Chapter Twenty-Three: So Cowardly?

Looking at the outstretched hand, Fang Mu shook his head.

“Pay up...”

A smile twisted across Butcher Zhao’s vacant face, making it look even more terrifying. The surrounding specters closed in again, all reaching their hands toward Fang Mu, their expressions dark and grim.

“Pay up...”

A chill filled the air. Judging from their posture, if Fang Mu refused to pay, this group of ghosts would attack him all at once.

Fang Mu casually tossed the oiled paper-wrapped lean meat onto the stall and pointed at the pork hanging from the iron hook, raising his voice: “Cut me five pounds of pure fat, not a trace of lean in it, chop it fine.”

The smile gradually faded from Butcher Zhao’s face. He kept his hand extended, his voice vacant: “Pay up...”

“I’ll pay, of course.” Fang Mu flipped the bloodstained copper coins in his hand, drawing greedy glances from the surrounding specters. He joked, “Who pays before the goods are ready? What kind of business is that? Or is this a den of thieves?”

A look of pain spread across Butcher Zhao’s face. He fell silent, seemingly unable to refute Fang Mu’s words.

After a moment, Butcher Zhao returned to normal. He picked up the pork from the iron hook and, with the slaughterer’s knife, began methodically chopping the fat.

Thud, thud, thud—

As the butcher’s knife rose and fell, Zhao’s face grew even paler, and blood began to gush from his chest, running down his arm and staining the fat meat red.

“Can’t hold on anymore?” Fang Mu thought to himself.

When Z