Chapter 340: Gold-Swallowing Beast

Bai Guo did not so much as blink. “I truly can’t help you. Just take it back with you, alright?”

He didn’t even bother with a polite, “Why don’t you ask somewhere else?”

He Lingchuan could tell that Bai Guo just wanted the old man gone.

He Lingchuan asked, “What illness is your grandson suffering from?”

Old Man Wang whipped his head around, eyes locking onto He Lingchuan as if he had just spotted a lifeline. “A high fever that won’t break! We went to the clinic and begged for two prescriptions, but neither of them worked!”

Hope flooded his face as he begged, “This is a genuine relic. Please, buy it!”

He Lingchuan asked, “What does your scroll say?”

“My ancestors said it’s a profound divine technique.” Old Man Wang gave a bitter smile. “But I can’t read it, and no one in my family cultivates. All I can do is sell it.”

“Can I take a look?”

“You can read it?” Old Man Wang peeled the beast-skin paper back a little, but only by a tiny bit. “Then here, you can have a look.”

“Bring the child here,” He Lingchuan said after scanning a few lines. “I’ll have someone treat him. If he’s cured, this beast-skin paper is mine.”

“Huh?” Old Man Wang froze. “Bring him... here?”

“That’s right. I’m meeting a friend here, and his medical skills are superb. Treating a child’s fever is nothing to him.”

“Ah, I see.” Old Man Wang nodded so hard his whole face wrinkled up with relief. “Good, good! I’ll go fetch my grandson right now!” He rolled the beast-skin paper up and hurried out.

Neither of the men behind him tried to stop him.

Once Old Man Wang walked out of Spirit-Nurturing Isle, the grief vanished from his face. He went another thirty-some steps before turning back to check whether anyone was following.

Seeing that nobody had followed him, he spat toward Spirit-Nurturing Isle.

Then he strolled down the main street at an unhurried pace, looking nothing like a man with a dying child at home. He even bought two steamed buns, eating as he wandered. Soon, he left Wanglin Avenue and turned onto another street.

This one had far less foot traffic. The shop signs were not as glossy, but the street itself ran long and branched everywhere. Old Man Wang tossed away the greasy paper, wiped his mouth and hands, then slapped his cheeks a couple of times, resetting his expression.

He then entered several shops in succession.

When he finally came back out, his face had changed again—smug, satisfied, as if he had scored a win.

Now he headed straight for the city gate, moving quickly.

Once I’m out, I’ll be safe.

But just after he passed a shallow side alley, a hand shot out, yanked him inside, and dragged him into the shadows.

Old Man Wang nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned his head and saw the young man from Spirit-Nurturing Isle smiling at him brightly, almost cheerfully.

“You?” Old Man Wang shouted without thinking. “Robbery—!”

But the moment his mouth opened, He Lingchuan lightly poked him in the throat.

The rest of Old Man Wang’s scream was jammed right back down. He clutched his neck, trying to call for help, but his voice was now no louder than a mouse.

He Lingchuan reached into his robes and pulled out five or six sheets of beast-skin paper, which he then unfolded.

Every single one was identical. They had faded ink of ancient immortal script, thin sheets that were not even fully filled with text.

“What is this?”

Old Man Wang’s face turned the color of ash.

Only then did He Lingchuan pull out his Gale Army token and flash it in front of Old Man Wang’s eyes. “The victim already reported it. There are prisons in the west and south of the city. Which one do you prefer?”

The Gale Army token was unmistakable. He Lingchuan was not worried about him getting a good look. Old Man Wang’s eyes went wide.

I’m done for.

How did I get exposed this quickly? Panlong City really isn’t somewhere you can run cons.

The pain in his throat had eased. He dropped to his knees with a thud.

“My lord, spare me! I’ll give you the genuine article!”

“You?” He Lingchuan’s mouth curled in contempt. “You expect me to believe that you actually have a genuine relic? Forget it, west prison it is, then. It’s closer.”

