Failed pills that couldn't break the bottleneck? Bought.Hybrid plants abandoned because they couldn't bloom under normal laws? Stored.Demons discarded due to bloodline anomalies? Scooped the fuck up.Puppets half-complete, missing cores or blueprints? Chunhe took all of them.Artifacts marked defective because they couldn't stabilize Qi flow? Chunhe grabbed 'em in bulk like they were on a goddamn discount rack.
Forty-three types of hybrid spiritual herbs including Hellthorn Cactus, Skyfall Roots, and Ash Lotus, banned in three provinces. Twelve ancient puppets missing control cores, once property of the Iron Puppet Sect, now rusted bones of tech forgotten. Nineteen demon women with rare bloodlines, all sealed in suspended stasis: dormant threads of the Bladed Succubus Lineage, fragments of the Six-Eyed Weaver Empress, Devouring Spider Queen, White Fox Lineage, and the Seven-Colored Auspicious Peacock. Four male demons with traits bordering extinction—one tied to goblin kin, another bearing naga blood, the rest part Yaksha remnants. Six spiritual beast cubs deemed "untrainable": Bone-Eating Void Cat, Mirrorback Alligator, Treasure-Hunting Rat, Dragon-Blooded Pup, and a Demon Ox allergic to Qi itself. One alchemy blueprint for a 12-layer pill furnace—only five layers drawn. Last touched by a drunk master of the White Crane Mystic Hall before vanishing inside his own flame. Seventeen unfinished pills exuding faint divine rhythm—rejected by the Medicinal Tribunal of Sky Province as "unfit for mortal consumption." Dozens of spiritual stones with failed inscriptions—some allegedly sourced from the now-cratered Thousand Hands Scripture Forge after a catastrophic backfire ritual.
There were markets. And then there was Traceless Alley.
A place buried under thirty-seven folding spatial layers. Not mapped, only remembered in mind and scrolls. A marketplace for the shit that should never see daylight.
And today, something stepped through its veil.
The air was thick with incense, blood, and long-rotted Qi.
Some called it the Stagnant of the City—buried beneath respectable towers and sect libraries. Others whispered it was Heaven's waste pit for rogue cultivators' sins. But no one denied its truth: this was where forbidden things got bartered and tagged.
And today, Chunhe appeared like mold in a sealed coffin—sudden, silent, inevitable.
Wrapped in coarse cloth, he walked with a gait not frail, but coiled—like a predator about to pounce. His face hidden behind a lizard-shaped mask, carved from mellinum darkstone, mined only in the Dreaming Pits beneath Nameless Mountain. Not cursed. Not enchanted. But every ward it passed shuddered like it heard its own death whispered.
He radiated no Qi. Didn't breathe. Didn't make a fucking sound. He just was.
Some said he was the soul-diver cultist that nuked his own sect. Others called him a vessel for the Karma-feasting freaks from the Blood Sacrifice Cult. But everyone agreed—he didn't belong here.
When he spoke, it was gravel and thunder underwater.
"I'll take this one. And the one with the sealed jaw.""This root is dead on the outside. But its memory is not.""Add the fractured phoenix shard."
One merchant—Old Hag Tu from the Maimed Silk Booth—shook his hand and pissed herself halfway through. She later burned her stall and hung herself from a broken formation rod.
Behind him came the funeral procession. Twenty-four chained figures. Demon girls whose bloodlines never awakened. Mutant males. Half-failed hybrids. Puppet constructs. Their chains made no sound. Their mouths locked by runes known only to seven cultivators—all long dead. Some shimmered. Some never blinked. Some had tails hidden under cloaks. It looked like he was dragging extinction behind him.
But to Chunhe, they were seeds.
Every stall dimmed slightly as he passed. Even unbound artifacts shivered when his fingers hovered.
He bought a failed Bone-Dance blood flute from the Hall of Demonic Night. A failed Soul-Harmonizer that once exploded mid-performance and killed a dozen. He took a Puppet Heart Core, charred black from a failed blood-fusion. He even bought an alchemy furnace with bits of someone's jawbone fused into its lid.
Everything—gone in seconds, swallowed into a pouch denser than sect treasure vaults. Five counter-wards orbited it like moons.
[Appraisal — Bloodline Remnant Detected][Bloodline Core Dormant: concentration 0.00000000000001%][Bloodline: Scorch-Eyed Paragon of the Ninth Fire Path][Status: Viable]
Inside Buried Night Pavilion, strongest vendor house in Traceless Alley, panic spread.
Faction spies swarmed.
"He bought a broken Naga seal—no bargain.""Picked slaves with bloodlines that don't register.""His scent keeps changing. First forest mist, then rot, then burnt copper."
Whispers flew like cursed birds. He's rebuilding a cult. He's prepping soul crafting. He's summoning a demon from hell.
A nascent soul cultivator tried reading his karmic thread—their third eye cracked like an eggshell. Screamed for three minutes. Bit their own tongue off.
And just like that—Chunhe was gone.
No ripple. No trace. No sound.
He stepped into the Stone Offering Shrine, abandoned two hundred forty years ago, and vanished.
Inside the Hidden Spatial Farm, Chunhe removed his cloak.
He stood surrounded by cocoon pods—some spiritual, some biological, some fused with inscription runes.
Inside, things stirred.
He repaired broken vessels. Stimulated corrupted roots. Fed decay to the artificial soil of a runic garden.
A flower demon stirred. Her petals glowed faintly.
"This is the first time... more species have entered the farm," she whispered.
Chunhe studied a vine rooted in rot. The demoness it once housed long dead, yet the stem pulsed faintly.
"You still carry a sliver of your ancestor-Blood," he said."That's enough to build your tribe."
Somewhere behind the mask, something smiled.
Back in Traceless Alley, chaos erupted.
Flame Mantis Pavilion declared a bloodhunt. Gu Eater Sect tried bribing for a sniff of his identity. Blood Chain Cult put out a bounty: one thousand spirit crystals and a virgin blood contract.
But nothing came.
No one had a name. A scent. A Qi trace.
Because Chunhe had none of those.
No gender. No signature. No trail.
And his voice?
Never the same twice.