Chapter 81:
This Venerable One’s Bugui!
MEANWHILE, in Rufeng Sect’s private room on the third floor, Ye Wangxi stood tall and elegant by the intricately carved ornamental wooden railing, eyebrows drawn tightly together and lips pressed into a thin line.
“Ye-gongzi, Elder Xu sent us here for that holy weapon. If you bid on the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast as well, I’m afraid we won’t have enough left…”
“It’s fine. I’ll use my own funds.”
The attendants realized that Ye Wangxi had already made up his mind, so they exchanged a couple of furtive glances but said nothing else.
“The starting bid is ten million gold,” the Second Pavilion Master of Xuanyuan Pavilion announced in her precise tones. “Ladies and gentlemen, bidding is now open.”
“Eleven million.”
“Twelve million.”
The commotion rose alongside the soaring price.
“Nineteen million!”
“I bid twenty-five million!”
When the bid shot up by six million in one go, quite a number of cultivators sighed and sat down, shaking their heads. At this time, several silver tabs floated down from the second-floor booths to the pavilion master. She collected them from the air and nimbly fanned them out in her hand, a price written on each one.
“The current highest bid…” She scanned the tabs, then announced clearly, “From the Xuan booth: thirty-five million.”
“Thirty-five million?!”
The crowd sucked in a cold breath and collectively turned to look at the Xuan booth on the second floor. Lights glowed hazily from behind the gentle drifting of the silver curtains, but there was no way to see what kind of person was sitting inside.
“You could buy a whole palace on Rainbell Isle with that money.”
“Whose bid was it? A little excessive, don’t you think…”
“If they can throw around that kind of money, they’ve gotta be from one of the ten great sects. I wonder which one?”
Chu Wanning’s eyes were closed. When he heard the price,
he asked Mo Ran, “Did you bring enough money?”
“Absolutely not!” Meeting Song Qiutong was the last thing
Mo Ran had expected to happen here, and he only snapped out of his shock when he heard Chu Wanning say this. “What does Shizun mean to do?” he asked, alarmed.
“Buy her.”
Mo Ran’s eyes widened as he waved his hands frantically. “No way! Don’t do it, that woman will just be a burden. Where would we even put her? We’d have to rent an extra horse when we traveled and book another room at night. Nope, don’t do it.”
“Who said anything about bringing her along? I’ll let her go after.” Chu Wanning opened his eyes and held out his hand with a straight face. “Give it here.”
Mo Ran clutched his money pouch. “I-I don’t have any!”
“I’ll repay you when we get back.”
“This money is for the holy weapon!”
“Don’t you already have Jiangui? What do you need another for? Hand it over!”
Mo Ran had no words. He felt a headache coming on. This Song Qiutong… When he’d met her in his past life, she had been a disciple of Rufeng Sect, and he had been razing Rufeng Sect’s cities to the ground. His heart had clenched at the sight of her—she looked a little like Shi Mei—so he’d spared her life. As time went on, she had proved herself to be clever and docile, and her temperament had been rather similar to Shi Mei’s as well, so he had eventually made her his empress.
That had become one of Mo Ran’s greatest regrets.
Chu Wanning and that kind heart of his, concealed by his cold exterior, actually wanted to buy her. How could Mo Ran possibly allow that to happen? Forget forty million gold, he wouldn’t take this woman for four coppers. As a matter of fact, even if they paid him forty million, he still wouldn’t take her!
They were stuck in a stalemate when a tab floated down from the third floor. It was gold. A buyout tab!
The golden tab represented the highest possible bid at Xuanyuan Pavilion. No price was written upon it, for the tab itself denoted fifty million gold. Once this kind of bid was put down, no one had the means to keep competing. Hence, “buyout” tab.
For a second, the crowd was dead silent—before it exploded in an uproar.
“Rufeng Sect!”
“Rufeng Sect pulled out the buyout tab!”
Chu Wanning turned away from Mo Ran and his death grip on his money pouch to look outside. They were at just the right angle to see the first room on the third floor. Ye Wangxi didn’t care for things like hiding his face. He had pulled aside the snow moon silk curtains meant for secrecy ages ago and was standing by the carved railing with his hands clasped lightly behind his back. His expression was solemn, and his handsome face betrayed nothing. He glanced down at the ruckus below, seemed somewhat aggravated, and turned to walk back into the private room.
Mo Ran let out a breath. “Shizun can rest easy,” he said. “I lived with this Ye-gongzi back at Peach Blossom Springs, so I’m fairly well acquainted with him. He’s a good person. He won’t do anything cruel to that Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast.”
