Friendly Relations with a Major Clan

The Hou auction house was supposed to hold an auction the last day but they postponed it a day because they were "taking care of matters".

The skepticism within the commoners and the other clans only grew when they heard this news. They were at first doubtful that they still had the pills announced, but now they were sure that the pills were stolen by some random commoner!

Now that the Hou auction was holding an auction, all of the clan heads visited, even Li Fu. He invited his children to come along, to which they declined. What he didn't know was that they were seated right below him, one seat.

Yu Fang was the presenter again, as she threatened the Hou auction house that she would depart and join another auction house should they not accommodate her request to present again. The Hou auction house knew Yu Fang's value, she wasn't to be thrown away just like that!

Yu Fang walked to the center of the stage and the hundreds of commoners who came here just for her stared at her.

"Everybody, welcome to the Hou auction!"

Yu Fang shouted loudly. Everyone in the hall heard her voice and got quieter, especially the ones that had an obsession with her. They were excited, but they needed to respect her as well, otherwise, she would get angry at them.

At the highest floor, the various clans' representatives and even clan heads themselves were seated. Li Fu was one of the people present. Of course, everyone heard the news about the extravagant pills that the Hou auction was selling, but Li Fu already knew who the source was: his son.

Li Fu attended this auction just so he could witness, with his own eyes, the sky-high prices the pills supposedly obtained during the last auction. The prices were surely going to be higher than last time because the Gem Light Pill is higher level than the Marking Pill.

If by chance, something else than his son's pills' prices interested him, then he would undoubtedly take a shot at buying it. He had brought some money, but it wasn't a big amount so he didn't expect to take home anything.

Right beside him seated the Liu clan's head himself, Liu Gong (刘刚)! When he heard news from his representative who was at the auction last week, he knew that he had to attend the next one.

Liu Gong and Li Fu had friendly relations, helping each other out when one was in trouble. However, the total number of times that the Liu clan helped the Li clan was bigger than the number of times the Li clan helped the Liu clan.

The Li clan owed Liu clan a ton of favors. If this was between two other clans, the bigger one surely would have already enslaved the smaller one, abusing them. The Li clan was inferior in almost all areas. The only one they weren't in worse in than the Liu clan - strength.

"Old friend, what Level Mark are you now?"

Liu Gong started the conversation between the two old geezers. He was fifty years older than Li Fu, but he respected him nonetheless because of his amazing cultivating speed. Li Fu's cultivation level had already surpassed Liu Gong's.

Liu Gong was probing on how strong the geezer beside him actually was at the moment. The last time they met, Liu Gong was higher than him one gem. Liu Gong picked up his teacup and started sipping.

"Ah, I'm in a bottleneck, stuck on Fifth Level Mark 9-gems..."

Liu Gong suddenly spit out all of his tea back! F-Fifth Level Mark 9-gems?! Liu Gong was only at the Fifth Level Mark 4-gems, and he was half a century older! This was why the Liu clan never attacked nor antagonized the Li clan.

Aside from Li Fu, many others in the Li clan have reached Fifth Level Mark, an unprecedented achievement. The only reason why the Li clan wasn't an influential and major clan in the city was that the other minor clans allied to suppress them.

In terms of rankings, the Li clan stood at the very top of the minor clans by any means. But the weakest of the major clans right now, the Yang clan, had much more power than the Li clan, so the minor and major clans weren't even comparable to each other.

So even though the Li clan had higher cultivation levels than some of the major clans, they were still weak enough to be suppressed by the minor clans, much less if the major clans decided to take action.

The scene of Liu Gong and Li Fu being friendly with each other was confusing to the other major clans, as they didn't know about the strength of the Li clan. They brushed the Li clan aside as a minor clan and therefore didn't need attention.

Seated beside Liu Gong was the head of the Yang clan, Yang Fen (杨甫). He kept his distance from the head of the Liu clan, seeing that he was conversing with a minor clan's head. This was a weird sight for him, as he knew that Liu Gong was prideful and condescending. What made him act so friendly and polite towards this lowly clan head?

When he thought about the reasons, he would always think of a counter to them himself. Was the Liu clan afraid of this minor clan? He could easily erase this head's clan by using his raw strength alone, much less use strategies! Was this minor clan actually a minion of the Liu clan? Why did Liu Gong act so friendly then? There were no more reasons he could think of, so this left him puzzled.

The Liu clan was the fourth of the eight major clans! They had the right to be prideful. The Yang clan was merely the last of the eight. So even if Yang Fen was baffled by this scene, he didn't want to make an enemy out of the fourth of the eight major clans within the city. He acted naturally despite feeling awkward sitting next to the two chummy old geezers.

On the stage, Yu Fang riled the audience up for the auction. The people were especially hyped up for this particular auction, as this was the first time a humongous number of pills was being sold. Even if Yu Fang didn't do her usual routine of working up the audience, they would still be excited about the auction occurring now.

