In the private box at the Windcloud Auction House, the pair of unfortunate brothers were grimacing in pain, both injured and hurting like hell, which naturally put a damper on their mood.
Comparatively speaking, Old Bai had taken the worse of it. His chest was slightly caved in, his internal organs damaged, and there was still blood at the corner of his mouth.
Old Bai sat cross-legged, preparing to circulate his Qi to heal his injuries, when Yang Kai grabbed him and hauled him up. "Stop healing."
"What the hell for!" Cold sweat beaded on Old Bai's forehead, and he had no idea why Yang Kai would stop him at a time like this.
Yang Kai cradled his broken hand and looked at him. "Take a guess what the Windcloud Auction House is doing right now."
"How should I know?" Old Bai snapped back irritably. He was being denied his healing time and now he had to play guessing games? He was in no mood for this. He'd never been placed under house arrest before — today was a first, and the sheer humiliation of it had rage churning inside him.
"Do you not have a brain?" Yang Kai tapped his own temple. "Something this simple — just think about it for a second and it's obvious."
Old Bai couldn't help but glare up at him, but then his thoughts shifted and suddenly something clicked. He let out a low exclamation: "Oh no — this is going to bring the proprietress into it." After all, the two of them were employees of the First Inn. The Windcloud Auction House had justification for injuring them and holding them here, but they'd certainly go notify the proprietress and ask her to come handle the matter.
A look of deep chagrin crossed his face, and he sighed heavily. "If I'd known this would happen, I wouldn't have done it." He hadn't wanted to involve the proprietress. After all, collecting debts was a trivial task — if he couldn't manage it on his own, that was his own incompetence. Escalating it to the proprietress just highlighted how useless he was. It was embarrassing.
He looked up and caught Yang Kai's half-amused expression. His brow furrowed. "You did this on purpose?" Now that he thought about it, Yang Kai had engaged him in deliberate bid wars at the auction, practically winning every single lot, and then tried to walk away without paying — how could he possibly have gotten away with it? The situation was always going to end up like this, and in the end the Windcloud Auction House would inevitably summon the proprietress. At the time, he'd assumed Yang Kai had some brilliant scheme. Who could have guessed it was this?
Yang Kai let out a little chuckle. "Just figured that out, did you?"
Old Bai was confused. "Didn't you say you didn't want to involve the proprietress?"
Yang Kai shook his head slowly. "Times change. Before, even if we'd brought the proprietress over, it might not have done any good. If the Windcloud Auction House had been dead set on welshing on the debt, could she really have just seized the goods by force? Like she said at the start — if they cooperated and paid up, fine. If not, she'd have no choice but to go have a chat at certain factions' headquarters. I don't know where the Windcloud Blessed Land is, but it's certainly not close. Why trouble the proprietress to make that trip?"
"So now..." As Old Bai spoke, his eyes lit up, vaguely beginning to grasp Yang Kai's plan.
Yang Kai grinned slyly. "Now the two of us brothers have been beaten half to death with barely time left to live — naturally, the proprietress has all the excuse and justification she needs to raise hell. Compared to calming her wrath, what's a mere ten million in outstanding debt?"
"Beaten half to death, barely time left to live!" Old Bai's mouth twitched at hearing this, and he stared at Yang Kai as though seeing him for the first time. This kid was devious as they come.
"If you and I brothers suffer a little flesh wound, we can recover that ten million without breaking a sweat. That alone makes it worth it. We might even squeeze some compensation out of the Windcloud Auction House while we're at it."
Not just devious — black-hearted too! Old Bai thought to himself, but what he said was, "You could've told me earlier. I thought you were planning to grab those auction items and run."
Yang Kai looked at him speechlessly. "They've got a pair of Fourth-grade Open Heaven cultivators guarding the place. With our pathetic strength, how exactly are we supposed to run?" It wasn't that there was no chance — if he could send three Space Rings to
But you can run from the temple but not the monk.
"If my guess is correct, Yun Zhenhua should have already sent someone to fetch —"
Yang Kai hadn't even finished his sentence when a familiar voice rang out: "Yun Zhenhua, come out and face me!"
The two brothers' eyes went wide, and they exchanged a glance, each seeing the surprise in the other's gaze.
" The proprietress got here that fast?"
Almost in unison, the pair flopped to the ground. Old Bai's tongue lolled out of his mouth like a dead dog, his breathing suddenly growing faint. Yang Kai slapped himself a few times on the spot, beating himself until he coughed up what looked like three liters of blood, looking thoroughly wretched.
In another private box, Yun Zhenhua and Elder Yu were sitting across from each other at a table, and both wore equally stunned expressions. Logically speaking, there was no way Madam Lan could have arrived this quickly — the errand boy they'd sent with the message had only just left.
But regardless of how it had happened, the important thing was that she was here. They needed to have a proper talk with her about today's incident and make sure she disciplined her subordinates going forward.
They exchanged a glance and rose simultaneously, heading out to greet her. After all, the person arriving was a Sixth-grade Open Heaven cultivator — not someone the two of them could afford to offend casually. They had to put on a good show of courtesy.
But before they could take more than a few steps, a tremendous wave of pressure descended from above. A bone-chilling killing intent solidified into something almost physical, and the entire Windcloud Auction House shuddered beneath it.