“No, please! If you let me go, I’ll definitely give it to you!” Old Man Wang panicked. “I really do have one!”

“Fine. I won’t arrest you.” He Lingchuan extended his hand. “Show me.”

Only then did Old Man Wang fumble a scroll out of his boot.

Saying that it did not smell great would be an understatement; it was absolutely rancid.

He Lingchuan pinched his nose, unfolded it, then flung it back at Old Man Wang in fury. “How is this any different from the fake ones? You think you’re amusing me?”

“I wouldn’t dare! It’s real!” Old Man Wang snatched the scroll up and spread it out again. In fact, the old beast-skin paper was already ragged beyond belief, mounted inside the scroll frame to keep it from falling apart.

He dug out a copper coin and pointed to a beast-head drawing in the upper left corner. “Look closely.”

The beast-head was drawn with an oddly lifelike style. It resembled an oversized toad, possessing bulging eyes and a huge mouth, but it had dense, razor-like teeth, and spots on its head like plum-blossom markings. Its jaws were gaping wide, and inside was pure black.

Old Man Wang pressed the copper coin into the beast’s open mouth.

Then, something unbelievable happened.

The copper coin vanished.

One of He Lingchuan’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He waited a few breaths before asking, “And? What changed?”

“The paper got bigger! Can’t you see?”

Only with the reminder did He Lingchuan notice that the edge of the beast-skin scroll had indeed expanded outward, but just by a tiny bit. The change was so slight that if one was not staring at it closely, one would never notice it.

“And what exactly are you trying to say?”

“This paper is alive, my lord!” Old Man Wang blurted. “But only after it eats money or something valuable will it return to its original size. Only then will the words fully appear!”

“Is that so?” He Lingchuan reached into the old man’s clothing and actually pulled out several hefty silver ingots, each of which was worth about twenty to thirty taels.

It was hard to believe that such a ragged old man was actually richer than him!

“These are what you scammed from others just now?”

Old Man Wang did not know how to answer. In the next instant, He Lingchuan tossed two silver ingots into the beast’s mouth.

“No, don’t!”

However, it was too late. The silver sank into the black maw and disappeared in one gulp.

Old Man Wang’s vision went dark. His heart felt like it had been carved out.

Then, He Lingchuan saw the beast-skin scroll expand again, slightly more this time.

It grew by... about a centimeter?

And sure enough, a few more characters appeared.

“There’s more. Again.”

Old Man Wang’s face crumpled. “My lord, please don’t throw any more in. No matter how much you feed it, you’ll never fill it!”

“You’ve tried?” He Lingchuan asked. “What’s the most you’ve thrown in at once?”

“I’ve thrown in two thousand taels of silver over time! The most in one go was seven hundred taels, plus two huge eastern pearls[1]!” Old Man Wang sounded like he wanted to cry. “I had some savings once. If not for this bottomless pit, I wouldn’t have fallen to this state!”

He Lingchuan demanded the full story.

Old Man Wang was an outsider. He had been a private tutor for many years and had saved up some extra money. One day after heavy rains, he went up the mountain to dig wild vegetables, but before he had even gathered half a basket, he found a corpse.

No one knew why the dead man had collapsed in the wilderness. Old Man Wang searched him and found only a few bits of silver and a single sheet of beast-skin paper.

He gave the man a proper burial, then carried the beast-skin paper down the mountain.

Old Man Wang was educated. He recognized that the script was of the ancient immortal language. However, the sheet was worn and incomplete, so he could not grasp the whole. He tried to sell it in town, but no one wanted it.

Later, he found someone capable to appraise it, and they told him that it was the hide of a gold-swallowing beast.

Even in ancient times, a gold-swallowing beast was an extremely rare exotic creature. The value of a divine technique written on its hide simply went without saying.

This kind of hide could endure the erosion of time. Even two or three thousand years later, there was still a chance it could “unfurl” again.

But the gold-swallowing beast had been greedy for precious things in life. After death, its spirit clung to its hide and retained that bottomless hunger. If Old Man Wang wanted to see everything written on it, he had to satisfy its appetite.

