“......”

All emotion going through Qin Hu’s face then froze up as the question registered on his mind.

“Seven years ago...the Jing! Are...are you someone from the Jing?!”

Though he couldn’t turn his head, the fear he was feeling was noticeable to both figures behind him. Then as if realizing something else, he started to cry out, “You’re...you’re Jing Wuying! You’re definitely him! But how!! You were supposed to be dead after failing to become a Soul Emperor! How are you still alive!!?”

He didn’t answer the question, but the way the response was given told Jing Wuying all he needed to know. “You must’ve done your work to know who I am so easily...Then the ones who hired the Black Hand to kill my family was your Qin after all?”

Qin Hu’s face paled, but the man didn’t say a word after. What was he thinking about?

“Silent, are we? Then I’ll find out the answer myself...”

Jing Wuying cared little for the silence of Qin Hu. Eye’s shining with disinterested annoyance, Jing Wuying placed his right hand on top of Qin Hu’s head!

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

“Wait, what are you doing?! I’ll—”

Fear and despair filled Qin Hu’s eyes when he realized what Jing Wuying was planning. He opened his mouth to complain, but the energy already disseminating into his mind was enough to force his words back down his throat!

Qin Hu had been desperately thinking about what to do in this case. The plan so far was to see if he should cooperate with Jing Wuying—for the meanwhile at least. A few secrets in exchange for his life. It might’ve been possible to shift enough blame onto another party for Qin Hu to slip away and recall his brother and father back to save him. Jing Wuying might’ve been a Peak Late-stage Soul King, but he was just one man! What was one man in front of the entirety of the Qin and their Soul Kings?

He just never thought that his one second of silence would damn him to having Jing Wuying settle for the non-diplomatic approach!

“N—no!!”

As if struggling against his restraints, Qin Hu’s eyes started to burn with resistance. That resistance was met with only a sneer from Jing Wuying, who crooked his five fingers and allowed for the black energy in him to spread to his palm. Condensing at his fingertips, the black energy turned into sharp claws to dig straight into the skull of Qin Hu!

The resistance in Qin Hu went out like a light. Despair started to set back into his face as the light in his eyes dimmed. His entire body went sluggish, though it shook every so often as if electricity was flowing through it every so often.

Jing Wuying’s eyes were closed as if he was taking in something.

He was...Soul Scanning!

Jing Wuying was Soul Scanning the soul of a Mid-stage Soul King!

Minutes went by with neither party doing anything before...

Jing Wuying’s eyes flew wide open with a sinister snarl on his lips. With a shake of his right hand, Jing Wuying threw the motionless Qin Hu down to the ground. Not even an iota of soulforce was moving about in him. He was dead!!

The man hadn’t even stood a chance like a house of straw lasting against a hurricane. Qin Hu was a Mid-stage Soul King and the second-in-charge to the Qin. But as powerful as he was, Qin Hu died without even lifting a finger against Jing Wuying!

“As I expected, the Qin was one of the main culprits behind the tragedy of our family!!” Jing Wuying thundered. His eyes bore holes into the dead corpse beside him. “Patriarch Qin is training in the depths of the mine! And...the archaic Soul Fusing Matrix. For an ‘upright’ family like the Qin to use such a malicious matrix...how laughable!

“And now there is no suspicions left to be had. A debt of blood will be paid for with blood!!”

............

In the auction house.

Things were still quite lively in the auction house now that the crafting materials were all sold. Now was the time for soul armaments to be sold. There was something that was bugging the entire audience though, why wasn’t Bai Yunfei—who had been so enthusiastically buying up all the materials before—so why was he quiet now? Things were already pretty far into the next segment and Bai Yunfei had yet to bid even once.

People started to think about it after a while. While the soul armaments being offered right now would be considered a treasure for any regular soul cultivator, the level of standard Bai Yunfei had for soul armaments was most definitely different. These soul armaments might as well be just regular soul armaments. With all the ones he had, what point was there buying any other soul armament?

