Novel Full Chapter 399: Marketplace
Noisy, clamorous.
All sorts of hawking cries and loud shouting voices crashed into the ears of a young man lying face-down on the bluestone brick street. He wore tattered, ragged white daoist robes and clutched a key tightly in his hand.
Next, the young man’s fingers twitched a couple of times, and then his eyelids began to tremble violently.
“Cough, cough, cough!”
Accompanied by several coughs, Chen Yan struggled to push himself up from the icy-cold ground.
Aching pain.
And his mouth felt slightly bitter.
Every bone in his body felt as if it were about to fall apart.
Immediately, Chen Yan’s first reaction was to reach into his chest to confirm that Realman Star-Paying Respects’ Dao Basis was still on his person. Only then did he manage to heave a slight sigh of relief.
As for Qiu Siruo’s Dao Basis, it had already vanished without a trace.
After that, he began to look around.
“Steamed cakes! Steamed cakes! Freshly baked this morning, steamed cakes!”
“Sugared candied fruits! Candied fruit carvings—!”
“Scissors sharpening—! Kitchen knives sharpened—!”
The clamorous cries of vendors were incessant.
Chen Yan was standing on a street roughly thirty feet wide. Pedestrians came and went along both sides of the road, and the street was filled with the atmosphere of a bustling marketplace.
After accepting his current situation, Chen Yan began to ponder.
Where was he?
Chen Yan only remembered that at the very end, Mr. You had exerted all his strength to throw him toward the direction of Fusheng City.
In other words, was he currently in Fusheng City?
No, that couldn’t be right.
Fusheng City was the world’s only Immortal City. Children born in Fusheng City possessed Martial Spring Realm cultivation the very instant they emerged from their mother’s womb.
But the scene on this street was far too mundane, too ordinary.
Or, had he been reborn once again?
Just like when he was devoured by the Black Flood Dragon and then reborn again in the Southern Region of Chenping Continent.
However…
Chen Yan lowered his head to look at the tattered, ragged Kongyuan Mountain daoist robes he wore. The gilded cloud crane patterns on the sleeves had already become dull and lackluster.
He wasn’t dead yet.
“Young One, you’re awake?”
A hoarse, aged voice rang out. An elderly man with white hair, his face full of wrinkles, wearing coarse cloth clothes and gently waving a cattail leaf fan, was sitting by the side of the street.
In front of him stood two bamboo buckets, and beside the buckets leaned a long-handled ladle.
A faint sweetness and the fragrance of osmanthus drifted from the bamboo buckets.
This white-haired old man was looking at Chen Yan, who still hadn’t fully grasped his current situation, with a concerned expression. He then continued:
“Two hours ago, two constables dragged you over from the city gate area. They said you were badly injured. Since you didn’t have any silver on you, the Medical Hall naturally wouldn’t take you in.”
Chen Yan simply listened to what the white-haired old man said, not uttering a word himself.
He still hadn’t completely figured out the situation.
Next, this white-haired old man selling osmanthus soup continued:
“Then I asked those two constables what they planned to do with you. They said, ‘What else can we do? We’ll just toss you into some random mass grave and leave you to fend for yourself. That’s already being more than fair.'”
As he spoke, the white-haired old man picked up a porcelain bowl from a wooden basin filled with clean water beside his chair. He emptied the water from the bowl, then grabbed the long-handled ladle and scooped a portion of osmanthus and red date soup from the bamboo bucket in front of him. He extended it toward Chen Yan:
“I thought to myself, that just won’t do. A life is a life, after all. So I persuaded them to leave you here with me first. Then I went and got you a dose of herbal medicine. I don’t know if it’s because your fate is strong, or if this herbal medicine is just that effective.”
Hearing this, Chen Yan finally understood what had happened and why his mouth had tasted bitter when he woke up.
“Thank you, Senior, for saving my life.”
Chen Yan said.
“Senior?”
The old man selling osmanthus and red date soup grinned, as if he had heard some amusing form of address:
“Young lad, why so formal and literary? I’m just an old geezer selling sweet water, and you’re calling me ‘Senior’!”
Chen Yan was indeed accustomed to it.
Ever since he transmigrated to this world and embarked on the Path to Immortality from the age of seven, these forms of address were the most basic etiquette of cultivation.
“So, tell me, how did you manage to injure yourself so badly?”
Then, the old man selling osmanthus and red date soup asked Chen Yan.
Chen Yan feigned an expression of struggling to remember, then shook his head and said:
“I don’t remember. I really can’t recall.”
“Then do you remember which street you’re from?”
The white-haired old man selling osmanthus and red date soup continued to ask.
Chen Yan still shook his head.
“Tsk.”
The old man sucked in a breath, frowned, and shook his head:
“That makes things difficult.”
Chen Yan didn’t respond, but from the words of this white-haired old man selling osmanthus and red date soup in front of him, he had already gleaned some information quite useful for his current situation.
For example, the old man had asked him which street he was from.
This indicated that from the very beginning, this white-haired old man selling osmanthus and red date soup hadn’t even considered the possibility that Chen Yan might be from another city.
In this old man’s mind, he hadn’t even entertained the thought that Chen Yan might have come from outside the city.
In other words, the city he currently found himself in was most likely Fusheng City.
Provided he was still on Chenping Continent…
But according to rumors, Fusheng City was the world’s only Immortal City. Children born in this city were Martial Spring Realm cultivators from the moment they took their first breath.
If that were truly the case…
Chen Yan looked at the white-haired old man in front of him, who exuded a strong air of the common marketplace as he sold osmanthus and red date soup from a street corner.
Whether in speech or appearance, it was difficult to associate him with the image of a cultivator.
However, after all, everyone in Fusheng City possessed Martial Spring Realm cultivation from the moment of their birth.
Different environments lead to different states of mind.
Even if they possessed cultivation, these people never had any sense of superiority as cultivators, because everyone was the same.
But at present, Chen Yan couldn’t be certain whether this white-haired old man selling osmanthus and red date soup in front of him possessed cultivation or not.
Because right now, with his Martial Spring and meridians completely sealed by Qiu Siruo in a past moment of time, and while carrying Realman Star-Paying Respects’ Dao Basis in his chest, only his physical body retained the strength of a Myriad Transformations Realm cultivator.
Even if he truly was in Fusheng City now, what exactly could he accomplish?
He felt lost.
Chen Yan remembered Mr. You, who had thrown him before the gates of Fusheng City at the final moment.
Mr. You had once said.
Coming to Fusheng City, he would find a way to shed the immense causality spanning over sixty thousand years that he currently carried on his back.
But even if he rid himself of this causality and its backlash, what then?
Apart from Fusheng City, the entire Chenping Continent had already completely turned into nothingness, as if it had never existed at all.