Chapter 31 - The Corpse Trade
Yaan spent the whole day working at the store. During this time, he didn’t see or hear from the shopkeeper, not even once throughout the day.
In all, seven customers appeared during the day. Five of these people were curious Qi masters who wandered in off the streets. They all saw the shabby looking store and hoped that they might get lucky and find something for cheap. Yaan served them properly, successfully selling wares to three of those people.
Aside from the feminine looking man, another person with a gold coin entered the shop. This person was a gloomy looking youth with extremely sunken and eery eyes. Despite looking exhausted, he emitted a powerful aura that didn’t match his youthful appearance. When this person’s gaze wandered towards Yaan, his expression changed into one of surprise, then curiosity. He didn’t say anything though, only showing Yaan his gold coin silently.
The young man spent around half an hour in the basement, then returned with the storekeeper, who wore a flattering smile to see him off. This was a rare occurrence, igniting Yaan’s intrigue.
When Yaan asked the shopkeeper about that youth, the slobbish man only spoke four words:
“Ghu Clan young master!”
Yaan had now encountered two members of the Ghu Clan, both of whom left a deep impression upon him. The first time was outside of North Ghu City, when a Peak Spirit Core realm man in a dull grey robe used a shocking spell to tear the spirit core out from his opponent. Not only that, but his bizarre spell even devoured the spirit core! Now, this youth with a gaze that was somehow lacking in energy, yet terrifying at the same time, once again proved to Yaan that the Ghu Clan was no ordinary clan.
Well, this should be obvious really.
There were multiple groups and organisations within the Ghu Province that were led by those at the Origin Soul realm, yet the Ghu Clan was able to rise above the rest and rule as the provincial overlord for the past 1,700 years!
That night, Yaan continued to read through the material identification book, but also spent some time cultivating his demonic body.
Two days earlier when Leon showed him around the area, he took the opportunity to buy some materials. There were of course many pills that would be useful to Yaan and could increase his rate of progress, but basic natural resources like demonic beast bones fragments, hearts and some types of blood, as well as natural herbs and fruits, were all significantly cheaper. Since he didn’t have much money to squander, he ended up spending 32 Rank 2 recovery pills on natural materials.
Aside from the resources he bought, he still had some Rank 2 demonic beast bone fragments remaining. Yaan kept the most valuable bones from the beasts he hunted in the dark forest, only selling half of them in the mortal country of Trambe.
“I really do need to work…” Yaan sighed and shook his head. By cultivating and consuming these things for just three hours, he used up a fifth of his total resources, not including his remaining money.
For now, Yaan didn’t want to think about this matter. He had just found a job and there were many useful ventures he could explore besides cultivating, so he decided to spend more time on these side endeavours, whilst reducing his cultivation to an hour or two each day.
This may not sound like a lot, but it should be remembered that even when he was travelling through the dark forest, Yaan wasn’t spending much time actually cultivating. For body refiners, cultivating consisted of consuming materials and absorbing the energy from within, a process that could be sped up and controlled via meditation. Most of their time would be burned away just trying to procure resources. Unlike Qi masters, body cultivators couldn’t sit around all day and refine the spiritual energy in the atmosphere. If a body cultivator wanted to improve, then a continual supply of resources was essential.
And so, Yaan decided to practice his Agile Sword Arts, whilst making the most of the books in the shop to broaden his understanding of the world. There were a variety of identification books, as well as guides towards cultivation and other such works. He had hoped to find some texts or perhaps maps which outlined the whole Ghu Province, or even the lands beyond, but he quickly learned that such things were too valuable to be found within a shop like this.
Anyway, since he wasn’t harming the shopkeeper’s business by simply reading these things in his spare time, Yaan guessed that the lazy man probably wouldn’t care.
A month drifted by peacefully.
