The Magus Era

In the middle of the Chi Ban Market, where the East, South, West and North markets met, was an artificial lake that had a radius of twenty miles. A small square island was located in the middle of that lake, and upon that island was a huge, square-shaped hall, which was the courthouse of the Chi Ban Market.

The Chi Ban Market was a place for earning money, all kinds of conscious creatures gathered in this place for nothing else but money and resources. Anyone who messed around in this Chi Ban Market, who had committed a crime of breaking the public security and business rules of this place, would be seen as acting against the wallets of all strong forces that had built this Chi Ban Market in union. Therefore, they built this courthouse of the Chi Ban Market, along with a law-enforcement team, and selected a group of law executors to be in charge of all Chi Ban Market’s general affairs.

The courthouse was enchanted with a special space magic, its inner space was actually hundreds of miles in radius. In that boundlessly broad space, three-thousand law executors of the Chi Ban Market sat around an enormous, round, black stone table. In the middle of that table was a pile of fine powder, ground from pure gold and jade. Under the effect of some kind of secret magic, the powder had been showing every single move made by everyone in the Chi Ban Market at the moment.

That gigantic magic sand table had been monitoring everything and everyone in the market, people sitting around the table could even see a fly buzzing across a street.

At this moment, lights and shadows were flashing across the air above the sand table. The sand table was playing back what had just happened in the Red Wood Palace. From the old tree man walking into the Red Wood Palace with the big leopard, asking to sell a cyan-eyed dragon leech and buy a Xiao marrow pill, to Man Man standing out for the old tree and giving the leopard a dragon marrow detoxifying pill, then to Qian Tan cursing Man Man, Ji Hao rushing in and starting the big fight; the sand table showed those law executors each and every detail.

“The Red Wood Palace is a property of the Qian Family.” said a muscular man-shaped creature who had a dragon’s head. He was over five-zhang tall even when sitting on a stone chair. This strong dragon-kind man abruptly punched on the table with both of his hands, then yelled, “Elders of the Qian Family must give us an explanation! What kind of douches did they send to our Chi Ban Market?!”

A young girl, who was stunningly beautiful and had a long, multicolored feather tail shaking behind her body, responded with a graceful, silver voice, “The old dragon head is right, we built this Chi Ban Market for money and resources, providing conveniences for all of us. Whoever dares to break our rules should know the consequences!”

A Yu Clan’s elderly man abruptly stood up and shouted harshly, “Qian Tan has only worked in the Chi Ban Market for less than half a month. Even if he has done something wrong, for our Qian Family’s sake…”

Before he finished his speech, another Yu Clan’s elderly man interrupted him, “What a shameless saying. Kids from your family have broken our rule, are you expecting us to take the blame for you?! The reputation of the Red Wood Palace is ruined already, don’t you dare involve the others from the twelve branch forces of our Yu Clan into your cr**py reputation!”

This Yu Clan’s elderly man then seriously knocked the table with his finger, and continued, “For money, people, we are all here for the money. Am I wrong? Whoever it is, we’ll have to say no to the rule-breaker. I suggest, we just kick the Qian Family out of our Chi Ban Market!”

Hearing him, the Qian Family’s elder instantly yelled out in anger.

“Don’t you dare! Can you even gain any profit without our Qian Family?!”

Hearing this, tens of Yu Clan’s law executors swooshed up from their seats simultaneously, all clenching their fists and gritting their teeth, seeming to rush up altogether and tear that Qian Family’s elder into pieces.

“How ridiculous! You can only be this arrogant among your Blood Moon, compared to other families from the entire Yu Dynasty, you’re nothing!”

“Your Blood Moon is only top-ranked amongst the nine ‘Moon’… compared to the three ‘Sun’, even your Blood Moon is nothing!”

“All your Qian Family can do is picking some herbs and cooking some medicine, how much is your market share?! How much is your total annual transaction?! Do you think we can’t hold our places in this Chi Ban Market without you?! Don’t you forget, the best sellers here in the Chi Ban Market are weapons, magic crystals, mines and slaves!”

In a corner of the courthouse, Ji Hao and Man Man were silently sitting on a big stone chair, looking at these law executors of the Chi Ban Market yelling at and cursing each other.

Followed by a loud, cloth-breaking noise, an awfully hairy law executor, who looked even like a black bear, leapt up from his chair, grabbed a sleeve of that Qian Family’s elder and pulled quite hard; the entire sleeve along with a big half of his cloak was ripped off.

The tense atmosphere in the courthouse was instantly worsened, getting many law executors to stand up, roll up their sleeves, and begin preparing for a big fight.

Ji Hao crossed his legs, looking at these energetic, healthy law executors, slowly nodded and said to Man Man, “Man Man, this Chi Ban Market is truly a nice place. I never thought that our humankind and the Yu Clan’s people, and so many strange kinds of creatures I’ve never even heard of, can actually sit together in peace.”

“All for jade coins, right? No one can hate money after all, right?” all of a sudden, a Yu Clan’s young man who had a cunning look showed up before Ji Hao and Man Man, smilingly reaching his hand out to Ji Hao while saying, “I am Qian Kui, a distant cousin of that idiot, Qian Tan. I came from an offshoot family of an offshoot family of the Qian Family.”

“Our elder is buying time for us…Ah, such a heavy punch! I don’t think our elder can hold too long in there, therefore, on behalf of our Red Wood Palace and our Qian Family, I am now begging for your forgiveness and understanding. Qian Tan was a total idiot and he was totally wrong for what he had done to you and your friends, while you’re completely reasonable for charging us. Please, I am begging you, don’t let the court punish us.”

Qian Kui then said to Ji Hao with an honest face, “The profit we’re making here in the Chi Ban Market every year is largely helpful for the development of our family, so we cannot bear losing the business we’re running here. But that stupid thing, Qian Tan, he has created such a huge trouble, all because he thought he can do whatever he wants as a direct descendant of our family.”

Sighing slightly, Qian Kui continued helplessly, “According to the Chi Ban Market’s rules, if we cannot obtain your forgiveness, or in other words, we cannot make you withdraw your lawsuit, our family will be cast out of the Chi Ban Market!”

“Are you saying that you’re gonna bribe me?” Ji Hao’s eyes shone, hurriedly grabbing Qian Kui’s hand that had been in the air for quite a while, and said, “So you’re well prepared for letting me extort you, right?”

“We had also prepared for letting you and your friends vanish silently in our Chi Ban Market.” responded Qian Kui with an incomparably honest look, “However, it’s confirmed through twelve different methods that we cannot take you and your friends out without letting the law enforcement team know, therefore, we can only let you extort us. Whatever your price is, we will fulfil that as a compensation, as long as you tell the law enforcement team that you are willing to withdraw the lawsuit.”

Looking at Qian Kui’s smiling face, Ji Hao nodded and said, “I am very curious about who built this Chi Ban Market… such an interesting place.”

Qian Kui grinned, pointed his finger at the sky and said with a low voice, “It surely is those big, powerful people, who we can never meet even in our dreams. After all, even among our Yu Clan, people don’t always hold the same opinions and say the same words. Those good lords always have different points of views.”

Ji Hao gave Qian Kui a complicated glanced and said blandly, “In this case, I will be too ashamed to ask for too much. Hm, you said that we’re the reasonable side, right? Half of your annual profit for this year, can you call the shots?”

Qian Kui paused when he heard Ji Hao, a dim beam of light that contained an obscure killing aura flashed across his erect eye, but was soon gone. Right after Ji Hao finished speaking, Qian Kui hurriedly gave a big grin and nodded.

“Fair, it’s completely fair. You’re the reasonable side after all, right?”