Chapter 3, Chapter Three: The Giant Jaw Plain
Yan Shi visited the Ju'e Plain once.
But I'm here for a meeting.
For meetings and similar events, Yan Shi, as a top leader, would travel by airship, skyrail, or teleportation array.
In short, he never measured the earth with his own feet.
We definitely can't go to Cero City, where the Giant Jade Branch of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs is located. According to Tiger Cub, the Tiger Clan's residence is in Su City.
Yan Shi planned to take Lin Cai and Hu Zai to Sucheng first.
The Giant Jaw Plains are the territory of the Orcs, and their defining characteristic is their vastness.
Furthermore, areas without towns are sparsely populated, and the distances between towns are exceptionally far.
Meanwhile, the cell phone signal was so bad that Yan Shi began to question his existence.
According to the mobile phone navigation, Sucheng is located north of Cero City. There is a fixed airship route between them. The airship departs from Cero City, stops once at a small encampment in the middle, and then arrives at Sucheng.
This small outpost is a bit far from Cero City, but it's still within an acceptable range.
Yan Shi quickly made a decision: this is the place.
Although she said she was walking on the Giant Jade Plain because she failed to catch Lin Cai, she was actually very curious about the Otherworld.
It's impossible not to be curious about a fantasy world that once only existed in imagination.
However, after walking briskly for about 10 minutes to the North Korean outpost, Yeon-shi began to regret his hasty decision.
The Ju'e Plain is truly vast.
And it's so boring.
The road ahead was all grassland, and as far as the eye could see, there was no other living creature to interact with besides the three of them.
This is not fantastical at all; it's more like a military training exercise.
Yan Shi: ...
She stood there, sighing deeply.
In the distance, the sun sank completely below the horizon, disappearing into its last rays.
It got dark.
The plain was silent, with only the rustling of the wind through the grass.
The tiger cub said mysteriously from the side, "It is said that there is miasma on the Giant Jaw Plain when it gets dark."
It opened its mouth wide, trying to look terrifying. "You can't see it during the day, but it suddenly appears at night. The souls that perished on the Giant Jaw Plain have lost their former consciousness and attack the living indiscriminately."
Lin Cai: "Oh, it's just a ghost from the surface world." She analyzed calmly, then became a little interested, "I've never seen a ghost before."
Yan Shi: ...Is this really not something the tiger clan elders made up to scare the cubs and tell them not to run around outside at night?
Suddenly, the tiger cub's eyes lit up. "There's a light in the distance!" he exclaimed joyfully.
Yan Shi looked in the direction the tiger cub pointed. It was completely dark, and that little light stood out starkly against the vast grassland.
She nodded: "Let's go take a look."
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a small merchant group temporarily staying there.
A cargo truck was parked nearby, with an energy lamp lit next to it—the source of light for the tiger cub. Small groups of the merchant caravan were chatting and eating their boxed lunches around the energy lamp. Two armored vehicles were parked beside the cargo truck.
"Huh? Two humans and a tiger cub," a member of the caravan noticed the three of them. "Why are you still walking on the plains so late?"
This is a merchant caravan traveling from Cerro to Sunrise City.
"Sun Chasing City?" The Golden Crow's encampment. Yan Shi sat by the energy lamp, listening to Lin Cai, Tiger Cub, and Wei Ning, who were also the leaders of the merchant guild, chatting.
The City of Chasing the Sun is not located on the Giant Jade Plain, but on Sunshine Island, where a legendary fire-type bird race, led by the Golden Crow and the Phoenix, lives.
A small merchant group drove all the way to Rihui Island.
They also brought a truckload of goods that were tightly wrapped in insulating cloth.
Perhaps the cargo couldn't pass the airship's security check, which is why they had to drive it themselves.
Then it's easy to find out what the goods are and where they came from.
interesting.
While Yan Shi was pondering, Lin Cai and Hu Zai had already recounted everything except for their arrest.
“So, you have no elders following you, and the elders don’t know where you are,” Wei Ning’s smile grew even brighter. “Take them down!”
Yan Shi raised an eyebrow and instantly understood.
This merchant group was involved in black market trading.
Humans and animals are both valuable in the Otherworld.
The Giant Jade Plains are centrally located with excellent transportation links, making the Bureau of Foreign Affairs extremely powerful and preventing the black market from operating. In contrast, the Bureau of Foreign Affairs has weaker control over the Sun Chasing City due to the Golden Crow Clan's territorial ambitions.
It is also said to have the largest black market in the orc territory.
This supposedly means that Yan Shi saw speculations about the locations of various black markets and auction times in the information department's report.
However, due to the power struggles among various parties and the fact that the black market operates almost entirely behind the control bureau, there are not many documents with detailed information recorded within the central bureau.
But given the current situation...
Yan Shi closed her eyes. She was fairly certain that there was a black market for beastmen in Zhu Ri City, if not the largest, then at least a fairly large one.
Otherwise, there would be no reason for the merchant guild to do business in the City of Chasing Sun instead of the Giant Jade Plain.
She's here for a day trip to the black market.
---
Yan Shi woke up again on a bumpy car.
Everything was pitch black, and my hands were bound behind my back with ropes. It seemed I was inside that mechanical vehicle.
