When the auction with a hundred goods finally ended, the door of the auction house opened at once, and the guests who participated in the auction all left one after another.
Qi Heng held the Xueyan flowers in his hands and followed behind Qi Shaorong and Zhuang Hao.
Many of the people passing by stared at the Xueyan flowers in Qi Heng's hands, and Qi Heng couldn't help but feel a little helpless. The Xueyan flowers were still alive, if they were placed in the space storage ring, they'd lose their vitality and their effectiveness would be greatly reduced. But holding such a large pot of flowers in his hands really was a bit too eye-catching.
Qi Shaorong leaned close to Qi Heng's ear and said, "A-Heng, you sure are charming, so many people are looking at you."
"Young Master, you don't need to joke. How am I the charming one, it's clearly the flowers in my hands that have a lot of charm." Qi Heng sighed.
Yi Chuxue walked out of the auction house. When she saw the flowers in Qi Heng's hands, she ground her teeth furiously.
As Qi Shaoru came out, she immediately saw Yi Chuxue with an ugly look on her face. "Miss Yi, I seemed to have seen you bid for the Xueyan flowers just then. Too bad, you couldn't beat Zhuang Hao's bid, but I didn't expect for Zhuang Hao to actually give the flowers to my Fourth Brother. I almost thought that Zhuang Hao bid for the flowers in order to give them to you. "
Yi Chuxue gave Qi Shaoru a cold look and said, "Miss Qi, you shouldn't only say that about me! Just because I can't get it, do you really think you have a chance too?"
Qi Shaoru glared fiercely at Yi Chuxue and said, "Even if I can't be with Zhuang Hao, there are still many young talents in the Imperial Capital who I can choose from. Miss Yi, in the past, you had such high demands, now I'm afraid that not even those washed-up nobles would want to have anything to do with you."
Yi Chuxue gritted her teeth and said, "There's no need for you to care about that."
"How can I not care about Miss Yi's marriage? Speaking of which, one of the stewards from our Qi Family was looking for a wife recently, Miss Yi, how about I introduce him to you! That little steward has mediocre looks, but if you're with him, you don't have to worry about not having a secure life [1]. Several of our family's maids are simply rushing to get together with him." Qi Shaoru said.
Yi Chuxue turned bright red, and she was both ashamed and angry as she said, "Miss Qi, since you admire your family's steward so much, why don't you go marry him instead."
Yi Fan completed the transaction backstage at the auction house before leaving.
As soon as the auction house handed Mu Tingxuan over to Yi Fan, Yi Fan lifted the magic restriction on Mu Tingxuan, restoring Mu Tingxuan's strength.
"Thank you." Mu Tingxuan said to Yi Fan.
Yi Fan smiled a little reservedly and said, "You saying those words to me makes us seem too estranged."
"Did you spend a lot of gold coins to rescue me?" Mu Tingxuan said.
Yi Fan said unconcernedly, "Not a lot, I got most of it back from the auction house."
"What did you do to the people from the mercenary group?" When he heard Yi Fan's words, Mu Tingxuan was startled and instinctively asked this.
Yi Fan shrugged and said, "I sent them away to the underworld to run free."
Mu Tingxuan: "…"
Yi Fan took Mu Tingxuan with him and left. As the two of them walked out of the auction house, Elder Yan Xin brought a few people with him and stopped them.
"Student Qian Mian, you sure are arrogant!" Elder Yan Xin said in a haughty manner, looking at Yi Fan.
Yi Fan said lightly, "That's good."
Yi Fan was a little nervous when he was facing Mu Tingxuan before, but he wasn't afraid at all as he faced Elder Yan Xin.
"Classmate Qian Mian, if you're sensible, you'll hand over this guy to me. If you're not, then I'd like to ask for you to go to the dueling platform and fight a round against me." Elder Yan Xin said.
The Imperial Capital forbade personal fighting between people, but there were too many strong and powerful individuals in the city. The people from the Royal Family were worried that if these people were restrained for too long, and couldn't hold it back anymore and suddenly exploded, the destructive power would be too great, which was why they created the dueling platform.
The dueling platform was the place where the personal grievances between cultivators were usually resolved. The dueling platform could decide a person's life or death, therefore, the dueling platform was also known as the life-or-death platform.
"Since Senior seems so eager [2], I will accompany you there." Yi Fan said coldly.
Mu Tingxuan frowned and took Yi Fan's hand, "You…"
Yi Fan smiled at Mu Tingxuan and said, "It's okay."
Elder Yan Xin looked at Yi Fan and smiled coldly, saying, "Good! Good! The younger generation truly is formidable, I was originally going to cut you some slack, but since you're acting so recklessly, I won't try to persuade you any more!"
The clash between Elder Yan Xin and Qian Mian caught the attention of many people.
Zhuang Hao looked at Qi Shaorong and said, "You're not going to stop them?"
"It's such a great opportunity to show off! Don't you think so?" Qi Shaorong said.
Zhuang Hao: "…"
Chen Yuan frowned and said, "Classmate Qi, Elder Yan Xin has a very powerful poisoning technique."
Qi Shaorong smiled and said, "Really? It's the perfect chance for us to go experience it for ourselves then, let's go watch the excitement."
"Miss, what are you looking at?" Xiang Lan asked Mu Xuelan.
[T/n: Previously, Mu Xuelan's maid was called Xiang Yun, I don't know if Mu Xuelan has two maids or something, but "Xiang Lan" has never appeared before, or maybe the author just made a mistake or something?]
