“This emperor has dominated the Southern Border without an equal. What peerless beauties have I not seen? How could I possibly develop this sort of preference for men?!”
Lin Langtian sat cross-legged in meditation, concentrating as he forcibly suppressed the stirrings in his heart.
He had a vague feeling that Ye Wushuang must have tampered with something behind the scenes!
“Ye Wushuang… If this really is your doing… sooner or later, I’ll tear your soul from your body and refine it!”
“Oh, what’s this? One of my dear sisters admiring the moon all by herself? Missing some handsome young man?”
A teasing voice suddenly came from atop the wall.
Lin Langtian whipped around and saw Ye Wushuang squatting on the wall. She was beaming at him, munching on a spirit fruit she had plucked from somewhere, looking as carefree and insolent as ever.
“Ye Wushuang, it’s you?!”
The veins on Lin Langtian’s forehead bulged as demonic energy faintly boiled around him.
Nothing good ever happened whenever he ran into Ye Wushuang. Lin Langtian was practically developing a conditioned response to her.
“Don’t get so worked up. Harmony brings prosperity.”
Ye Wushuang leaped down from the wall, dusted off her hands, and swaggered over to Lin Langtian.
After looking him up and down, Ye Wushuang clicked her tongue and sighed. “It’s only been a few days, Young Lord Lin, but your complexion… seems a little pale. Have you been overexerting yourself lately?”
She deliberately emphasized the words “overexerting yourself.”
Lin Langtian’s face darkened. His stomach churned, and the humiliation he had suffered that day surged back into his mind.
He restrained the urge to slap this woman to death and said coldly, “What are you doing here? The Lin family doesn’t welcome you!”
“I heard you haven’t left the house for several days, so I came to check on you.”
Ye Wushuang plopped herself down on a stone stool and sighed. “To be honest, your dear sister has been a little short on cash lately. I wanted to borrow some spirit stones from you to tide me over.”
“No.”
Lin Langtian rejected her without a moment’s hesitation.
In his previous life, he had been the dignified Heavenly Demon Emperor. When had anyone ever dared come knocking on his door to ask for money?
Lin Langtian turned and was about to leave.
“Hey, don’t rush off.”
Ye Wushuang drawled, “I heard that Young Lord Lin has taken a liking to that hulking guard named A-Qiang. Tsk, tsk, look at all those muscles. He really is your type, isn’t he? Tell me, if I turn this into a story and have it performed for three days and three nights in every teahouse in Qinghe City, do you think Young Lord Lin will become famous throughout the city all over again?”
Lin Langtian’s face turned black in an instant.
In his previous life, he had been the mighty Heavenly Demon Emperor, ruling the Southern Border for five hundred years. More than anything, he valued his reputation.
If Ye Wushuang really spread this story around, he might as well blow himself up a second time.
“You dare!”
Lin Langtian ground his teeth, trembling with rage.
“You’ll see whether I dare.”
Ye Wushuang pulled out a sheet of paper and waved it in front of him. The opening of “Young Lord Lin and His Eighteen Male Companions” had already been written on it, and her handwriting was actually quite beautiful.
Lin Langtian nearly choked.
His cultivation was currently only at the True Essence Realm, and the injuries to his divine soul had yet to heal. He could not defeat Ye Wushuang at all.
What was more, he did not dare gamble on whether Ye Wushuang truly had the nerve to spread the story.
That woman was completely insane. There was nothing she wouldn’t do.
Lin Langtian took several deep breaths before finally suppressing his anger.
“How much do you want?”
“Not much.”
Ye Wushuang held out her fair little hand. “Just ten thousand low-grade spirit stones. Lend them to me, and I guarantee that from now on, we’ll stay out of each other’s way.”
Lin Langtian clenched his teeth, the veins on his forehead standing out.
Ten thousand low-grade spirit stones was practically his entire fortune!
He had planned to visit the auction at the Myriad Treasures Pavilion that very night to see whether he could get his hands on a spiritual medicine capable of repairing the injuries to his divine soul.
