“The drumbeats count to nine. Walk south to the ninth archway, head inside, and find the ninth mirror facing south. That’s the spot,” Feng Hanyu said.
Tucking the free Baofu Rat she had just acquired into her sleeve, Yi Qinglan walked alongside her. Observing the highly unfamiliar scenery along the way, she asked in wonder, “Didn’t we just pass through here earlier?”
“Yes,” Feng Hanyu replied. “But now that midnight has arrived, the scenery of this Mirror Market flips. It won’t revert to its original state until midnight passes.”
Using a mirror as an entrance and concealing it within such a bizarre place as the Mirror Market was incredibly secretive and mysterious.
The two of them walked up to the mirror. Following their previous method, they drew a specific pattern with fresh blood and entered the mirror.
When Yi Qinglan opened her eyes again, she found herself standing at the entrance of a towering, crystal like hall that gleamed with a brilliant white light. Before them stood a heavy double door secured with nine deadbolts. In front of the door stood an attendant wearing a toad mask. Crouched beneath his right hand was a massive golden toad whose eyes rolled from side to side from time to time, its mouth agape.
The attendant stretched out a hand to bar them from entering, saying, “Honored guests, admission requires an advance deposit of one thousand zhubei.”
“One thousand?” That did not sound like a small sum. Yet, without so much as blinking, Feng Hanyu casually pulled out a piece of gold and tossed it into the golden toad’s mouth.
The golden toad swallowed the gold with a loud chomp, narrowing its eyes in immense satisfaction.
“Honored guests, please enter.” The attendant gestured with both hands, and the heavy doors creaked open.
Yi Qinglan stepped forward, passing through the heavy doors. The view inside suddenly opened up. Though no lanterns or candles were lit in the hall, it was brighter and more magnificent than daytime. In the exact center stood a high platform, surrounded on all sides by screens, making it look incredibly mysterious. Surrounding the high platform were numerous guest seats, arranged in sixty positions according to the sequence of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. The guest seats were separated from one another by screens, allowing a clear view of the stage while maintaining privacy.
The attendant led Feng Hanyu and Yi Qinglan to the “Yi-You” guest seat. With tea and pastries already prepared, the attendant bowed respectfully and withdrew.
The hall was incredibly vast. Due to the screens, the surrounding guests could not be seen clearly at all. Yi Qinglan could only judge whether a neighboring seat was occupied by looking at the shadows cast on the screens.
The aura here was chaotic. As Yi Qinglan tried to sense her surroundings, she realized that much like the Mirror Market, the guests here were a mixed crowd of mysterious origins.
“You’ve been keeping me in suspense all this way. Aren’t you going to tell me what kind of place this is now?” Yi Qinglan turned to Feng Hanyu.
The woman took a leisurely, elegant sip of her tea and said with a half-smile, “To have such a secretive location and such a grand setup, it is naturally a fine place to squander money for pleasure. The Hongchen Clinic you visited during the day might very well share the same origin as this establishment.”
“What does this have to do with the Hongchen Clinic?” While this place certainly looked like a gathering spot for pleasure, how could it possibly be connected to a clinic?
Just as Yi Qinglan was about to ask further, she suddenly saw the screens on the high platform being pulled away one by one, revealing the situation in the center.
“The show is about to begin.”
Some sort of mechanism had been installed beneath the high platform. The center was hollow, and a sub-stage slowly rose from below until it was flush with the main platform. Yi Qinglan focused her gaze and saw several women of graceful stature standing on the rising platform. They wore gorgeous clothing and makeup, and each held musical instruments like pipas and zithers, though their faces were all covered with veils.
“Pretentious mystery mongering,” Feng Hanyu snorted coldly.
At the beat of a drum, the women began to sing and play music in turn. Although their postures were elegant and their movements beautiful, the singers’ voices were utterly ordinary. Yi Qinglan felt herself growing drowsy as she listened.
Suddenly, a sharp clang resounded through the hall, startling Yi Qinglan awake. The performance on the stage stopped instantly. An attendant wearing a toad mask appeared, pushing the first performing woman to a prominent spot in front of the crowd to be selected.
Soon, a responding clang echoed from behind one of the screens. Other than that, there was no sound. The attendant waited a moment and announced, “Woman A, claimed by the honored guest of the Geng-Wu seat.” He then directed the selected Woman A to remove her veil, revealing her face to all the guests.
Yi Qinglan widened her eyes to watch. However, when the woman finally revealed her face, she was utterly shocked.
Beneath the veil, the woman’s eyes were as tiny as two black beans, her nose was flat with flared nostrils, her lips were turned inside out, and her skin was blotchy with black and white patches. She looked as though her face had been smeared with mud and baked in the sun several times.
She was an incredibly ugly woman.
Woman A stepped down from the high platform and vanished into a dark, concealed side door.
The attendant had someone carry a wooden tray over to the guest in the Geng-Wu seat. Watching from afar, Yi Qinglan saw that the tray seemed to hold several fans.
Initially, when Yi Qinglan saw these guests spending fortunes just to buy women, she felt disgusted by such behavior. If not for her proper business here, she would have likely walked out immediately. But now, she was utterly baffled.
Why were they buying these ugly women?
Seeing the look on her face, Feng Hanyu said softly, “What you are thinking is correct. This place is indeed a human trafficking market.”
“In the past, most women of the Muzhi Kingdom were born homely and plain. Yet, this country is obsessed with beauty. Women are valued for their youth and loveliness, while the opposite is true for men, who worship old age.”
