Andrew Brooks was a rough and careless man. He took out a bundle of spider silk from his Sumeru ring and tossed it directly onto the counter. “Pawn this.”

The middle-aged man picked it up, examined it, and frowned. “What is this?”

“You’re ‘The World’s Pawnshop, Pawning the World,’ and you can’t tell what this is?” Andrew Brooks sneered.

“The ‘world’ is just Fenghuang Realm. Inside and outside the realm, there are plenty of things I don’t recognize,” The Proprietor was unfazed, replying with a blank expression. “Tell me what this is… Don’t make me misjudge its value.”

“Spider silk,” Andrew Brooks answered helplessly. Under the eaves, who dares not bow their head?

“You should’ve said so earlier. I thought it was something with some profound law,” The Proprietor snorted, reaching out to stretch the white strand. “Turns out it’s just raw material.”

He pulled it a couple of times, paused in surprise, then pulled harder twice more, a hint of astonishment flashing in his eyes.

He pondered for a moment, hand trembling as if he wanted to pull it again, but finally spoke slowly, “Unknown spider silk, two spirit stones… If you pawn it dead, two and a half.”

“Live pawn,” Andrew Brooks felt this bundle of spider silk was worth more than two and a half spirit stones. He had about ten times as much of this silk, but it was in a big clump, not separated. If he completed his task, he wanted to redeem this bundle as a sample.

After receiving the pawn ticket and two spirit stones, he turned to leave and almost bumped into two men at the door.

At this moment, Andrew Brooks already understood that in the Immortal Realm, strength was everything. He sidestepped and quickened his pace to leave.

The two men entering—one young, one middle-aged—the young man slapped a piece of paper onto the counter. “Redeem pawn, high-grade artifact: Spirit-Binding Ring.”

“Wait,” the middle-aged man happened to see The Proprietor boxing up the white spider silk and spoke in a deep voice, “May I take a look at that item?”

“It’s a live pawn,” The Proprietor replied with a smile, which was a tactful refusal—if it were a dead pawn, letting other customers see it was fine, but with a live pawn, who would take responsibility if it got damaged?

But rules are dead, people are alive. The middle-aged man replied expressionlessly, “I’m from the Zheng family of the Northern Territory. In the Qingshi branch of the World Commerce Alliance, Second Consecrator Willy and I are acquainted. Please consult him.”

“The Zheng family of the Bloodsand Marquis?” Proprietor was taken aback and asked in surprise.

“Who else but the Bloodsand Marquis would dare call themselves the Zheng family?” the middle-aged man answered proudly, then barked, “Aren’t you going to consult him?”

“Consecrator Willy hasn’t been at Qingshi recently,” The Proprietor broke out in a sweat. After thinking it over, he gritted his teeth and handed the box over the counter. “Please have a look… Best not to touch it.”

Qingshi City wasn’t really within the Bloodsand Marquis’s sphere of influence, but the Zheng family was notorious for being difficult and ruthless, with formidable strength. Ordinary people would rather not provoke them.

The middle-aged man didn’t touch it, just silently observed for a while, sweeping it with his spiritual sense. Only after a long moment did he nod. “You can take it back… Was this item pawned by that young man just now?”

“That’s right,” The Proprietor nodded. “Does Mr. Zheng recognize what it is?”

“Feels like some kind of insect silk,” the middle-aged man smiled slightly, then asked in return, “You don’t recognize it?”

“I have some guesses,” The Proprietor didn’t want to say much. The Bloodsand Marquis was formidable, but the World Commerce Alliance did business everywhere and had its own confidence.

But then he thought, this was most likely an undervalued item. If it turned out to be something extraordinary, he could negotiate with that young man to buy it at a high price, which would be a great contribution to the Alliance.

Anyway, the item was in his hands for now, so he slowly took it back and probed, “I think it looks like spider silk.”

“Oh,” the middle-aged man was now sure the other party didn’t know what it was, so he nodded lightly. “Alright, I’m here to help my nephew redeem the Spirit-Binding Ring. Go fetch it.”

The young man was a junior of the Zheng family, named David Clark. He had come to the Qingshi area with friends for training. During a hunt for wild beasts, a friend was accidentally poisoned, and the antidote pills they carried were ineffective. To obtain spiritual medicine, he had reluctantly pawned his own artifact, the Spirit-Binding Ring.

After redeeming the Spirit-Binding Ring, the two said nothing more, turned, and left the pawnshop. After walking for a long time, David Clark finally asked, “Third Uncle, that silk… is it valuable?”

“It’s not just about spirit stones,” the middle-aged man sighed, then shook his head. “It can be exchanged for merit—real merit.”

“So what exactly is it?” The young man frowned. Merit was something truly rare; aside from exchanging a huge amount of spirit stones, only those who made outstanding contributions could obtain it.

To gain a large amount of merit, there was only one way: the great battlefields.

The middle-aged man didn’t answer directly, but explained slowly, “What attracted me to that thing just now was a wave of spatial isolation. After careful sensing, it was indeed so. The Proprietor even said it was spider silk… Do you understand?”

The young man walked silently for a few steps, then suddenly gasped, “Third Uncle, are you saying, cleansing…?”