendant started glowing a minute after he left the building.
Upon checking his jade pendant he found out that he had an additional six thousand merit points in his account. This basically negated all his expenditures during the past week and added even more on top so that he had more merit points than when he first came to the underworld.
It seemed that catching criminals was pretty lucrative. Knowing this, there must be at least a few people earning their living as bounty hunters or whatever you call it.
And as expected, after searching for more information using his jade he found out that there is even a bounty hunter association that worked closely with the governmental and judicial authorities of the underworld. Anyone starting from the third order upwards could become a bounty hunter as long as they had the skill set to do it. Those who were too weak would just get themselves killed. Therefore, when applying for a bounty hunter license, there would be an assessment test.
While freelancers could also earn merit points by catching criminals, joining the bounty hunter association had its benefits. One would be able to access the bounty hunter association's intelligence network and find out information about specific criminals amongst others.
The association also had a treasure stove with skill manuals and other valuable treasures which only members had the chance to buy if they had earned enough credit points. Those credit points were something specific to the bounty hunter association. Each successful hunt would provide a number of credit points based on the danger level of the criminal caught after joining the association.
Even if one caught a criminal or sinful ghost that did not yet have a bounty out on their head, one would still be able to earn merit and credit points as a member of the bounty hunter association while non-members did not even earn merit points.
The amount of credit points one had accumulated in total determined one's bounty hunter rank within the association. The higher the rank the better things one could buy from the treasure stove.
It is said that only those from rank 10,000 and upwards were eligible for buying from the treasure stove. This number sounded generous at first. But when one considered that there were hundreds of thousands members in the association, one could see that those ten thousand were the best of the best. The competition must also be pretty fierce.
After getting a general gist of the situation Gu Chenling's interest was piqued. He might want to apply since it sounded interesting and reminded him of some transmigration web novels he had read during his stay at the hospital before.
If he wanted to, he could have easily lived out his stay in the underworld without working. But Gu Chenling, a workaholic, was not used to bumming around. Having encountered such an interesting activity, there was no way that he would not try it out.
But first he had to get stronger.
Thus he quickly found himself back at the stall with the skill manual scrolls from before. Gu Chenling could tell that stall owner was surprised to see him back despite the other being mummed from head to toe.
"Excuse me, could you give me a recommendation on movement skills?"
Gu Chenling knew that what he needed most right now was a movement skill. During the previous fight he was able to take down one thug because he caught him by surprise. But this little advantage was lost when the second thug had put up his guard and used skill techniques. Chenling had been unable to evade the last attack since it had been too fast.
If he bought an attack or weapon skill without a movement skill now, it would not be of much use either. After all, if the attack does not connect to its target, it would just be a waste of energy. Chenling had at least that much common sense.
He was well aware that he did not know much about skill manuals and did not feel it was shameful to ask for help choosing. Besides, the stall owner did not give him any bad vibes either. And Chenling trusted his gut feeling.
He could feel the stall owner's eyes scrutinizing him intently. But he did not mind and just stood there with a friendly smile on his face.
After what felt like an eternity the stall owner nodded. But instead of grabbing a scroll from the ones on display he waved his hand and a skill manual scroll appeared in his hand.
This was the first time Gu Chenling saw any uncovered skin from the stall owner. The hand looked old and wrinkled. But it also looked strong and calloused. It looked like the hand of someone who had experienced a lot.
With another wave of the stall owner's hand the skill manual scroll flew over to Gu Chenling who caught it with both hands.
"The Moon Swallow Steps may not be the most powerful movement skill, but it should be the most fitting for you," the stall owner said decisively.
Gu Chenling examined the aura surrounding the scroll and then compared it to the auras of the ones on display. He nodded. The scroll in his hand really did have a stronger aura. Most importantly, just like the stall owner had said he seemed to feel an affinity towards the scroll.
Chenling was aware of the concept of using something suitable for yourself rather than something that was conventionally powerful. Giving him a movement skill that was powerful yet incompatible with him would just be like casting one's pearls before swine. He would not be able to appreciate and use the skill to its full potential.
That aside, he could tell that the skill manual scroll in his hands was of high quality and suitable for him.
So he did not hesitate to ask, "How many merit points would that be?"
The stall owner did not answer right away but stayed silent for a long moment. Finally he spoke, "50,000 merit points."
Gu Chenling was a bit startled by the high number as he had yet to see anything so expensive. However, he also remembered that he had over two million merit points in his account so fifty thousand was but a drop in the bucket.
So he did not try to haggle and reached out his left wrist with the jade pendant. The stall owner did the same.
Upon seeing the stall owner's emperor green jade pendant a spark of shock appeared in Gu Chenling's eyes.
'A first order jade!'
But Gu Chenling's self-control was still there and he did not exclaim aloud. After both jades stopped glowing and they finished the transaction the stall owner retrieved his jade and Chenling did the same.
"Thank you, senior," Gu Chenling said respectfully and gave a bow.
The stall owner only gave a dismissive wave of his hand and shooed Gu Chenling away. Seeing this, Chenling could do nothing but give a wry smile and nod. He then left the bazar.
Gu Chenling had no intention of further exploring Tranquil Lake City so he made his way home. He took the same way back as he came. There were no further incidences on the way back as he made sure to keep a safe distance towards the lake surface.
It was already evening when he arrived home at his cozy courtyard house. He felt unexpectedly hungry, something he had yet to feel ever since he had entered the underworld. It seemed like he had expended more energy today than anticipated.
So he put aside reading the skill manual scroll for now in favor of entering the kitchen and making himself some food.
For today's dinner Chenling ended up making Hunan style pork stir-fry along with two vegetable side dishes and a clear soup to go along with the white rice.
It was a filling and scrumptious meal considering how Gu Chenling was a pretty good cook. He had learned a lot from the cooking aunties when he used to help out with the meal preparations at the orphanage. All the aunties came from different regions and happily taught Chenling how to cook as they all liked such a diligent and handsome child.
After dinner Gu Chenling cleaned up and took a bath before he settled down in his bedroom. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, he waved his hand and the skill manual scroll he had bought earlier that day appeared before him.
He pulled the string that kept the scroll closed, unrolled the scroll and started reading. Unbeknownst to him, as he was reading Gu Chenling started glowing in a strange light along with the scroll. It was like he was in a trance. Chenling was so immersed in reading that he forgot the time.
This was going to be a long studious night.