Moreover, his stall was filled with all sorts of rare and exotic magical artifacts and amulets.
There were animal bones carved with twisted runes, and yellow cloth talismans with strange patterns and dark red bloodstains on them.
And several things that looked like human skulls.
Among the onlookers, a middle-aged man in a suit, but with a haggard face, seemed somewhat tempted and whispered:
"This really does suppress things; my husband keeps saying that lately..."
"Don't worry!" The bald, fat man patted his chest, his fat jiggling. "I, King Gold Tooth, have been around here for over a decade. I'm honest and trustworthy. If I'm no good, you can come back and smash my stall!"
As he spoke, he flashed a mouthful of yellow teeth, one of which shone brighter than the others, clearly inlaid with gold.
The middle-aged man hesitated, then pulled out a few red bills from his wallet. This time, they were real money, not ghost money or anything like that.
The bald, fat man's eyes lit up, and he reached out with a smile to take it.
This scene really stunned me. How can this ghost market trade in any kind of currency? They have all sorts of things!
Ghost money, real money, and all sorts of strange and unusual items can be used for trade.
Luo Tianhe, who was standing nearby, also noticed this, nudged me with his elbow, and said with a smile:
"What you said before, using Li Huai as money to buy things, is actually feasible. It could probably buy everything on the stall."
"Get lost!" Li Huai, with his sharp ears, heard Luo Tianhe's voice even as he turned around and cursed.
Just as the transaction was about to be completed, a discordant voice suddenly rang out:
"Gold Tooth King, did you carve that thing from some scrap of material you dug up from a grave? And you call it a high monk from Southeast Asia? The talisman you sold to Old Liu's family last time almost destroyed his Kitchen God."
We looked toward the source of the sound and saw a thin old man standing to the side, wearing a faded Taoist robe and with his hair combed into clumps.
"Bullshit, you old fox! Don't cause trouble here and ruin my business!" Gold Tooth King's expression changed drastically, and he cursed loudly.
Despite being insulted like that, the old man in the Taoist robe wasn't angry. He stroked his sparse beard and said to the middle-aged man:
“Young man, you are covered in nothing but the yin energy of wandering ghosts. Go to the entrance of the City God Temple, grab a handful of incense ash, and sprinkle it on the threshold for three days in a row. Don’t go out at night, and it will naturally dissipate. Why waste your money like this?”
The middle-aged man looked at the man with the gold teeth, then at the old man in the Taoist robe, and was at a loss for what to do, not knowing whose advice to take.
"You!" King Gold Tooth was so angry that the fat on his face was shaking. The duck that was about to be caught was about to fly away!
We were secretly astonished to see that there were actually competitors and anti-counterfeiters in this ghost market.
However, the old man in the Taoist robe seemed to have some real skills; at least he could tell at a glance that the middle-aged man was only tainted with some yin energy.
We were engrossed in watching when suddenly a voice came from beside us:
"Hey, you actually came looking for me."
The voice seemed to be speaking to us.
I looked over and saw an old man wearing a gray, worn-out jacket, with messy, gray hair. He was a stranger to me; at least, I had never seen him before.
Luo Tianhe realized what was happening and whispered in my ear:
"He's the one who recommended me to come here during the day."
"So? Didn't manage to buy any soil from a grave, so you came here to try your luck?"
The old man continued to ask, a strange expression on his face that was neither a smile nor a frown.
"I got it, I got it," Luo Tianhe replied repeatedly.
"If you could buy it, you'd still come back here. Ignorance is bliss!"
The old man shook his head.
Luo Tianhe chuckled awkwardly, "I just came to join in the fun and broaden my horizons."
The old man grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow from smoking:
"Insight? This place isn't exactly a place to gain insight. Did you see that fat guy with the gold teeth just now? He specializes in ripping off greenhorns. And that woman who sells paper figures, she's got a black heart. Sometimes, her paper figures not only fail to avert disaster, but they also steal part of the soul from their employers."
His voice was neither too loud nor too soft; at least we could hear him clearly.
I turned my head and glanced at the curly-haired woman selling paper figures and the fat man with gold teeth. If they weren't deaf, they should both be able to hear a little bit.
But the two of them acted as if they hadn't heard a thing.
One continued to confront the Taoist priest, while the other remained focused on drawing the eyes of her paper doll.
This old man is no simpleton. Those two people weren't deaf; they were just too angry to speak up.
Seeing this, I couldn't help but become interested in what the old man was selling. I pointed to the few shabby items on his stall:
"Sir, are these all sold here?"
No wonder I said the things he was selling were junk.
At least other stalls have a plastic sheet or something on the ground, but his stall just had an old newspaper on the ground, it couldn't be more perfunctory.
A few things were casually tossed on it: a rusty tin alarm clock, a broken wooden comb, and a few other similar, discarded old items.
He didn't mince words, shrugged, and replied:
"Can't you tell? Young man, you're just a piece of junk."
The old man was quite frank: "I took these from some unclaimed houses. But sometimes, junk is more useful than those pretentious things."
He said mysteriously.
I was speechless. What did he mean by "stolen from an unclaimed house"? Was this old man a thief?!
The old man continued, picking up a rusty alarm clock and weighing it in his hand: "Don't let its rust fool you, carrying this thing around can sometimes give you a heads-up."
"And this wooden comb, you can comb the hair of some friends with long hair, and if they're happy, they might tell you something they want to know."
His words were half true and half false, with a hint of mockery, making it sound more like a joke.
But a thought suddenly occurred to me: if I used this comb to comb Zhou Wenxiu's hair, would I be able to learn something...?
"The old gentleman knows a lot," I said, without directly mentioning that I wanted to buy a comb. "Well, what should we, a few newcomers, be careful about as we wander around here?"
The old man put the alarm clock back, dusted off his hands, and his cloudy eyes swept across our faces, especially Li Huai's.
His gaze lingered on Li Huai for a noticeable second longer, presumably recognizing his extraordinary destiny, before he slowly said:
"What should I be careful about? First, don't touch anything you don't recognize, especially things you don't know the origin of. Second, don't agree to do things for others, or you'll get entangled in trouble, and that won't be fun. Third," he paused, lowering his voice, "it's best to leave around 11:45 AM. After that time, some vendors will be packing up, and the way they do it isn't very elegant..."
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