Love from the Male Protagonist’s Harem

Chapter 67-Admitting That You’re Inferior To Another

Translated by Snowfall77

Staring up blankly at the tall neighbor who was still pressing down a finger on her shoulder, Xia Ge obediently and unexpectedly stayed seated.

With the other standing and herself sitting, Xia Ge found the height difference a bit stifling.

But by the time Xia Ge came back to her senses, questioning her own compliance and looking about for the person she’d wanted to pursue, said person was already gone.  Xia Ge was inwardly anxious; however she didn’t know who her tall neighbor was.  It wouldn’t be wise to unnecessarily provoke them, better to find out what they wanted and move on from there……

While Xia Ge was preoccupied with her thoughts, the tall neighbor silently withdrew their long, slender finger from Xia Ge’s shoulder.  The neighbor then pointed at Xia Ge’s pricing board and next to the small box of dan, before leisurely taking out a spirit stone pouch from within their cloak and stretching it out to Xia Ge.

Not knowing what to make of it, Xia Ge stared stupidly at the pouch dangling in front of her.

This meant……

System: [Take The Pouch, Take The Pouch, This Person Is Buying Your Dan!]

Xia Ge: “……”  Shut up.

Mindful of keeping a clear conscience, Xia Ge tactfully pointed at her pricing board one more time: “It’s……the price is one hundred mid-grade spirit stones.”

Even if the black market was a market flooded with cheap goods from shifty sellers hoping to make a fortune, to her surprise Xia Ge couldn’t, when it came right down to it, feel happy about selling two Bigu dan for such an exorbitant price.

The tall neighbor said nothing and remained motionless, clearly expressing ‘I know.’

Xia Ge: “……”  This person……

Were they nothing but a foolish rich person?  Even though they were getting ripped off, they were still willing to pay?

Finally, seeing that her tall neighbor made no movement to put away the spirt stone pouch, Xia Ge took the pouch, hearing the system immediately go: [Ding! Congratulations On Obtaining One Hundred Medium-Grade Spirit Stones!]

……so her tall neighbor had actually paid the full price.

Since Xia Ge had accepted the pouch, the cloaked neighbor, stooping down, picked the box of dan up off Xia Ge’s bit of cloth.  Then, without a word, the neighbor packed away their own items for sale and departed.

In the ‘small’ black market already glutted with black-cloaked figures, Xia Ge’s buyer was quickly undetectable, disappearing into the crowd.

Xia Ge: “They’re gone.”

System: [Mmm.]

Xia Ge: “……aren’t people too impulsive with money lately?”

System: [Perhaps?]

Thinking about how she’d witnessed no one buying anything from her tall neighbor, Xia Ge couldn’t help saying: “But I don’t think they were doing very well at selling their own stuff.”

The system was cold-hearted: [So?  At Least You Sold Your Dan.]

Xia Ge: “……”

System: [You Saw For Yourself How Bad Their Business Was, Maybe The Spirit Stones They Gave You Was All They Had.]

Xia Ge: “……”

System: [Just Joking.]

Xia Ge: “In any case, the spirit stones were given to me and now they’re mine!  Goods paid for and received!”

“Oh……right, wait a minute!  That guy——”

Still holding the pouch, Xia Ge tapped her head.  Should she try to find the person she’d wanted to warn earlier, or should she simply concentrate on her own business?

“Forget it,” Xia Ge said to herself after a pause, “I’ve already here at the black market, I should just go buy what I came here for.”

She could hardly look after herself, where did she have the time to take care of others?  Now that she had funds, buying puppet-making materials was the priority.

Causally strolling around, Xia Ge bought the materials she needed.  She’d circled the ‘small’ market before trying to sell her dan and had gotten an idea of what her various materials would cost in spirit stones.  She just hadn’t expected that spirit stones were thousand base!

Because a lot of the materials for making low-rank puppets and liandan overlapped, they were quite common.  Buying them wouldn’t arouse anyone’s suspicion.

