Despite the slight trembling of his body, the old man still forced himself to act tough as he puffed up his chest and gave a reply to the young woman.
"Hey! I got these things from a barter I did with another fellow Daoist! Shouldn't I at least make a little bit of profit from my investment?"
Qiao Fenyi's eyes flashed, and a smirk started to form on her lips before she quickly suppressed it and pointed at all three of the items he had on his stall.
"2000 spirit stones for everything here, and this is just because I pity you for getting scammed by that fellow Daoist you talked about!"
The old man shivered, his expression changing for a few seconds as if a piece of bone were stuck in his throat, and yet he still forced himself to speak.
"No! I spent 3000 spirit stones on all of these things combined! If I sell them to you at that price, I'm not even going to be able to break even!"
Qiao Fenyi's eyes flashed with light as she was about to haggle with the old man some more to try and reduce his prices; however, before she could speak, she heard a voice right beside her.
"4000 spirit stones for all three of those things. Will that be okay, old man?"
Qiao Fenyi suddenly trembled as she quickly turned her head towards him, her expression a mix of confusion and anger as she spoke.
"What are you doing? That's still too expensive! These things aren't worth that much money!"
Despite this, Huang Shi ignored her and continued to stare at the old man in silence, waiting for him to speak.
Seeing that Huang Shi was ignoring her, Qiao Fenyi suddenly gave a harrumph as she crossed both of her hands together and turned silent; clearly, she was pissed that he had ignored her advice.
My system tells me that emerald gemstone is worth at least 15,000 spirit stones. Buying it at 10,000 already meant that I was making a profit from my purchase.
Buying it for around 4000 spirit stones means that I can make a profit of around 11,000 spirit stones if I choose to turn it into a spatial ring and sell it—although I don't plan to…
The old man, on the other hand, was clearly overjoyed as he quickly realized that this young man was much more amiable compared to the little lady who had previously spoken. Before he thought the man would change his mind, he quickly nodded his head and spoke up quickly in reply.
"All right, I'm fine with 4000 spirit stones. I can give it all to you right now!"
WHOOSH
All of a sudden, all three of the items within his small stall were placed inside of a simple cloth bag, tied with a rope that held a bit of spiritual energy to ensure that the items inside weren't damaged before it flew towards his open palm.
Once he checked that all of the items were present and that he wasn't scammed by this old man, he waved his hand as a total of 4000 spirit stones were transferred from his spatial ring toward the old man's spatial ring.
The moment the old man received his payment, he quickly gulped before laughing with an excited expression. He swiftly packed his stall, placing it inside his spatial ring, and ran away from the both of them without even turning back.
That old man was probably at the first level of the Nascent Profound Realm…
He shook his head as he extended his hand, hoping to once again feel the soft sensation of Qiao Fenyi's skin. Yet, right before his hand could make contact with hers, she pulled it away with an awful expression. She started to walk ahead of him in silence, completely ignoring him.
Huang Shi's mouth twitched, clearly not expecting her to be this pissed off. He eventually shook his head with a wry smile and followed right behind her.
Right now, both he and Qiao Fenyi were walking through the marketplace in silence as numerous people bumped into them from all directions, hitting parts of their bodies.
For him, it was still slightly bearable; just a slight bit of spiritual energy pressure released from his body was enough for the people around them to realize he wasn't the type of person to be messed with. Thus, the frequency of collisions gradually decreased over time.
In Qiao Fenyi's case, however, it wasn't as simple. It was clear that she had only recently reached the 1st level of the Nascent Profound Realm, with her breakthrough into the 2nd level being quite a ways off without the necessary resources to support her cultivation.
Seeing that she was already struggling in the middle of the crowd, Huang Shi felt it was about time for him to intervene. He quickly took his chance and approached her, once again wrapping his hands around hers as her skin shivered with goosebumps.
The moment he was beside her, all of the random bumps she previously had trouble with disappeared, as his golden eyes gave off an intimidating light.
Despite wanting to rip her hand away from his, Qiao Fenyi knew that it wasn't a very good idea to do that right now—unless she wanted the previous situation to occur again. So, she just remained silent, waiting for him to speak.
Huang Shi looked at her grim expression and smiled as he rubbed her hand with the tip of his thumb, whispering in her ear.
"Hey, don't worry so much about money. Don't you know by now that I'm the useless wastrel who spends his money on random things? You should know that I'm pretty rich!"
Qiao Fenyi looked toward him, her eyes flashing, yet the annoyance still didn't leave her face as she simply spat out:
"Just because you can waste money doesn't mean you should! Don't you know that some people live their entire lives without earning enough money to live a decent life, let alone earn enough to support their cultivation!"