"Twelve million!"
Yet just as Bai Zhenzi chose to give up and those on Lin Ming's side breathed a sigh of relief, an indifferent, abrupt voice suddenly rang out through the pavilion.
The voice came without warning, like a cold blade thrust from the shadows, shredding the silence that had only just settled over the room.
An uproar swept through the pavilion. Countless gazes shot upward, fixing on the source of the voice, and the expressions that followed were quite a sight.
For on the third floor, Xia Xuan, the emperor's youngest brother from the Great Xia Imperial Dynasty, had spoken with an indifferent expression.
He reclined against a brocade couch, his posture utterly languid, as though he had merely tossed out that bid in passing.
Xia Xuan was toying with a black stone seal—the Mountain-Covering Seal he had won earlier. The pitch-black seal turned slowly between his fingertips, its weathered patterns gleaming dully beneath the lights.
After making that high bid, he looked at no one. He merely studied the stone seal in his hand, paying no heed to the astonished gazes.
As for Lin Ming, whose bidding he had interrupted, Xia Xuan did not spare him so much as a glance, as though what he had just done was beneath his notice.
His manner was supremely composed and supremely arrogant, like a lion lazily glancing at a stray dog by the roadside, unable to muster even the interest to bare its teeth.
Xia Xuan's attitude surprised many of the powerhouses in the pavilion.
Those with discerning eyes needed only a glance or two to sense the undercurrents.
Xia Xuan had not bid earlier or later, but precisely when Bai Zhenzi gave up and Lin Ming was about to secure the scroll. His opening bid of twelve million had