novelraw Chapter 273: The Saigon Auction
Chapter 273: The Saigon Auction
The time rewinds to one week prior.
While Lin Jie was still engaged in the heart-pounding assault within the steel jungle of New York, Julian's ship had already left Hong Kong and arrived at that distant colony known as the "Jewel of France"—Cochinchina.
The port where the ship docked was the capital of this colony, Saigon.
This humid, sweltering land was permeated with the cloyingly sweet fragrance of tropical flowers, the damp, fishy scent of the Mekong River water, and the uniquely oppressive, decadent atmosphere of a colonial society.
The scene here was like a violently colored, contradictory oil painting daubed at random.
The broad, tree-lined boulevards carried the latest convertible automobiles shipped from Paris alongside elegant ladies' carriages.
Flanking the roads were graceful French colonial-style buildings with white exterior walls, shutters, and balconies overflowing with bougainvillea.
French colonists in crisp white suits and Panama hats lounged leisurely at open-air cafes, sipping iced absinthe and enjoying the services of cheap, near-enslaved local laborers.
Yet behind these avenues bearing the scent of "civilization," in the narrow, muddy alleyways, lay an entirely different world.
Huts made of bamboo and mud were crammed together.Barefoot locals in tattered clothes watched their lofty "masters" with numb, reverent eyes.
French elegance and Southeast Asian primitiveness coexisted here in an extremely crude, yet oddly peaceful, manner.
Julian did not linger long in the glossy, glamorous areas belonging to the colonists.
Following the information provided by Old Abacus, he hired a local rickshaw, traversed the maze-like alleyways, and finally arrived at a chaotic, mixed-bag of a dock on the banks of the Mekong River.
This was Saigon's grey zone, where law and order lost their power.
Sailors, smugglers, and exiled revolutionaries from all over the world sought shelter and opportunity here.
A local boatman with a conical hat, sun-darkened skin, and bare feet, after exchanging only a few coded phrases with Julian, silently guided him onto an inconspicuous, black-canopied sampan.
The small boat slid silently into the turbid waterway.
With practiced skill, the boatman worked the oar, avoiding the large steam barges, and headed upstream into a more secluded tributary, its banks covered in dense tropical rainforest.
As they ventured deeper, the sounds of the civilized world were completely cut off.
Only the eerie cries of unknown birds from the forest and the occasional dull sound of something massive moving beneath the murky river water broke the silence.
"The thing in the river is big," Julian spoke calmly, watching a large whirlpool churn near the boat's side. He used fluent Vietnamese with only a slight accent.
The boatman's rowing motion paused for a moment, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.
He hadn't expected this French scholar to speak their language, and to seem not unfamiliar with the "things" in this river.
"Is this not your first time in Saigon, sir?" the boatman asked.
"It is my first time," Julian replied with a smile. "But I have read stories about this river. You call it 'Cửu Long,' correct? Nine Dragons. Legend says the nine sons of the River God sleep beneath these waters."
The surprise on the boatman's face transformed into a look of awe-tinged recognition.
For the people living on this land, "dragons" were not mere ethereal myths.
"The dragons have slept for a long time," the boatman said. "But the little things in the river have been restless, especially at night."
"Oh?" A gleam of scholarly acuity flashed in Julian's eyes. "Such as?"
"Such as water ghosts," the boatman lowered his voice, as if afraid of disturbing something. "They grab the feet of those who fall in, pulling them to the riverbed to take their place. And the Crocodile God, its back like a small hill, it can swallow a water buffalo in one bite." He paused, glancing at Julian as if judging whether these stories would frighten him.
But Julian's face held only pure curiosity and inquiry.
"This is also a very lively world," he remarked meaningfully.
The boatman fell silent for a moment, understanding that the gentleman before him was no ordinary guest.
He began rowing again, the sampan picking up speed.
"Sir, the place you are going to is... livelier than the riverbed," his voice carried a note of warning. "And even less bound by rules than the riverbed."
Julian smiled and nodded, saying no more.
Finally, the sampan slowly came to a stop before a dark cavern entrance hidden beneath the aerial roots of a giant banyan tree.
This was the entrance to the largest and most chaotic inner world black market in all of Southeast Asia—the "Saigon Bazaar."
The moment Julian stepped off the boat and into the cavern, a much stronger, more chaotic wave of spiritual aura pressed down on him like a physical weight.
He could distinguish different "scents" within it—the bloody tang unique to Siamese Jiangshi sorcery, the herbal aroma of witch doctors from the deep forests of Burma, and the lingering sandalwood scent from the burning of some ancient talisman from the Eastern continent.
The interior of the cavern was a world unto itself.
After a short passage, the view suddenly opened up into an enormous underground cavern.
The cavern's vaulted ceiling was embedded with strange, phosphorescent ores that emitted an eerie glow, illuminating the entire space like a ghostly realm.
Countless stalls built from bamboo and wood were stacked layer upon layer along both banks of an underground river, stretching deep into the darkness.
Grotesque merchants hawked their wares in various languages, some shouting loudly, others whispering conspiratorially.