Yaan needed less than a week to memorise the contents of the shop and the identification guide, so after this first week, his wage increased to three Rank 2 recovery pills each week. The shopkeeper was impressed by his rapid memorisation and diligence, but he still remained more or less indifferent towards the business carried out above ground.
Around one in three customers were those with special gold coins who met with the shopkeeper in the basement to conduct their dubious business. The other customers were mostly poor Qi masters, hoping to find a good deal within the store.
Some of these customers only appeared once, whilst others seemed to have a scheduled regular appointment with the shopkeeper. The Ghu Clan young master was one such person, he made an appearance in this store on the same day of each week. Every time he visited, he would look at Yaan with curiosity, as if he wanted to say something, but always decided against it.
Yaan was equally curious about this Ghu Clan young master, but he knew better than to ask questions. In this world, being too nosy could easily invite trouble.
On this day, as the shopkeeper saw the young man off once again, the eery looking Ghu Clansman finally stopped and spoke to Yaan. His voice was deep and slow, but it was his words that truly shook Yaan.
“You’re not human, are you…?”
Yaan’s body became stiff. Under the scrutinising gaze of this person, he found it difficult to maintain a normal expression. After all, he didn’t expect the Ghu Clan young master to suddenly touch upon one of his most deeply held secrets!
Unexpectedly, the Ghu Clansman actually started smiling when he saw Yaan’s reaction.
“The Ghu Clan doesn’t persecute the demonic races, but it’s still best to keep this a secret…” After saying this, the young man shot the shopkeeper a look, who seemed to understand something and gave him a subtle nod.
The pale young man didn’t wait around for Yaan to reply and unhurriedly left the shop. The shop bell rang out as the door closed, awakening Yaan from his stupor.
“Yaan, how would you like to earn a bit more?” The shopkeeper asked him, seemingly from nowhere. Yaan turned towards the fat man and saw that he didn’t appear to care at all about the Ghu Clan young master’s shocking words.
“You…”
“Don’t worry, I don’t care about you being a demon. I happen to know a few demonic race people in this city.”
After hearing this, Yaan relaxed slightly and pondered over the man’s words. He did indeed want to increase his earnings, since he was struggling to afford resources with just three Rank 2 recovery pills each week. Whilst this wasn’t a bad wage, at this current rate, it would require another two years of work just to afford enough resources to cultivate to the Late 2-Star realm.
This speed actually wasn’t bad at all, it just wasn’t as impressive as what he was accustomed to.
Because of this, Yaan had been considering the battle arena. There were a few battle arenas in North Ghu City. Each arena provided cultivators with the opportunity to earn a quick profit by taking on the risk of loss, or even death.
However, Yaan was always worried that his identity as a member of the demonic races would be exposed. Well, it had already been somewhat exposed, but it sounded like that Ghu Clan young man and the shopkeeper wouldn’t go around telling people about it…or at least, he hoped that was the case.
“What is this work, and how much extra would I be earning?” Yaan asked directly. He knew that this work was most likely related to the shopkeeper’s business in the basement. He wasn’t sure what nefarious things this might entail, but he was willing to dive in no matter what, so long as the pay was sufficient!
“Corpse trade!” The fat man stated plainly.
“Huh?” Yaan blinked, clearly not expecting this answer.
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“My store buys and sells the corpses from the nearby arena, directly dealing with the Ghu Clan. The Ghu Clan makes income through various means in the city. Despite being a demonic clan, they maintain this city as a peaceful place and leave their demonic status out of the equation. Corpses are a big part of their income, but selling them publicly wouldn’t be ideal for their image. So, they trade with stores like mine in secret.”
“You…buy and sell corpses?” Yaan stared blankly. Whatever he had imagined, it certainly wasn’t this!
“The corpse trade is common amongst Qi masters, stop being dramatic.” The fatty rolled his eyes.
“Ah, right.” Yaan nodded slowly. Thinking about it, there was a sect that specialised in corpse puppets back at the Northern border, they probably had similar dealings to this. It was possible that they even bought corpses from the Ghu Clan!