Meanwhile, inside Rufeng Sect’s room on the third floor, Ye Wangxi sat down at a table covered with satin cloth that was intricately embroidered in gold and silver. There he poured himself a cup of fragrant tea. When he finished it, knocks sounded from outside the booth.
Ye Wangxi’s voice was gentle and polite as he said, “Come in.”
“Ye-xianjun, I’ve brought the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast for your inspection.”
“Thank you. You can go.”
Xuanyuan Pavilion’s maid left, and for a while there was nothing in the room but silence. The Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast knelt on the floor, hands and feet bound by spells, panic in her eyes as her whole body trembled. Her peach-blossom eyes were red at the edges from crying, and she looked truly pitiful.
Ye Wangxi glanced at her, not a shred of impropriety in that clear, principled gaze of his, and lifted a hand to dissipate the spells. “It’s cold on the floor. You must be scared; have a seat and some warm tea.”
The Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast did not answer, still trembling, her beautiful eyes wide and translucent like glass. She stayed where she was, cowering on the floor—too scared to talk, much less move.
Ye Wangxi sighed and gestured for the attendants to bring her a cloak. “Please don’t worry, miss. I didn’t buy you for cultivation purposes. Put on the cloak, then we can talk.”
“You…you…”
When Ye Wangxi saw that she still wasn’t moving and was only staring pitifully up at him, he shook his head with an exasperated smile. He got down on one knee to be on eye level with her. “My name is Ye Wangxi. May I ask for yours?”
“This one’s name is…Song.” She gave Ye Wangxi a hesitant look through teary eyes. “Song Qiutong… Thank you, Ye-gongzi.”
Downstairs, Mo Ran was deep in thought.
In his past life, Song Qiutong had been a disciple of Rufeng Sect by the time he’d met her. Ye Wangxi must have saved her from the auction house in that life too. While Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts generally weren’t treated like ordinary people, it was a different matter if they were a disciple of a major cultivation sect.
Mo Ran sighed internally. He didn’t know Ye Wangxi that well, only that he was an upright, principled person, and had been second only to Chu Wanning in terms of strength in their past life.
Mo Ran had once crossed swords with him when he’d slaughtered the people of the Rufeng Sect’s seventy-two cities. That fierce, imposing swordsmanship and dignified posture had left a deep impression on him.
Seventy-two cities of Rufeng Sect spread across the land, and Mo Ran had taken them all without the slightest bit of effort. And the lords of those cities, with their run-on titles and widespread tales of might and glory, each and every one of them had been as dirt under his heel.
All save for this Ye Wangxi, and only Ye Wangxi. The seven cities under his command gave Mo Ran endless trouble. Even in the end, when the cities had fallen and Ye Wangxi knelt bloodied in a field of corpses, his eyes were still clear and unrelenting.
By then, the Nangong leaders of Rufeng Sect had since fled, and multitudes of others were groveling for their lives at Mo Ran’s feet. However, Ye Wangxi only knelt there with his eyes closed and brows drawn tightly together, his expression frosty.
Before killing him, Mo Ran asked, genuinely, “Will you surrender?”
“I will not.”
Mo Ran smiled from where he sat on the gilded seat adorned with a dragon and phoenix, which was meant for the master of Rufeng Sect. Beneath dark lashes, his eyes swept across the throngs of people before him. Ordinary disciples aside, there were six or seven city lords and more than a dozen generals, all of them prostrating on the dusty ground and quivering.
A crow circled in the ashen grey sky above banners the color of blood, cawing.
Mo Ran lifted a nonchalant hand. “Kill them all.”
Before death, Ye Wangxi said, “All the gleaming cities of Rufeng, and not one real man to be found.”
Blood splattered through the air.
Mo Ran held in his arms his newest acquisition, the beautiful Song Qiutong, her loveliness unparalleled, her delicate body shivering nonstop at the hellish scene before her.
“Don’t be afraid. There’s a good girl. You’ll be staying with this venerable one from now on.” Mo Ran stroked her hair, smiling. “Come, tell me your name again? What did you do at Rufeng Sect? I forgot what you said earlier.”
“This one’s name is…Song Qiutong.” Her voice was frightened. “I was…I was Ye Wangxi’s…maid…”
Ye Wangxi’s maid. That was what she had told Mo Ran.
As for how Song Qiutong, a Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast, had been allowed to join Rufeng Sect, and how she had become Ye Wangxi’s maid, Mo Ran had no idea. It was only on this day, after his rebirth and at the Xuanyuan Pavilion, that he finally realized that Ye Wangxi was the one who had paid an exorbitant sum to save her from the clutches of danger.
Hardly anyone knew that a large part of the reason for Ye Wangxi’s final defeat at Mo Ran’s hands had been thanks to information divulged by Song Qiutong.