Scourge Messenger

Chapter 81 Auction Secrets
"I never expected to receive such a rare gift just from doing a routine task..."

At the Thieves' House, Yan Qing, holding the Bingzi Pepper Forest, completed the enchantment for Qiu Mo and then sent it back to the public warehouse for 'Night Four' to equip.

Both of Qiu Mo's abilities are passive, increasing armor penetration and bleeding efficiency with the number of attacks. However, Jiang Shi needs to use the Golden Ring Blade to heal, and using other weapons while distracted will reduce her healing efficiency. Therefore, Ye Si is indeed more suitable to equip Qiu Mo.

Although Yan Qing had long anticipated Jiang Shi's femme fatale nature, he hadn't fully grasped her allure because Jie Yuan, Shao Shang, and Xin Lei had previously shielded her from unwanted advances. Now, only a few days after Jiang Shi arrived at the Pingcheng military camp, people were already rushing to deliver rare gifts, and even taking their anger out on Ye Si after being rejected by Jiang Shi.

Now things are really bad; they might not be able to stay in the Pingcheng military camp anymore.

I guess I'll just have to work overtime these next few days and run the dungeon a few more times. I'll just have to fight my way out when it gets tougher. After all, it's just a low-level dungeon; it's time to find somewhere else to run it…

What were the major concerns of the many garrison commanders in Pingcheng were trivial matters to Yan Qing.

Compared to that, another small matter was a big deal to him.

He snapped his fingers, and the Treasure Hunt Token appeared in his hand. He pressed the token hard, and the trading market screen immediately appeared before his eyes.

Yan Qing picked up a bottle of blood-replenishing pills from the table. He had thirty or forty bottles of these pills on his table. He would take one when he was tired from exercising, and his strength would immediately return to full. However, he was afraid of overdrawing his body, so he only took one a day.

As his thoughts drifted, a new item appeared on the trading market: "Blood Replenishing Pill, priced at 100 Spirit Jade".

This is the highest price he can set. Blood-replenishing pills are something that can be produced in any dungeon, and almost no player would spend 1 spirit jade to buy them. Selling them for 100 spirit jades is simply treating everyone else like fools.

But just five seconds after he listed it, 70 spirit jades landed on his table, and the Blood Replenishing Pill in the trading market was bought by someone.

Which idiot bought it?
These past two days, Yan Qing has been testing the mechanisms of the Treasure Pavilion. First of all, not everything can be listed. There is only one standard for whether something can be listed: he must have 'seen' it in the game.

Just as he needs to know all the information about an item before he can put it into the public warehouse, he also needs to know all the information about the item when listing it on the Treasure Pavilion. This greatly limits the practicality of the Treasure Hunting Token. Yan Qing originally wanted to list any good items he saw on the Treasure Pavilion for 9999 billion spirit jades when he went on missions in the future, as a temporary warehouse.

Secondly, Yan Qing discovered that no matter what she sold, someone would buy it very quickly.

He was filled with deep doubt. Could there be other players in this world besides him?

It's also possible they're not a player, but just a messenger with a treasure-hunting token. But whoever it is, why aren't they listing items? Are they so poor they have nothing to sell? Or do they simply not want to reveal themselves?
Yan Qing waited and waited, and whenever he had free time, he would press the treasure hunting token to check the market, but he could only see an empty market.

Is it possible that a market-based buyback mechanism is in place?

Yan Qing suddenly thought of this possibility. He had played a Tarkov-like game before, where players would scavenge resources from the map and then list them on the trading post to trade with other players. However, there weren't always buyers for the items players sold, so the market would directly buy back goods below market price to help players replenish their cash flow as quickly as possible.

That must be the reason; otherwise, Yan Qing couldn't think of any other explanation. He opened the public warehouse, and soon ten copies of "Mastering Basic Knife Techniques" appeared on the table.

Basic manuals are different from pills and tokens. Other things can be consumed, but manuals will only accumulate, unless Yan Qing creates an alternate account—but even if he creates an alternate account, he can't use that many manuals.

Of course, Yan Qing could use a secondary account to sell the manual to other forces, but that wouldn't explain the source of the manual, and the secondary account's chances of dying would increase significantly. If Jiang Shi stayed in the Jiangnan region and had a good relationship with Jie Yuanshao and Shang Xinlei, he could also use them to sell the stolen goods, but unfortunately, this path is currently not feasible.

Anyway, these manuals are just gathering dust in the warehouse, so I might as well put them on the auction house and sell them for some money.

"Should we list 'Mastering Basic Sword Techniques'? The price range is 10-1000 Spirit Jade (or the item specified by the player), and the tax is 30% of the transaction amount."

"Given that the highest selling price is ≥1000, you can choose the auction mode."

Auction mode?

Yan Qing took a look and realized it was a limited-time auction.

First, an auction time limit must be set. When the time limit ends, the person with the highest bid wins the auction.

Then you need to set the auction reserve price, which cannot be higher than one-tenth of the highest selling price. For example, the reserve price for "Mastering Basic Knife Techniques" cannot exceed 100 spirit jades.

Finally, you need to set whether to return the item to the warehouse or relist it if it fails to sell at auction.

