Luo Yuan spoke again: "To prevent you from causing any more trouble for me, this spirit pill… you might as well eat it now!"
As he spoke, his figure flickered, and he appeared before the round-faced woman in an instant. He reached out, pinched her chin open with one hand, took out the Grand Mysteries Treasure Pill with the other, and tossed it into her mouth.
"Cough, cough, cough…" The spirit pill slid down the round-faced woman's throat. She stumbled back several steps, coughing ceaselessly and pounding her chest, seemingly trying to cough the pill back up.
But it was far too late. The moment the pill had entered her mouth, it dissolved into a stream of sweet liquid that flowed directly into her stomach.
She struggled for quite some time without success, then raised her head in despair.
Luo Yuan was nowhere to be seen.
"He's already gone," Lan Xun said, gazing at the round-faced woman with a faint sigh. "He headed toward the exit."
The round-faced woman turned to look and indeed saw a streak of light speeding toward the exit.
Luo Yuan had not even bothered to complete his trade with Yang Kai, as if to prove what he had said earlier — with his talent, even without the Grand Mysteries Treasure Pill, he was more than capable of advancing to the Emperor Sovereign Realm!
"Senior Brother Luo!" the round-faced woman cried out, gritting her teeth and stomping her foot before dashing after him.
No one troubled her further. For one thing, she was a disciple of the Eight Directions Sect, and she and Luo Yuan were fellow disciples — the miserable fate of the person who had died at Luo Yuan's hands earlier was warning enough. For another… the Grand Mysteries Treasure Pill had already been consumed. What would be the point of harassing the woman? It wasn't as if they could make her spit the pill back out.
And so, this little episode came to a close.
"Was it truly as he said — that he didn't want to be bound by accepting favors… or was he simply unwilling to seize an opportunity that belonged to someone else?" Yang Kai sat cross-legged in place, stroking his chin in contemplation…
Of everyone present, perhaps all of them had only seen Luo Yuan's ruthlessness and brutality, but Yang Kai had noticed something else.
Earlier, while he was negotiating with the round-faced woman — before the deal had been struck — Luo Yuan had shouted at him from afar, telling him to know when to stop!
At the time, Yang Kai hadn't understood why Luo Yuan had done that, but thinking about it now, it was clearly an act of solidarity. Luo Yuan had been trying to help the round-faced woman from a fellow disciple's standpoint.
If Luo Yuan had truly been that heartless and ungrateful, there would have been no need for him to say those words. He could have simply stood by in cold indifference and watched the round-faced woman negotiate with Yang Kai…
And someone of Luo Yuan's extraordinary cultivation and haughty pride — how could he ever accept a gift from someone else? Especially when that someone was his own fellow disciple, a junior sister who was clearly infatuated with and adoring of him…
Yang Kai felt that if he were in Luo Yuan's shoes, he would never have accepted that Grand Mysteries Treasure Pill under any circumstances.
A real man should be exactly like that.
Setting aside Luo Yuan's poor treatment of his junior sister, Yang Kai actually rather admired his decisive approach.
After mulling it over for a while, Yang Kai shook his head, a dark expression crossing his face as he thought to himself: Why am I worrying about someone else's business?
With that thought, he called out loudly: "Next!"
Perhaps the round-faced woman's successful deal had given the remaining warriors a glimmer of hope, because the moment Yang Kai spoke, they swarmed forward, each vying to be the first to reach him.
But under the influence of the spatial laws, only one could succeed.
Unfortunately, the final outcome left this person utterly disappointed. After Yang Kai examined the items he had produced, he waved his hand and told him to get lost.
The same thing happened with the next dozen or so people!
And Yang Kai, stealing a moment to look around, realized that very few people remained.
This made him secretly anxious, because the Calamity Tribulation Fruit he wanted still hadn't appeared. He had no idea whether others simply had a use for it and hadn't brought it out, or whether the person who had taken the fruit simply hadn't come here.
If he failed to obtain the Calamity Tribulation Fruit on this trip to the Four Seasons Realm, he truly had no idea how he would face Qin Zhaoyang. Qin Yu was counting on the Calamity Tribulation Fruit to save her life — without it, the young girl would survive for only a few more months at most.
Should he simply make a direct offer — trading a Grand Mysteries Treasure Pill for a Calamity Tribulation Fruit?
Yang Kai hesitated. If he made such an offer and the person who had the Calamity Tribulation Fruit was indeed present, they likely wouldn't refuse. But if none of them had it and word of his request leaked out, it would put him at a disadvantage — people would surely use it as leverage against him.
After some deliberation, Yang Kai suppressed the impulse and continued trading with people as if nothing were amiss.
An hour later, Yang Kai's expression had darkened.
Every warrior who had come here had already traded with him, yet the Calamity Tribulation Fruit was nowhere to be seen…
His ominous premonition had come true!
The only ones who hadn't yet traded with him were a handful of people from the Qingyang Divine Temple and those long-established powerhouses who had been observing from the sidelines all along without competing with the others.
At this point, Yang Kai decided to waste no more time. He spoke up in a clear, commanding voice: "Which of you would like to go first? I won't hide it from you — only four Grand Mysteries Treasure Pills were successfully refined in total. In other words… I now have only one left."