As Li Ban crushed the thief's hand bones, he smoothly transferred the Iron Fish Scale into his own palm.
"Urgh!" came a muffled groan.
The thief Li Ban had caught was also wearing a black face-covering. Bystanders could only see his eyes turn instantly bloodshot.
But he didn't dare fight back or curse.
It was a rule of the Black Market: if you were caught stealing, you lost a hand.
If the victim was still angry, it wasn't unheard of for them to kill the thief on the spot.
Li Ban didn't loosen his grip. He dragged the thief along as he crouched in front of Human-Faced Sheep's stall.
"How much for this mask?" he asked.
Human-Faced Sheep opened his eyes. Taking in Li Ban and the thief, he instantly understood the dynamic. He stroked his beard with a soft chuckle.
He gestured to the few items displayed on the ground.
"These are ten liang of silver apiece. Applied with my special solution, they're good for a single use, and that use lasts three days."
"Do you have anything better?"
"I do, but those are traded inside the Yellow-Tier area."
"Can you describe them?"
Human-Faced Sheep's eyes lit up, sensing a big sale.
"If you have a hundred liang of silver, I can offer one that's much more realistic and good for three uses. If you have a thousand liang, I have something that will completely alter your appearance."
A hundred liang of silver was something Li Ban actually had on hand.
But was it really worth spending that much on a mask with limited uses?
Zhai Liu could probably provide him with a human-skin mask directly.
However, Li Ban also wanted to keep his guard up around Zhai Liu's group.
While he debated this, the thief trapped in his grip suddenly cried out to Human-Faced Sheep for help.
"Uncle Sheep, Uncle Sheep, please save me!"
The two men paused their negotiation and looked down at him.
The thief was quite short.
Whenever he ducked his head and hunched his shoulders to minimize his presence, he became incredibly easy to overlook.
Li Ban suspected this was the ability of the element he had integrated. Anyone capable of entering the true Black Market was bound to be a spirit practitioner.
If mere handymen could become spirit practitioners, then pickpockets likely belonged to some underworld organization of the Lower Nine Trades.
Li Ban had felt the man's resistance when he first grabbed him, but he had suppressed the thief with absolute ease.
Seeing that Human-Faced Sheep had no intention of responding to the plea, Li Ban tilted his head and asked the thief, "What Tier are you?"
The thief cowered, his face twisted in pain. "1st Tier—sir, I was blind. You've already crippled my hand—please, spare my life."
Li Ban released his grip. "Get lost. Don't let me catch sight of you again."
Li Ban still needed to buy a mask.
And this thief clearly recognized the local underworld figures.
Crippling his hand followed the rules, but killing him outright might offend the Black Market gangs.
He already had more than enough trouble on his plate; he didn't want to waste energy on unnecessary conflicts.
"Thank you, sir! Thank you!"
The thief fled, cradling his mangled hand.
When Li Ban turned back, Human-Faced Sheep was stroking his beard and smiling at him. "You've got some impressive strength, young man. That brat was blind. He deserved to get crippled."
By praising his strength and cursing the thief, the merchant was essentially signaling that the matter was settled and there would be no bad blood between them.
"Just a few crude tricks."
Li Ban brushed the topic aside.
Even before his breakthrough, his full spiritual rhinoceros state had been equivalent to five 1st Tier Spirit Cultivators—to say nothing of his current strength.
His fighting techniques might be a bit rough around the edges, but his raw power was undeniable.
A mere 1st Tier thief never stood a chance of getting the upper hand against him.
Human-Faced Sheep began packing up his stall.
The customer beside them, who had still been debating whether to spend his money on a human-skin mask, wasn't happy about this.
"Hey! Old Sheep, you still have a customer here! Why are you packing up?"
Human-Faced Sheep cast a glance at the man. He pinched his nose, a look of blatant disgust on his face.
"Customer? You? I can smell the stench coming off you from ten li away. What difference does it make if you wear a mask? Get lost, stop delaying my real business."
Li Ban suppressed a laugh.