“Then, that Ghu Clan young master…” Yaan realised something.
“Right. He’s the provider of the corpses.”
“I’ve never seen him walk in with a corpse before though…ah! He must use a spatial ring.”
“So you understand. His name is Ghu Nadda, he brings me a few corpses from the arena each week. He signalled to me earlier that you would be acceptable to take on this job. He does the job for pay from his clan, but I suppose that he has other things he would rather spend his time on. I told him before that I would try to find someone to transport the corpses for him, he said that he would pay ten Rank 2 recovery pills for each round.”
“So I would be able to earn an extra ten Rank 2 recovery pills each week?” Yaan’s eyes widened and his heart beat sped up slightly. This wasn’t just a slight boost to his salary, he would be earning multiple fold more if he took on this job!
“That’s right.” The shopkeeper nodded. “All you need to do is collect the corpses and listen to Ghu Nadda’s valuation price, then bring them here. I’ll assess the value myself, if it’s close enough to whatever Ghu Nadda stated, then we have a deal. After that, you go back to the arena and give the young master his money. Oh, you still need to work as the shop assistant though.”
In the end, Yaan agreed to this arrangement. Whilst dealing with corpses felt like a somewhat grim business, the pay was too tempting for him to turn down.
Yaan knew that Ghu Nadda must be earning even more than this. The ten Rank 2 recovery pills was probably only a fraction of what his clan was paying him. Well, Ghu Nadda also needed to sort the corpses from the arena, find buyers and handle the finances, so his job wasn’t so simple.
The next day, Ghu Nadda returned to the store. Yaan was already prepared and gave him a light nod after making eye contact. The shopkeeper had told him that if the Ghu Clan youngster showed up, that Yaan should change the sign on the shop to ‘closed’, then bring Ghu Nadda down to the basement below.
The two were silent until they reached the basement, at which point, Yaan couldn’t help but gasp as he entered this underground world for the first time.
Firstly, this basement was far larger than he had expected! The basement was kept at a freezing temperature to preserve the corpses, whilst it stretched back for a hundred feet, with rows and stacks of bodies lined up like a morgue.
Yaan had wondered why the corpses weren’t just kept in spatial rings. As it turned out, spatial rings weren’t perfect at preserving corpses, it was better to keep them like this. More importantly though, keeping too many powerful corpses within a spatial ring could cause the space within the ring to collapse. If this were to happen, all of the corpses would be lost into the void.
“Ah, Ghu Nadda, you came. Yaan accepted the job.” The shopkeeper pulled himself out from a corner where he was arranging a stack of bodies. As always, he got straight to the point, not wasting any time.
“Good.” The Ghu Clan young master turned to Yaan and smiled. Although his smile looked a bit creepy on his sunken and tired face, Yaan somehow wasn’t at all bothered by it. It was true that this person looked a bit strange, but Yaan wasn’t so judgemental that he would assume the worst of him.
Though, as a Ghu Clansman and corpse trader, he probably wasn’t a saint.
Ghu Nadda didn’t speak much. After concisely discussing Yaan’s new role, Ghu Nadda left the shop with Yaan and they headed towards the nearest battle arena, which was also the young clansman’s place of work. He wanted to explain the procedure for collecting corpses to Yaan, and it would be easiest to show him in person.
There were multiple battle arenas in North Ghu City, this one was called the Bloody Arena. It was named as such owing to its reputation as the most bloody arena of all, with the highest death rate out of any of the battle arenas in the city. Yaan had no idea until now that this was the case, making him feel glad that he had avoided entering the arena with no prior knowledge.
There were large crowds gathered outside of the towering circular arena stadium. Guards were stationed outside to keep everyone in check, ensuring that all Qi masters were queuing up in an orderly fashion. Ghu Nadda ignored the main entrance and instead led Yaan around the structure, to the back of the arena. Their destination was a small and inconspicuous door, which was actually guarded just as thoroughly as the main entrance area. The guards seemed to recognise Ghu Nadda, letting him and Yaan pass by without a word.
