I'm not a fortune teller.

Chapter 5: The stupid county magistrate is still alive?

"My Lord, please remember, never go to a dark place at any time. As long as the lights of this night market are still on, the things in the dark cannot easily hurt you."

“Will this night market stay lit all the time?”

"Won't."

Zhang Rui: “.”

"Master, why didn't you stop such a dangerous thing earlier?" Zhang Rui couldn't help but say.

"I didn't have time." Master Qian shook his head. "I never thought that you would dare to take his case today, even though I told you yesterday to send that plague god surnamed Tian away as soon as possible. Under the circumstances at that time, you must have been bewitched or replaced by someone else. How could I dare to intervene?"

Zhang Rui was silent. He would never have thought that the situation would be so complicated, otherwise how could he have spoken so easily?
"Is the consequence so serious just because I took this piece of drawing paper?" Zhang Rui looked into the darkness and frowned.

A normal city would definitely not be so exaggerated, otherwise why would my mother not stop me if I went out?
"I didn't know it would be so serious." Master Qian looked around with a wry smile. "At the time, I thought that after you took over the Plague God's things, at most only your family would suffer. I never expected this result. If I had known it was related to the Painting Market, I would have run away with my wife and children before the trial this afternoon."

Painting market?

Zhang Rui was stunned. This word looked so familiar. Had he heard it somewhere before?

"What is this painting market that Master is talking about?"

"Master Zhang was born in Jiangnan, but he has never heard of the painting market?" Master Qian frowned, then reacted: "That's right, we don't even know where Master Zhang is from now."

Zhang Rui curled his lips, not knowing how to explain, and shook his head: "I really haven't heard of it, but Master, since you are sure that I am not Master Zhang, are you willing to help me?"

"It can be seen that the adult is a little stupid, but he should be considered a good person, otherwise he would not want to help a woman who looks vulnerable without knowing the situation."

"Labor and capital."

Zhang Rui took a breath, but in the end he had to endure it because of the pair of black hairy claws in the other party's sleeves, and continued to ask: "Master Qian seems to be very familiar with this so-called painting market?"

"How can it not be familiar?" Master Qian sighed, his eyes dazed. This familiar street was almost exactly the same as it was twenty years ago. Even many people were the same as before.

"Then Master, you must know where the way out is, right?"

"Once we enter here, who can guarantee that we will survive?" The master smiled bitterly and shook his head, then looked at the sky: "Time is urgent, I will first tell you about the situation here. Whether I can survive depends on your will."

"Please give me some advice, Master." Zhang Rui said in an extremely respectful manner.

"The nights are long and the days are short in this painting market. The daytime lasts less than two hours. If you want to escape, the daytime is the only chance, but the prerequisite is that you can survive the long night." The master pointed to the brightly lit downtown area and said, "At night, evil spirits are rampant in places without lights, and under the lights, no matter how powerful the evil spirits are, they cannot easily reveal their ghost appearance, otherwise they will be chased by the warriors in the painting market. Under the lights, the evil spirits are weak, which is also a great tonic. Killing them does not violate taboos, but instead gains a tonic out of thin air. So here, people are afraid of ghosts, and ghosts are also afraid of people."

"Lights?" Zhang Rui looked at the lights of thousands of homes in the downtown area in confusion. Only then did he realize that it was no wonder that the streets were so brightly lit and there were lights everywhere.

"But you just said that the lights can't be kept on forever? Where do these lights come from?"

"No one knows that." The master shook his head. "We only know that wherever there is fire, there will be a market, and where there is no fire, there will be ghosts. When day and night change, there will be a new fire point. If you want to survive, you will gather there, and then a large scale will be formed before nightfall."

"Is that so?" Zhang Rui immediately understood. Now it was the time when the city had become a mature one. The place where they were was already a large-scale market with bright lights, so it was safe.

"Can't the lights in this market stay on until dawn?"

"No." The master shook his head again: "So you must earn enough blood essence to light a life-extending lamp before the lights of the market go out."

"Essence and blood?" Zhang Rui was stunned, a flash of lightning passed through his mind. This setting feels somewhat familiar.

"Blood essence is the oil for the lamp. If there is no oil, the lamp can only burn with its own blood essence. With your current physical condition, I'm afraid the oil will run out before dawn, so you must think of a solution."

"The blood essence in Master's mouth can be exchanged?"

"This is also the magical part of the Painting Market." The master lowered his voice and said, "Everyone knows that human blood essence is produced by the body's own training. An ordinary person only has one or two drops of blood in his lifetime. Warriors train their bodies day after day in the cold winter and hot summer, so they can be slightly stronger than ordinary people. That is the essence of the human body. How can outsiders trade it? But here it is possible. As long as both parties make a promise, a transaction can be formed in the Painting Market. The exchanged blood essence can not only be used as lamp oil, but also for the body itself."

As he said this, he looked at Zhang Rui and said seriously: "So you must always be on guard against outsiders. In this painting market, it is difficult to distinguish between humans and ghosts, but ghosts are not the only ones who harm people. Although you are weak and have few drops of blood to squeeze, even the smallest mosquito is meat."

"This..." Zhang Rui looked dazed at this moment. Master Qian sighed when he saw this and said, "Your Excellency may feel a little confused after listening to this. It doesn't matter. It's hard for anyone to understand this when they hear it for the first time."

