The ginseng spirit, convinced that the great villain was living off him, immediately straightened his back. But the moment he looked up and met the great villain’s unsettling, half-smiling gaze, the little tail he had metaphorically raised drooped at once. He became as obedient as a quail.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye. During that time, neither man nor ginseng left the room. Sui Jian was busy healing, while Yun Shen continued working diligently as an exploited ginseng. Not only did he have to brew ginseng tea for Sui Jian, he was also pitifully ordered to massage his shoulders, pound his legs, serve tea, and wait on him hand and foot.
He was being exploited to an utterly tragic degree. Anyone who heard about it would grieve, anyone who witnessed it would weep. Even modern wage slaves had not suffered as much as he did.
Yun Shen mournfully wiped away nonexistent tears and felt that his future was pitch-black.
Half an hour before midnight on the day of the auction, Yun Shen was chasing butterflies in his dreams when he suddenly felt himself become weightless. He woke with a start and discovered that he was actually floating in midair.
“Wow! I can fly! I’m amazing!”
The ginseng spirit, convinced that he had magically learned a new skill in his sleep, let out an ignorant cry of delight.
Sui Jian had already put on his cloak. His long, well-defined fingers were winding the fastening cords. Hearing Yun Shen, he lifted his eyes and hesitated before saying, “Is it possible that I’m the one making you fly, little useless thing?”
After “ugly thing,” Yun Shen now gained the new nickname “little useless thing.” Deeply wounded in his pride, the ginseng spirit dared to be angry but not to speak. He could only puff out his cheeks and hum in annoyance.
Sui Jian ignored him afterward. He quickly tied the cloak, pulled up the hood, and before leaving casually stuffed the ginseng spirit into a hidden pocket that had somehow appeared on the inside of the cloak.
Yun Shen clutched the edge of the pocket. Everything before his eyes was pitch-black, but stubbornly, he stretched out one thin root and pushed open a tiny gap in the tightly wrapped cloak. At least he could barely see a little of the outside world.
It was midnight, an hour when the streets should have been deserted. Yet now lamps blazed everywhere, and there were even more pedestrians than during the day.
Every one of them had come for the auction.
Wave after wave of people entered the trading hall and were led deeper inside by attendants.
The so-called distinguished-guest invitation was actually a jade slip engraved with Clear Garden’s sigil. The one the manager had given Sui Jian was a second-tier scarlet jade slip. Sui Jian originally possessed a first-tier black one, but it was stored inside his ring-space and currently inaccessible.
The auction venue was a circular pavilion with six levels, corresponding in order to jade-slip ranks of cyan, green, blue, purple, scarlet, and black. The black tier occupied the top floor.
After Sui Jian presented his jade slip, an attendant escorted him into a private room on the fifth floor. The attendant carefully explained the auction rules, then left, thoughtfully activating the formation that blocked spiritual perception before closing the door.
The private room did not differ much from an ordinary inn room. Its only unusual feature was that the wall facing the center of the auction hall appeared to be completely open.
Although it looked empty, it was not. The entire wall had actually been forged from a kind of transparent crystal capable of blocking spiritual perception. After special treatment by an artifact refiner, people inside the room could see through the crystal wall into the hall, while those outside could see only a blank field of white static.
This way, no one outside the private room could inspect what was happening inside by any means.
“All right. You can come out now.”
The moment Sui Jian finished speaking, Yun Shen immediately wriggled free after being smothered for so long. He touched this and peered at that, curious about everything. But he did not dare wander too far and stayed close to Sui Jian.
Mainly because the great villain had warned him repeatedly over the past few days about how unusual he was. If he did not want to be captured, sliced apart, and refined into pills, he had better behave, avoid running around, and minimize contact with other people.
Yun Shen did not think the great villain was simply scaring him. After all, he had already gone through that twice and did not want a third experience.
The auction outside had already begun. The first treasure was brought onto the stage. As the auctioneer finished introducing it, people gradually began raising bidding plaques.
Sui Jian showed no interest. His main purpose in coming to Clear Garden was the Wood Spirit Heart that would appear as the final lot. Only after discovering Yun Shen’s special nature had he added the additional goal of bartering sun and moon essence.
