Chapter 103: Carefree Trading Ground

“These damned things…”
The Guard Leader of the Carefree Trading District felt as though the sky had fallen.
Witnessing monsters that had lived hidden beneath ground all this while suddenly attack the Trading District’s outskirts in hordes while even excavating a large pit tens of meters deep underneath, the Guard Leader Yuan Xuelin, who had just arrived, started cursing out loud.
If the monsters were to use this opportunity to attack the trade zone or the precious goods area, the losses would be catastrophic, and correspondingly, I would definitely be stuck holding the bag.
“Captain Yuan, those monsters are actually being controlled by someone. Looks like someone’s had their eyes on us all along.”
“You think I need you to tell me that?”
Captain Yuan shot him a glare, then turned to look at Su Li, who was kneeling by the edge of the pit, utterly devastated.
“Xiao Su, I’m not going to waste words on comfort. Anyway, in this place, death is just another form of release.”
He turned and walked over to Yang Zicang, who was standing by the entrance.
“Thank you, sir. I’m Yuan Xuelin, the guard captain here. If it weren’t for you today, we’d have been kept in the dark, and it would have cost us dearly in the future. May I ask who you are?”
His gratitude toward the young man before him was genuine; holding Yang Zicang’s hand, he was reluctant to let go.
“Just a nobody.”
Yang Zicang didn’t even know what to say.
“His name is Jia Zijian,” Teacher Chen enthusiastically interjected, as if the two of them were old acquaintances.
A large crowd had already gathered without anyone noticing. Some experienced bystanders began to reconstruct the fight in their minds, committing to memory the name and face of the young man at the entrance.
“You!”
Suddenly, they noticed two small glowing spots appearing above the house.
A group with red armbands approached.
“Hello, Mr. Jia Zijian, our shed leader would like to see you.”
The woman at the front was very polite in inviting the three of them.
Looks like my reputation has grown again, Yang Zicang mused as he turned to look at Teacher Chen and the others.
“You can all come together, so don’t say I’m setting a trap for your engines.”
The two shabby men were overjoyed.
……
“Oh, Mr. Yang, I’ve heard so much about you.”
Upon entering the room, the man in the exaggerated fur coat stepped out from behind the wide desk and gave Yang Zicang a hug.
“You know my surname is Yang?”
After they parted, Yang Zicang stared strangely at the potbellied man.
“Hmm, didn’t you say it yourself?”
The man slapped his forehead: “Look at my mouth—it was your assistant who said it, acting on his own, right? That must be it, must be.”
“May I ask, is my assistant still here?”
The shed master was a bit speechless; of the two questions asked, neither had gone as he expected.
“He… should still be here, I think.”
It had been about ten minutes since the flurry of contact, and presumably, “his” lot had already been sold off. Yang Zicang said bluntly:
“I have an indecent request, and I’d appreciate the help of Shed Master Wuyou.”
“Please, go ahead.”
The shed master exuded a businesslike air, and as the master of Wuyou, he carried himself very casually.
“Please, I need you to intercept my assistant. Be careful—he might resort to violence.”
“Huh?!”
Dim as the shed master’s brain might be, he immediately caught on that something was off.
“Wait a moment.”
A model ring emerged on Shed Master Wuyou’s chest, and a quadrangle shot out rapidly. Without saying a word, a few seconds later, he turned back with a smile and gestured for Yang Zicang and the others to come over and sit down.
“Well, Mr. Jia, your assistant left a few minutes ago, and our people are already pursuing them.”
Hearing this, Yang Zicang was no longer very hopeful.
It was only by riding the train that he could cover over a hundred li in such a short time.
For that thief to make it even farther—around 160 to 170 li—in just over a day, arriving at this place, he definitely had his own secret skills. A beautiful woman set down a teacup for Yang Zicang and poured hot water.
“Please, have some tea.”
“May I ask, is your assistant planning to abscond with the money?” Wuyou leaned in and asked.
Yang Zicang took a sip of tea and said, “I don’t have an assistant.”
“Pfff!”
Teacher Chen, sitting on the opposite chair, spat out a mouthful of hot tea.
He quickly pulled his sleeve to wipe the water stains off the table, while Shed Master Wuyou laughed heartily, telling him not to worry, and had someone fetch a cloth to wipe it clean.