But looking at Ye Wushuang’s shameless, utterly fearless expression, Lin Langtian helplessly closed his eyes.
“Fine. I’ll lend them to you.”
He forced the words through clenched teeth, then yanked the storage pouch from his waist and hurled it viciously at Ye Wushuang.
“Get out of my sight immediately! Otherwise, even if I have to fight you while seriously injured, I’ll drag you down with me!”
Ye Wushuang caught the storage pouch in one hand. A sweep of her divine sense revealed ten thousand low-grade spirit stones neatly stacked inside.
The smile on her face instantly blossomed like spring flowers.
“Many thanks for Young Lord Lin’s generosity! May Young Lord Lin and A-Qiang enjoy a marriage lasting a hundred years and have a son soon!”
Ye Wushuang cupped her hands, flashed over the courtyard wall with effortless grace, and vanished into the night.
Inside the pavilion, Lin Langtian stared at the empty wall, trembling with fury.
“Pfft!”
His rage aggravated the injuries to his divine soul. Lin Langtian suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood, and his aura instantly withered.
“Ye Wushuang… You’ve gone too far. If I don’t avenge this grudge, then I, Lin Langtian, swear I’m no man!”
Lin Langtian was utterly furious.
With his spirit stones gone, there was naturally no way for him to attend the auction that night.
He could only drag his weakened body back to the secret chamber and enter seclusion to suppress his injuries.
Meanwhile, Ye Wushuang weighed the heavy storage pouch in her hand, hummed a little tune, and strode toward the Myriad Treasures Pavilion, the biggest money pit in Qinghe City.
“Today is a wonderful day, today is a wonderful day~”
Night descended, and the Myriad Treasures Pavilion in the center of Qinghe City blazed with light.
The Myriad Treasures Pavilion was one of the foremost commercial powers on the Spirit Domain Continent, with unfathomable backing. Even the four great clans of Qinghe City had to behave themselves here.
Tonight was the Myriad Treasures Pavilion’s grand underground auction, held once every three years. Not only had the influential figures of Qinghe City gathered, but rogue cultivators and disciples from sects in the surrounding cities had also come after hearing of it.
Ye Wushuang changed into a loose black cloak and put on a bamboo hat that concealed divine sense, wrapping herself up from head to toe.
After paying an entrance fee of ten low-grade spirit stones, Ye Wushuang was led by an attendant to an inconspicuous corner at the back of the hall.
The hall was filled with a clamor of voices, and every seat arranged in a circular pattern was occupied by cultivators of all shapes and backgrounds.
Several powerful auras could faintly be sensed from the VIP boxes on the second floor. They were clearly high-ranking members of the four great clans or formidable outsiders.
“Welcome to the Myriad Treasures Pavilion, honored guests!”
A red-robed auctioneer with a slender figure walked onto the elevated platform.
Her voice carried a natural, seductive quality that instantly ignited the atmosphere throughout the hall.
“Without further ado, tonight’s auction officially begins! The first item is a high-grade Yellow-Rank artifact, the Flowing Cloud Boots…”
The auction proceeded in full swing. One pill, cultivation technique, and artifact after another was brought onto the stage, provoking fierce bidding from the crowd below.
Ye Wushuang, however, leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, completely uninterested in any of them.
The cultivation technique Ye Wushuang currently practiced, the Taiyin Profound Qi Breathing Art, was a supreme-grade Earth-Rank technique. She also possessed the mid-grade Earth-Rank Yin-Yang Tai’a Sword. She truly had no interest in these scraps of Yellow-Rank and Profound-Rank junk.
Time passed minute by minute, and the auction was already drawing to a close.
“Next is the third-to-last item of tonight’s auction.”
The red-robed auctioneer lifted the red silk covering a tray, revealing a transparent glass bottle.
Inside the bottle lay a single drop of liquid as black as ink. It gave off not the slightest fluctuation of spiritual energy and looked just like an ordinary drop of beast blood.