If one wanted to refine a higher rank puppet, it would require more dodgy materials, like ehun clay or other such strange things.  But Xia Ge didn’t plan on purchasing those types of materials yet.

Although, as Xia Ge was shopping, she did see baijin bone.  If used to make a high rank puppet, baijin bone could make the puppet completely adamantine or basically indestructible.

Heart pumping, Xia Ge was sorely tempted to buy it.

Yet when she noted the baijin bone’s price of three hundred medium-grade spirit stones, she retreated in defeat

Couldn’t afford.

When done with her purchasing, Xia Ge was left with half of her one hundred medium-grade spirit stones.  Maybe one hundred medium-grade spirit stones were priceless in the mortal world, but in liandan circles, puppet-making circles, and qiling circles, those one hundred mid-grade stones were practically nothing.  Too bad that Bigu dan wasn’t of much value and Xia Ge’s pricing of her own had already been uncalled for.

Xia Ge was staring blankly at the baijin bone when someone unexpectedly tugged gently on her cloak.  Completely startled, Xia Ge almost fell over, wobbling on her stilts.  Thankfully she managed to stabilize herself, looking down to find that the person who’d pulled at her cloak was only about half a meter tall and wearing a white mask.

{little puppet?}  Xia Ge’s tone was very serious.

System: [Mmm?]

Now Xia Ge sounded faintly excited: {isn’t this person shorter than me?!  like one meter shorter?}

With deep hatred and resentment, the system answered: [Host, You Are On Twenty Centimeter High Stilts……Why Don’t You Go Compare Your Height To That Toad-Masked Puppet?]

Recalling that the toad-masked puppet was about forty centimeters high, Xia Ge’s expression was blank: {that puppet was an anomaly, it’s different.}

System: [……]

A fifty centimeter tall person was not an anomaly?!  Do you think random children are wandering around the black market?!  Which ones are not monsters or devils?!!

Initially startled by Xia Ge’s fierce bronze visage, the half meter tall person shrunk back before realizing it was just a mask, then silently lifted up a leaflet to Xia Ge.  Xia Ge leaned over in a deliberate manner, putting on a flamboyant act of being ever so tall, and took the leaflet.  Upon reading, the paper announced an auction to be held later at the ‘big’ black market.

“There will be many good items for sale tonight, I hope you can join down below.”  The short person’s voice was hoarse and aged, sounding like someone a couple hundred years old, giving Xia Ge goosebumps.  She coughed, lowered her voice, and feigned interest: “What are the valuables up for sale?  Can you reveal any?”

This was so cool.  This person was really tiny.

What a delightful♂pleasure.

“Ten copper coins and I’ll be frank, thank you.” The short person solemnly bargained.

Xia Ge: “……”  You’re not approved by any authority, are you?  A complete fake, right?

Fine, the information wasn’t that expensive and she was truly curious.

Xia Ge gave over the ten copper coins.

Pocketing the coins, the short person lowered their voice, acting mysterious: “Squat down and I’ll tell you.”

When Xia Ge obligedly crouched down, the short person leaned close to her ear: “Tonight’s grand finale will be——”

Xia Ge: “Yes, what will it be?”

The short person rubbed their hands together excitedly: “An outstanding beauty, a prostitute from the heavenly city!  I’ve heard she’s especially beautiful!”

Xia Ge: “……”

System: [……]

Xia Ge smiled: “I want a refund.”

The short person trembled a little: “Once money is collected, there are no refunds.”

Still smiling, Xia Ge’s voice was exceedingly gentle: “What if I beat you up?  Will you give me a refund then?”

The short person immediately tried to run away, but when Xia Ge grabbed their collar, they hollered: “Fighting is forbidden!  No using spiritual powers!  They’ll catch you, they’ll catch you!”

Xia Ge lowered her voice, giving it an eerie edge: “I won’t beat you up, I’m just playing with you……”

She paused to softly laugh, “Besides, between some little shortie who’s dodged the entry fee and is selling bad information, or a decent seller who’s following the rules……which one do you think the black market will send their hired thugs after?”