“No assistant? So you mean the one who orchestrated the auction wasn’t actually one of your men at the Jiazi interval? Then that Forgotten Engine… Could it be that he merely borrowed your name…”
“That engine was built by me, and then I gave it to this friend of mine. He used to be a guest of honor at a small settlement.”
Yang Zicang pointed at Zuo Feixian, who puffed out his chest.
It was only then that Teacher Chen took a closer look at Zuo Feixian.
He hadn’t expected that this unremarkable-looking man was a guest of honor in a shed district, and he speculated that the three of them might each be far from ordinary.
“And then?” Shed Master Wuyou asked with curiosity.
“My friend here took pity on the shed area’s lack of clean water, so he gifted it to that shed master. Then the next day, we were kicked out as thieves—because the engine went missing.”
“Huh?” Wuyou stood up in surprise, glancing at Yang Zicang, then at Zuo Feixian.
Teacher Chen looked at Yang Zicang and the others in disbelief.
Little Liu murmured in shock, “Did I hear that right? You build an engine and give it to someone, only to get kicked out as thieves?”
Xu Xiuchuan hummed, as if speaking with difficulty: “Whether you believe it or not, if it weren’t for Brother Yang…”
Zuo Feixian, right in front of everyone, kicked him on the leg. Xu Xiuchuan promptly grunted twice and fell silent.
“I’m wondering, Brothers from Jiazi, could you still make a water engine like that again? I know the materials are hard to come by, but if you can provide them, I have a few buyers willing to trade six to seven thousand years of chronological sequence, or equivalent value in supplies, for it.”
“Let’s table that for later.”
Yang Zicang didn’t forget his main purpose: he was there to acquire Mutants Points models. The moment he spoke, Shed Master Wuyou offered to give him ten for free, and sell the rest at the lowest price, thirty years per piece.
“Stay here tonight. I’ll arrange rooms for all of you,” the shed master said after their conversation ended.
Seeing that Yang Zicang had mentioned nothing about his own incident the whole time, Teacher Chen couldn’t help but feel anxious.
Little Liu helplessly covered his face with one hand as he looked at his teacher.
A major shed master like Wuyou supplies more than one shop in Hub Town. Every year, during the spring and autumn ordering fairs, locals gather here and travel with his convoy to Hub Town—he’s essentially the leader in the area. He gestured to the slightly impatient Teacher Chen to keep quiet and not speak out of turn.
After chatting for a while longer, the shed master’s guards finally reported that they had failed to intercept the G-Suite assistant.
He really had slipped away.
“My apologies, you must find this quite embarrassing.” Shed Master Wuyou’s face was a bit flushed with shame.
Despite only a delay of a few minutes, the man had fled. What’s more, the guards reported even more detailed information about the Material Workshop: the crocodiles down below had apparently built a small nest.
Having lost face twice before his guests in just half a day, Wuyou was internally cursing Yuan Xuelin and his men to the high heavens.
After lunch, Yang Zicang and his group were assigned by the shed master to temporarily stay in a stone house.
“Why didn’t you show the shed master?” Teacher Chen ran to Yang Zicang’s room once they were alone, asking.
“Do you really value this engine that much?”
Yang Zicang parted the curtains with his hand and glanced at the view through the wooden-framed glass window.
He felt as if he were in a mountain forest woodyard below, with buck-widened piles of timber stacked on the ground.
“I’m relying on it to survive.”
“Alright, then how much do you think this engine of ours can sell for?”
He retrieved the Voidfall Engine from his coat pocket, tossing it lightly in his hand.
Teacher Chen could barely swallow his saliva. In the past, he had grown numb to failure, which had worn away his impatient nature. But now, seeing something so close at hand yet possibly having to give it away to someone else, how could his heart remain calm?
“I don’t have a clue.” Teacher Chen answered curtly.
Yang Zicang’s faint annoyance toward him lessened slightly.
Sensing the information contained within the engine, based on the model’s description, its pulse would beat fifteen times.
“Do you have a fixed place to live?” Yang Zicang asked him.
The thin man, a bit scholarly in demeanor, shook his head.
“Well then, let’s make a deal. I have a base. How about you move in with me?”
“Uh, no, no, not interested. Once the engine’s ready, I’ll head to the Canopy District and turn it into an equipment. So don’t go telling anyone else about that formula—my entire future hinges on it.”