Chapter 338 Gold Devouring Beast

Bai Gua was indifferent: "I really can't help you, take this thing back."

He didn't even say "Go ask someone else", He Lingchuan knew his attitude.

"What's the disease?"

Old man Wang turned his head and looked at He Lingchuan: "The high fever won't go away, and I asked for two prescriptions from the clinic, but they didn't work!"

His eyes were full of hope: "This is the original, please buy it!"

He Lingchuan asked him: "What is written in this scroll of yours?"

"My ancestors said that this is a profound magical power!" Old man Wang smiled bitterly, "But I can't understand it, and no one in my family practices it, so I can only sell it."

"Can I take a look?"

"Can you understand it?" Old man Wang peeled back the animal skin paper A little bit, just a little bit, "Then you see."

"Bring the child here, I'll find someone to treat you." He Lingchuan looked at it for a few times and said, "If you can cure it, give me this roll of parchment."

"Ah?" Old Man Wang was stunned, "Send it here?"

"Yes, I made an appointment with my friend to meet here. He has great medical skills. Treating a child with a high fever is just a piece of cake."

"Oh——" Old Man Wang nodded repeatedly, smiling, "Okay, I'll bring my grandson here now!" After that, he rolled up the parchment and walked out.

The two people behind him didn't stop him.

After Old Man Wang walked out of Yunling Island, the sadness on his face disappeared. He walked more than ten feet before turning around to see if anyone was following him.

No.

He pouted at Yunling Island.

Then he strolled along the street to the end, looking leisurely, and it didn't seem like there were patients at home.

He even bought two buns and ate them while walking. Soon he left Wanglin Street and turned into another street.

The traffic here is far less than that of Wanglin Street, and the shop signs are not so bright, but the street is very long and connected in all directions. Old man Wang threw away the oil paper, wiped the corners of his mouth and hands, patted his face and put on a good expression, and went into several shops one after another.

When he came out again, his expression had become complacent.

At this time, he ran straight to the city gate, very fast.

It would be safe to go out.

But just after passing a shallow alley, a hand stretched out from the alley, suddenly pulled him in, and pressed him into the shadow.

Old man Wang was startled, and turned around to see the young man from Yunling Island, smiling at him brightly.

"You?" He shouted without thinking, "Robber--!"

But as soon as he opened his mouth, He Lingchuan poked him lightly in the throat.

The rest of the words of old man Wang were immediately poked back, he pressed his neck and "ah" for a long time, and the cry was no louder than a mouse.

He Lingchuan took out five or six pieces of animal skin paper from his arms and unfolded them. The contents of each roll were the same:

Faded handwriting, ancient immortal language font, a thin piece of paper that was not yet fully written.

"What is this?"

Old man Wang's face turned pale.

He Lingchuan then took out the Dafeng Army order and shook it in front of him: "The victim has reported to the authorities. There are prisons in the west and south of the city. Which one do you choose?"

The Dafeng Army's token is very eye-catching, and He Lingchuan is not afraid of him looking closely. Old man Wang's eyes were straight, and he secretly said that he was finished.

How did it get exposed so quickly this time? Panlong City really can't come.

The pain in his neck had eased, and he knelt down:

"Sir, please let me go, I'll give you the original!"

"You can have the original?" He Lingchuan said disdainfully, "Forget it, let's go to the west of the city and hand it over to the nearest official."

"If you let me go, I will definitely give it to you!" Old Man Wang was anxious, "I really have it!"

"Okay, I won't arrest you." He Lingchuan stretched out his hand, "Show it to me."

Old Man Wang then took out a scroll from his boots.

The smell was not very pleasant, and He Lingchuan pinched his nose and unfolded it to take a look, then threw the scroll back at him, angrily saying, "What's the difference with the fake one! Are you teasing me?"

"I dare not, this is real!" Old Man Wang picked up the scroll and unfolded it. In fact, the old animal skin paper was already tattered and was framed in the scroll.

He took out a copper coin and pointed to a beast head pattern painted on the upper left corner of the paper: "Look carefully."

The painting style of this beast head is very lifelike, a bit like a big toad, with bulging eyes and a big mouth, but with fine and sharp teeth, and the spots on its head are like plum blossoms. It opened its mouth wide, and its mouth was pitch black.

Old man Wang pressed the copper coin into the mouth of the beast head pattern.

A magical scene appeared:

The copper coin suddenly disappeared.

He Lingchuan raised his eyebrows and waited for a few breaths before saying: "Then what? What changed?"

"The paper skin has become bigger, didn't you notice?"

After he reminded him, He Lingchuan found that the edge of the paper skin had indeed expanded a little bit, but it was only a little bit, and it would not be noticed unless you stared at it.

"What do you want to say?"

"This paper is alive, sir!" Old man Wang was eager to prove it, "but it will only become its original size and the words on it will appear if it eats money or valuables."

"Really?" He Lingchuan took out several large silver ingots from his body, each weighing about 20 or 30 taels.

Who would have thought that this old man in ragged clothes actually had more money than him!

"Is this what you just cheated?"

Old man Wang didn't know how to answer. The next second, he saw He Lingchuan put two large silver ingots into the beast head.

"Oh, don't!"