“God said, ‘The rope breaks,’” she whispered the incantation. The incantation, which had been ineffective and had been blocked, now answered her request.
Yan Shi noticed that the merchant group hadn't searched them. She touched her phone and found it was still safely in her coat pocket.
She turned on her phone's flashlight to look around.
It was a large carriage, and a flashlight couldn't illuminate the whole thing; all you could see were more than a dozen "cargo" lying next to her, their hands also bound.
There were six or seven humans wearing similar uniforms, three orc cubs, and even two elves.
Lin Cai and Hu Zai were lying unconscious at her feet.
It must be a large business group.
Yan Shi reached out and touched the side wall of the carriage.
It is the Source-Isolating Cloth. The Source-Isolating Cloth contains forbidden spells, prohibiting the use of all abilities. Hence the saying, "An inch of it is worth a fortune."
This merchant group has quite a grand scale.
Even so, the Source-Isolating Cloth can only prevent the use of abilities, not spells.
Yan Shi raised the flashlight and continued to shine it forward.
The carriage must have been enchanted with spatial extension magic, as large boxes covered with black cloth were placed everywhere except where they were lying.
She casually lifted the black cloth beside her, revealing a large, transparent glass box. In the center lay a dark-colored axe, which looked menacing even from a distance.
This type of large weapon is more favored by the Orcs.
It can exert its power to the maximum extent.
In addition, this merchant caravan's destination is Sunrise City...
The biggest customers in this black market are probably all from the Orcs.
The boxes next to it contained enchanted heavy weapons.
I just don't know if there are any Tiger Clan elders.
Yan Shi thought with amusement that her expression would be quite interesting when she saw the auction items along with her own cub.
She sat down next to Lin Cai again, leaning against the box behind her and casually glancing at the other unconscious "goods" in front of her.
The two elves, one with brown hair and the other with green hair, adorned with vines and flowers, appeared to be nature spirits. Three beast cubs huddled together: two leopard cubs and a lion cub, all curious felines.
No wonder they're here.
As for the human race, they were all wearing the same uniform with an exquisite school badge on their chests.
Yan Shi had mixed feelings after taking out his phone to take a picture of the school badge and identify it.
This is the emblem of Jamchea University. Jamchea is one of the world's top universities. Most outstanding graduates go on to join the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, becoming its future pillars.
In other words, he will be Yan Shi's future subordinate reserve officer.
Yan Shi: ...
These few are a little too easy to fool. This group definitely isn't made up of any outstanding students.
"The investigation is complete." Yan Shi tapped the ground with his fingertips, deep in thought.
The black market, which the enforcement agency can't access, seems like a good way to bring goods in.
Anyway, she can't go back to the real world for the time being.
It would probably be a while before we reached Zhuri City. Yan Shi closed his eyes again and slowly drifted off to sleep.
---
Lin Cai was awakened by the light.
"Is it dawn yet...?" she mumbled sleepily. "I'll get up right away..."
"No," she suddenly remembered that she seemed to have been transported to the other world after bringing home a cat, then inexplicably arrested, imprisoned, and then... completely slept through.
"woke up?"
Lin Cai turned her head and saw Yan Shi sitting next to her, one leg slightly bent, his hand twirling his hair, seemingly lost in thought.
She shrugged when she saw Lin Cai looking over, "We're here. We're about to be auctioned off."
"?! It's being auctioned off?" Lin Cai woke up instantly.
Lin Cai then realized that she was lying in a small room with only a very tall skylight, from which the light was coming down.
There were also several people in uniform nearby, and two... elves?!
Lin Cai's eyes widened.
Elves all have pointed ears and an extremely dreamlike appearance, making them easily recognizable even to those who have never seen them before.
"No, that's not right." Lin Cai shook her head, snapping out of her daze at being amazed by the elf, and regained her rationality.
She looked at Yanlan beside her again, "Yanlan, what's going on here?"
"And where are the tiger cubs?" Lin Cai looked around and quickly realized that the tiger cubs were gone.
This black market was located in the territory of the orcs, and the four cubs, including the tiger cub, were taken out separately as soon as they arrived.
They probably went to negotiate prices with their respective clan elders.
However, there was no need to tell Lin Cai, since he himself had probably just woken up. Yan Shi thought with great interest, "I don't know."
"Huh?"
“Let’s talk about how to get out of here first. You can also go and rescue your companions,” a student from Zhanzhou said, approaching him.
"I'm Zhihe Qing, a sophomore at Zhanzhou University, and also the captain of our practice team." The speaker was a bespectacled, well-mannered boy. "Our team is among the top three in our grade overall. What about you?"
Lin Cai looked at Yan Shi with some confusion, and Zhi Heqing also looked at Yan Shi. Yan Shi was still leaning lazily against the wall, seemingly lost in thought.
“This is Lin Cai,” she said, pointing to Lin Cai after the two of them had looked at her. “Her ability is, well, nullification.”
"Invalidate?" Zhihe was somewhat shocked.
"That's right, it nullifies the use of all abilities, just like the previous Source-Isolating Cloth."
Lin Cai was equally shocked. She pointed to herself and asked, "My ability, nullification?"
“Right. So you’d better teach her how to control her abilities, otherwise, given the current situation,” Yan Shi stretched, “she’ll just nullify everything, regardless of friend or foe.”
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