The reality was that Bai Yunfei simply wasn’t paying attention to the auction. He was still thinking about the best possible way to make use of the +13 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone. By the time he looked at what was being offered—a high-earth tier soul armament—Bai Yunfei lost all interest in the auction and stopped watching. He didn’t even bother to make a bid when three heaven-tier soul armaments were offered.

The rest of the hall was all too happy to make bids in his absence.

The next segment of the auction was to be the soul skills. This was something Bai Yunfei was marginally more interested in and shelved his thoughts on how to use the Guaranteed Upgrade Stones. Things were slightly disappointing, however. As rare and powerful as the soul skills were, Bai Yunfei didn’t really see a practical use for them. Only one or two of them were particularly useful to him, but Bai Yunfei didn’t see the point in training in a soul skill that wasn’t all too powerful.

The last soul skill to be offered was a scroll with a low-heaven tier soul skill written in it. It was an earth-type soul skill, so Bai Yunfei was none too interested. In the end, a Mid-stage Soul King bought it.

Following the soul skill segment were the soulbeast cubs and soulgems. Bai Yunfei wasn’t at all interested in the soulbeast cubs, but the soulgems was something he ‘splurged’ on. By the time he was done, he bought a great amount of them including two class seven soulgems.

It wasn’t for him. His training didn’t depend on the need for soulgems. But Xiao Qi did, so Bai Yunfei bought some on his behalf.

There had been a segment of the auction where strange items with obscure or unknown uses were auctioned. Most of these items were oddities that still managed to garner enough interest to the soul cultivators. And without Bai Yunfei ‘interfering’, the bidders were even more enthusiastic in trying to buy whatever it was that struck their interest.

It wasn’t until the afternoon when the house warned the audience that they would be concluding earlier than expected.

The reason why the auction had finished so fast was because of a single person who bought out the items in two particular sections so quickly.

Many of the audience members started to leave when Wu Mei’er made this announcement. There were a few people who were particularly strong that decided to come up to Bai Yunfei’s room to pay their respects, but when they got there, everyone was startled to see that the room was empty. Not even the two employees standing watch outside their room had noticed when the two had left.

......

Outside the auction house walked a certain young man in white with a folding fan in his hand. By his side was a lion-sized ‘dog’.

“Mingfeng.”

The young man came to a stop when a voice called out to him from behind.

“Do you perhaps have the wrong person, brother? I am Feng Mingjing. Is there perhaps something you want to ask of me?”

When he saw that it was a young man and woman that was walking up to him, the man in white cupped his hands to bow.

“.....” A twitch appeared onto Bai Yunfei’s face at the response. “Go f*ck yourself, your lies are terrible.”

“Lies? What lies?” The youth replied, “Sire, are you perhaps mistaken? I don’t recognize the two of you...”

“Oh, is that so?” Bai Yunfei tapped his chin in mock surprise. “Ah, my mistake then. Xinyun, let’s get going...

“Now that I think about it,” Bai Yunfei spoke loudly to Tang Xinyun, “Isn’t Xiao Bai a wind-type soulbeast? It’s a little early to for her to become a class seven, but that wind immortal grass would suit her well...and I guess that mid-heaven tier dagger I made from the darkwind meteorite will be mine to use...”

Tang Xinyun found it hard to repress the smile on her face as they walked away.

“Hey...hey wait up! Brother Bai...I was wrong, don’t leave me!!”

The young man they were leaving behind started to cry out to them in panic now.

Laughing, Bai Yunfei whirled around just in time to see a completely different look on the man’s face. “I was only joking around, ol’Bai, don’t take it so seriously....where’s my heaven-tier soul armament? And also. Thanks a lot for helping me buy that wind immortal grass, hehe...you’re well deserving to be my brother!”

With an attitude like that, who else could it be but Jing Mingfeng?