A man that looked like a servant walked to the stage from the back holding an item covered by a cloth. He put it on the cushion on the stand at the center of the stage and left promptly. Yu Fang readied to take off the cloth and spoke when she did.

"This first item comes from the ruins of the Green Tree City right beside ours. It seems to be a vase that only has decorations at first glance, but upon closer inspection, we can see a formation engraved on the vase! The effects are unknown, but the formation itself is ancient!"

The audience was surprised. A formation, and an ancient one at that? Everybody wanted to own a formation, even if they didn't know its use. They wanted it just to brag that they had it. It was revered to be a symbol of wealth if one had many formations around their mansion.

The effects were even more impressive, even if they were unknown. Many were willing to test it to see what kind of effects it had, and if it had an extremely valuable effect, it would be an especially desired item among all of the people.

Li Bai was impressed too, but he held no desire to buy this vase. None at all. He knew exactly what the formation was and what it did. It was the "Sturdy Formation" and it kept the vase and other items around it sturdy. So really, all the auction item was, was a sturdy vase. It looked like it was ancient, which was a plus. That said, the only use this vase would have would be for decorations.

Only Li Bai knew this. Even his sister, Li Bao, was losing her composure right beside him. She was ecstatic to get this vase and was planning to request some money from her rich brother.

Li Bai expected this, as he knew that his sister was a simpleton. He handed her the golden card which contained 999 gold.

"The starting price is... 9000 silver!"

Yu Fang knew that 9000 silver was really just 9 gold, but she used this tactic to make the commoners think that this item held more value that it looked like it did. Her tactic worked splendidly, and the commoners bid one by one, in silver.

"10000 silver!"

"20000 silver!"

"30000 silver!"

.....

"500 gold!"

Soon enough, the energy of the commoners reached some of the minor clan's representatives and heads and made them start bidding as well, in gold.

The Hou auction executives were astonished by Yu Fang's performance. She was performing so splendidly, it was worthy of their praise.

"The price of this simple sturdy vase had reached 500 gold! From only 9 to 500..."

The truth was, the executives already knew what the use of the formation engraved on the vase was. Yu Fang insisted that they should hide this fact so that she could sell it for a higher price. Money talks, so Hou Ju immediately agreed. She was still in charge of the auction, even if she was ostracized inside the clan. The huge blunder she made caused a taint in her father's reputation, but she was nevertheless still allowed to lead. No one dared to oppose Hou Ju's decision.

.....

The sale of various items was coming to a close, and the reveal of whether the Hou auction house still had a hold of the high-level pills or not was getting nearer.

People still anticipated the auction, even if there were no pills though, as the items sold this time were extraordinary! They were sold for cheaper as well, not reaching the realm of platinum coins like last time. Of course, they knew that the auction had just started, and the reason why the items were cheap was that the items were presented according to their appraised value.

Li Bai was bored to death, leaning his arms on the railings. He was expecting more after that extravagant vase, but there were no more quirky items or valuable objects that came up. He yawned loudly, but no one noticed. The crowd was going crazy over the items Li Bai considered to be bland.

Li Bao kept a level head and only bought items that she knew she needed. After all, the budget given to her by her brother was only a gold short of a platinum coin. She couldn't be so shameless and put her pride down just to get more money from her brother now, could she?

Although Li Bao was unintentionally flippant and sometimes oblivious, she still had her fair share of pride inside her. She could never ask for too many favors from her ten-year-old brother.

A floor higher than them were Li Fu and Liu Gong conversing. Liu Gong naturally bought one or two of the items that were sold, as long as they were interesting. But Li Fu, he never batted an eye over these. He looked like he considered them to be worthless, or at least had less worth than something else.

Li Fu was thinking exactly that. My son's pills are better than that! This was what was occupying his mind right now. Why would he buy items that had less value than his son's pills?

Liu Gong observed Li Fu's subtle remarks and it seemed like he looked down at the auction, craving for more than just these basic items found from the ruins.

Almost all of the other clans aside from the Li clan showed immediate interest in those mysterious ancient items that had unknown uses. They were intrigued by what the use could be! If by chance, one of the items with unknown uses had extremely important functions, then they would regret not buying it for the rest of their life.

The various clans that felt this desire included the first of the eight major clans, the Zhou clan. They had more or less dominated the auction, with only a few items getting to the hands of the other clans. More than half the auction, the uses were unknown. That was why the insatiable curiosity of the major clans helped the Hou clan.

The Hou clan was one of the major clans themselves, being fifth of the eight. Of course, they wouldn't put the items up for auction should they desire it themselves, unless the item was entrusted to be sold by them. If the item was entrusted to them, they too needed to fight for it within their own auction.