His current situation was extremely dangerous. His meridians were severed and his divine soul damaged. He looked outwardly fine, but in truth he was already at the end of his strength. If he had not encountered Yun Shen by chance, he would never have clung to life until now.
Repairing meridians was not especially difficult, but the divine soul was another matter. In the cultivation world today, the only thing said to repair a divine soul was the legendary Nirvana Pill.
The Nirvana Pill was a Heaven-rank medicine that had appeared only in legends. No one had ever seen its formula, much less refined a finished pill.
Sui Jian had learned of it entirely by accident.
During his third reincarnation, he had once obtained the Nirvana Pill formula in a secret realm beneath the sea. Unfortunately, after he died and reincarnated again, the formula disappeared with that life.
He had later returned to search for the underwater secret realm, but no matter what he did, he never found it again.
Fortunately, his memory was flawless. He still remembered the formula to this day, so the recipe itself was not an obstacle.
What gave him headaches were the ingredients required to refine the Nirvana Pill: one hundred and twenty-six in total. Aside from known rare spiritual plants, the formula also demanded elemental hearts of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth; merfolk tears; Bone Lament; phoenix bone; a branch from the mythical sun tree; blazing-sun essence; and a Golden Crow feather.
The final few were things he had never even heard of, much less seen. He did not know where to begin collecting them.
Refining the Nirvana Pill was as difficult as ascending to heaven. Anyone else facing such a cruel and impossible situation might already have given up. But Sui Jian, of all people, believed least in fate. The more impossible something was, the more determined he became to defy heaven and obtain it.
If no one had ever succeeded in refining the Nirvana Pill, then he would be the first.
.
As one lot after another was sold, the auction entered its heated final stage.
The Wood Spirit Heart was the grand finale, and most people present had come specifically for it.
When it appeared, even the auctioneer changed.
An elderly man past fifty walked onto the stage. His expression was listless, his eyelids drooping. He looked like an ordinary old man, but no one dared underestimate him.
This elder was Clear Garden’s highest-ranking manager and strongest cultivator, known respectfully as Elder Profound.
Elder Profound removed the black cloth covering the Wood Spirit Heart. A heart entirely emerald green, glowing softly with visible pulsing veins, slowly floated into the air.
“This is the Wood Spirit Heart. I assume everyone present knows its function, so this old man will not waste time introducing it. The opening bid is one million top-grade spirit stones.”
“The auction begins now.”
One million top-grade spirit stones was an astronomical sum to an ordinary sect. Only the four great families and the ten major sects with deep foundations could produce such wealth.
Most cultivators had come merely to see the Wood Spirit Heart and broaden their horizons. Yet the instant Elder Profound finished speaking, someone raised a plaque.
“One million one hundred thousand top-grade spirit stones!”
“One million three hundred thousand!”
“Three million!”
Only a handful of cultivators were bidding, but every faction sounded absolutely determined to obtain the treasure and refused to yield. In scarcely the time needed to drink a cup of tea, the one-million opening price had multiplied tenfold and risen above ten million top-grade spirit stones.
“It’s almost at twenty million already. Are people in the cultivation world all this rich?”
Yun Shen, whose attention had been completely captivated and who had been pressed against the crystal wall for who knew how long, sighed in amazement.
He had no clear understanding of the value of spirit stones, but even he understood that twenty million top-grade spirit stones was an amount far beyond what could be earned by slicing him up and selling him a dozen times.
Sui Jian scoffed. “You think a mere twenty million is a lot? Pathetic.”
The pathetic Yun Shen turned around indignantly. “But you only have a little over a hundred thousand spirit stones on you, and you robbed other people for those!”
Did the great villain think Yun Shen did not know he was currently a penniless pauper with empty pockets?
Sui Jian gave no response. He curled one finger and flicked Yun Shen on the forehead, making tears instantly gather in the ginseng spirit’s eyes.
“I may not currently have that many spirit stones, but that doesn’t mean I can’t obtain the Wood Spirit Heart.”
He turned and walked to the door. After opening it, he quietly said several words to the attendant waiting outside. The attendant’s pupils shook in shock. “Honored guest, please wait. This lowly one will report it immediately.”
The attendant hurried away so urgently it looked as though Sui Jian might change his mind if he walked even one step too slowly.
Yun Shen asked, “What did you tell him?”
Sui Jian answered casually, “You’ll know in a moment.”
