Chapter 307

The Ju clan auction continues, and a thousand year old wind willow, rare enough that even the Ju clan itself holds few of its kind, sells to a refinement master for almost a hundred thousand primeval stones after Fang Yuan’s own bids are matched and blocked every time by Shang Ya Zi. Fang Yuan notices that Shang Ya Zi interferes only when Fang Yuan himself bids and stays silent otherwise, and concludes that opposing him is Shang Ya Zi’s sole purpose at the auction that day. ^{ch. 307}

A rank four movement Gu called chasing wind sets off the auction’s first real climax, its price climbing from a hundred and eighty thousand primeval stones until only two bidders remain. Fang Yuan tries once, but Shang Ya Zi matches him at once, and Fang Yuan stops. Yi clan elder Yi Bu Hui and Fei clan elder Fei Luan Feng, whose clans do not get along, fight the price up to four hundred and forty thousand before Yi Bu Hui wins it. Fang Yuan, holding over two million primeval stones, never seriously competes. The Gu carries wind’s own Dao mark, and using it would set his beast phantoms against the Gu itself and weaken its effect. He privately holds two of the four rank six movement Gu recipes from his previous life, carefree travel and fixed immortal travel, though fixed immortal travel refines too rarely and needs materials he does not have, so he sets it aside for now. ^{ch. 307}

A bitter strength Gu comes up as the thirteenth item, and Fang Yuan calls out two hundred thousand primeval stones before the auctioneer can even state a base price. Ju Kai Bei and Shang Bi Xi raise it further, but Fang Yuan jumps straight to five hundred thousand, a hundred and twenty thousand above the Gu’s roughly three hundred and eighty thousand market value. The room goes wild. Ju Kai Bei withdraws, satisfied that half a million buys him other useful Gu elsewhere. Shang Bi Xi’s brothers pledge to back him if he wants to keep bidding, but he judges five hundred thousand too steep a loss and withdraws on his own. ^{ch. 307}

As the price climbs, the crowd trades theories about why Fang Yuan and Shang Ya Zi are at odds. One theory holds that both once pursued the same woman at Qin Yan brothel, Lady An Yu, and that Fang Yuan won her. Lady An Yu neither confirms nor denies it, only blushing and lowering her head, and the narration notes she privately welcomes the sudden fame it brings her. ^{ch. 307}

The bidding between Fang Yuan and Shang Ya Zi climbs past seven hundred thousand and reaches eight hundred and ten thousand primeval stones, with Shang Ya Zi adding ten thousand at a time just to provoke him. A servant urges Shang Ya Zi to stop. Then Fang Yuan abruptly announces he will let Shang Ya Zi have the bitter strength Gu after all, and both the servant and Shang Ya Zi are left speechless. ^{ch. 307}