Chapter 7: Fortune-Cowed Ointment

"It is quite reasonable to embellish one's own goods in order to sell them."

"Besides, I did not lie."

As Li Yu comforted himself with this thought, he was led into the back room by the fully ripened Hong Gu.

After sweeping his eyes around, he immediately saw that in addition to a large quantity of cosmetics like rouge, powder, and ointments, there were also many pieces of women's intimate apparel, the styles of which were quite avant-garde.

Clearly, this was also the changing room for the female employees of the rouge shop.

To avoid ruining the business through offense, Li Yu hurriedly reined in his gaze, put on a look of ignorant earnestness, and looked directly at Hong Gu.

This beautiful woman was also sizing him up; on the surface, she appeared to be a mature older sister, using a gaze filled with affection to tease Li Yu.

It seemed that as long as he took the initiative, he could enjoy the benefits and bring the matter to a successful conclusion.

The place where the two of them were standing also seemed quite suitable.

But Li Yu did not think so; at this moment, he was certain that some of his secrets had been seen through, so his whole body was tense, alarm bells were ringing in his heart, and the forbidden egg in his belly was stirring.

As the atmosphere turned stiff, Hong Gu suddenly gave a charming smile, stepped back, and beckoned with her finger:

"Take the item out, little brother."

"Although Sun Sanniang often sold me strange materials and items that could beautify, she never once brought me the kind of pet you mentioned in the past."

"Could it be that she thought my shop offered too low a price?"

Hearing these words, Li Yu breathed a sigh of relief.

He knew very well that the two sides were not on the same level at all.

If a conflict were to truly break out, death would be almost certain.

Unless he completely abandoned his reason and let that forbidden egg parasitize him, from then on both the original body and Li Yu would disappear, and only a cruel, tyrannical, man-eating Son of the Forbidden God would exist—but in that case, what difference would it be from being dead?

Having thought this through, Li Yu did not hesitate and became even more calm and composed.

He reached into his bosom, took out the first yellow-talisman wooden box, and while opening it, told the truth:

"It is not that she did not want to, but rather that this pet only comes into being after she dies."

"It is a bit ugly, but it truly possesses the effect of devouring filthy, excess flesh, and it is indeed a living pet that can be tamed."

"It is still in its infancy now; as long as you feed it more, it should soon grow eyes, a nose, and other facial features."

"As for the breeding that Shopkeeper Hong mentioned outside, it is a parthenogenetic creature, so I fear it cannot reproduce offspring."

When Li Yu finished speaking, the wooden box was half open.

Accompanied by a sharp, disgusting hiss, the upper half of the blood-intestine, which had sharp teeth and a mouth, lunged out, attempting to twist and gnaw on the back of Li Yu's hand.

But it was pressed down by his thumb and could not move.

This scene, the appearance of this so-called pet, combined with his explanation, was truly bizarre and horrifying.

Even Hong Gu herself, who was a proper Sequence 8 evil cultivator, could not help but be stunned for a moment.

After a long while, she seemed to realize something and said:

"You mean... this ugly thing is the extraordinary pet you spoke of?"

"And it is, in fact, transformed from your mother's intestines?"

It was not hard to hear that Hong Gu, who considered herself knowledgeable and experienced, felt very surprised at this moment.

In the gaze she directed at Li Yu, the teasing faded, replaced by a bit of wariness.

This seemingly honest and sloppy youth!

His words and actions were truly sinister.

Upon hearing this, Li Yu first nodded in acknowledgment, then shook his head, and subsequently, as if he had no defenses at all, directly spoke of some of the family secrets of the Jiao couple.

"It is indeed transformed from Sun Sanniang's intestines; it is the essence of all the strange forbidden meat she has consumed over these years."

"But Sun Sanniang was not actually my real mother; she was my foster mother."

"The two of them went astray in their cultivation and are now both dead."

"I have closed all of the Jiao family's businesses, and this is the last deal I have come here to make. If Shopkeeper Hong does not wish to buy it, I will go to the Hehe Workshop next door; I hear there is a powerhouse there who is also acquiring such strange items to excrete and remove excess flesh and energy from their body."

"This blood-intestine has an advantage over other dead items: it can be transplanted to become another organ within a cultivator's body."

This string of words, mixed with seemingly superfluous information, immediately caused Hong Gu's expression to flicker.

She was a businesswoman!

She had no friendship with Sun Sanniang, so what did her life or death have to do with her?

As long as she knew that this ugly thing before her was a good item and that buying it would be of great use, that was enough.

"Name your price!"

Hearing these three words, a brilliant smile immediately appeared on the face of this sloppy youth, Li Yu.

Before long, the curtain of the back room of the Nishang Rouge Shop was lifted, and the beautiful woman and the sloppy youth walked out with flushed, smiling faces.

Clearly, both were very satisfied with the transaction.