The short person’s body froze: “I, I, I……”

Oh, look at that.  This short person really was bogus.  Xia Ge had scored a lucky hit.

Glancing down at the leaflet in her hand, Xia Ge saw that it had the black market’s secret symbol on it, meaning the leaflet itself was genuine.

In other words……wasn’t this short person was using a real leaflet to sucker people?

Tsk.  They must be even poorer than herself.

But……

Being able to pick up another person’s body with ease was quite gratifying.  No wonder that Chu person from Jianfeng liked doing it so much.

With a happy sigh, Xia Ge lifted the short person higher, saying hypocritically: “How about we play a game?  Hitting and being hit is too vulgar, so about throwing and being thrown?”

Xia Ge gestured: “Throwing it up into the air with a ‘whoosh,’ and then watching it fall to the ground with a ‘snap,’ making some meat paste……Oh, don’t be anxious.  I’m not very strong, and I probably can’t throw you that high.  Therefore a good person like you probably won’t too much of a meat paste.”

System: [……]  Are you the devil?

“Wuwuwu, I don’t want to play a game!  Master!  Strong Warrior!  Hero!”  The short person wildly kicked their heels in the air, their true voice revealed to be thin and juvenile, instead of low and aged, “I’ll tell you one more thing, one more thing!  Please, Master, put me down!  Put me down quickly please!  Wuwuwu……”

Feeling that she’d done a proper job of scaring half to death, Xia Ge contentedly put the short person down, before squatting down again and saying ever so tenderly: “Alright, go ahead.”

The short person, trembling like someone who’d just survived a calamity, whispered back: “Besides that prosi……”

Then, seeing that the expression in Xia Ge’s eyes behind the bronze mask did not bode well, the short person, possessing the will to live, swallowed the word ‘prostitute,’ and instead said: “……lady, allegedly there’s also going to be an ancient Yimei……”

An ancient Yimei?!

Well, that was very exciting news.

Although shaken in her heart, outwardly Xia Ge didn’t bat an eyelid, “An ancient Yimei, huh?  Do you know what its name?”

This continent only had a handful of ancient Yimei, and each one had taken up a lot of ink on the pages of The Boundless Beauty of the Wind and the Moon.  If an ancient Yimei was actually here at the black market……

Which one could it be?  An official Yimei described in the book or a wild card one?

Staring at Xia Ge’s bronze mask, the short person felt Xia Ge must be an evil spirit come again.  Turning their white-masked face away, they said lowly: “……I heard it was called the Zhen Hun.”

Zhen Hun?!

Xia Ge’s eyes instantly widened.  The Yimei being auctioned at the black market tonight was actually the Zhen Hun?!

How was that possible?  According the clues and conjectures Xia Ge had, wasn’t the Zhen Hun being at the black market wildly improbable?!

No, no, wrong!

It wasn’t impossible.  After all, the tomb of Lingxi’s ancestor was hundreds of years old.  That was plenty of time for grave robbing, disorder, and any number of messy things to happen.  The Zhen Hun could have being going from person to person!

Xia Ge abruptly stood upright, scaring the short person back a few steps.  But Xia Ge took out ten more copper coins and handed them to the short person: “Thank you.”

“Ah, don’t mention it, don’t mention it!  You really should join the auction; I still have one more person to……”  Suddenly realizing they were saying too much, the short person promptly shut up and ran away, disappearing into the crowd like a wisp of smoke.

Xia Ge: “……”

Sounded like there was at least one more individual to swindle.

The little person’s way of earning was pretty impressive.  Too bad Xia Ge didn’t have such ruthless business acumen.  Just selling her dan had already pained her conscience.  No wonder other people were getting rich quick while she was still too poor to eat.

恶è

evil / fierce / vicious / ugly / coarse / to harm

魂hún

soul / spirit / immortal soul, i.e. that can be detached from the body

白金báijīn

platinum / silver / (slang) handcuffs