The ginseng spirit, once again brushed off, trembled with anger. His claw-shaped leaves rustled loudly.
Yun Shen pouted and crossed two roots over his chest. “Hmph! Fine, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know at all!”
The sulking ginseng spirit had grown increasingly bold and now even dared give the great villain attitude. After throwing down those defiant words, he shuffled into the corner by the crystal wall and devoted himself to watching the commotion, refusing to pay Sui Jian any further attention.
Sui Jian clenched his canine teeth and began wondering whether he had been indulging this ginseng spirit too much lately. The little thing was practically climbing onto his head.
He did not immediately discipline the disobedient ginseng. Instead, he quietly recorded the matter in his mind, intending to settle accounts after obtaining the Wood Spirit Heart.
Meanwhile, the attendant carried Sui Jian’s message directly past the usual hierarchy to the auctioneer who had been replaced onstage.
“Is that really what he said?”
The auctioneer did not quite believe it. The attendant lowered his voice. “The person making the offer is the gentleman who consigned the sun essence and moon essence.”
The auctioneer’s eyes immediately lit up. He decided on the spot. “Wait here. I’ll go speak with Elder Profound.”
At the auction stage, the bidding price for the Wood Spirit Heart had already soared to fifty million top-grade spirit stones. Only three factions remained in the contest: the Shangguan clan, the wealthiest of the four great families; the Spirit-Taming Sect; and the Great Balance Sect.
Why was the Sword Sect, the number-one sect, absent?
Most Sword Sect disciples were sword cultivators. Even adding all their pill refiners and artifact refiners together would not reach half the number of sword cultivators. And sword cultivators were famously poor throughout the cultivation world. They poured their entire fortunes into forging and maintaining their bonded swords. Where would they find spare money to bid for treasures at an auction?
Back to the matter at hand: representatives of the three factions remained locked in close competition, none willing to yield. After several more rounds, the price of the Wood Spirit Heart had risen to eighty million top-grade spirit stones.
Shangguan Ling, the young master of the Shangguan clan, was clearly unwilling to give up. But eighty million was simply too much and had completely exceeded the family’s budget. Emptying more than half the clan treasury for a single Wood Spirit Heart was unnecessary. Suppressing his frustration, he withdrew from the bidding.
That left only the Spirit-Taming Sect and the Great Balance Sect.
“Old Ghost Xu, my Great Balance Sect is determined to obtain this Wood Spirit Heart today. Your Spirit-Taming Sect cannot match us in strength, and in wealth you cannot compare to even one of our fingers. The outcome will be the same regardless. Why not simply do me a favor and let us have it?”
“You will be generously rewarded afterward.”
The voice of the Great Balance Sect elder spread through the entire auction hall, dripping with arrogant superiority.
Xu Shen, elder of the Spirit-Taming Sect, was furious. He snorted coldly and transmitted his voice in return. “It’s far too early to say who will win. Boast so loudly and be careful you don’t bite your own tongue!”
He was clearly refusing to yield even an inch.
The two factions were at daggers drawn. If the auction hall had not explicitly forbidden fighting or releasing oppressive pressure—violators would be permanently blacklisted and never allowed entry again—the two elders might already have started battling.
The Great Balance Sect elder snorted. “Then we’ll see.”
Elder Profound waited for the verbal exchange to end and was about to ask whether either side wished to continue bidding when the auctioneer hurried over and whispered into his ear.
Elder Profound weighed the matter for a moment, then indicated that he understood.
The auctioneer stepped away again. Elder Profound’s gaze shifted toward a certain private room on the fifth floor, as though merely glancing there by chance, then quickly moved away.
He clasped his hands behind his back, walked slowly to the front of the stage, cleared his throat, and announced, “Everyone, someone has offered one hundred drops each of sun essence and moon essence for the Wood Spirit Heart. If no one can offer something of greater value, the Wood Spirit Heart will belong to that person.”
Everyone had assumed the final owner would come from either the Spirit-Taming Sect or the Great Balance Sect. No one expected a dark horse to suddenly charge in halfway through.
The unexpected twist stunned the entire hall. Even Xu Shen and the Great Balance Sect elder remained frozen for several breaths.
The Great Balance Sect elder recovered first and immediately shouted angrily, “What is Clear Garden trying to do? Are you playing with us?”