"Master Qian" Zhang Rui lowered his head and rubbed his head: "When I went out just now, I saw that the door of my house was still there. I really want to know, if there is no light in the house, will there be any trouble?"

"No." Master Qian smiled and said, "You are indeed a kind person. You are worried about your family first at this time. But don't worry, your family is a very special place in the painting market. As long as the owner does not open the door, the evil will not invade."

"Does that mean that as long as I go back to the county government office, I'll be fine?"

"Yes!" Master Qian nodded, but then added: "But your wife won't open the door for you." "Huh?"

"In the Painting Market, countless painted ghosts will pretend to be the owner of the house and ask the house to open the door. Since you came out, there may have been countless painted ghosts pretending to be you and knocking on the door. If it were an ordinary family, they would have been eaten up by the group of evil ghosts long ago. But your wife is different. Her father, Mr. Luo, has experienced the Painting Market just like me. He must have warned her since she was a child. The child is a smart and courageous person like her father, and she will definitely not fall into the trap. However, there will be a disadvantage in this way."

"Even if I go there in person, she won't open the door." Zhang Rui immediately understood what the other party wanted to say.

The Painted Skin Ghost could impersonate himself, so his cheap wife should not be able to tell the difference. Since she couldn't tell the difference, the best way was to not believe it at all, so it was meaningless for him to go and knock on the door.

However, this also made him feel relieved, because although he could not escape back to the county government office, his mother and siblings should be safe.

"Your Excellency is still smarter than the previous Lord Zhang." Master Qian said with a smile.

Zhang Rui: “.”

"In this case, my lord, please wish yourself the best. I, the old man, will take my leave now."

Zhang Rui was stunned and asked quickly, "Where are you going, Master?"

"My old woman is not as reliable as your wife. Although I have warned them many times outside the door, I am still afraid that she will not be able to bear it. I have to watch over her all night. If you are still alive in the daytime, I will come to find you. Please hurry up."

Master Qian said this and walked into a dark alley without looking back. He disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Zhang Rui looked at the place where the other party disappeared and then looked at the lampstand that the other party left for him.

There was a faint flame in the lampstand, and a drop of black liquid was obviously hanging in it. I guess that was the so-called essence and blood. The flame looked like it could go out at any time. If I couldn't find enough essence and blood to light the lamp before the lights in the downtown went out, then my fate would be similar to being dragged into the alley by the old witch.

He probably wouldn't be able to count on Master Qian before dawn, but he wasn't panicked at all.

On the contrary, I feel a little excited at this moment.

画市
I said that the name sounded familiar just now.

After hearing all the details, he became more certain.
Isn't this the setting from a failed draft of my novel about cultivating immortals?
-
"Master Tian, why are we heading to Fuchun County? Wouldn't this make us even further away from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?"

After leaving the dock, Master Tian made a prompt decision and exchanged half of his wheat for a horse-drawn carriage and four life-saving lanterns, and the group headed directly to Fuchun County where he had stayed before.

"If we can't get out, we will never see His Royal Highness the Crown Prince again!" Master Tian responded coldly in the face of doubt.

"Master, do you have a way to get out?" After the scholar took a packet of medicine powder in the carriage, his face clearly regained a bit of color.

"Wu Shi San should not be used frequently." Master Tian frowned and looked at the other party: "If you continue to abuse this medicine, I'm afraid you won't live for many years."

"First live through the present, then talk about the future." The scholar smiled indifferently, and then asked again: "Master, you have come up with an idea by going back to your old ways?"

"We have to go back and find that stupid county magistrate."

"Eh?" The scholar was stunned. "Who took your drawing paper?"

But then he immediately reacted: "That's right. If the woman in the painting can escape from the painting market once, she can escape a second time. Finding her may be a glimmer of hope. But are you sure that the county magistrate is still alive? Is the painting still in the county magistrate's hands?"

"I naturally have no expectations for that fool. I came back only because I left a mark on that scroll."

"I see, the master is really very careful in his work." The scholar praised with a smile, and then sighed: "If Lu Yuanru had such a meticulous mind as the master, he might not have died so easily."

Master Tian did not reply. Among the two first-class sorcerers in the Prince's Mansion, the Prince actually valued Lu Yuan more. But it was also true that Lu Yuan was younger than himself and had the potential to become a great sorcerer. Naturally, resources would be tilted towards the more promising seedlings. Now that Lu Yuan was dead, the scholar had regarded him as an unstable young man.

Facts have proved that no matter how great a person's potential is, once he dies, he will be nothing.

"Ok?"

When approaching Fuchun County, Master Tian looked obviously surprised.

"What's wrong?" the scholar asked hurriedly upon seeing this.

Master Tian looked at the lights hanging around the carriage. They were the information and enough lamp oil that they had exchanged for half of their food and half of the blood of two guards. The rules here were weird. There were evil ghosts and swindlers everywhere. There was no good people. Newcomers suffered too much here. If they were not careful, their lives would be in danger. They were the elite of the Prince's Mansion, but they were still like this. They didn't expect that guy.
"That stupid county magistrate is still alive!"

"Oh?"

(End of this chapter)