From the respect they showed to him, Yaan guessed that these guards were not members of the Ghu Clan, but outside workers.
His assumption was correct. There was no such thing as a Ghu Clansman working such an ordinary job like this. The only jobs taken on by Ghu Clansmen, were those pertaining to handling the clan’s various businesses. Ghu Nadda’s work, selling the corpses produced in the battle arena, was a perfect example of this.
Like the store where Yaan worked, the Ghu Clan stored their corpses in a similar, but much larger underground basement. There was no living person aside from Yaan and Ghu Nadda in this place, giving an eery feeling to the cold dark room.
“This is the basement where we store the corpses. We’ll meet here at the same time on the same day of the week…I’ll tell the guards to let you pass at this time…you just need to show them this title plate…” He passed Yaan a black metal plate the size of two fingers. The writing across the plate clearly stated, ‘Ghu Nadda Guest’.
“This is…your title plate?” Yaan asked with wide eyes.
“When we reach the Qi Temple realm or equivalent, us Ghu Clansmen can take on some responsibilities and gain a single guest title plate…this plate gives you more authority within the city and will let you come and go from this morgue…”
Yaan stared in shock. Wasn’t this really valuable? And Ghu Nadda only possessed a single one of these plates…why was he being so generous? Yaan couldn’t help but feel suspicious. His life experiences until now had taught him not to trust anyone so easily. Not to mention the fact that this person was actually a Qi Temple realm Elder, despite looking like a young man barely into his twenties! Well, actually, Yaan had no idea how old this person truly was, but almost everyone at this realm was an Elder.
“No need to look so shocked…” Ghu Nadda smiled wryly. “I’m just trying to establish a relationship with a fellow demon…it’s not often that you meet someone from the demonic races…based on your youthful appearance, you must be quite talented…”
Yaan stared blankly for a moment, before his eye went round in even greater shock.
“Wait, you’re a demonic race being?!”
Ghu Nadda showed a blank look in return and seemed to be unsure about how to reply for a moment.
“Uh, yeah…isn’t it obvious…?”
“Obvious how?” Yaan frowned, feeling confused. Sure, the pale faced gloomy young man looked a bit odd, but it wasn’t so extreme that people would assume that Ghu Nadda wasn’t human!
“From the smell, that’s how I noticed you…” He replied as if this was only normal, but Yaan felt stumped.
“The smell? I…I don’t think that my sense of smell is so amazing that I can tell apart different races.” Yaan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Was he a dog?
“Huh, so that’s how it is…? I guess that this is just a characteristic of my ghoul race…oh, I’m pretty sure that the vampiric race is the same as me though…” Ghu Nadda seemed to come to a realisation at this moment.
Yaan understood now that despite being from such a renowned clan, this person was also a bit in the dark regarding the demonic races, just like himself.
They shared a bitter smile of mutual understanding in this dark, corpse filled basement. The image of the zombie like Ghu Nadda and Yaan, a child, surrounded by all these corpses as they stood there amicably, was quite something.
“Yaan…which of the demonic races do you belong to…? You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to, it’s just that I try to learn more about the demonic races whenever I can…” Ghu Nadda asked with a gleam in his deathly cold eyes.
Yaan showed a struggling expression, but in the end, he decided to just tell him. Since this person already knew that he was a demon, it didn’t really matter if he knew the specifics.
“I’m a fiend. And you’re the first demon I’ve met.” Yaan stated truthfully. Well, Rui was technically a demon too, but she didn’t have a body right now.
“Fiend, I see…that’s unexpected…” Ghu Nadda looked a little bit surprised.
“Are fiends uncommon?” Yaan asked curiously.
