"Well now, sir, you must be new here. What kind of girl are you looking for? Just say the word!"
The moment Zou Feng stepped through the main entrance, the Madam—whose makeup was so thick she could have played an old general on stage—greeted him with effusive enthusiasm.
This place was the lowest of the low-end brothels, a paradise where men from the bottom rungs of society came to reclaim their dignity, so no one paid any mind to Zou Feng's shabby clothes.
"Bring me your cheapest girl!"
Zou Feng used the most domineering tone to say the most pathetic words.
But he wasn't here to blow off steam anyway, so he had no real requirements.
"…"
The Madam froze for a moment, her smile awkward yet polite. "Sir, if you want the cheapest… well, she can't exactly be called a 'girl' anymore…"
Zou Feng understood. He waved his hand dismissively. "Just make the arrangements. I don't mind if she's a bit older."
'If you're asking for the cheapest, you really can't expect someone of a 'girl's' age.'
Having received a firm answer, the Madam immediately turned and shouted up to the second floor, "Sister Zhang, are you still taking customers?"
'Huh? Even the Madam calls her Sister Zhang?'
'She must have been retired for a long time…'
Even though it didn't really matter—since he wasn't going to do anything for real—Zou Feng's heart still couldn't help but lurch.
The next moment, a head that could barely be described as having a hint of her former charm popped up at the second-floor railing.
The woman craned her neck to size up Zou Feng for a few moments, and her eyes suddenly lit up.
"Yes, yes, yes!"
"Sir, hurry on up!"
After seeing Zou Feng's ordinarily handsome face, Sister Zhang suddenly became more eager than the most desperate john in the place.
It gave Zou Feng the strange feeling that she was the customer and he was the male escort she'd just ordered…
Before heading upstairs, Zou Feng asked the Madam one more time, "So this Sister Zhang… is she the cheapest? How much?"
"Just twenty copper coins will do, sir!"
'Damn, that really is cheap.'
'But I can't shake the feeling that Sister Zhang should be the one paying me.'
Once he was upstairs, Sister Zhang immediately coiled around him like a python.
Then, with a string of seductive laughs, she pulled Zou Feng into a room.
The moment they were inside, she bent over and started fumbling with the sash of his pants.
She was so hasty it even made Zou Feng a little flustered.
"Wait!"
Zou Feng quickly stopped Sister Zhang from turning the tables on him.
"Let's… let's have a couple of drinks first, maybe chat a little?"
Unexpectedly, Sister Zhang didn't stop. She continued pawing at Zou Feng while saying, "What's so good about that horse piss? Better to let me sing a little song for you, sir."
Seeing that Sister Zhang was already on the verge of losing her senses, Zou Feng had no choice but to wave a hand, lightly brushing it past her face.
"It smells so good…"
"Oh, sir, my head feels a little…"
Before she could finish, Sister Zhang's body went limp and she collapsed, quickly falling unconscious.
Zou Feng picked her up with one hand and simply tossed her onto the bed.
He then picked up the water mixed with wine from the table and poured some on Sister Zhang.
This was, of course, to create the illusion that Sister Zhang would think she had gotten drunk and slept through the night.
To make the act convincing, Zou Feng even opened the door, called for an attendant, and spent extra money to order a few more pots of the watered-down wine.
After all this was done, he finally began to carefully inspect the room.
'Not bad. Mainly because it has a window, and right below that window is a secluded alleyway.'
When the time was right, Zou Feng took out the outfit he had prepared and changed into it.
A gray long robe and a bamboo hat with a veil—this was Zou Feng's attire for the Ghost Market.
「Midnight. East River Port, Yuan Guang County.」
Not far from the port was a large, dense shantytown.
The area could also be called a slum.
Entering it was like stepping into a maze. The shacks were built so closely together, they all looked more or less the same, and the paths were a tangled mess.
Recently, the Ghost Market had often been setting up within this shantytown.
The ones managing the Ghost Market and maintaining basic order were the two major local gangs.
The Black Flood Dragon Gang and the Danxin Alliance.
With these two local factions overseeing things, one didn't have to worry too much about their personal safety, at least not inside the Ghost Market.
The Ghost Market was a place for business, after all, and the most basic condition for business is an acceptable level of order.
Because he had already made detailed inquiries from multiple sources, Zou Feng found the entrance to the Ghost Market not long after entering the shantytown.
In truth, the entrance wasn't hard to find even without asking for directions.
After all, along the way, Zou Feng had spotted too many furtive figures all heading in the same direction. All he had to do was follow them.
But before officially entering the Ghost Market, he had to pay an entrance fee at the gate.
It wasn't too expensive—just two maces of broken silver.
'That price could get you ten nights with Sister Zhang.'
It's worth mentioning that to avoid unnecessary trouble, Zou Feng had kept his poison energy fully circulating on his way here.
This caused a cloyingly sweet fragrance to emanate from his body.
Anyone with a bit of knowledge about the Jianghu would smell this and immediately realize that this person was, nine times out of ten, a practitioner of Poison Skills!
When roaming the Jianghu, it was a major taboo to get involved with those who cultivated Poison Skills.
After all, heaven only knew what kind of insidious poisons these Poison Cultivators carried on them.
Furthermore, because Poison Cultivators often surrounded themselves with venomous creatures and preferred to conduct their reclusive research in deserted places, most of them easily became psychologically twisted perverts who held extraordinary grudges.
Therefore, even Entering Grade Martial Artists would keep their distance from a Poison Cultivator unless absolutely necessary.
Seeing the looks on people's faces when they realized he practiced a Poison Skill—as if they had just run into the god of plagues—actually made Zou Feng feel more at ease.
'This is perfect. I just want to shop peacefully at the Ghost Market.'
Upon finally entering the Ghost Market, he was met with a surprisingly bustling scene.
Based on Zou Feng's original expectations, the place should have been cold and deserted, with only a few scattered customers besides the stall owners.
But he quickly understood why it was so lively.
The reason was simple: the people browsing the Ghost Market weren't just Martial Artists; there were just as many ordinary people who had never practiced martial arts.
After all, as long as you had money, you could buy anything sold in the Ghost Market, which also offered all sorts of underground services.
The most common, for example, was hiring assassins.
Next, Zou Feng wandered around leisurely and soon discovered that there were quite a few stalls selling Cultivation Skills.
Not only were there Evil Skills for sale, but there were even secret manuals from famous, great sects that were not supposed to be shared with outsiders.
Of course, they were only hand-copied versions. Whether they were authentic, or whether one would get into trouble for having them, was anyone's guess.
Besides, even if you had explosive luck and bought a genuine manual, without a corresponding master to guide you, it would be extremely difficult to achieve anything significant.
If you insisted on practicing it forcefully, the most likely outcome would be Falling into Demon.
The only exception would be a once-in-a-century martial arts prodigy.
However, Zou Feng had long since lost all interest in the Cultivation Skills of the Righteous Sects.
'If a Cultivation Skill has no side effects, or only minor ones, it won't even show up on my panel. What's the damn point of cultivating it, then?'