Divine Level Witch Doctor

The White Cat had been nestled in Lin Xue’s arms the entire time, perfectly behaved and docile. Its current, uncharacteristic behavior was something no one had expected.

Lin Xue was the first to react. ”Xiaobai, don’t run off! Stop!” she cried, breaking into a run to chase after it.

But the antiques market was crowded, and the White Cat was incredibly fast. It vanished in the blink of an eye. Even if Lin Xue wanted to give chase, she had no target to follow.

”What do I do? What if Xiaobai gets lost? It’s all my fault. I should have held on tighter,” Lin Xue said, her voice filled with worry and self-blame, on the verge of tears.

Zhao Yuan was tense for a moment, but he quickly calmed down.

Through his time with the cat, he’d discovered that not only was it more intelligent than a normal cat, but it also possessed many inexplicable, magical qualities—like its ability to foresee danger, detect illnesses, and locate treasures.

Zhao Yuan was sure the White Cat had suddenly left because it had discovered some kind of incredible treasure! ’I just wonder why it didn’t drag me along to have a look this time,’ he thought.

Zhao Yuan activated his Qi Observation Technique, peering in the direction the White Cat had vanished, but he couldn’t see a thing. The Fuzimiao Antiques Market was packed with people, a shoulder-to-shoulder throng that severely hampered his technique. He wouldn’t be able to spot anything unless he got closer.

Turning back, Zhao Yuan reassured her, ”Lin Xue, don’t worry. Xiaobai will be fine, I’m sure of it. It’ll be back soon. How about this? Let’s head in the direction it ran off. We might run into it.”

Lin Xue nodded, silently praying for the White Cat’s safety, terrified that something might have happened to it.

After walking for a few minutes in the direction the cat had gone, they heard a commotion up ahead. As they looked on curiously, a flash of white darted out from the crowd, swiftly leaping onto Zhao Yuan’s shoulder and settling down.

Who else could it be but the White Cat?

Seeing it return, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.

Lin Xue, especially, felt her heart finally settle back into her chest. She reached out to rub the White Cat’s little head, chiding it playfully, ”Where did you run off to, you little rascal? I’m telling you, you can’t be so naughty, running all over the place. If you’d gotten lost, you might never have seen us again.”

Just then, a bald man burst out from the crowd ahead.

The bald man’s face was a mask of fury. ”You damned cat, get back here!” he yelled as he ran. ”I swear I’m gonna gut you today!” He looked up, spotted the White Cat perched on Zhao Yuan’s shoulder, and bellowed, ”Aha! There you are! I’ve finally got you!” He immediately lunged forward to grab the cat.

”What do you think you’re doing?” Zhao Yuan slapped the man’s outstretched hand away.

The bald man froze, looking Zhao Yuan up and down before demanding, ”What? This cat yours?”

”That’s right,” Zhao Yuan nodded.

”That makes things simple!” The bald man held out his hand. ”Pay up!”

Zhao Yuan frowned. ”Pay up? For what?”

The bald man answered, ”That damned cat just ran into my stall and swallowed one of the antiques I was selling! Don’t you think you should pay for it? If you’re not going to pay, that’s fine too. Just hand the cat over to me, and I’ll cut open its stomach to get my antique back!”

Swallowed an antique?

Zhao Yuan was taken aback.

He knew the White Cat liked to eat living creatures—mice, sparrows, snakes, and other small animals were all on its menu. He had never imagined it also had a penchant for swallowing antiques.

Recalling the White Cat’s many magical abilities, Zhao Yuan couldn’t help but wonder, ’Could the antique it swallowed actually be some kind of treasure?’

He quickly activated his Qi Observation Technique and glanced at the White Cat’s stomach. Sure enough, a ball of pure, refined Qi was churning within its belly.

This ball of Qi was different from the Qi Zhao Yuan had seen in jade and Magical Artifacts. It possessed a vitality, which meant that whatever had produced it was a living thing.

’But wasn’t it an antique? Since when could antiques be alive?’

In an instant, Zhao Yuan’s mind was flooded with questions.

Meanwhile, Wu Yan had already started arguing with the bald man. ”What makes you say Xiaobai swallowed your antique? Do you have any proof? It looks to me like you’re just running a scam to extort money! I’ve seen plenty of guys try to scam people, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone try to scam a cat. You’re really one of a kind!”

”A scam? I’m Xing Hong! I’m a well-known figure here in the Fuzimiao Antiques Market. You think I’d stoop to scamming a cat? What a joke! You don’t believe me, is that it? Fine. Let me cut this damned cat’s stomach open, and then you’ll see if I’m telling the truth or not!” The bald man, Xing Hong, was practically bristling with rage.

Lin Xue couldn’t stand to listen any longer. ”You want to cut Xiaobai’s stomach open?” she scoffed. ”He’d die!”

”If it dies, I’ll just buy you another cat. How much can a common alley cat be worth? Do you have any idea how much the antique it swallowed is worth?” Xing Hong said, reaching again to snatch the White Cat from Zhao Yuan’s shoulder.

Liu Zhu flared up. He shoved Xing Hong back and brandished a fist. ”This is a goddamn living creature, not something you can solve with a bit of money! I’m telling you, you bastard, if you dare to touch Xiaobai, I swear I’ll beat the hell out of you!”

But Xing Hong wasn’t one to back down. He immediately yelled at the top of his lungs, ”What’s this? You wanna fight? This is the Fuzimiao Antiques Market! This is my turf! You think I’m scared of you? Brothers! Someone’s trying to make trouble! Come on out and back me up! When this is over, drinks are on me!”

The words had barely left his mouth when dozens of people swarmed out from the market stalls, surrounding Zhao Yuan and his friends.

Liu Zhu shot them a look and said coldly, ”Don’t think you’re so tough just because you have numbers! We can take all of you down!”

Wang Rongfeng and Wu Yan cracked their knuckles with a sharp, ”CRACK, CRACK,” as they shielded the four girls behind them.

After their fight that morning against the Martial Artists from the Jinling Zhao Family, the confidence of Liu Zhu and his two friends had soared.

’We can’t take on Martial Artists,’ they thought, ’but couldn’t we easily handle four or five regular guys each? Besides, with a monster like Zhao Yuan on their side, if a real brawl broke out, they weren’t the least bit intimidated by these few dozen men.’

The fight didn’t break out just yet, however, because Zhao Yuan held Liu Zhu and the others back. He turned to Xing Hong and said, ”What was the antique that Xiaobai swallowed? How much is it?”

”It was a carved Copper Bell, about the size of a longan. It was a Ming... no, a Song Dynasty antique. A royal artifact, supposedly. As for the price...” Xing Hong sized up the students’ clothing, mentally calculating a price. Finally, he held up five fingers and put on an expression like he was taking a major loss. ”Tell you what, since you’re all students, I’ll cut you a deal. Just give me fifty thousand yuan, and we’ll call it even!”

Hearing this, the men who had come out to back Xing Hong up nearly had their eyes pop out of their heads.

They knew better than anyone what kind of junk Xing Hong had on his stall. Forget the Song Dynasty, he barely had anything from the end of the Qing Dynasty!

Everyone had seen the so-called carved Copper Bell he was talking about. It was so poorly kept that the engravings had been completely eaten away by rust. It wasn’t worth more than a few bucks—even calling it five or six hundred would be a stretch. But he was asking for fifty thousand. He was clearly trying to fleece these kids like they were fat sheep!