If one only looked at this scene!

Who could have guessed that the content of the transaction was actually the beautiful woman buying the intestines of the youth's foster mother?

After coming out, Li Yu maintained the persona he had deliberately crafted, said "Shopkeeper Hong, no need to see me out" in a blunt and stiff manner, and then left the rouge shop on his own.

On the surface, there was no extra expression on his face, but his heart was full of joy.

One thousand taels!

That was the price for selling that blood-intestine.

According to the prices of extraordinary items recorded in the ledger, it was not high, but it was not low either.

Li Yu was very content, because there had been no accidents or conflicts during the selling process.

With this one thousand taels, he could at least solve his problems of eating and preparing spirit-food home-cooked meals; for the time being, he should not need to sell the highly toxic brain marrow, the filthy kitchen knife, or the human-skin scroll.

Carrying the large sum of money, Li Yu stood on the main street.

He looked up at the scorching sun, estimating it to be around the Si hour.

This main street of Tianji Workshop, with its thick commercial atmosphere, was just beginning to enter its bustling phase.

Various shouts drilled into his ears:

"Come, come, come! Freshly steamed all-meat buns; there is no filling you can imagine that we cannot make."

"Those who want to buy pets, come quickly! Whether it is the Three-Eyed Hound from the Frozen Plains of Ten Thousand Horrors, the Merman from the Valley of Terror, or the Beauty Snake from the Black Forest, the Tianji Pet Shop has everything, and we will never let our guests be disappointed."

"Ten Thousand Qi Turns to Smoke, Life is but a Dream; Tianji Smoke-Qi Pavilion, grand opening promotion."

"Want to get rich overnight? Want to win back your losses? Come to the Tianji Workshop Grand Casino! We have every form of gambling in the world, and we accept all collateral: family property, treasures, wives, daughters, slaves, bodies, souls... nothing is forbidden. You can lose many times, but as long as you win once, the returns are infinite."

"Soft-bodied maids, all kinds of prosthetic bodies, and we have just received three new Soul-Entrancing Dream Machines. You can customize your experience of every beautiful dream in the world; as long as you dare to imagine it, we dare to provide it. Tianji Soul-Entrancing Club, eight hundred taels of silver for a VIP card. Don't miss out as you pass by."

The last advertisement from a certain club almost made Li Yu lose his composure. What did that mean?

The money he had worked so hard to earn by selling a rare, strange item could only buy a so-called VIP card?

"This distorted price level!"

"That Dream Machine, could it be a real fantasy sensory pod that only existed in novels and film works in my past life?"

Even though Li Yu came from a society that had experienced a material explosion, he had to admit at this moment:

Here, the temptations were immense.

He had only stood on the street for a moment, and his mind was already filled with various advertisements, each one attempting to stir the desires within his body.

He had wanted to leave quickly, but as luck would have it:

The "forbidden egg," which had only been quiet for two hours, had finally completely digested the food in his belly and began to rebel once again.

Accompanied by a series of gurgling sounds, Li Yu immediately developed a terrifying appetite.

Saliva surged wildly in his mouth.

A green light flickered in his eyes, and the two evil eyes on his forehead showed signs of opening again; he felt as if he could devour an entire cow alive.

=9+Shu_Ba

"It never ends!"

Li Yu cursed in his heart, wishing he could cut open his stomach, drag that forbidden egg out, and chop it to pieces.

Unfortunately, he could not; this evil object had fused tightly with his body to form a human-flesh Great Elixir, and it could not be separated by ordinary means.

The most fatal part was that the initiative was not in his hands.

If it were not for the fact that the forbidden egg's instinct was to possess Li Yu and achieve the status of the Son of the Forbidden God, it could have burst out of his stomach at any time, left behind a corpse, and gone to find another host.

Therefore, no matter how much Li Yu resented it, at this stage he could only handle it carefully and could not afford any mistakes.

Feeling the terrifying hunger surging out, he immediately began to scan the shops on the street that could provide food.

Fortunately, he was now carrying a "huge sum," so even for the table of dishes at the Galura Grand Restaurant—opened by that so-called Old Demon Zhu Can, which the ledger noted would make the couple's hearts ache—he could order whatever he wanted.

Of course, he would not actually go there, because according to the records, that Old Demon Zhu Can was a high-sequence powerhouse of the Forbidden God path; one could imagine what kind of dishes the restaurant he opened would serve.

Very quickly, he found many targets.

Excluding those that required waiting, there were bun shops, various specialty snack stalls, and a canned-goods shop.

That's right, in this Wanfu City, food like canned goods had already been developed.

Although they contained the flesh and blood of animals he had never heard of in his past life, they still made him feel a sense of familiarity.

Needless to say, this was another change brought about by the [Heavenly Craft Sect].

And so, for the rest of the morning, Li Yu spent his time half-experiencing and half-appeasing the forbidden egg.