“But one day, for some unknown reason, the Muzhi Kingdom suddenly rose to fame and became renowned as a land that produced ravishing beauties. Not only was every woman coming out of here exceptionally gorgeous, but if properly maintained, even a hundred-year-old woman on the verge of the grave could retain the youthful appearance of a sixteen-year-old maiden.”
“Muzhi is but a small country with neither land nor mineral resources. So, they started this trade that spans three realms. Over time, the buying and selling of women became a famous underground industry of this nation.”
“If that’s the case, these purchased women must be desperately poor, having reached a point where they can no longer survive. Otherwise, how could they allow themselves to be bought and sold like commodities?” Yi Qinglan asked.
As they spoke, another woman was bought. The buyer appeared to be a man of about forty or fifty, yet he was heavily made up, heavily scented, and dressed in garish, showy attire.
To be handed over to others, completely powerless over one’s own fate, the more Yi Qinglan thought about it, the more pitiable and lamentable it seemed.
“You think that way, but others might not,” Feng Hanyu said. “Some people are born to a bitter fate, and instead see this as an opportunity to change their destiny.”
“Furthermore, to attract customers, this place creates deliberate gimmicks,” Feng Hanyu gestured with her eyes for her to look at the attendant. “Look, the fans on that tray are likely painted with different beautiful female faces, allowing the buyers to choose what face they want to transform the ugly woman into.”
“Really? Doesn’t that mean they have the power to completely alter someone’s appearance?” Yi Qinglan was astonished. “But is this truly something mortals can achieve?”
“Mortals?” Feng Hanyu sneered and shook her head. “How could they possess such capability? They are likely borrowing some rare magical artifact or spiritual object.”
Yi Qinglan pondered deeply. “Do you think this has something to do with the Shan Xiao?”
“When we were at Mount Muyin, I wondered why the Shan Xiao would go to such great lengths to obtain that human treasure,” Feng Hanyu said. “Even if the horn of the Wang Shen is indeed a rare treasure, what extraordinary effect could it have once it leaves the miasma-ridden lands? But thinking about it now, the Shan Xiao has a grander scheme.”
“Then in your opinion, what exactly is it plotting?” Yi Qinglan asked.
“I am only guessing, I cannot be certain yet.” Feng Hanyu tapped her finger on the table. “However, what is certain is that its arrival here is definitely related to the unique nature of this place.”
“Then where did you get your information?”
“A friend,” Feng Hanyu smiled mysteriously, then turned her head. “Keep watching.”
By now, it was the turn of the fifth woman to come out and await purchase. A veil covered her face, but it could not hide her sickly, sallow complexion and sparse hair.
This woman… why did she look so incredibly familiar?
“Lu’e?” After watching for a long while, Yi Qinglan suddenly recognized the woman on the stage. She could not help but cry out.
The hall was vast and empty. Her sudden shout echoed faintly, causing many people to turn and look in their direction.
Yi Qinglan quickly shut her mouth, keeping her eyes glued to the stage. She wondered, how did Lu’e end up here as well?
A teasing look appeared on Feng Hanyu’s face. “What? Don’t tell me you’ve taken a liking to her?”
“Of course not,” Yi Qinglan smiled bitterly. “It’s just that I’ve met her a few times before. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call her a companion in adversity.”
Yi Qinglan was secretly debating whether to urge Feng Hanyu to buy Lu’e. But seeing Feng Hanyu’s perfectly calm and relaxed composure, she truly did not look like someone who would buy a woman.
Just then, a sharp clang resounded.
Yi Qinglan’s heart tightened as she turned toward the source of the sound. The buyer appeared white haired and looked to be in his late seventies or eighties. Yet, he was dressed in extremely wealthy attire, wrapped in silks like auspicious clouds, which only served to highlight his wrinkled, decaying yellow skin.
Was Lu’e going to fall into the hands of such a man?
To her surprise, just as the sound faded, another clang rang out.
This sound came from right next to Yi Qinglan.
Yi Qinglan had not expected that there would be a bidding rule of “highest bidder wins” here. She saw a figure move behind the adjacent screen, and a slightly wrinkled but well-maintained, fair hand reached out. Wearing a green jade archer’s ring on the thumb, the hand calmly accepted the fan handed over by the attendant.
“When will the purchased women be transformed and handed over to their buyers?” Yi Qinglan asked.
Feng Hanyu glanced at her. “When midnight ends tonight.”
With all the women on the stage sold, the auction reached its conclusion, bringing the event to its climax. As the attendant in the toad mask took stock of the fans, Yi Qinglan clearly felt the guests in the hall growing more restless, and a strange sound began to echo from somewhere.
It was an extremely distant and faint sound. As Yi Qinglan focused her mind to listen, it sounded like a low, subtle dragon’s roar.
“Stay here,” Feng Hanyu rose. “Guests who don’t buy anyone are always particularly conspicuous. Don’t let them notice you.” With that, her figure flashed, and she vanished instantly without a trace.
“You…” Before Yi Qinglan could even speak, Feng Hanyu was gone. She stood up to follow, but in her haste, the Baofu Rat in her sleeve suddenly slipped out and scurried away in a flash.
No weapons, magical tools, or spiritual pets were allowed in this place. If discovered, she wouldn’t know how to explain herself.
Seeing that there was no one around, Yi Qinglan made up her mind and quietly followed after it.