Yan Qing pondered for a moment. Regular listings would be withdrawn from the market, but auctions couldn't possibly be withdrawn, right? If someone bid, it meant that Jubaoge really had a buyer.

"Mastering Basic Sword Techniques" is available through an auction. The auction can last up to 4 hours, with a starting price of 100 Spirit Jade. If the auction fails to sell, the manual will be relisted for 1000 Spirit Jade.

All ten manuals are up for auction! If no one bids, we'll see if the market will buy them back at the high price of 1000 spirit jades. Even if someone buys all ten manuals at the lowest price, Yan Qing doesn't care—confirming whether other treasure-hunting token holders exist is more important than this small loss. He even worries that this small bargain won't be attractive enough to lure any hidden buyers.

After listing the item, Yan Qing waited a few seconds but didn't see anyone bidding. Jiang Shi and the others were about to start their dungeon run, so Yan Qing put the matter out of his mind and began farming in the dungeon.

……

...

In Chang'an County, a luxurious carriage rolled along the bluestone road, guarded by four knights. A flag bearing the character "Jin" fluttered high on the carriage, and pedestrians on the road gave way. Even though the carriage sped through the county town, no one dared to question it.

Inside the carriage, the pharmacist leaned back in her seat, carving something with a small knife. Her fingers were long and strong, lacking feminine grace, but powerful and untamed. Even as the carriage jolted violently, her hands remained as steady as a mountain. Shockingly, she wasn't carving wood, but a block of iron.

Under her carving, the outline of a rather foolish dog-headed man gradually became clear. Beside her were already carved fox-faced men, snake-necked men... each lifelike, each looking utterly foolish.

"Princess, we're almost at the Golden Light Gate," the coachman said.

The apothecary stopped carving, placed the kobold statue beside her, and then squeezed the three statues together with both hands, squeezing and squeezing them repeatedly. Her expression was as relaxed as if she were squeezing an orange, but the iron statue in her hands was making a twisting sound that made your teeth ache!
"Finally home."

A cold glint flashed in her eyes. Yellow dog, white fox, red snake—you all thought I only received the worst reward, the Enlightenment Pill, but you don't know that this is what I needed most. Now that I've broken through the most difficult bottleneck, the Thieves' Den… is already mine!

All the rewards from the Thieves' House are mine!

Everything you've taken, I will take back!

The speeding carriage suddenly stopped, and the coachman said, "Princess, the city gate is blocked."

The pharmacist was quite dissatisfied: "They can even block the city gates? What about the Shence Army?"

"The Shence Army is inside, surrounded by layers upon layers of defense."

The pharmacist stepped down from the carriage and saw that the coachman's words were true—the city gate, wide enough for four carriages to pass, was now packed with hundreds of people. The Shence Army seemed to be guarding something, forming a human wall to hold back the crowd, but some people still broke through their lines and touched the wall behind them.

"I have a spirit jade! Let me in!"

"The imperial court has decreed that no one is allowed to—"

"The imperial court is nothing! Do you even recognize who I am?"

The speaker, wearing a face mask, shoved aside the Shence Army soldiers and approached the wall. Although he was quickly pushed out by the Shence Army, he could still squeeze back in. After all, this was the main city area of ​​Chang'an, and no matter how powerful the Shence Army was, they couldn't hurt him in the slightest.

Quite a few people have adopted the strategy of covering their faces. If only one or two people cover their faces, they will be targeted quickly. But if a large group of people cover their faces, naturally no one will waste their energy to remove their masks.

Yaoshiyuan frowned slightly. She didn't want to squeeze with so many people and was also a little curious about what was going on. So she waved her hand, signaling the four knights to clear a path. When the knights squeezed in front of the Shence Army, Yaoshiyuan said, "I am Princess Zhaorou, make way." After saying that, she ignored the Shence Army's reaction and pushed past them, looking at the wall they were guarding.

On the wall at the city gate, there always hung a huge blackboard. The blackboard was blank, and nothing could leave a mark on it. The apothecary would see this blackboard every time he left the city. When he was a child, he even tried to chop it with a guard, but found that it really couldn't leave a mark. Later, he tried burning it and even smearing it with feces, and then he stopped paying attention to it.

Similar blackboards can be found at various city gates and even along major thoroughfares in Chang'an, as if they, like the main city, were rules left behind by a supreme god.

Now, however, ten lines of text have appeared on this blackboard that should have remained unmarked forever, each line containing similar content:
"The starting bid for 'Mastering Basic Sword Techniques' is 100 Spirit Jade. The auction will end at 1:15 PM. The highest bid so far is 1200 Spirit Jade."

The other rows are similar, except that the highest bid number is slightly different.

"Mastering Basic Knife Techniques"? Auction?

Many thoughts raced through the pharmacist's mind when suddenly someone squeezed next to her—another masked man. He glanced at the blackboard, pressed the button on the bottom item, and the highest bid for that item changed from 1150 spirit jades to 1300 spirit jades.

After pressing the button, he glanced at the pharmacist with a rather provocative look, as if asking, 'Can you afford it, you poor wretch?'

The pharmacist laughed in exasperation. She looked at her money pouch, then reached out and touched the blackboard, pressing all the buttons from top to bottom. She saw that the highest bid for all ten items had changed to 1500 spirit jades!

(End of this chapter)