He spent a full twenty taels of silver, opened up his stomach, and ate for two or three hours straight.

During this process!

Not only was the Forbidden Egg greatly satisfied, but Li Yu himself was also overjoyed.

On the second day since his transmigration, he finally ate normal food.

It was no longer those wretched things like grimy cured meat, stale rice, or old pickled vegetables.

After finishing his shopping, Li Yu, figuring that the next day and night should be safe, purchased a large pile of ready-to-eat canned goods and hurried toward his home.

Although there were still many things to do if he wanted to settle down and establish himself, he had to take it one step at a time; there was no need to rush.

Following the path he had come, he left the main street and bypassed a few old alleys.

Just as Li Yu caught a glimpse of his own courtyard in his eyes, he also noticed that the old street, which usually had many neighbors and was quite lively, seemed even livelier at this moment.

It was as if all the neighbors had come out of their homes and surrounded the entrance of the street.

There, stood a strange figure and a bizarre mechanical object that was constantly spewing steam.

When he walked closer, he saw it clearly: this object seemed to be pieced together from a carriage, a mechanical cabinet, storage racks, a copper furnace, and other such things, holding all sorts of strange and fresh items—it was a veritable mobile general store.

Among them, there were only two things Li Yu recognized.

The Electric Eel Lamp and a delicate, miniature version of the Bronze Chicken.

Standing in front of this general store was a young man wearing a long gown, with a vest full of pockets over his upper body, and various patterns resembling the Eight Trigrams embroidered all over his clothing.

This person maintained a smiling face throughout and wore a monocle connected to a gold chain, enthusiastically promoting the various goods he had brought this time to the surrounding neighbors.

"Dear neighbors!"

"You are in luck this time; I, Meng, have brought quite a few new products from our Heavenly Craft Sect."

"Every single piece is something that has not yet hit the market and cannot be found anywhere else."

"For example, this pair of [Black Thunder Wings]; they have a Heavenly Craft Thunder Core built inside. As long as you strap them to your back, even a mortal can taste the joy of flying, and in the process, you can even produce the sound of wind and thunder. It is truly majestic. Which neighbor would like to buy them? Take them home for one hundred taels of silver."

"And this [Hundred-Change Boiler]; with it, you no longer need any kitchenware or stoves at home, nor do you need any culinary skills. You only need to put various ingredients into it, and it will randomly produce all kinds of delicious delicacies. Such a convenient and good item only costs two hundred taels of silver."

"By the way, this is the latest body-tempering wonder, [Fortune-Deterrence Ointment]. The higher-ups told me that this item possesses the power of fortune-deterrence. As long as you apply it to any part of your body, it will cause that part to permanently swell and grow larger. It works on any part, for both men and women. Three hundred taels of silver, no cheating of children or the elderly."

"But the most heavyweight item of all has to be this [Skull-Exploding Gun]. It is a genuine lethal weapon. As long as you aim the muzzle at the target's head and condense Qi to charge for ten breaths, you can blow their head off... As everyone knows, no district in Wanfu City is peaceful, especially our South District. It can be called a place of outstanding people and spirits, and it most needs such a good item for self-defense. Five hundred taels of silver, and you can buy it."

Li Yu had been eager to return home, but he still stopped because of these mind-boggling Heavenly Craft wonders and the passionate introduction.

He suddenly understood why Jiao Qing had bought that wretched thing, the [Bronze Morning-Call Chicken].

The salesmen of the Heavenly Craft Sect were indeed exceptionally eloquent.

Although, according to the account books recorded by Sun Sanniang, the products of the Heavenly Craft Sect were not all that perfect.

In fact, the couple even guessed that the products carried by these salesmen, who walked through the streets and alleys of all four districts in Wanfu City, were mostly defective goods that would never be released to the market.

Bringing them out to sell was likely done with the intention of treating the city's residents as test subjects and suckers.

Of course!

Even so, from the commoners down to the transcendents in Wanfu City, it was hard for anyone to resist the endless stream of Heavenly Craft wonders.

While tearing down the products, everyone was simultaneously thinking about purchasing them at a low price.

For instance, at this moment, every time the salesman finished introducing a product, the surrounding neighbors would chime in with their own criticisms:

"What Black Thunder Wings? They must be a one-time-use evil object. If you really strap them on and go up into the sky, I'm afraid you'll never come back down. One tael of silver, not a penny more."

"The Hundred-Change Boiler, isn't it just a blender? The food I make with my feet tastes better than what it makes. Two taels of silver, I'll buy it to take apart for fun."

"This nonsense Fortune Ointment must have a huge price to pay, otherwise how could there be such a cheap deal in the world? Three taels of silver, I'll take it."

"You need to aim and charge for ten breaths just to blow someone's head off? Is there any more useless trash in the world than this? Five taels of silver, I can buy it."

(End of this chapter)