A short, dark-skinned Dayak hunter pointed at a slowly opening and closing giant pitcher plant, loudly calling to passersby, "Come see, take a look! Fresh 'Borneo Nepenthes' traps! One bite can snap even a wild ox's leg bone! Essential for home defense, hunting enemies! Just three silver dollars, take it for three silver dollars!"
Julian saw a Siamese crone with skin like dried bark, mysteriously showing a glass bottle containing a still-wriggling Guman Tong to a portly Chinese merchant.
"Boss, look at this quality. This uses a prime 'seventh-month fetus,' combined with my secret herbs and corpse oil, nourished for a full eighty-one days to refine this 'Earth Child.'"
"Keep it by your side, not only will it ensure wealth flows in, at night it can also help you... deal with those disobedient rivals. One price, one hundred Dragon Dollars, no bargaining."
The Chinese merchant looked at the bottle containing the silently weeping, distorted infant face, his expression a mix of greed and fear.
Not far away, a burly man stripped to the waist, his body covered in tiger totem tattoos, was handing a simple and unadorned Malay dagger to a cold-faced customer wearing a tachi at his waist.
"It still retains the fierce, baleful aura of that beast. Whether you take it back for seppuku or for slaying enemies, it will grant your soul the tiger god's protection. Seeing you are an Eastern warrior, I'll only charge you fifty yen in gold coins."
Everything that could not be tolerated under the sun, items steeped in evil and taboo, were traded here.
UMA materials from across Southeast Asia, cursed Ritual Tools, lost witchcraft, even living sacrificial offerings with special spiritual properties—all could find buyers here.
Guided by a local informant, also wearing a conical hat, Julian passed through this zone of greed and danger and finally reached the deepest part of the bazaar—a simple and unadorned auction house built of massive stones.
Unlike the chaotic bazaar outside, the interior of the auction house was orderly.
Every guest permitted entry had to undergo strict identity verification and surrender all weapons on their person.
Those standing here were all influential figures within Southeast Asia's inner world.
Relying on the enormous proof of funds Ethan had prepared for him, along with a forged identity as the heir to an ancient French esoteric family, Julian smoothly passed verification.
"Sir, the auction will officially begin tomorrow night. Today is the preview," the guide whispered to Julian in heavily accented French. "You can take an early look at this time's 'star lot' to determine your bidding strategy."
Julian nodded and followed the crowd into the heavily guarded preview hall.
In the center of the hall stood a sealed container constructed of glass and a brass frame.
The container was filled with a pale yellow liquid that looked like formaldehyde preservative.
And immersed within that liquid was the target of their journey, the hope for saving William—the legendary thousand-year-old Tai Sui.
When Julian's gaze fell upon that object, even with sufficient mental preparation, he still felt a shudder from the depths of his soul.
That thing simply could not be defined by any known biological concept.
It looked like a massive, humanoid fungal symbiote, roughly two meters tall, with discernible torso and limb outlines but no facial features.
Its skin displayed a morbid, milk-white color like congealed fat, its surface covered in countless deep red, complex patterns resembling human blood vessels.
Most terrifyingly, it was not dead.
Those deep red vascular patterns were pulsing and contracting at an extremely slow rhythm.
It simply floated quietly within the container, yet radiated an extraordinarily pure aura of life!
Just looking at it from a distance, Julian could feel his body, weary from the long journey, being nourished by that life force; every cell seemed to cheer in delight.
He had no doubt that if he could obtain even a small piece of its tissue, the alien spiritual energy within William would absolutely be overwhelmed and purified by this domineering, unmatched vitality!
"This is simply divine medicine! A source of life that surpasses all medical knowledge of this era!"
However, just as Julian's heart surged with excitement, he also keenly noticed that he was far from the only one coveting this "divine flesh."
Not far to his left stood several men wearing exquisite black Chinese-style long gowns, with long queues, their auras cold, arrogant, and aloof—men of the Qing Dynasty.
The look in their eyes as they regarded the Tai Sui revealed a greedy determination to obtain it.
The leader among them seemed somewhat familiar to Julian; he appeared to be one of the Black Lotus Sect's Deacons in Southeast Asia, whose portrait Old Abacus had shown him.
To his right stood another guest from Europe.
He was a tall, white man with handsome features like a classical Greek sculpture, with blond hair and blue eyes.
He wore a finely tailored black tailcoat, with a peculiar silver medallion combining a cross and a sword pinned to his chest.
The look in his eyes as he regarded the Tai Sui held not greed, but disgust and hatred.
Behind this mysterious European buyer stood two equally tall, steady-aured attendants with respectful demeanors.
At their waists, they both wore simple and unadorned hand crossbows that seemed out of place in this era.
The name, which existed only in historical documents, flashed through Julian's mind.
"It seems Old Abacus's intelligence was completely accurate. This auction has turned into a dragon's pool and tiger's den."
Heretics of the Black Lotus Sect, descendants of the mysterious Knights Templar, himself representing I.A.R.C., and countless other organizations.
Multiple forces, because of this thousand-year-old Tai Sui from the Kunlun Mountains, had met on a narrow path within this chaotic underground black market in a tropical colony.
Tomorrow night's auction would definitely not be as calm as it appeared on the surface.