Chapter 152

Xiahou Aotian stood at the shop entrance, feeling somewhat awkward.

Since he'd been discovered, he couldn't be bothered to keep it up. Following the character that flashed through his mind, he rubbed his face hard, completing the disguise.

He stepped into the shop, his eyes scanning the rows of shelves, sweeping across the low-level materials scattered haphazardly on the ground. He immediately confirmed Lian Sanyue's identity.

She really was a weapon refiner, most likely from the Zhao family.

Although he had learned about the proprietress of Ten Thousand Treasures House from Hong Ji-ge before coming, seeing it with his own eyes confirmed that she was indeed a weapon refiner.

Every weapon refiner's workshop was as chaotic as a small mechanical factory's machining workshop or a roadside hardware store.

Of course, Xiahou Aotian wasn't bothered by the mess. On the contrary, it felt like coming home.

His gaze moved from the shelves to the left, where a cashier counter stood against the wall. Behind the counter was a beautiful woman in a black leather jacket and blue bustier.

She held a slender cigarette between her fingers, her eyes languid, her demeanor charming, like a female gang leader from a movie.

"Are you Lian Sanyue?" Xiahou Aotian walked to the cashier counter.

Lian Sanyue stared at him in astonishment, forgetting to smoke for a moment. She stammered, "Kakarot?"

She burst into laughter, "This is the first time I've seen someone mold their face into a two-dimensional protagonist, hahaha..."

*Have you laughed enough! Protagonists transcend dimensions...* Xiahou Aotian protested inwardly, took a deep breath, and said,

"I heard your reputation is excellent, and you can do any business. I have a deal, I wonder if you're interested."

Lian Sanyue stopped laughing, resumed her lazy posture, took a puff of her cigarette, and exhaled white smoke from her fiery red lips, saying,

"Tell me about it."

Xiahou Aotian immediately pulled out a set of armor, a bronze cauldron, and a string of copper coins from his inventory.

Lian Sanyue's eyes lit up. "Qin Dynasty artifacts?"

Qin Dynasty relics were mainly bronze ware and ceramics, vastly different from the calligraphy and paintings of later generations.

She didn't look at the copper coins, but carefully stroked the bronze cauldron and armor, assessing,

"They're quite well-preserved. Even in Sovereign-level dungeons, these kinds of relics are rare. It has to be a dungeon related to high-ranking Qin officials. But I don't collect them."

Lian Sanyue smiled,

"Relics are meaningless to me. The prices are also high. The guests who come to my Ten Thousand Treasures House only care about Lingjing materials and props. Your target audience should be rich people who like to collect and invest in antiques."

Xiahou Aotian seemed to have expected this. Kakarot's face was proud and cold. "I want you to auction off the relics for me, and I'll give you ten percent commission."

Lian Sanyue nodded. "Okay, come back in ten days to collect the money."

Xiahou Aotian breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I want you to keep today's transaction a secret. How much for the hush money?"

Lian Sanyue thought for a moment. "Give me two hundred thousand."

"Deal!"

Xiahou Aotian took off his backpack, took out four stacks of banknotes, and placed them on the counter.

He knew the common sense that black market transactions used cash.

If he didn't have enough cash, he could use props as collateral to get cash from the black market owner, and pay back the money within a specified period.

After paying the cash, Xiahou Aotian turned to leave.

"Wait!" Lian Sanyue suddenly called out with a smile, "Now that you're here, why not take a look at the Ten Thousand Treasures House black market?"

*I don't have money, I don't want to see it...* Xiahou Aotian was about to refuse, but Lian Sanyue's next sentence caught his interest.

"Although there aren't many good things in the black market, sometimes you can find a bargain."

Hearing this, Xiahou Aotian's DNA moved. *Isn't this a protagonist-exclusive scene?*

He immediately changed his mind. "Okay!"

"You need a token to enter the black market, one hundred thousand." Lian Sanyue opened her palm, revealing a long black wooden token with the words "May wealth pour in" written on the front.

"One hundred thousand? Are you robbing me!" Xiahou Aotian cursed in his heart.

After paying the token fee, he entered the Ten Thousand Treasures House black market and saw a bustling, lively scene.

"It's quite large..."

Xiahou Aotian strolled around the black market with great ambition. As a scholar with a wealth of knowledge and with the ring grandpa by his side, he was confident that he could find a bargain in the black market.

Half an hour later, Xiahou Aotian stood in the black market, dumbfounded.

*Is everything here fake?*

It wasn't that there weren't any props and materials, but they were all clearly marked with prices. There was no situation where something was clearly a prop or material, but was mistaken for worthless trash.

In short, the props and materials here were very expensive, and the trash was also very expensive. There was no possibility of finding a bargain at all.

"Obviously, there's a problem with this place, not with me. My opportunity isn't here." Xiahou Aotian regretted wasting one hundred thousand and decided to leave.

At this moment, Lian Sanyue's voice came from beside him,

"Didn't buy anything you wanted? Are you interested in experiencing the feeling of weapon refining?"

