The Crooked Merchant Flender

"Fine, we're leaving!"

With the shopkeeper throwing them out, Lu Xuan saw no reason to waste another word. He took a girl by each hand, intending to stroll somewhere else.

"Wait!"

Just as the three were about to leave, Flender's expression changed, and he called them back.

Their fine clothes caught his eye at once, as did the faint but considerable Soul Power emanating from them.

He couldn't judge their Soul Power Levels precisely, but he was certain all three children were at least Soul Grandmasters.

To run into such young geniuses—he had to reel them in... No, he had to invite them to join Shrek Academy!

Flender's thoughts raced, and he promptly set about recruiting them.

"Young friends, since you're already here, why not come in and have a look?" Flender said with a warm smile. "I've got plenty of good things in my shop. Pick whatever you like, and I'll give you twenty percent off today."

Flender had long since mastered the trick of raising prices before offering a discount.

Still, these three children were rare talents. He wouldn't mind taking a small loss and selling them something cheaply if it helped him recruit them for Shrek Academy.

Lu Xuan saw straight through Flender's little scheme. He had no interest whatsoever in Shrek Academy.

But since they were here, there was no harm in looking around. He might as well see what the famous four-eyed crook kept in his shop.

"Then we'll take a look." Smiling slightly, Lu Xuan led the two girls into the so-called "rip-off shop," holding Dugu Yan's hand in one of his and Ye Lingling's in the other.

There was no counter like those in ordinary shops. The three walls stood bare, with all manner of objects hanging directly from them.

At a glance, most looked like dusty old antiques, shabby and unremarkable.

But on closer inspection, a few gave off faint traces of Soul Power. They were no ordinary objects, but tools meant for soul masters.

Lu Xuan knew that many were Soul Tools Flender had happened to collect during his travels in earlier years.

Unfortunately, he could identify neither the origins nor the uses of most of the objects on the walls.

Over the past two years, his master had taught him mainly to identify medicinal herbs and understand medicine and pharmacology. The rest of his lessons covered Soul Beast identification and the cultivation insights his master had accumulated over the years.

Lu Xuan knew far less about identifying Soul Tools, ancient history, and antiques. His master had rarely covered such subjects.

But when hunting for bargains, there was no need to recognize everything. If something caught his eye, he could simply buy it.

If it concealed a valuable secret, then finding it would be a stroke of fortune. If it turned out to be ordinary, he had merely made a bad call. That was hardly a disaster.

The Dugu and Ye families were wealthy. Between them, the three carried more than ten thousand Gold Soul Coins, so money was no concern.

They wandered slowly around the shop, planning to look over everything before deciding whether anything was worth buying.

Before long, Lu Xuan's gaze fell on a crystal the size of a human head.

Large swathes of dark yellow, threadlike impurities ran through it. At first glance, the crystal looked coarse and unattractive.

Most people would have dismissed it as a low-quality crystal, but Lu Xuan recognized it at once: Plate Crystal, the finest kind of Hair Crystal!

He remembered that this piece of Plate Crystal eventually ended up in Tang San's hands, where Tang San used it to craft hidden weapons.

Lu Xuan had no quarrel with Tang San, but that wouldn't stop him from snapping up a treasure cheaply if he could.

He had no use for the Plate Crystal himself just yet, but he could sell it to the Divine Craftsman, Lou Gao.

Lou Gao's forging skills were unmatched across the continent. The Eight Treasure Ruyi Armor he had made with his own hands could withstand an all-out strike from an assault-type Soul Emperor. It was a rare treasure that could save its wearer's life.

Their elders were powerful enough to have no need for such armor. But the three of them were still growing, and this was exactly the protection they needed!

Lu Xuan made no move to buy the Plate Crystal yet. He continued scanning the other items until a storage Soul Tool caught his eye.

"You have a good eye, young man!" Flender immediately smiled and launched into his pitch. "This storage Soul Tool has a full three cubic meters of space. Its original price is ten thousand Gold Soul Coins, but you can take it for eight thousand."

"Eight thousand?" Lu Xuan scoffed. "A storage Soul Tool this small would only fetch five thousand at an auction house. And yours is old and damaged. Use it a few more times without care, and it might break."

"If a storage Soul Tool breaks, everything inside it might fall straight into the void."

Lu Xuan made a show of disapproval, then turned to examine the other items.

"Storage Soul Tools can break?" Flender froze for a moment. He genuinely hadn't known that.

He didn't even know how to tell when one was close to breaking. Did that mean disaster could strike at any time?

While Flender wrestled with that troubling possibility, Lu Xuan's gaze had already moved on to the rest of the collection.

He couldn't identify the origins of most of the antiques on the walls, but his Soul Power senses told him that nine out of ten were worthless junk.

Of the rest, some were mysteries of uncertain authenticity and value. Others had their uses, but were hardly rare treasures.

Flender had earned his reputation as a crooked merchant, and he knew valuable goods when he saw them.

He had already put the truly priceless treasures away elsewhere. He would never leave them hanging on the shop walls for anyone to inspect.

"Lu Xuan, look at this!" Dugu Yan pointed to a hairpin and turned to him. "Do you think it's pretty?"

"It is." Lu Xuan looked where she pointed and saw that the hairpin had been fashioned from snake bone.

After a moment's thought, he said, "If it costs less than three Gold Soul Coins, it might be worth buying."

Flender, standing nearby, couldn't help curling his lip.

Three Gold Soul Coins for something of mine? This brat really doesn't take Flender the crooked merchant seriously!

Dugu Yan seemed to have grasped the art of bargaining. She nodded and turned to the shopkeeper. "Boss, would you sell this hairpin for one Gold Soul Coin?"

Flender gave Dugu Yan a flat glance and didn't bother replying.

His minimum price for that snake-bone hairpin was ten Gold Soul Coins. The girl had opened with one—she'd slashed the price down to the bone!

Seeing that Flender wouldn't budge, Dugu Yan didn't keep haggling.

She had only come out to relax with Lu Xuan and Ye Lingling. Browsing for bargains was incidental; she didn't have to buy the snake-bone hairpin.

She liked it, but she wouldn't cling to something she couldn't have. She put the hairpin back and turned to the other objects on the wall.