"What treasures did the two of you get?"
Upon seeing the pair, Xianhai Shuoyi stood up and asked.
"Here, Brother Shuoyi—this is what I got."
"And this is mine."
In the hands of the man and woman respectively, an object had appeared.
The woman held a bamboo slip. Its color differed from the one Young Master Liming had given Chu Feng, but the mysterious characters inscribed upon it were exactly the same.
The man held a stone. It was pitch-black throughout, yet it gleamed with a brilliant luster—not light, but sheen. The stone was no larger than an ordinary brick and unremarkable at first glance, yet it gave off an extraordinary feeling, as though it possessed life and carried a noble bloodline.
"A bamboo slip imbued with martial dao—it's only useful to Martial Ancestors, but it can still fetch a decent price. Not a bad haul."
"As for this Immortal Armament Black Iron Stone, it'll sell for quite a sum." After offering his assessment, Xianhai Shuoyi walked over to the man, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "You came out ahead this time."
"Brother Shuoyi, so what treasure did you get when you entered the Heavenly Court Holy Temple?" the woman asked curiously.
"I…" At that moment, an awkward look crept onto Xianhai Shuoyi's face.
"Xianhai Shuoyi, I just heard you say you failed." Seeing Shuoyi's hesitation, the man couldn't help but ask, "Don't tell me you really were that unlucky—ran into an expert who picked the same treasure as you at the same time inside the Heavenly Court Holy Temple, and got beaten?"
The woman dropped her earlier teasing as well, eyes widening as she fixed her gaze intently on Xianhai Shuoyi.
They were both waiting for his answer.
"Mm."
After a moment's hesitation, Xianhai Shuoyi slowly nodded.
"That's insanely unlucky. How could something like that happen to you?" The surprise in the man's and woman's eyes deepened.
However, all traces of mockery had vanished. Not only was the ridicule gone—there was even a hint of sympathy in their gaze. Clearly, their relationship was a good one. The earlier teasing had been nothing but banter; they had never truly believed Shuoyi would encounter such a situation. After all, the odds of that happening were astronomically low.
Once they confirmed that Shuoyi had indeed run into it—and lost at that—those who knew his personality naturally felt sorry for him.
"But it was a fluke. That guy is weak—cultivation-wise, he's no match for me at all."
"The problem is that inside the Heavenly Court Holy Temple, cultivation is useless. And the trial set by that so-called Guardian Spirit just happened to test something I'm not good at. That's why I lost."
"Otherwise, even ten thousand of him wouldn't stand a chance against me," Xianhai Shuoyi said.
"So what exactly did the Guardian Spirit test you on?" the woman asked curiously.
"In short, there's no easy way to explain it. It wasn't a conventional competition," Xianhai Shuoyi said. He naturally wouldn't mention that he had lost in a contest of Mental Power. Mental Power still counted as a conventional form of comparison, and if word got out that he had lost in that, he'd inevitably be mocked by others.
"What's going on today? I also heard that Princess Yu'er ran into a rival competitor after entering the Heavenly Court Holy Temple," the man said.
"Yu'er ran into a competitor too?" At these words, Xianhai Shuoyi immediately tensed up.
"That's right. Princess Yu'er said so herself," the man confirmed, nodding.
"How is Yu'er?"
Xianhai Shuoyi asked anxiously. Judging from his reaction, he clearly cared a great deal about this so-called Princess Yu'er.
"What kind of person is our Princess Yu'er? She's the greatest prodigy our Xianhai Fish Clan has produced in tens of thousands of years."
"Of course she won," the man said proudly.