Chapter 56: Want to snatch my goods? Did you ask this Emperor first?

"Four hundred thousand!"

"Six hundred thousand!"

"Seven hundred thousand!"

"..."

Undercurrents were surging in the shadows of the auction house, swirling with thick, ominous intent; the situation in plain sight was no better.

No one expected that Lu Ren would actually place the item everyone had been eagerly awaiting as the very first lot of the auction.

It caught many people off guard.

There were even some families who hadn't prepared to bid before being scared off by the ever-rising amounts.

They couldn't help but wonder.

Was it really worth it? They could always ask Lu Ren to refine pills for them later, so why be in such a rush? Yet, they never once considered whether Lu Ren was actually easy to solicit.

In this somewhat oppressive atmosphere, the increase in the auction price gradually slowed down.

"One hundred thousand Top-grade Spirit Stones."

"One hundred thousand and five Top-grade Spirit Stones."

"One hundred and ten thousand."

"One hundred and ten thousand and one."

"One hundred and twenty thousand."

The auctioneer on the stage kept her smile unchanged and loudly repeated the price from the guest in the private room: "One hundred and twenty thousand, the guest in private room number 128 bids one hundred and twenty thousand Top-grade Spirit Stones, one hundred and twenty thousand going once, one hundred and twenty thousand going twice, one hundred and twenty..."

"One hundred and twenty thousand and one Top-grade Spirit Stones."

A sudden voice interrupted the auctioneer, but before the auctioneer could call the price, the screen of private room 128 suddenly opened, revealing the face of the guest inside.

"One hundred and fifty thousand." The young man pushing the wheelchair remained expressionless, as if he weren't talking about Spirit Stones at all, but some useless little scraps of trash, raising the price in one breath to a level difficult for ordinary people to reach.

He looked around, carefully tending to the person with closed eyes in the wheelchair, and said indifferently:

"My master hails from Wuya Villa. If you all wish to bid, there is no need to speak unless you can offer over a million Top-grade Spirit Stones. This Life-Extending Pill, my Wuya Villa is determined to have."

A million.

Once these words were spoken, everyone was somewhat shocked.

A million! These were Top-grade Spirit Stones, not some cabbage on the street.

If they had a million Top-grade Spirit Stones, what better things could they do with them? Why come here to fight and scramble?

However...

The eyes of the crowd couldn't help but fall upon the wheelchair the man was pushing.

This is the master of Wuya Villa? He looks so frail; truly, one cannot judge a book by its cover.

There were also some in the know whose expressions changed imperceptibly, their gazes assessing this group with calculation.

Only Lu Ren, who had been resting with his eyes closed while listening to the bids below in private room 121, felt perfectly at ease, yet upon hearing "Wuya Villa," he suddenly opened his eyes!

His incredulous gaze pierced through the one-way viewing screen and looked toward the front of private room 128.

A young man who appeared to be resting his eyes, but was actually in a weak, comatose state and had just been awakened to barely open his eyes, came into Lu Ren's view.

It made Lu Ren's expression change again and again.

Below.

The two from number 128 drifted lightly across the extended floor of the private room and landed on the auction stage.

The entire auction house in Wanren City was a mechanical construct; every part could move according to one's will.

Naturally, this auction house was also an industry under the Lu Family name.

The weak young man's expression shifted several times before finally turning into a bitter smile; he whispered softly, "I didn't want him to know..."

The subordinate pushing him paused his steps, his expression filled with a trace of confusion.

Him? Or her? What was the master talking about? Forget it, never mind.

He firmly gripped the wheelchair handles, his spirit soaring.

Even if he were to be killed by his master after the master recovered, he had to make his master get better. A thousand years of lifespan—it was absolutely impossible to let it slip away; this was the only possibility for his master to recover!

He steadied his mind and said in a deep voice to the auctioneer: "Excuse me, here are the Spirit Stones. Payment upon delivery; my master wishes to consume it on the spot!"

As he spoke, he handed over a storage ring.

The smiling auctioneer raised her hand to receive it, her divine sense sweeping through it to confirm the count, and she smiled even more perfectly.

"Naturally, that is allowed."

As early as when the Life-Extending Pill and the Demon-Clearing Pill were announced, the Lu Family had provided two additional conditions for a successful auction.

One was to be escorted out of Wanren City by Lu Family members. The other was to have Lu Family members act as guardians while the pill was consumed on the spot! This way, no one would have the opportunity to snatch it away.