From that day on, Old Man Wang began the one-way road of feeding the hide of a gold-swallowing beast.

He could not even explain why he had lost his mind the way he had. Feeding the thing was genuinely addictive. He kept imagining a future where he finally “filled” it, convinced that he was on the verge of obtaining a peerless divine technique.

And when he did, the full scripture would surely live up to his hopes. He could sell it for an astronomical sum and never worry about food, clothing, or daily expenses again.

Reality, of course, was brutal.

After consuming gold and silver, the hide did not stay expanded. It would swell for only a quarter-hour or so, then slowly shrink back down until it returned to its ragged, broken original state!

This meant that if you could not fill it in one single feeding, it would never show you the entire divine technique.

“It’s a trap,” He Lingchuan said, unable to resist asking. “If you knew it was a bottomless pit, why keep feeding it?”

“If I stopped, then everything I’d already thrown in would’ve been wasted!” Old Man Wang squeezed out two bitter tears. “Later, I found a legend that said that mortal realm treasures can’t fill it at all! But I learned that too late. By then, I’d already ruined myself!”

To survive, Old Man Wang simply copied the visible portion of the beast-skin onto other sheets, passed them off as a complete divine technique, and sold them. He typically used the same story he had just tried at Spirit-Nurturing Isle.

And plenty of customers fell for it.

He just had to keep moving. After scamming two or three times, he would immediately flee to a new place to avoid prison.

After hearing all of this, He Lingchuan said bluntly, “You deserve it.”

This was a gambling addiction in another form. A person who indulges desire without restraint rarely receives a good ending.

Old Man Wang clasped his hands and bowed repeatedly. “My lord, please spare me!”

“Don’t worry. I won’t arrest you.” He Lingchuan grinned, stuffed the fake beast-skins back into the old man’s arms, then abruptly shoved him out into the middle of the street.

He’s really letting me go?

Old Man Wang was overjoyed.

At that moment, two shouts rang out not far away, “Eh, isn’t that him?”

Old Man Wang spun around in alarm and saw two patrol guards running toward him. With guilt in his heart, he turned and bolted.

“Stop!”

Old Man Wang ran even faster.

He was small and wiry, fast on his feet, and he kept plunging into crowds to shake pursuit. It took the two patrol guards the better part of a quarter-hour to finally catch him.

“Someone reported you for forgery and fraud!”

Along the way, they had also picked up several fake beast-skins that had fallen off him as he ran.

The old man could not argue his way out.

The real item was already gone. Whatever he said, no one would believe him now.

* * *

Only after watching Old Man Wang get hauled away did He Lingchuan return to Spirit-Nurturing Isle.

The plump shopkeeper grinned. “That old fellow was a scammer, wasn’t he?”

He Lingchuan grunted in confirmation and asked for a quiet room to sit in for a while.

For a landlord like him, this was a tiny request. The shopkeeper naturally obliged. So a few breaths later, He Lingchuan was in a small appraisal room with a table and chair, with some clutter piled in the corner.

He sat down, took out the original beast-skin, spread it on the tabletop, and lit a lamp to study it carefully.

Why did he go to so much trouble for an old con man? Just for a sheet of Gold-Eating Beast hide?

No, it was because the hide really did record a divine technique, namely the Clone-and-Shadow Technique—commonly shortened to Clone Technique.

In the visible portion of the technique’s outline, it stated that once you learned it, you could briefly summon a clone that would obey your commands.

At a glance, it looked very similar to the Mirror Image Art that He Lingchuan had planned to redeem at the Bureau of Bright Prospects, especially since even the Red General had recommended it.

1. This is what I found from a quick google search: Pearls from Manchuria, known historically as “eastern pearls” or

dongzhu

, were prized treasures of the Qing Dynasty imperial court, sourced from freshwater mussels in Northeast China, symbolizing status and used in official regalia like the Empress’s ceremonial necklace, with modern Chinese pearls still dominating the global market, famed for durability and variety. ☜