The Six Immortals

The Battered Jade Book

Confronted with Bi Fan’s frenzied counter attack, the last of his standing opponents seemed completely confused.

Even though the man was much stronger than Bi Fan, the fashion in which Bi Fan had used the divine essence seal had reduced the gap in their effective strengths to a bare minimum, due to the increase in his speed.

Bi Fan’s knowledge of martial arts was superior to most other practitioners, especially techniques like ‘the immortal finger’, ‘rainy-fly sword’ and ‘blood devil’, weren’t common or ordinary, and weren’t exactly known to most people.

Bi Fan’s opponent apparently didn’t have such a diverse arsenal of attacks, and even though he was stronger, his technical knowledge was only mediocre. Bi Fan’s attacks had left him under enormous pressure.

Now, suddenly the situation had completely changed, and Bi Fan was gaining control of the fight.

“Boss! Kill him, attack him. You have to take revenge for your brother’s death.” The man who had sustained injuries earlier shouted out, in a desperate attempt to cheer his companion on.

However, his current state of surprise had left him very unsettled, and the man’s fighting had also taken a back step.

Suddenly with his sword in his right hand, Bi Fan attacked with the ‘rainy-fly sword’ towards the left hand of his opponent and blood sprayed all over.

With another strike, this time the ‘blood devil’ technique’s ‘blood palm’, Bi Fan managed to finish off his opponent. His sinister hit had left the whole ground drenched in the blood of his opponent.

Since Bi Fan had already taken care of two of the men, leaving behind a witness to tell the tale of this encounter would only bring trouble, and he would now have to kill the witness in order to keep this encounter a secret.

In this fight, Bi Fan had used up a lot of his secret tricks, out of desperation, the knowledge of which, if ever reached his enemies, would only cause trouble in the future.

Taken by the surprise, as his opponent had tried to dodge the sword, but failing to do so completely, he had fallen prey to Bi Fan’s palm.

“Arghh…” The man had shouted out loudly, his face deformed under the effect of the pain.

Then with a bursting sound, more like a crackle, he had fallen to the ground.

His body was now drenched in his own blood, leaving him in great pain, so much so that his eye balls seemed like they would pop out, but he was still alive.

The scene was so terrible that Bi Fan was having a difficult time holding back his own vomit.

“Boss! Are you okay? Boss…..” The injured man’s face revealing the fear his mind contained, tried to drag his injured body away, in a vain attempt to escape.

Bi Fan lunged over, and with one strike of his sword, took the man’s life.

As he looked at his blood soaked hands, he decided that he would never use the ‘blood palm’ attack unless it was a matter of life and death. This secret technique was far too sinister to use in any other situation.

The screams of the man were echoing too loud and were beginning to creep Bi Fan out. In order to alleviate the suffering of the man, Bi Fan took mercy on him and ended his life quickly.

The three men didn’t have any Yin Yang pouches or any other things that were of much value, just a few instruments and weapons. Bi Fan threw them inside his Yin Yang pouch and moved on.

As he continued on his way, he didn’t encounter any more trouble, just like a bonny sailor on a voyage.

Soon, Bi Fan had reached the entrance maze to the Ting Feng valley, and since he had memorized the path, he didn’t have any trouble finding his way even without any help from anyone.

Ting Feng valley was as lively as always and the moment he entered, he started hearing the hawkers.

“Quickly come and take a look, Dan pellets, magical weapons, come and take a look!”

“Remarkably rare books going out in exchange of magical weapons, very desirable! Hurry!”

Most of the noise was created by practitioners who due to lack of money couldn’t afford to buy what they needed at were always hoping to make a barter transaction. The loud advertising of their offers subdued the hawkers and shopkeeper’s voices.

Bi Fan would walk over to these people, and see what they had to offer, just in case they had somethings that he needed.

This time, Bi Fan had arrived in the Ting Feng valley, mainly to buy purifier Dan pellets, as it would be helpful in his preparations.

However, since he was in no hurry, he casually strolled around, checking out the stalls.

After his last visit, Bi Fan knew that even if he didn’t purchase anything at these stalls, gathering information always came in handy.

