Black Market?

Saturday, 2.00 am.

Shao Zifeng stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself. He was wearing a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses that covered half of his face, and a disposable surgical mask. 

He also carried a duffel bag filled with 10,000 yuan in cash. He dared not carry more, because based on what he had learned from books and movies, the black market was lawless. It was a place without rules.

Taking a deep breath to suppress his excitement, Shou Zifeng looked over at his bed, on which the little guy was playing bowling, and it was the ball.

"I'm leaving, Florence!" Shao Zifeng called out.

When the little thing heard Shao Zifeng's call, it quickly reverted to its bald lizard form. It was no longer as bald as before. After recuperating for a few days, it had grown some tiny new scales. The only difference was that these tiny scales looked a little red.

The little guy ran up to Shao Zifeng and looked up at him in anticipation, wagging its tail behind it.

"I know, Ballie. Let's go!"

"Whew!"

The little guy, Ballie climbed onto his shoulder and rubbed itself against his mask. Shao Zifeng shook his head helplessly. When he had tried to find it a name yesterday, he could not help but realize that he was a bottom-of-the-barrel student. After much wrestling with his mind, he finally got help from Qiandu, the Internet search engine, and came up with a few more decent names.

Yet, Ballie had not been too happy, and it had protested, curling itself up into a ball and refusing to talk to him.

Looking at the soft meatball, Shao Zifeng had almost pulled all of his hair off his head before a lightbulb lit up above his head, and he named it Ballie.

After Shao Zifeng had explained to it what "Ballie" meant, Ballie had accepted it enthusiastically. After all, it liked to curl itself up into the shape of a ball.

At that time, Shao Zifeng had watched as Ballie rolled on the floor excitedly, and he had fallen into deep thought. At last, he had figured that Ballie would sound weird once the juvenile grew into an adult. So he had also given it an adult name.

Who knew if it would demand to change its name by then?

...

Shao Zifeng took Ballie along and roamed past various neighborhoods around the old city. His destination was a place with an old-fashioned name: Happy Sun Neighborhood. Learning his lesson from the Bloodsiphon Tarantula incident, Shao Zifeng was now averse to dark and quiet alleyways.

He could not help but imagine that once he stepped into one of these alleyways, eight crazy, blood-red spider eyes would be waiting for them. Being only a little over ten centimeters long, Ballie gripped Shou Zifeng's ear to stand up, occasionally mumbling something along the way. He had no idea what it was trying to say, but he could feel an excitement surrounding him.

The Happy Sun Neighborhood was on the very edge of the old city. Once they left the neighborhood and headed west, a village would be within sight not far ahead. It was said that during the construction of the residential neighborhood in the past, an accident had happened, where a construction vehicle had run over a few kids and killed them all. The neighborhood project stopped because of that. 

Later, when the city center moved eastward, the neighborhood was left without management and finally abandoned.

Before arriving, Shao Zifeng could already see the light from the Happy Sun Neighborhood illuminating the sky. It looked like Laisi'er had not lied to him; there really were people there. As he got closer, his gut feeling told him that there was more to the place than met the eye. He began to hear the faint sound of folk music.

After all, this was a black market, where only people at the lowest level of society and those who went unacknowledged by the mainstream population would come. Their musical taste could not have been worse.

There were even scantily-dressed young women dancing on a truck that looked like a village performance stage.

As crazy thoughts rushed through his mind, Shao Zifeng was rooted to the spot upon witnessing the scene in front of him. At the center of the Happy Sun Neighborhood was a vacant plot of land, on which makeshift tubes of strong LED light were erected. Under each light tube was a stall.

The stalls sold all kinds of stuff, from antique replicas to used electrical appliances. A young woman and her children were in front of a stall, taking an interest in its range of flashing balloons as well as wristbands. Meanwhile, the sexy dancers were moving to the beat of the folk music. Neatly-arranged stalls carried their merchandise, and buyers chattered and laughed like ordinary citizens. There were even officers dressed in the MAD uniform maintaining the security there. 

Had he come to the right place?

Was this the legendary ruthless black market?

Was this the black market with countless opportunities, a place where the Bull Demon King had once appeared?

Don't tell me this is the place! That scoundrel of an old man!

"Would you please show me your ID, Sir? Please be cooperative." Just as Shao Zifeng cursed in his mind, two MAD officers approached with pet beasts, cautiously looking at the "fully-armed" Shao Zifeng.

Two dog-type pet beasts stepped out and sniffed his pants.

Instantly, a light blue display popped up.

Name: Police dog

Growth: Adult

Status: Healthy, cautious.

Strength: Level 3

...

Potential: ★★

Talent: Alert. They can dodge any surprise attack. 

Skills: Bite, Slam, Howl, Claw Strike, Speed

Description: The gazetted pet beasts of the Mutated Creature Appraisal and Registration Bureau in Daxia. They evolve into police dogs after completing training at the police dog training academy, and they are then distributed to various places to become partners of officers on duty. They are dogs with authority, how about that?

Shao Zifeng was seeing publicly nurtured pet beasts for the first time. The police dogs were about 1.2 meters tall and muscular. They had short black hair and a white long mane that ran from near the ears down to the scapula.

The two police dogs circled Shao Zifeng once before they discovered Ballie on his shoulder and barked ferociously at it. 

After it had killed the Bloodsiphon Tarantula, Ballie had become more confident. It was already dissatisfied when the police dogs came so close to Shao Zifeng and sniffed him. But now, they were even barking at it. Ballie almost wanted to tell them, "Have you two ever seen a spider as large as a millstone?"

"Eeek!" Ballie hit back, its eyes burning with anger.

The MAD officers saw this and became even more cautious. "Sir, keep your pet beast under control or we will have to act."

When the two police dogs heard what their masters said, they crouched and bared their fangs. They were ready to pounce on Shao Zifeng as soon as their masters gave the order.

"Officers, let's talk this over. I'm not a bad guy." Shao Zifeng raised one hand while he took off his mask and sunglasses with the other. Ballie realized that it had screwed up. It curled itself into a ball and hissed, feeling disgruntled.

Shao Zifeng was in a panic since no individual was allowed to keep aggressive pet beasts. He would be done for if caught. Little did he expect that after the two officers checked his ID and asked some routine questions, they left.

Shao Zifeng stood on the spot and looked at the village market place, feeling a little hesitant.

"Since I'm already here, screw it!"

He mumbled to himself and walked toward the black market.