It was too late. The silver sank into the beast's mouth and disappeared in an instant.

Old man Wang's eyes went dark and his heart was broken.

And then He Lingchuan saw that the animal skin paper expanded a little more, about... half an inch?

The words on the paper did increase by a few.

"There are more, come again."

Old man Wang said with a bitter face: "Sir, please don't throw more. No matter how much you throw, it won't be full!"

"Have you tried? How much silver did you throw in at most?"

"I have thrown in 2,000 taels of silver in total, and the most I threw in at once was 700 taels, plus two big Dongzhu!" Old man Wang was full of sorrow when he said this, "I used to have some assets. If it weren't for this bottomless pit, I wouldn't have fallen to this point!"

He Lingchuan asked about the whole story.

It turned out that Old man Wang was a foreigner. He had been a private school teacher for many years and had a little surplus on hand. One day after a heavy rain, he went up the mountain to dig wild vegetables, but he encountered a dead body before he dug half of it.

The deceased died suddenly in the wilderness for unknown reasons. Old man Wang searched his body and only found a few ingots of broken silver and a piece of animal skin paper.

He buried the man and went down the mountain with the animal skin paper.

Old man Wang was educated and recognized that the words written on the paper were the words of ancient immortals, but it was a pity that it was old and incomplete, so he couldn't see the whole picture. He took it to the city to sell, but no one wanted it.

Later, he found a capable person to identify it, and the other person told him that it was the skin of a gold-eating beast.

The gold-eating beast was an extremely rare beast even in ancient times. The magical power written on its skin is self-evidently precious.

This kind of skin can penetrate the test of time and still have a chance to be revived two or three thousand years later.

But the gold-eating beast greedily ate all valuable things during its lifetime, and after death, its soul was enshrined in the skin, still retaining its extremely greedy nature. If Wang Laohan wanted to read all the contents on the paper, he had to satisfy its appetite.

From then on, Wang Laohan embarked on the road of no return to feeding the gold-eating beast...

He couldn't explain why he lost his mind, but feeding this thing was really addictive. He was full of longing for the future of feeding the gold-eating beast, and believed that he had a chance to get rare magical powers.

By then, the whole magical power will definitely not disappoint his expectations and will be sold at a sky-high price, so that he will not have to worry about food and clothing for the rest of his life.

Of course, the reality is particularly bleak, because this thing does not remain unchanged after eating gold and silver, but expands for a quarter of an hour and then shrinks back until it returns to its tattered original state!

In other words, if you fail to fill it up at once, it will not show you the whole magical power.

"It's a pit." He Lingchuan couldn't help asking him, "Knowing that it is a bottomless pit, why do you still fill it up?"

"If I don't continue to fill it up, won't the gold and silver thrown in before be wasted?" Old Man Wang squeezed out two bitter tears, "Later I found a legend that the treasures of the world can't fill it at all!"

"It's a pity that I knew it too late, and I was bankrupt at that time!"

In order to make a living, Old Man Wang simply copied the contents of the animal skin paper and disguised it as a complete magical power to sell for money, using the same rhetoric he used on Yunling Island before.

There are quite a lot of customers who buy this trick.

But after he cheated two or three times, he had to move to another place quickly to avoid jail.

He Lingchuan said after hearing this: "You really deserve it."

Old man Wang also has a desire for gambling. If a person indulges in it without knowing how to control his desire, he will most likely not have a good ending.

He bowed to He Lingchuan repeatedly: "Please let me go!"

"Don't worry, I won't catch you." He Lingchuan grinned at him, stuffed several pieces of fake animal skin paper into his arms, and suddenly stretched out his hand to push him back to the center of the street.

Really let him go? Old man Wang was overjoyed.

At this moment, two shouts came from not far away:

"Hey, it seems to be him!"

Old man Wang turned around in shock and saw two patrol guards running quickly. He had a guilty conscience and ran away.

"Don't run!"

Old man Wang ran faster.

He was thin, but fast, and he kept getting into the crowd. It took the two patrol guards half a quarter of an hour to catch him:

"Someone reported to the police and reported you for forgery and fraud!"

They also picked up several pieces of fake animal skin paper along the way, all of which fell from the old man.

The old man had no way to defend himself.

The genuine product was gone, and no one would believe him no matter what he said.

…

After watching Old Man Wang being taken away, He Lingchuan walked back to Yunling Island.

The fat shopkeeper smiled and asked him, "Is that old man a liar?"

He Lingchuan nodded and asked him to stay in a quiet room for a while.

The fat shopkeeper naturally had to meet the landlord's small request. So after more than ten breaths, He Lingchuan entered a small appraisal room with a table and chairs, and some sundries were piled in the corner.

He sat down and took out the original animal skin paper, spread it on the table, and lit a lamp to take a closer look.

Why spend so much effort for an old liar and a piece of leather paper of a gold-eating beast?

Because this paper does record a magical power:

The art of clone shadow, abbreviated as clone art.

The outline of the magical power on the visible part of the animal skin paper says that if you learn this spell, you can temporarily summon a clone that obeys you.

At first glance, this is very similar to the mirror technique that He Lingchuan originally wanted to exchange at Pengcheng Office, and even General Hong recommended that he exchange it this way.