Bi Fan had only even visited the valley once before, so this was a rare visit, and an opportunity.

No matter his interest in the item, Bi Fan would inspect it carefully, and then ask the price, even if he never intended to buy the product.

“How much for this damaged book?” Bi Fan asked, holding golden rimmed book jade colored book, with binding threads hanging out, making it obvious that the book was missing pages at the front.

Even though the title was missing, but Bi Fan was inspecting the book with some interest.

The shopkeeper was an old man, who seemed partially blind in one eye. He looked over at Bi Fan and replied: “This is a very important book; it speaks about refining body strength, it very important to make breakthroughs to different layers. Only three pages are missing at the front. It costs a hundred low grade spars. I always tell the truth to my customers.”

“Well, often the front pages are the most important, as they speak of the basics, with those missing, who would pay a hundred spars for this?” he put the book back in its place and got up to leave.

Out of experience, he knew that if the shopkeeper was interested in selling, then this move would definitely get him to bargain.

He knew that most of the permanent shopkeepers wouldn’t try to fool a customer as it will create trouble from angry customers in the future.

A hundred spars, even if low quality, wasn’t a small amount, and even though the book seemed interesting, Bi Fan wasn’t willing to spend so much on it.

A fragment of the book was missing, and since it was the pages at the front, the book’s value was greatly reduced. So even if the shopkeeper offered a discount, the price would have to come down very steeply for it to be worth the purchase.

“Little friend, don’t go, lets discus the price. How about I give you a 20% discount? That sounds fair. It’s a great bargain!” The old man grinned, pulling Bi Fan back in.

Bi Fan shook his head: “If the first page hadn’t been missing, I would have paid the entire hundred spars, but with the first page gone, I could encounter problems as I might not understand the book properly. I think I’d be better off buying a completely intact book. ”

Bi Fan pretended to walk away again, leaving the shopkeeper anxious: “Little friend, okay, so be it. Just give me twenty spars, and you can have the book, that’s actually my cost price.”

“Ten spars, that’s my final offer. If you are okay with it, then I’ll take the book, otherwise you keep it.” Bi Fan was very straightforward this time.

The old man looked on for a moment, starting at Bi Fan trying to see if he would still be willing to negotiate. But in the end, sighed and gave in: “Ten spars, it is. The book is yours.”

With the deal reached, Bi Fan moved on to another stall.

 

Half a day had passed, Bi Fan had visited several stall, but hadn’t found anything interesting so far.

“Little brother, you need Dan pellets? I have all kinds available with me, all kinds of Dan pellets, as long as you have the money to pay for them.” A fat middle-aged man said.

Bi Fan glanced at the stall; there were several jars inside the stall, so maybe it was worth a look.

“Do you have a purifier Dan?”

“Purifier Dan? Do you want a regular purifier? Or something even better? I have a lot of variety here, even sunset jade purifier Dan.” The fat man enquired with a smile.

Sunset jade Dan is capable of purifying all most all kinds of poisonous substances, and is a top quality purifier Dan.

As soon as he heard Sunset jade purifier, Bi Fan was interested in knowing more, Yellow springs purifier was the best one but Sunset jade purifier was one of the best alternatives.

“Only sunset jade? How about Yellow springs?” Bi Fan asked.

He asked this with the intention of letting the shopkeeper know that he isn’t an amateur and knows what he’s talking about.

“Little brother knows his purifiers; there is no doubt about that.” The fat man laughed. “One Sunset jade purifier costs eighty spars (low quality), that’s definitely worth the money!”

Bi Fan shook his head with a wry smile, he didn’t know the market price of Sunset jade purifiers, and at eighty spars a piece, he wouldn’t be able to buy a large quantity.

Sunset jade purifier would be very helpful in preparing Bi Fan to enter the devil’s territory.

“Okay, I think I’ll ask around that come back to you later.” Bi Fan replied, as he wanted to enquire around a little bit more.

“Don’t worry brother.” The fat man smiled at said. “The price can be discussed, how many tablets do you require? If the amount is significant, I can give you a discount.”

“The price is too high, I need a hundred of them, but I don’t have enough money.” Bi Fan said.

