The Golden Dragon Pavilion wasn't just a building; it was a monument to absolute, unadulterated greed.
Located in the very center of the city, the Pavilion was a massive, nine-story pagoda forged entirely from pure spiritual gold and white jade. It didn't even sit on the ground. It floated exactly three feet in the air, held up by an array that burned through thousands of spirit stones an hour just to show off how insanely wealthy the merchant guild was.
Today was the opening of the Decennial Grand Auction, and the atmosphere was electric.
Thousands of cultivators crowded the jade plaza beneath the floating pagoda. Only the absolute elite—sect leaders, ancient clan elders, and imperial royals—were allowed past the heavily guarded golden doors.
Yan Shuo stood at the edge of the plaza, casually snapping his paper fan open. He wore his usual spotless white robes, with the heavy, unadorned black iron sword strapped to his waist.
Beside him, Tantai Zhi was clinging to his arm. To save them from having to slaughter a new arrogant young master every five minutes, Yan Shuo had gently requested that she wear a veil. She happily agreed, tying a piece of translucent white silk across the lower half of her face.
It helped, but it didn't completely solve the problem. The veil only drew more attention to her mesmerizing, glowing golden eyes and her breathtaking, mature figure wrapped in the sunset-peach dress.
"Husband," Tantai Zhi whispered, narrowing her eyes at the massive golden pagoda. "This building is very loud. It hurts my eyes. Do you want me to knock it out of the sky before we go in?"
"No, Wife, leave the floating building alone," Yan Shuo chuckled, patting her hand. "We are here to be polite, upstanding customers."
He led her through the parting crowd, walking directly toward the main entrance.
Four towering guards wearing heavy gold armor blocked the massive double doors. They exuded the heavy, suffocating pressure of peak Core Formation experts. The Golden Dragon Pavilion didn't play around with security.
One of the guards crossed his halberd in front of Yan Shuo, looking down his nose at the boy's Early Foundation Establishment aura and cheap-looking black sword.
"Halt," the guard boomed, his voice echoing across the plaza. "The Grand Auction is about to begin. General admission is closed. Only those with VIP invitations may enter."
Yan Shuo didn't argue. Arguing with guards was beneath a Demon Lord.
He reached into his sleeve and casually pulled out a glowing, diamond-cut jade token. The character for Supreme Guest was carved into the center, radiating a brilliant, piercing light.
The guard's eyes widened so far they nearly popped out of his helmet.
A Diamond VIP token? There were only five of those handed out on the entire continent! They were reserved for people who had the financial backing of entire empires!
Before the guard could even bow and apologize, the heavy golden doors flew open.
A short, incredibly fat man wearing a silk suit covered in embroidered gold coins squeezed through the doors, sweating profusely. This was Manager Qian, the head overseer of the Golden Dragon Pavilion.
Manager Qian had been watching the entrance through a scrying mirror. He had been explicitly ordered by the Righteous Alliance to wait for this exact boy.
"Lord Yan! Lord Yan!" Manager Qian called out, waddling forward and bowing so low his chins scraped his chest. "Please forgive my blind guards! They are foolish mortals who cannot recognize Mount Tai! Welcome to the Golden Dragon Pavilion!"
The surrounding crowd gasped, whispering furiously.
Lord Yan? The soft-rice king of the Azure Sword Sect actually came?!
Manager Qian kept his head bowed, smiling a greasy, calculating smile at the floor. He knew exactly who Yan Shuo was. The boy who ruined the Asura's Vault. The cripple who married the Saintess.
The Alliance elders had given Manager Qian a very simple mission: This boy thinks he is rich because his wife destroyed our ruin. Put him in the highest VIP box. Flatter his ego. Goad him into bidding wars against our planted actors. Drain every single spirit stone out of the Azure Sword Sect's treasury until they are completely bankrupt.
"Please, right this way, Lord Yan, Saintess," Manager Qian gestured grandly toward the doors. "I have prepared the Heavenly Emperor Skybox just for you."
Yan Shuo looked at the sweating, overly polite manager. His veteran, pragmatic eyes instantly saw through the greasy smile, the excessive bowing, and the blatant flattery.
Ah, Yan Shuo thought, a genuine smile of amusement touching his lips. The classic fatten the sheep before the slaughter tactic. They want to stroke my ego so I throw money at useless trash.
It was a good plan. If he were a sheltered, arrogant fifteen-year-old, it would work perfectly.
Unfortunately for Manager Qian, he was trying to scam the man who invented the scam.
"Lead the way, Manager Qian," Yan Shuo said smoothly, stepping into the opulent pavilion with his wife on his arm. "I brought a very heavy purse of spirit stones today. I hope your auction has items worthy of my wife's attention."
Manager Qian's eyes flashed with pure greed. "Of course, Lord Yan! We have supreme treasures that will make the heavens weep!"
They were led past the massive, crowded general seating area on the first floor and escorted directly into a private, teleportation array that instantly transferred them to the ninth floor.
The Heavenly Emperor Skybox was absurdly luxurious.
The walls were lined with soundproof pearl-silk. The floor was covered in a rug made from the pelt of a mythical beast. A massive crystal window overlooked the auction stage far below, giving them a perfect, uninterrupted view of the entire event. On a jade table in the center of the room sat plates of thousand-year spirit fruits and a pot of boiling heavenly tea.
Tantai Zhi immediately walked over to the largest, softest silk couch, patted the spot next to her, and looked at Yan Shuo expectantly.
