When the merchant group arrived at Ning Zhou city, it was already
the next day.
Ning Zhou city was close to both water and the mountains and very vast
in area. Just it’s city wall was over 100 meters tall. It’s population was
upward of 500,000 and it was the third largest city of Dongsheng Continent.
Qin Liu walked on the blue stone streets along with the traveling
merchants, while he took in the sceneries curiously.
On both sides of the streets were all sorts of street vendor booths, it
looked a lot like any other cities back in China. One could see a lot of weapon
items such as swords, knifes, maces, etc. And some have animals skins, bones,
and other miscellaneous ingredients. The rest are food stand with barbeque
meats.
But the presentation and taste of these barbeque meats were extremely
unappealing. Qin Luo was curious why people in Gan Yuan were so simple when it
comes to cooking, they just barbeque everything, much like Africans back on
earth!1
The caravan finally arrived at a storefront in the 28th district, Feng
Buping said to Qin Luo, “Xiao Luo, after I paid you the money from the gu diao,
we will be parting ways. What are you plans for the future?”
“Me?” Qin Luo scratched his head, “I guess I will go and become a
mercenary?”
Actually he said that purposefully for Chen Yun, it was very
unfortunate that the little beauty pretended that she didn’t hear a word, and
showed neither excitement or sadness.
Feng Buping smiled, “With your skill level, you can be at least a level
3 mercenary. It’s not a bad path for you.”
The heck with it not being a bad path! He was a chef by trade! If he
wasn’t trying to score the chick, it would have never crossed his mind to
become a mercenary in a million years…
Right then the middle-aged storeowner with moustache walked out from
the store, “Old Feng, what brought you here?”
Feng Buping smiled, “Oh, nothing much, just brought a friend here to
sell some ingredients. Come, take a look!”
“Oh yeah? Show me.”
Feng Buping took him to the side of the horse-drawn wagon and lifted a
corner of canvas covering the bed of the wagon.
The expressionless store owner's eyes almost rolled of his sockets when
he saw the gu diao bones. He quickly fished out a small pair of spectacles and
started examining it more closely.
“These bones are very intact and the fur are of good color. I will give
you 10 pieces of gold, what do you say?” offered the store owner after putting
away his spectacles.
Feng Buping thought about it for a second and said, “How about 12 gold
pieces? You know, defeating a gu diao this size was no small feat…”
The store owner nodded and agreed with alacrity, “Okay, 12 gold pieces
it is, but you must bring me all your good catches in the future to me first!”
“Certainly, certainly!” Feng Buping smiled so much when he accepted the
little pouch that his face resembled a chrysanthemum.
While the store owner supervised his men in unloading the gu diao, Feng
Buping thrust all the gold pieces into Qin Luo’s hands and said, “Xiao Luo,
take this money. I live at the end of this street, you can come look for me if
you ever need anything.”
“I can’t take this!” said Qin Luo quickly, “Two gold pieces will be
sufficient. You and the crew should split the rest!”
Feng Buping shook his head, “I can’t do that, you killed the gu diao on
your own. We merely helped with the transportation part of it. I wouldn’t take
more than 1 gold piece.”
Qin Luo couldn’t convince him otherwise so he finally accepted the 11
gold pieces. After bidding Qin Luo and Chen Yun farewell, the traveling
merchants took off with their merchandizes from Mount Chongxi.
___
Notes:
1. If, for whatever
reasons, you are offended by this sentence, just know that I am merely
translating the original text faithfully… >.<
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