16 Something to Sell

After saying her sentence, Huan Meirong focused her attention on the picture again and the more she looked at it, the more she thought she was a combination of both of them; a much more beautiful combination, of course.

She passed her fingers on his image's countenance and thought with a curious radiance on her expression that she was unaware about, 'I wonder if he is still alive…' but less than a second later, she frowned and said, "No, don't think ahead. I must be sure first, which means that I will need to buy a Kinship Blood Stone but… they are quite pricey."

*Sigh* She shook her head and looked back to the pagoda, thinking resentful, 'If it wasn't because this E-ex Empress has not the capability to sell those precious artefacts and invaluable herbs yet, I wouldn't be on bankrupt and with an aching head,' she turned her sight back to the lake and added, 'Tch, Why can't soul force be used to attack too?'

She had a powerful soul and it was great in terms of perception, tracking and to hide from people, but it had no use in combat; she could sneak around the City Lord's House thanks to it but if she were to be spotted right now, her end wouldn't be good as she had practically no cultivation yet. Moreover, though her body became healthier, it was still not as strong as her past one. Therefore, even if she had her moves as an assassin, they wouldn't be of much help; the disparity in strength would simply be too much.

*Sigh*

'There is a long path for me to walk but for now, let's see what else this box has.'

To her disappointment, it wasn't much. "Three and a half hairpins?" she furrowed her brows, thinking, 'They are exquisitely made but are they valuable? Well, to be placed inside this strange case, they must be.'

She looked at them and picked two, ones that seemed to be twin hairpins; they looked alike. Both were made of a dark blue crystalline material with shades of white, they were very simple because of its twelve centimetres in length, nine were its long and slim needle-like body while the rest (head) was occupied by its decoration that was a three centimetres in diameter unadorned circle from which hung a palm-length white thread with nine nail-sized spheres made of the same material as the hairpin.

She passed her fingers through the beautiful but simple line of spheres of one of the hairpins before noticing two little characters engraved on almost the pointy end of the hairpin's body.

"Lanlan and the other one also has two characters engraved. It says Mingxing..."

'Couple hairpins?' she thought with raised brows before shaking her head, 'No, though the design is simple, it looks too girlish... But well, is not that he has to wear it.'

She put them aside and pick up the half piece of a hairpin, but that made her thought that her previous assumption was wrong, 'Unless Yu Lanlan and that man couldn't choose between those two customs and did both, my conjecture is erroneous.'

Since she had seen the half piece of a hairpin, she saw it was part of something that many couples do in their wedding ceremony. Usually, on that day, couples will either choose to exchange or to break one hairpin into two parts where each of them will keep one.

At first, the pair or the hairpin meant to be broken were whatever hairpins they had but with the passing time, the hairpins began to be custom made; the pair of them normally were asked to be made a twin pair with both betrothed choosing the design and material according to their possibilities whereas the one to be broken became something fancier as all were usually made of the same precious material with similarities on the design which was that of a dragon and phoenix coiling together; that's why she had recognized what that half piece meant.

"The quality of the Scarlet Sun Blood Wood the hairpin's body is made of is top-grade while the Golden Moon Frost Wood of the coiling beasts seems to be... top-grade too," she murmured after putting away her doubts and inspecting the half of a hairpin better.

'Hmmh... top-grade... That's rare...' she thought with a serious semblance; top-grade materials were a rarity, after all. And that made her rebuild the scarce knowledge she had about Yu Lanlan's background.

"Yet again," she whispered, 'that's not something to care about for now,' she thought.

"I better not sell this one or else… things might turn bad," she said before placing the half of a hairpin back into the case.

Then, she picked up the last hairpin and she didn't need to be a genius to know that it was Yu Lanlan's belonging. "Seems that her liking is more like an obsession," she blinked and said with an amused smile as she saw the many little blue orchids that covered a third of the hairpin's length.

She took again one of the twin hairpins with her other hand and put both before her eyes, "Looks like the orchids are of the same bluish crystal as the twin hairpins but the body of this one is made of a white material which I have no knowledge about; is it some kind of jade? Or is it wood?" she pondered as she looked from up-close the hairpin with the orchids; the body seemed to have little pores in it.

"… there is also this azure ammh… stone? that this pretty detailed Phoenix is made of," she added. There was a beautiful Azure Phoenix on the same third part where the orchids were; the orchids seemed to hover around the Phoenix.

"Anyway, you are lucky, you are too fancy as to gamble my low-key life with you," she spoke to the hairpin with the orchids. "It has to be one or both of you, then," she said as she placed back the orchid hairpin and took the other twin one. She gave them a look and went into thinking.

At length, she shrugged her shoulders and pressed her fingers on where the two characters on each of them were; she left a soul mark on them which was a technique used by assassins with powerful souls to track. Even if she sells them, she will recover them back.

When she finished, she waved her hand and took both of them into her qiankun bag. Then, she closed Yu Lanlan's case and went to the pavilion to left it on the floor there.

"At least, after all that trouble, I have something to sell," she said as she patted her skirt before going out.

'Though, it might not be enough to buy the Kinship Blood Stone but…'

*Splash*

*Pat*

*Gasp*

*Cough, cough, cough*

Her thinking was interrupted, and what way of breaking her thoughts; she had fallen inside her bathtub which was filled with cold water.

*Cough*

"Brrph. Alright, I get it now… *cough* But it was a hot bath the one I was thinking about," she berated with an angry face as she rubbed her arms.