A Bunch of Blind Fools

"Raise it!"

Shen Wanshan's eyelid twitched.

Another raise?

Could it be that he had only been putting on a show just now?!

Trying to trick this old man into backing down?

Dream on!

"Thirty million!"

Shen Wanshan raised the bid first, waiting to see what the Left Clan would do.

Zuo Tianhe had yet to react when Ye Xingchen suddenly strode forward.

The young man's hair whipped wildly around him, his eyes bloodshot with the desperate madness of a gambler staking everything after losing himself blind.

He raised five fingers and pointed them straight at Shen Wanshan's nose.

"Forty million!"

It was like thunder striking the ground.

The shock made everyone's eardrums ache.

Ye Xingchen's chest heaved violently, and even the finger pointing at Shen Wanshan trembled.

"Old dog Shen! If you've got the guts, add one more Spirit Stone! If you dare raise it, I, Ye Xingchen, will offer this stone to you with both hands and let you take it home as a chamber pot!"

Forty million Spirit Stones.

For a leaking stone.

Madness.

This brat had definitely been driven insane by Shen Wanshan.

Shen Wanshan stared fixedly at Ye Xingchen.

The young man's gaze was vicious and resolute, like a wolf cub driven into a corner, ready to pounce and tear out his throat at any moment.

Truth and falsehood were impossible to tell apart.

Shen Wanshan hesitated.

Spending over forty million on a worthless stone just to disgust the Left Clan was not worth it.

Besides, Ye Xingchen's final words about using it as a chamber pot—if the stone truly collapsed, the Shen Clan would become Azure Cloud City's laughingstock for a hundred years.

After weighing the pros and cons,

Shen Wanshan suppressed the fury in his heart and forced a generous-looking fake smile onto his face.

"Hahaha!"

"Zuo Tianhe, Zuo Tianhe, you truly are growing more foolish with age!"

"Since this snot-nosed brat wants this stone so badly, this old man will grant you your wish!"

He took a step back, his face full of mockery. "Spending forty million on a leaking chunk of rock! Congratulations, congratulations. This old man will not steal what another loves!"

With that, he flicked his sleeve and turned away.

Yet at the instant he turned, the corner of his eye twitched, and an inexplicable wave of intense unease rose in his heart.

The feeling was like a thorn stabbing into him, making his heart pound with panic.

"Sold!"

The Myriad Treasures Pavilion attendant reacted swiftly, afraid that this fool with too much money would regret it, and brought the wooden gavel down hard.

One hammerstroke settled the matter.

In a private room on the second floor,

Nangong Yan curled a strand of black hair around her fingertip, ripples glimmering in her beautiful eyes.

"This little fellow..."

Mocking voices surged through the hall like a tide.

Countless gazes fell upon the Zuo father and daughter and Ye Xingchen, filled with pity, ridicule, and malicious delight.

"Forty million... Has the Left Clan gone stupid? Spending forty million on a leaking stone."

"Just wait for the joke. If this stone can cut out anything, I'll swallow the stone-cutting blade whole!"

Zuo Xiaoqing looked at the young man before her.

His back was ramrod straight, like a spear thrusting through the heavens. The surrounding clamor seemed to belong to an entirely different world from his.

The massive black stone was carried onto the stone-cutting platform by several burly men.

Zuo Tianhe stood below the platform, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

Forty million Spirit Stones.

If it was... nothing but a worthless rock, not only would the Left Clan's ancestor have no hope of obtaining medicine, the Left Clan would become a laughingstock as well.

"Cut it."

Zuo Tianhe's voice was hoarse.

The experienced stone-cutting master carried a specially made Black-Gold Stone-Cutting Blade over to the black stone. He circled it twice, his brows knotting into the shape of a river.

The structure inside this kind of "leaking stone" was extremely unstable. The slightest mistake could cause it to explode.

"Clan Head Zuo, I'm making the cut."

The master took a deep breath, gathered all his spiritual power, followed the stone's surface veins, aimed at the one-third mark, and brought the blade down with all his strength!

"Crack!"

Stone chips flew everywhere.

A huge piece of black stone skin, along with its inner flesh, rolled onto the ground.

Everyone's eyes instantly focused on the cut surface.