Clearly, this master and servant pair had chosen the latter.

The auctioneer's fingers moved slightly, and the layers of arrays covering the tray were removed one by one. As the arrays diminished, that mouth-watering fragrance became even more pronounced.

The commotion in the shadows grew even louder.

The man pushing his master had a sneer in his eyes; he scanned the crowd below without leaving a trace, secretly signaling to a few people in the corners, his entire body tensed in defense.

Lin Xiu, sitting in the wheelchair, curled his pale fingers; his gloomy face remained perfectly calm and composed.

When the female auctioneer removed the final layer of the Self-Destruct Array, she paused and suddenly said softly: "Do not worry, guest. The Family Head is here in person today; he will certainly ensure you are safe."

She had intended it as reassurance, and also as a warning, but who could have known that after hearing her words, Lin Xiu would suddenly lift his head, panic spreading across his face.

"He is here too?!"

The next second, the female auctioneer's fingers moved, and all arrays were completely deactivated! The Life-Extending Pill was exposed to the eyes of all.

Suddenly.

The sky went dark.

All the lights in the auction house failed at the same time, and wherever anyone looked, there was only a sheet of darkness.

"It's the innate skill of a Blood-Winged Viper! Which shameless person contracted such a disgusting thing?!"

"Ugh—"

The stench of rotting corpses fermented in the darkness, as if ruminating, wetly putrefying.

This was the Blood-Winged Viper, a creature everyone loathed and avoided at all costs.

Anyone with a shred of dignity would never contract such a thing, let alone expose it.

Because the Blood-Winged Viper only eats carrion, and, most of all, it favors the corpses of the Human Race.

Furthermore, it only eats carrion that has begun to rot for no more than five hours.

This meant that its master had to seize the time to hunt.

And to keep the Blood-Winged Viper in perfect harmony with oneself, one must feed it with the flesh and blood of the Human Race.

In other words, its master must be prepared to kill at any moment, let the corpse rot, and feed it to the Blood-Winged Viper; otherwise, they would surely suffer a backlash, becoming like a dying person, reeking with an incessant stench.

Therefore, in the Tianxuan Continent, the Blood-Winged Viper is truly a street rat that everyone cries out to beat.

"The Blood-Winged Viper's innate skill can only obscure vision for three breaths at most, steady! It is merely obscuring vision, what is there to panic about!"

Someone, it was unknown who, exposed the weakness of the Blood-Winged Viper.

However, even if it were only for one breath, it was enough.

A clean, fair hand reached out from the darkness, reached toward the stage and gripped the Life-Extending Pill bottle tightly; within one breath, the hand quickly stowed the Life-Extending Pill into a Storage Ring, turned to retreat, and was about to hide in the darkness to escape.

Yet, the very moment this hand gripped the pill bottle, the female auctioneer on the stage erupted with a fierce, icy, and cold expression; she drew a Crescent Blade, one and a half people tall, from the void and slashed down toward the direction she perceived!

She growled, "No one can steal my Lu Family's things from my hands!"

As the words fell, the sharp offensive of the great blade did not diminish, and patches of fish scales covered her wrists, making her appear even more alien, ferocious, and cold.

"Qu Guan." Lin Xiu closed his eyes and leaned back in his wheelchair, speaking indifferently.

The man behind his wheelchair immediately let go of the armrests; with a beastly roar, thousands of sharp fangs encompassed most of the auction stage and bit down fiercely! Since one could not see where the person was, then attack indiscriminately! The Red Lanterns in the auction house drifted about, and within a breath, they had drifted not far from the stage; a deeper darkness emanated from the chaos like smoky vapor, pulling the entire auction venue further into a pitch-black gloom.

"Moo!!!"

But in an instant, a cow's lowing, heavy as thick earth and clear and warm, rang out, as if a rooster were heralding the dawn.

In an instant, the daylight shone brightly.

A long blade burning with an Ice-Blue Flame fell from the third floor, the tip of the blade slamming heavily onto the stage, directly severing the emerald-green little snake that was trying to sneak away into two halves, dripping with blood!

Bright golden mysterious brocade fell from the third floor; the person pulled out the long blade and sneered.

"Want to snatch things?"

"Have you asked this Emperor?"

And at this moment, the female auctioneer's initial blade strike had only just landed.

Everything was but an instant.

"Ah!!!!"

A shrill scream suddenly resounded across the stage.

A severed hand suddenly hit the ground.

(End of this chapter)