There really was a foul-smelling man crouching next to him, though it wasn't quite as exaggerated as Human-Faced Sheep made it out to be.
Still, you couldn't miss the reek once you got close.
If it was someone who knew him, they could easily recognize him by his scent alone.
Human-Faced Sheep finished packing his stall, bundling all his wares into the display blanket before slinging it over his shoulder.
He pointed deeper into the market. "Come, young man. We'll head down the Yellow-Tier passage. It'll be more convenient there."
Li Ban nodded.
He wasn't afraid of Human-Faced Sheep trying to pull a fast one on him.
One after the other, the two stepped into the passage right next to the Profound-Tier area.
The passage covered a massive area. After walking up a gentle incline for several dozen meters, it opened directly into a small, circular open-air plaza.
The houses lining the plaza were built in a very strange way. The buildings were narrow and elongated, consisting entirely of identical three-story structures.
Every single one of them had its back door facing the plaza.
It looked exactly like a group of people standing back-to-back in a circle.
It was quiet, and more than a little eerie.
Human-Faced Sheep walked to the center of the plaza and half-turned to Li Ban. "Keep close to me, young man. If you take a wrong step here, you might lose me for good."
Li Ban quickly hurried forward, sticking close to Human-Faced Sheep's heels.
With his full attention on the man ahead of him, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. The three-story houses in the plaza... were they moving?
They looked as though they really had become people standing back-to-back, holding hands and spinning rapidly in a circle.
But whenever he looked directly at the buildings, they were perfectly still.
It was as though they were playing a game of Statues.
Remembering the illusory bamboo leaf attacks he had faced in the bamboo forest, Li Ban realized this was likely another one of the Black Market's illusions.
If this was the ability of a specific element, then that element was incredibly powerful!
Li Ban pulled his attention back and focused entirely on following Human-Faced Sheep's footsteps.
As they walked, Li Ban suddenly noticed that they were making a turn.
The catch was, before he focused his attention, he had been absolutely certain they were walking in a straight line.
Li Ban maintained his composure, realizing that the passive ability of his mental-type element, "Flute Sound," had just triggered.
He vaguely sensed that he had followed Human-Faced Sheep in a fan-shaped arc before stepping through the entrance of the plaza and into the third small house on the left.
Once inside the house, Human-Faced Sheep visibly relaxed.
He dropped his heavy sack onto the floor by the door. "Please, follow me to the second floor. These hundred-liang human-skin masks allow you to adjust your appearance. I guarantee that even I won't know what you look like once you put it on."
A shichen later, Li Ban finished having his mask customized inside Human-Faced Sheep's house.
Human-Faced Sheep also handed him several chunks of sealed soft clay.
He instructed Li Ban to pad his face with the clay before applying the mask; that way, as the mask shrank to fit, it would mold into entirely different facial features.
Having purchased a human-skin mask that wasn't actually made of human skin, Li Ban saw that the sky was already beginning to lighten. He hurried back to the inn where he was staying.
Two days later, while Li Ban was practicing his martial arts, Liu Mu came looking for him with a dazed expression on his face.
Li Ban sheathed his saber and pulled his towel off a nearby tree branch. "Why do you look like you've lost your soul?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his face.
"They found Zhou Jinhai's body—" Liu Mu's voice drifted, as if he were sleepwalking. "We're never getting our money back."
Li Ban didn't stop wiping his face, using the towel to hide his slight frown.
He threw the towel over his shoulder. "How did he die?"
"I don't know. They said they only found a mutilated corpse that had been mostly eaten." Liu Mu didn't seem to care how Zhou Jinhai had actually died. "Forget it, let's drop it. I guess I'm just not destined to make big money."
Then, remembering something else, he sighed heavily. "A few days ago, the Fanggu Chamber of Commerce—the one under Fanggu Pagoda's name—discovered a batch of fully mature Cyan Silk Algae. Cyan Silk Algae... do you know what that is?"
Li Ban seamlessly slipped into the role of a good listener. "What is it?"