Hearing this, Xiahou Aotian, as a Fang Shi, felt his DNA move again. He asked, "How so?"

Lian Sanyue swayed her waist gracefully, twisting with infinite charm. "Follow me."

Xiahou Aotian followed her out of the black market with curiosity and doubt, passed through the dueling arena, and arrived outside a room.

Lian Sanyue twisted open the door, waved away the two guards inside, nodded towards a three-legged cauldron, and smiled,

"It's the greatest weapon refiner in the world. You can touch it and check its attributes."

Xiahou Aotian stepped forward, curiously stretched out his palm, and pressed it against the cauldron's body. After a few seconds, he revealed a shocked expression.

"It's actually a rule-based item?"

Also, he thought the cauldron looked familiar. After a brief recollection, he remembered that there was a similar cauldron on the Nuwa scroll enshrined in the treasure vault of the underground palace.

At this moment, he sensed a strong mental fluctuation coming from the ring.

...

Songhai International Airport.

A silver-white Gulfstream broke through the blue sky, landed slowly, taxied along the runway for a long time, and came to a stop.

Zhang Yuanqing, wearing a baseball cap and mask, walked out of the cabin with the Palace Master of Zhisha. Led by a reception staff who had been waiting for a long time, they boarded a shuttle bus.

At the airport parking garage, the Palace Master of Zhisha smiled and said goodbye, leaving on her own.

Zhang Yuanqing got into the luxurious car arranged by Fu Qingyang and returned to Fujiawan.

He took out his phone, turned off airplane mode, and the phone immediately "ding-donged" non-stop, with dozens of unread messages and more than a dozen missed calls.

Three of them were from Xie Lingxi and the Queen, and the rest were all from Guan Ya.

Zhang Yuanqing opened the chat software and checked the messages.

Guan Ya sent him more than twenty messages, half of which were text, expressing her deep regret and confusion. She tried to win him back, while saying that she might have been affected by something yesterday, and that the breakup was not her intention.

She apologized for her irrational behavior yesterday and hoped to talk to him.

Seeing that he didn't respond for a long time and his phone was turned off, she was probably panicking, so she started sending voice messages. The last few messages were tearful.

Xie Lingxi sent him two messages. One was that her cousin Xie Lingzhou had died at Qin Feng Academy. Her family had notified her to go back to attend the funeral, so she had to leave Songhai for a few days.

The other was a timid question: "Did you really break up with Sister Guan Ya?"

Because there was no breakup, the little girl woke up this morning and felt that Brother Yuanshi was her dream lover again, and forgot her indifference yesterday.

The Queen's message was that Guan Ya went to the villa next door in the morning, cried a lot after coming back, and her emotions were unstable. She hoped that he could forgive Guan Ya and make up as before.

It was clear that although the Queen had always wanted to steal her best friend's boyfriend, she still had feelings for Guan Ya.

Next was Sun Miaomiao's message. The first one was sent at 9:00 in the morning. She sincerely apologized for her激烈的言语 yesterday.

The second one was at 11:00 at noon. After enduring for three hours and not waiting for Yuanshi Tianzun's forgiveness, she tentatively sent another message, which read:

"Hmph, stingy!"

The last message was from Yin Ji. She explained that she was a little impatient yesterday because she was assisting her master in capturing the Chunyang sect leader. If he had time, she hoped to have a phone call.

Zhang Yuanqing immediately dialed Yin Ji's number. It rang for more than ten seconds before it was finally connected.

"Yuanshi Tianzun." Yin Ji's gentle voice came from the phone.

"Call me Yuanshi." Zhang Yuanqing said in a joking tone.

There was a moment of silence on the other end. She didn't respond to his words, but went straight to the point and said,

"The Taiyin and Star secret techniques are the secrets of the Taiyi sect. Before learning them, the disciples in the sect have made a contract not to spread them, and have received the blessing of the Taiyin. You won't be able to ask the spirits either."

Ordinary Night Wanderers certainly couldn't ask the spirits, but I have the Taiyin Fragment, but I can't kill a Taiyi sect saint for the secret technique... Zhang Yuanqing sighed and said,

"I understand."

As if hearing the disappointment in his tone, Yin Ji lowered her voice,

"But that's not what I want to say..."

After a pause, she said, "Do you know why the sect leader created secret techniques that focus on Taiyin and the stars?"

*To become more powerful?* Zhang Yuanqing immediately thought of this answer.

"I heard my master say that focusing on Taiyin and the stars is to make it easier to fuse the supreme power when you reach the demigod realm. Of course, for ordinary Night Wanderers, focusing on Taiyin and the stars is just to make themselves stronger," Yin Ji said.

"Fuse the supreme power?" Zhang Yuanqing was stunned, and then he immediately understood the meaning of these words.

The supreme power Elder Hongying mentioned should refer to the three original powers of the sun, moon, and stars.

So, to control the three original powers, you must choose one power to focus on before reaching the demigod level. Is this the meaning of the existence of "focused secret techniques"?