“Well, I think there should be fiends within the Ghu Clan, since the clan definitely has the Fiend Transformation technique…usually though, it’s only the mortal clansmen on the verge of death that attempt to use this technique, since it can bring them back from that brink if they succeed…I didn’t realise that anyone outside of the Ghu Clan knew this technique, I guess my world view is still too narrow…”
Yaan thought about his introduction to the Fiend Transformation technique and subconsciously nodded. Indeed, he had been in a state of near death when he underwent the Fiend Transformation.
He recalled the most shocking thing he had learned about the Ghu Clan during the past month. This clan would take 1,000 of their young mortal clansmen, place them into a massive arena, and have them fight to the death until there were only 100 remaining. The Ghu Clan was a clan unified through fear and greed, there were no good feelings between the clansmen.
With this in mind, it made sense to teach everyone the Fiend Transformation technique beforehand. Using this technique was dangerous, but it could actually help one to survive if they had suffered from a mortal wound. Of course, just using a decent recovery pill was a better method with a higher rate of success.
“Your Ghu Clan…no, sorry, I shouldn’t-”
“It’s fine.” Ghu Nadda shook his head slowly. “There are some things I can’t speak about, but feel free to at least ask if you’re curious…since we know one another’s secrets, we can have a sort of trust between us…”
A trust based on the possibility of mutual destruction somehow made Yaan feel more comfortable. He nodded slowly and decided to ask.
“Is your Ghu Clan entirely made up of demonic races?”
“Only partially…the techniques to become a fiend, ghoul and vampiric race member exist within the clan…it’s usually only the clansmen with no talent that even attempt the transformations though…in the first place, the demonic transformation techniques were created to provide humans with no cultivation talent the chance to cultivate…if you have talent, it’s better to just cultivate normally…”
Yaan understood this point as Rui had also said this. Normal human Qi masters relied on their talent in refining spiritual energy. Without this talent, they would never progress far. The demonic races though, they used alternative methods to cultivate and didn’t care about their ‘talent’.
As the room descended into silence and Yaan subconsciously sifted through his knowledge regarding the demonic races, he stumbled upon a memory from years ago, when Rui had briefly mentioned a few different races. This memory was about the ghoul race…
“Your ghoul race…” As Yaan spoke, he glanced around the room, before his gaze settled on Ghu Nadda once more. “You eat human flesh to cultivate?”
Ghu Nadda blinked in surprise. He didn’t expect Yaan to know this. He scratched his head and laughed wryly as he nodded.
“Right…that’s the main reason I took this job…I have so many human Qi master corpses, it’s the best free help for my cultivation…truthfully, this is also the reason I took an interest in you…”
Yaan’s expression became severe as he stepped back in fright. Ghu Nadda looked confused for a moment, but then waved his hands in front of him and laughed, correcting Yaan’s mistake.
“Don’t worry, I don’t mean that I want to try eating demon flesh…only human flesh is useful to ghouls.…”
Yaan calmed down and nodded lightly.
“Then you mean…?”
“Humans are the natural food source to us ghouls, but this means that humans smell delicious to me…it’s impossible for me to take humans seriously, or to form any sort of relationship when they smell like food…it’s like a wolf trying to get along with sheep…if I spend more than an hour around a human, I’ll start to salivate and get the desire to bite down on them…”
His words were somewhat eery, but Yaan could hear the loneliness in his voice. This feeling was one that he was all too familiar with. Yaan often felt that the longer he lived, the deeper this feeling grew…
Seeing that familiar emotion flash through Yaan’s eyes, Ghu Nadda sighed, showing an expression of understanding.
“Ghu Clansmen are unable to trust one another until we reach the Spirit Core realm or Demon Core realm, at which point we’re banned from killing one another…before this point though, killing each other is even encouraged, so we tend to just keep our distance for the most part…such is the life of a demon…”
Demonic path cultivators were not immune to loneliness, in fact, they would often be the most lonely people in this world. To walk the path of a demon was to embrace loneliness as your resolve, but this didn’t make it any easier.