Yan Shuo sat down, and she instantly shifted her weight, resting her head comfortably against his shoulder and picking up a peeled spirit grape to feed him.
Manager Qian watched the display of absolute, shameless soft-rice eating and nearly sneered out loud. What a pathetic boy, Qian thought. Hiding behind a woman's skirt and spending her money. Today, I will bleed him dry.
"Lord Yan," Manager Qian said aloud, his voice dripping with fake reverence as he handed over a glowing jade tablet. "This is the advanced catalog for today's auction. I took the liberty of highlighting the most expensive, supreme-tier items. A man of your... immense status... surely wouldn't settle for anything less than the grand finale items."
"You are very thoughtful, Manager Qian," Yan Shuo replied, taking the jade tablet while casually chewing the grape his wife just fed him.
"I will leave you to peruse the list. The auction begins in ten minutes," Qian bowed deeply one last time and backed out of the room, closing the heavy soundproof door behind him.
The moment the door clicked shut, Tantai Zhi stopped peeling grapes.
Her golden eyes narrowed, and a terrifying, cold light flashed across her face.
"Husband," she whispered, her voice completely devoid of the sweet, doting tone from a second ago. "That fat pig was laughing at you in his head. His heart rate spiked with greed when he handed you that tablet. I can smell the deceit on him."
She slowly sat up, her fingers twitching toward the hilt of her sword. "Should I go tear his spine out? I can make it look like an accident. I will say he tripped on his own fat."
Yan Shuo laughed, pulling her back down by the waist so she was resting against his side again.
"No spine tearing, Wife. You promised," Yan Shuo reminded her gently.
It never ceased to amaze him how sharp she was. Beneath her obsessive, clingy exterior, she was still the peak mortal realm expert who had survived a hundred years of brutal cultivation warfare. You couldn't hide killing intent or malicious plots from her.
"Let him think he's the fisherman," Yan Shuo smiled, tapping the jade tablet. "It makes it much funnier when he realizes he's the bait."
Yan Shuo channeled a tiny thread of his golden Qi into the tablet.
A holographic projection of the auction items sprang into the air in front of them. Manager Qian had indeed highlighted the most expensive items in glowing gold text: A complete set of Heaven-Grade armor, a pill that guaranteed a 10% chance to break into the Nascent Soul realm, and a captive, pure-blooded Phoenix chick.
All of them were starting at millions of high-grade spirit stones.
"Trash," Yan Shuo murmured lazily, swiping his finger through the hologram, dismissing the golden items instantly.
"Trash? But Husband, that armor is forged from deep-sea iron," Tantai Zhi noted, looking at the projection. "It's not bad for mortals."
"The joints are terribly designed," Yan Shuo critiqued with the eye of a veteran warlord. "If you take a spear strike to the left armpit, the entire chest plate shatters. And that Nascent Soul pill? It's full of fire impurities. Whoever eats it will burn their own meridians within five years."
He kept swiping past the weapons, the arrays, and the exotic beasts.
Finally, he scrolled all the way down to the very bottom of the catalog. The Miscellaneous/Unidentified section. These were items the Golden Dragon Pavilion's appraisers couldn't figure out, so they tossed them in at the beginning of the auction for cheap starting bids just to get rid of them.
Yan Shuo's finger stopped.
His eyes locked onto a blurry projection of a chunk of rusted, completely black metal. It looked like a piece of burnt firewood. It had no spiritual aura, no glowing runes, and looked entirely useless.
The catalog description read: Unidentified heavy black iron. Cannot be melted by standard sect furnaces. Starting bid: 100 low-grade spirit stones.
Yan Shuo's heart skipped a beat.
A slow, terrifyingly dark smile spread across his face. It was the smile of a Demon Lord who had just found the keys to the kingdom.
"Husband?" Tantai Zhi asked, noticing the sudden shift in his breathing. She looked at the projection of the ugly black rock. "Do you want that piece of trash? I can use my Sword Qi to carve it into a table weight for you."
"Wife," Yan Shuo said, his voice dropping into a low, entirely serious whisper. "Do you know what that is?"
Tantai Zhi shook her head, confused. "It looks like a piece of rusted iron from a mortal blacksmith's garbage bin."
"Exactly. That's what the entire Righteous Alliance thinks it is," Yan Shuo chuckled, leaning back into the soft silk couch. "But I have seen it before. A century ago."
It wasn't iron. It was a chunk of Abyssal Star-Core.
It was the heaviest, most violently dense material in the entire mortal realm. It absorbed light, swallowed spiritual energy, and completely suppressed all five elements. To an ordinary cultivator, it was just a heavy, useless rock because they couldn't melt it.
But to someone who practiced the supreme demonic body-tempering arts? To someone who needed to forge a perfect, indestructible Core Formation foundation?
It was the most priceless, heaven-defying treasure in the entire city. And the Golden Dragon Pavilion had just placed it in the bargain bin for 100 low-grade stones.
"They want me to bid on their shiny, useless toys to drain my wealth," Yan Shuo laughed softly, his eyes gleaming with calculating brilliance. "Alright. I'll play their game. I will bid on every single piece of trash they put on that stage. I will make them think they are bleeding me dry."
He reached out and gently grabbed his wife's hand.
"Wife, today, you are going to see exactly how much fun it is to spend money."
Below them, a massive golden gong echoed through the pavilion. The crystal chandelier dimmed, and a beautiful, scantily clad auctioneer stepped onto the main stage.
The Grand Auction had officially begun.