The Fat shopkeeper squinted, thought about it for a while and said: “I’ll give you the best price, five thousand spars for one hundred tablets of Sunset jade purifier Dan. You can ask around, my price is the best you will get.”

The fat man had a very serious look on his face, one could make out that he wasn’t lying.

Bi Fan knew that at a critical time, these purifiers could turn out to be a lifesaving commodity, but he didn’t have enough spars for a hundred of them.

However, he needed these purifiers quite badly, so he wanted their price to go down a little further, as he didn’t have enough spars with him. But if he sold out everything he had to spare, he could manage to get around seven thousand spars in total.

Bi Fan had managed to kill a few people, and had collected the spoils from the battles, these he knew would fetch him a few thousand spars at least.

Bi Fan knew the value of spars, and they weren’t very easy to come around either, so he needed to save as much as he could for the future.

“Can you try to reduce the price a little?” Bi Fan asked, in hope of reducing his buying cost.

The fat man shook his head: “If I reduce the price any further, I will make a loss. I can’t do that.”

“Is it possible to exchange for magical tools?” Bi Fan thought of the weapons and tools that he had in the Yin Yang pouches. He knew that some of them were useless to him and would be better off being traded for purifier Dan pellets.

The Fat boss replied: “Of course, take out the things, let me take a look. And I’ll give you a valuation.”

Bi Fan started taking out the various things that he had gathered, in total he had about twenty eight items, amongst which, four were top grade instruments.

Bi Fan needed the light-ray sword and the silver armor for himself. Also he wasn’t willing to part with his championship reward. The machete was also valuable to him, and so was the devil’s bell. But the others, he was willing to part with them.

As the fat man saw Bi Fan take out all these items, he was almost in a state of shock. His eyes seemed as if they would pop out.

It took him a while to compose himself. After he did so, he started looking at the items one by one and started their valuation.

Bi Fan was aware of their market worth, but for reasons beyond Bi Fan’s comprehension, the fat man was valuing these items slightly above their market price.

Ultimately, the fat shopkeeper valued the items at four thousand and two hundred spars, so Bi Fan took out the remaining eight hundred spars to complete the transaction and made the purchase.

With the deal done, the fat shopkeeper looked very happy: “Little brother, what is your name?”

“I don’t wish to disclose my name.”

Bi Fan didn’t want his name linked to the sale of these items, if anyone ever came looking and found out about him, then he could get into trouble.

“Little brother, whenever you come to Ting Feng valley in search of Dan pellets, always enquire from me once.” The fat man called after him loudly.

Bi Fan had purchased everything he needed, but didn’t want to leave the Ting Feng valley immediately afterwards. He hasn’t sure when he’d be able to visit again, so he wanted to stroll around a bit more.

Bi Fan visited almost every stall he could, enquiring prices, and tried to memorize them.

Bi Fan knew that the more he knew about the prices of various items, the lesser the chance of being fooled.

Bi Fan asked the price of Sunset jade purifier at another stall, but still couldn’t figure out why the fat man was so happy after the deal.

Bi Fan was trying to take a look at as many books as possible, in the hope of memorizing their contents to some extent.

But the shopkeepers normally didn’t appreciate this, as soon as they realized that someone is trying to read or even carefully inspect the book, they would take it back, so people couldn’t read them properly.

Bi Fan must have looked at almost ten books, but as soon as he read past a few pages, the books were recovered by their owners, and nothing good came off it for Bi Fan.

“Little brother, this book is talks about various animals and beasts. Would you like to buy it? It costs only five spars, it’s very cheap.”

“I’ll take it.” Bi Fan took out the five spars and bought the book.

This was a very commonly available book that spoke about the various types of animals, beasts, goblins and other creatures that existed in the world. This was something Bi Fan needed to know about.

When it came to items he needed, Bi Fan was never stingy.

Bi Fan continued to roam around, buying whatever he thought was necessary, like bandages to dress wounds, basic items needed to set up traps, hooks, cables and ropes to climb cliffs etc.

Everything was in order, Bi Fan had everything needed, he had entered ‘inner organs’, and now he was fully prepared to take on the devil’s territory.