"Pfft!!!" Li Xiaoya rolled his eyes at her words and shot her a glare, struck speechless. He no longer had any desire to entertain the little girl. A little beansprout like you couldn't possibly compare to my senior sister Zhang Hong! The thought of his beloved senior sister sent a rush of warmth through his heart.
"You're no fun!" Lingyu complained when Li Xiaoya stopped talking. She plopped down beside him and watched the old man count the goods.
It took the old man a full hour to finish counting everything.
"Hehe! Fellow Daoist, I've finished the count!" the old man hurriedly told Li Xiaoya.
"Hmph! You certainly took your time!" Li Xiaoya opened his eyes and snorted. "Well? How many spirit stones altogether?"
"Er..." A flicker of displeasure crossed the old man's face, but he remained polite. "Hehe, I'm terribly sorry for the wait, fellow Daoist. The total comes to seven hundred and seventy thousand spirit stones!"
"Seven hundred and seventy thousand? That little?" Li Xiaoya froze, then stood up in astonishment. Back at the Heavenly Dao Sect, selling this many things would have fetched at least two hundred-odd spirit stones. Was this fellow trying to pull the wool over his eyes?
"Fellow Daoist! I'm afraid the origins of some of these things aren't exactly clear, are they?" The old man's expression changed and darkened as he spoke pointedly. Seeing Li Xiaoya on the verge of anger, he hurried on. "You should know that our Secret Market buys things without asking where they came from. That's why so many cultivators patronize us. We aren't trying to cheat you, either. Our offer is already thirty or forty percent higher than the prices in the outside Market District. If you took these things there, I'm afraid you'd get even less!"
"Is