Ashen white.

A lifeless expanse of ashen white.

There was no luster, no spiritual energy fluctuation, not even the faintest sign of jade-like crystallization. It was nothing more than ordinary granite, the kind found everywhere by the roadside.

"It collapsed!"

No one knew who shouted first from within the crowd.

Then earthshaking laughter erupted.

"It completely collapsed! It's all dead white inside!"

"Hahaha, forty million for a pile of rotten rocks! The Left Clan has really lost money all the way to their grandmother's house this time!"

"I told you, how could a leaking stone possibly contain treasure? This Ye Xingchen is a swindler!"

Shen Wanshan stood at the very front, laughing so hard he rocked back and forth, tears nearly spilling from his eyes.

Pointing at Zuo Tianhe's ashen face, he loudly mocked, "Brother Zuo, is this the life-saving medicine you wanted? I think it's a death talisman! Hahaha! Want this old man to lend you some Spirit Stones to haul this pile of broken rocks home and build a pigsty?"

Master Gu He shook his head and sighed, unable to bear watching any longer.

Sky-Eye Daoist merely snorted coldly. "Idiot."

Zuo Tianhe's body swayed, and darkness swam before his eyes.

Was heaven determined to destroy my Left Clan?

Zuo Xiaoqing hurriedly supported her father, her eyes reddening.

Just as Zuo Tianhe fell into utter despair, a cold snort rang out abruptly.

"A bunch of blind fools!"

Ye Xingchen shoved aside the stone-cutting master blocking his path and stepped onto the platform.

He snatched the heavy stone-cutting blade and casually tossed it aside.

"Clang!"

The blade striking the ground was sharp and piercing.

Under everyone's stunned gazes, Ye Xingchen did not make another cut. He stood before the remnant stone that had already been sliced once, his eyes falling on the "leaking hole" that had always been considered its greatest flaw.

"You think this is leaking?"

A mocking curve lifted at Ye Xingchen's lips.

He slowly raised his right hand. Chaos Spiritual Power gathered wildly in his palm, forming a gray, murky vortex.

"Open for me!"

With a furious shout,

Ye Xingchen slammed his palm down at the hole that was hissing and spewing smoke!

"Bang!"

Rather than shattering the stone, the palm strike seemed to hit an invisible barrier.

"Crack!"

A crisp shattering sound rang out.

Yet it did not come from the stone itself. It sounded more like some hard shell had been broken.

The next moment, a horrifying scene unfolded.

The hole that had been spewing white smoke suddenly stopped erupting. Immediately afterward, a terrifying suction force burst forth from its depths!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

A violent gale rose!

The dense spiritual energy within the Myriad Treasures Pavilion seemed to answer some summons, pouring madly backward into that hole!

Not only inside the pavilion—even the starlight filling the sky above the Myriad Treasures Pavilion was drawn in, transforming into visible beams of light that pierced through the defensive array and converged there!

The hole seemed to have become a miniature black hole, greedily devouring all energy!

"Th-this... what is happening?!"

"Spiritual energy flowing backward?! How is that possible?!"

As vast amounts of spiritual energy poured in, the originally rough, gray-black stone skin began to tremble violently.

Crack, crack, crack...

Like a snake shedding its skin, layer upon layer of thick, ugly stone shell split inch by inch and peeled away, revealing the crystalline texture within.

"Boom!"

A blinding pillar of pure white light, containing indescribable vitality and majesty, burst through the stone and shot straight into the heavens!

The defensive array atop the Myriad Treasures Pavilion was like paper before that pillar of light, instantly pierced through!

An indescribable exotic fragrance filled the entire hall in an instant.

Merely inhaling a trace of that scent made the spiritual power within every cultivator present boil, and bottlenecks that had not budged for years actually showed signs of loosening!

"Roar—"

Faintly, a soaring dragon's roar exploded within everyone's souls.

Within the pillar of light, a miniature white dragon shadow swam joyfully, roaring soundlessly with the imperial aura of one who looked down upon all beneath heaven!

When the light gradually receded, everyone finally saw the true form of the stone's core.

It was a fist-sized mass of liquid.

Crystal clear, like the purest amber in the world, it floated quietly in midair.