Song Ling’er hurriedly extended a hand, gently blocking Su Yuanyuan with a look of affectionate distress.
“Sister shouldn’t bother brawling with a crude fellow like him. What if those reckless blades and swords fail to show restraint and accidentally scratch you? That would break my heart to pieces~”
With gentle, soothing movements, Song Ling’er stretched out her hand to bar Su Yuanyuan’s path.
Su Yuanyuan’s pretty cheeks flushed instantly. She had never experienced this kind of deliberate doting and attention in her life.
Although she was Misty Peak’s junior sister, her master possessed an icy, detached temperament and would naturally never fuss over her with such intimate concern.
Her Eldest Senior Brother was refined and jade-like, yet he treated everyone with an identical, polite impartiality.
As for Fan Chen that blockhead let’s not even start; keeping himself from picking a fight with her was already a testament to his good temper, so when would he ever coddle her with such gentle care?
This was a blade spun from sheer gentleness, and every single stroke was fatal.
A single day had been more than enough for Song Ling’er to completely decode the personalities of these two individuals.
Her original strategy had been to force herself to stomach her disgust and sink her hooks into Fan Chen, even going so far as to fabricate the backstory of a childhood neighbor and sweetheart.
However, once the Exalted Lord altered the master plan, she naturally pivoted her focus and smoothly redirected her target toward Su Yuanyuan.
In the original plotline, Song Ling’er’s seduction of Fan Chen had been specifically designed to drive a wedge between Fan Chen and Su Yuanyuan, creating an opening for Shen Wang to step in, manipulate the situation, and lure Su Yuanyuan out so he could abduct her back to the Demon Realm.
“I’m very strong, so you don’t need to worry. Fan Chen that idiot is no match for me.”
To substantiate her claim, Su Yuanyuan released a sliver of sharp, piercing sword intent.
For a sword cultivator, merely generating sword qi didn’t even qualify as stepping onto the threshold; only upon comprehending a fraction of actual sword intent could one truly cross the threshold into sword cultivation.
Beyond sword intent lay the cultivation of one’s own sword heart, culminating ultimately in the realm of unity between man and sword.
True to her identity as a female lead blessed with extraordinary natural talent, Su Yuanyuan under the relentless, daily tempering of the Tianyuan Sword had already successfully comprehended a wisp of sword intent at the tender age of eighteen.
“Sister is so amazing. I know Sister is powerful, but no matter how strong someone is, they can still get hurt. I don’t want Sister to get hurt on my account. Getting injured must hurt so much, and Ling’er’s heart will ache.”
Seated off to the side, Fan Chen watched this exchange with eyes burning with accumulated frustration and irritation.
With a cold, dark expression, he chimed in with a heavy dose of sarcastic irony: “The two of you really are the epitome of sisterly affection…”
Remaining seated quietly off to the side, Shen Wang observed the scene in silence, quietly committing Song Ling’er’s demeanor and phrasing to memory.
The proceedings of the auction moved forward at a swift pace, completely devoid of any dramatic plot twists or face-slapping confrontations that Su Yuanyuan had anticipated from her fiction books.
“Next up is our grand finale auction item: the millennium-old Frost Flower, capable of purifying ice-attributed spiritual roots and even possessing a certain probability of mutating an ordinary ice spiritual root into a mutated ice spiritual root.”
Heaven-defying treasures capable of purifying spiritual roots were exceedingly rare commodities, let alone one carrying a statistical chance of upgrading an ice spiritual root into a mutated variant.
Naturally, that minute probability was largely a bonus; prospective buyers were predominantly competing for the Frost Flower’s core capacity to purify and elevate baseline spiritual purity.
“I presume the precise properties of the Frost Flower are far better known to everyone present than anything I could explain, so I won’t waste time making a fool of myself with an unnecessary introduction.”
“The starting bid is set at thirty thousand superior-grade spirit stones, with each incremental bid required to increase by no less than one thousand.”
“Thirty-one thousand superior-grade spirit stones.”
“Thirty-three thousand superior-grade spirit stones.”
“Thirty-five thousand superior-grade spirit stones.”
The moment the auctioneer finished speaking, competing bids erupted almost immediately from the floor.
Itinerant cultivators and ordinary practitioners seated on the ground floor fought tooth and nail, lacking the deep financial foundation of major sects, forcing them to grit their teeth as they clawed upward with incremental bids.
The private viewing rooms on the second and third floors remained entirely silent and motionless. To cultivators backed by elite major sects like theirs, such pills and botanical treasures were common commodities easily within reach.
“This auction is dreadfully boring.”
Su Yuanyuan lost interest and withdrew her gaze. The auctions portrayed in romance novels were infinitely more thrilling than this reality.
In books, whenever protagonists attended an auction, wasn’t there always fierce competition over rare items, escalating bidding wars, or arrogant rival sect disciples stepping forward to provoke them, paving the way for a satisfying face-slapping retribution?
“I told you repeatedly to read fewer trashy novels. Anyone who manages to step onto the path of cultivation possesses a fully functioning brain; if anyone lacked sufficient wits, they would have long since been murdered and stripped of their treasures by others.”
“How could they possibly fail to recognize who is safe to provoke and who is entirely out of their league?”
Fan Chen offered a helpless sigh of reprimand. His junior sister excelled at everything, but she harbored an incurable obsession with reading mortal fiction.
She never paused to consider that those mortal novels were entirely fabricated out of thin air by idle writers.
Su Yuanyuan’s brows knitted in annoyance, prompting Song Ling’er seated beside her to immediately chime in with a chilling sneer:
“So what if Sister Su enjoys reading romance books? It simply proves that Sister possesses a pure and untarnished heart. Unlike certain people who do nothing but open their mouths to lecture others and ruin everyone’s good mood.”
“Song Ling’er, I am conversing with my junior sister! When did it ever become your turn to butt in and insert your opinion?”
Fan Chen felt things were unfolding in a direction entirely contrary to logic, yet he couldn’t pinpoint precisely where the deviation lay.
“Second Senior Brother, I feel Ling’er-meimei speaks absolute truth. Furthermore, since Ling’er stood up to speak on my behalf, if you have any lingering dissatisfaction, why don’t we step outside right now and settle it with our swords?”
Su Yuanyuan moved to unsheathe her longsword without a second thought. This represented their standard dynamic for resolving disagreements: whoever possessed the stronger fists held the ultimate truth.
If words failed, a brawl would settle it; whoever won the fight earned the right to call the shots.
“Sister Su, you must not! Please don’t fight him on my account I’m worried you might get hurt.”