Yin Ji continued,

"If you don't choose a focused secret technique, when we advance to the Overlord realm, the three powers of the sun, moon, and stars will be balanced. And when you choose one of these powers to focus on, then this power will overwhelm the other two."

"So?" Zhang Yuanqing asked.

Yin Ji's gentle voice became even lower, like the soft whispers between lovers,

"So the focused secret technique is not the key. The key is to make the three powers unbalanced. As long as you can do this, you can cultivate other secret techniques, such as the Pure Yang Body Cleansing Record."

"It's just that this kind of secret technique is hard to come by. Ordinary Night Wanderers can't get it at all, so our Taiyi sect secret techniques are so precious."

The Pure Yang Body Cleansing Record is a secret technique? This answer was truly a surprise to Zhang Yuanqing. If that was the case, the power of the sun in the Demon Refining Pot would be useful.

He could completely rely on those powers to push the Pure Yang Body Cleansing Record to the Small Perfection realm.

*No, the power of the sun in the Demon Refining Pot is too strong. The consequence of using them to cultivate would probably be turning from a carbon-based lifeform into a pile of charcoal,* he thought.

"But I don't recommend you to focus on the sun," Yin Ji said.

"Is it because the progress is too slow?" Zhang Yuanqing remembered the knowledge he had learned in Qin Feng Academy.

"Slow is one aspect. I heard my master say before that the supreme power symbolizing the sun seems to have some problems." Yin Ji said slowly, "I just heard about it, and I don't know the specific situation."

*The sun has problems? If that's the case, focusing on the sun does need careful consideration.* Zhang Yuanqing frowned.

Yin Ji didn't speak either.

The two listened to each other's breathing and were silent for half a minute. Zhang Yuanqing broke free from his thoughts and casually asked,

"How's the Chunyang sect leader's case going?"

Yin Ji sighed,

"Master set up a trap a few days ago to lure him to take the bait, but it failed. He has secret protection and is not bound by moral values. It will not be a matter of one or two days to catch him."

"And we have found that his strength is getting stronger and stronger. He should have killed many Illusionists recently."

Zhang Yuanqing heard her distress and helplessness. "Killed many Illusionists? Why not try to cooperate with the Nihility Sect?"

Yin Ji gave a wry smile,

"If it were the Military God Sect and the Psionic Association, we would have channels to contact them. The Nihility Sect is elusive. Even the Taiyi sect can't find their high-level members."

Among the three major evil faction organizations, the Nihility Sect was the most mysterious.

Moreover, good and evil are incompatible. Even with the threat of the Chunyang sect leader, the two sides lack a solid middleman to reach a cooperation.

*The Chunyang sect leader is cunning and shrewd. With the protection of the Taiyin and not being bound by moral values, he has too many骚操作. However, if it's just reaching a cooperation with the Nihility Sect, I can help...* Zhang Yuanqing said,

"I know an Illusionist who might be able to connect the dots."

Yin Ji's thoughts perked up, and she pondered,

"I'll report to Master first and see what she thinks."

Zhang Yuanqing hummed. "I also need to confirm whether the other party is willing to cooperate."

After ending the call, he didn't contact Xiao Yuan, because he was about to arrive at Fujiawan.

He would report the discoveries in Takamagahara to Fu Qingyang first, and then deal with other matters.

Zhang Yuanqing clicked on Sun Miaomiao's profile picture and sent a message:

"I was on a mission this morning and my phone was turned off. Miaomiao, although you spoke rudely to me, you are still my little darling."

Sun Miaomiao replied to the message in seconds:

"Ew~ you're so cheesy."

Zhang Yuanqing thought, *This is the correct reaction. She says I'm cheesy, but she must be smiling now.*

[Yuanshi Tianzun: I have something to ask of you.]

[Sun Miaomiao: Don't even think about borrowing money.]

......Zhang Yuanqing's mouth twitched, and he sent a message:

[Yuanshi Tianzun: I'm not borrowing money. I want to ask you to help me summarize the list of all Night Wanderers in the Taiyi sect from 1990 to 2000, including those who died in the line of duty. One more thing, from Saint to Overlord.]

He wanted to investigate that Night Wanderer who was one of the Shadow Twins.

[Sun Miaomiao: What are you looking for this for?]

[Yuanshi Tianzun: I can't say now. I'll have similar things to ask you in the future. I'll tell you after I have some clues.]

[Sun Miaomiao: Okay, I'll try. If it involves elders, my permissions will definitely not be enough. I can only trick my grandpa's account.]

[Yuanshi Tianzun: I'll treat you to dinner after it's done.]

Not long after, the driver slowed down and drove into Fujiawan.

Zhang Yuanqing didn't wait for him to stop the car and snapped his fingers handsomely: "Star Escape!"

To the driver's astonishment, he disappeared into the car.

The next second, he appeared outside the study and knocked on the tall brown wooden door.

...

ps: I'll update the wrong words first and then revise them later.

Free reading.