“Why don’t you go sell yourself?” Zhe Huo spat in reply.
In spite of this, a crowd of eager onlookers was gathering around them. Luo Qinghan himself was an eye-catching sight to begin with. Now that the assembled demon hunters had cannily spotted him for a fox demon, he had become the main spectacle in the hall. All eyes were being turned to him.
Zhe Huo was at the end of her patience. Her whip cracked against the floor, and then she swung it around to drive back the encroaching busybodies. Several of them yelped in shock, but she sneered down at them all. “Everyone wants to get their hands on a fortune, huh? Keep your distance, or we’ll be settling this in a court of law!”
Now that the woman had invoked the law, the crowd quietened down considerably, and no one wanted to be the first to tempt fate. Nevertheless, various demon hunters were now conversing with one another in hushed whispers, as disquieting little smirks spread across their faces.
Held tightly in Zhe Huo’s protective embrace, Qinghan’s ears perked up, as though overhearing something. He blinked once, a hint of contempt flitting through his eyes.
It was a torturously long while before it was finally Zhe Huo’s turn. Clutching Qinghan tightly, she pulled aside the black curtain and stepped through. There were several worktables within, with an expert at each one, examining wares and making records.
Zhe Huo took a seat at one of the tables. As expected, the curator immediately began to appraise the boy beside her. Eyebrows rising with surprise, the curator opened his mouth to speak, but Zhe Huo interrupted sharply, “He’s not for sale.”
Coolly, she then produced a demon bottle, and placed it on the table. “Here is the ice demon from Frostsoul Peak. Please have a look for yourself.”
Nodding with comprehension, the curator received the bottle, placed a flat black oval stone upon the table, uncorked the bottle, and extracted a tiny sample of the contents within. Minuscule snowflakes began to swirl upon the black stone. The curator examined these closely beneath a magnifying glass, and at last gave a faint smile.
“You must be very talented, to be able to capture such a potent ice demon at so young an age.”
Only seventeen, Zhe Huo couldn’t help beaming at these words of praise.
“One more question for you: Is your name anywhere on the demon hunter leaderboard?”
Zhe Huo opened her hand to show him her badge of rank. This too was viewed through the magnifying glass. With a look of recognition, the curator produced a document, which was presented to her. “Please look through this schedule of payments, here. We only deal in honest prices at this establishment. I shall offer you ninety thousand spirit gems for this. Will that be satisfactory?”
That was well within the range of what Zhe Huo had been hoping for. If not for her sudden ascension through the rankings, she’d probably only have been offered two-thirds of this amount, and some haggling would have been inevitable.
Seeking one last sign of confirmation, she glanced down at Qinghan, who batted his long lashes at her in apparent bewilderment. No objections from him, then. Satisfied, she returned her attention to the curator. “Very well. Ninety thousand gems it is.”
When the curator handed her nine dark-green spirit gemstones, as well as the demon bottle which had now been emptied, Zhe Huo’s eyes were full of stars. At last, she was finally seeing emerald spirit gems with her own eyes. Spirit gemstones were classified by color—the darker the color, the greater the value—and these emerald ones here, tiny though they were, were each worth ten thousand apiece.