Mu Xuelan frowned and said, "Xiang Lan, don't you think that Qian Mian looks a little familiar?"
Xiang Lan was puzzled and said, "Miss, what happened to you? How does Qian Mian look familiar?"
"His voice and the silhouette of his back looks really similar to… "
Xiang Lan looked at Mu Xuelan with some confusion and said, "Miss, who does Qian Mian look similar to?"
Mu Xuelan shook her head and said, "No, nevermind…" How could they be the same person, the difference between Yi Fan and Qian Mian was too much.
"Miss, those guys all went to watch the excitement, shall we go too!" Xiang Lan asked enthusiastically.
Mu Xuelan nodded and said, "Let's go take a look then!"
Elder Yan Xin and Yi Fan walked to the dueling platform together. Elder Yan Xin looked at Yi Fan and said with a lot of sincerity, "Kid, are you regretting this now? It's still not too late for you to hand over that ugly person to me. You're still so young and you have a limitless future, for the sake of that ugly person, is all of this really necessary?" On the dueling platform, neither person would be allowed to leave the stage until one person dies.
Yi Fan glanced at Elder Yan Xin and said, "You speak too much nonsense."
Elder Yan Xin looked at Yi Fan angrily, but Yi Fan had already taken the lead and jumped onto the life-or-death platform.
As soon as Elder Yan Xin stepped onto the life-or-death platform, a huge toad was released.
"What's that thing!" Qi Shaorong asked.
"It's the contract beast of Elder Yan Xin, the seven-coloured poison toad. This toad is extremely poisonous, if an ordinary person were to run into it, they'd have no option but to die." Chen Yuan said.
Elder Yan Xin's toad was a little like the toads back on Earth, but its size was thousands of times larger than those from Earth.
However, on the surface of the toad, there were colourful bulges protruding out, bright and in all different hues, making it appear strange and terrifying. The toad stuck out its scarlet tongue, and as its mouth opened and closed, green venom spurted out.
"This poisonous toad looks really strong. It seems like Elder Yan Xin spent a lot of time and effort raising it." Qi Shaorong said.
Chen Yuan nodded his head and said, "Not only that, Elder Yan's fighting level isn't very high, most of the skills he has are related to refining and using poison."
Qi Shaorong smiled and said, "Really?"
A little crimson snake flew out from Yi Fan's wrist. As soon as the little snake flew out, it grew dramatically to become over five or six meters long. At the moment when the little snake came out, the toad, which originally was baring its teeth and brandishing its claws, suddenly showed a sense of fear.
The blood snake opened its mouth wide and swallowed the seven-coloured toad all at once.
The blood snake summoned by Yi Fan wasn't thicker than the mouth of a bowl, but the snake had completely swallowed the one-meter-long toad, and it even looked like it had room for more. The blood snake had eaten a full meal, and its stomach was bulging, giving it the appearance of having indigestion.
From the time the blood snake was summoned to when the poison toad was swallowed, it only took a moment.
Everyone was initially expecting to see a big battle, but then the battle turned out to be over in the blink of an eye. The onlookers were surprised, but they also felt a sense of disappointment at having missed out on some excitement.
Zhuang Hao looked at the shallow smile on Qi Shaorong's face and he frowned slightly. The people from the Mohe Mercenary Corps had all died of poisoning. Elder Yan Xin has encountered a formidable opponent this time.
Qi Shaorong looked at the snake on the ground, "That snake sure is lucky! It got a full meal to eat!"
"The seven-coloured toad is a highly toxic animal, we don't know if the snake might have trouble digesting it or not." Zhuang Hao said.
Qi Shaorong smiled and said, "Don't worry." Yi Fan's snake was raised using the method of raising Gu [3], it had eaten a countless number of poisonous substances before, so eating a single, small toad was nothing.
The blood snake's bulging belly slowly deflated and returned to its usual form.
It took a long time for Elder Yan Xin to snap out of his daze. After collecting his thoughts, Elder Yan Xin was furious and flew into a rage as he looked at the blood snake behind Yi Fan, saying, "What did your contract beast do…"
"Dead old man, you must be senile, what did it do? A big meal was delivered straight to its mouth, naturally it ate it…"
Elder Yan Xin looked at Yi Fan hatefully and said, "You loathsome kid, I'll teach you a good lesson."
Elder Yan Xin brought out a white bone staff, and started reciting a magic spell to launch an attack.
"Idiot." Yi Fan waved his staff, and an ice dragon flew out towards Elder Yan Xin. Before Elder Yan Xin could finish his spell, Yi Fan's attack had already arrived.
Zhuang Hao's eyes flashed a bit of surprise, "Qian Mian has actually reached level seven now, he's gotten ahead of you."
Qi Shaorong raised his eyebrows. When they were in the secret dimension before, Yi Fan was truly at level six, he had probably advanced a level after the competition ended, "He's more diligent than I am, so it only makes sense for him to be better than me."
Elder Yan Xin condensed a black shield in front of him, blocking Yi Fan's attack.
Zhuang Hao looked at Qi Shaorong and said, "Qian Mian seems to have only just reached the seventh level. Elder Yan Xin has been at the seventh level for many years already, if Qian Mian wants to win, I'm afraid that it won't be easy."
"If he takes it seriously, then it won't take too long for it to be over."
Qi Shaorong raised his voice and said, "A-Qian, finish this quickly, or we might not be able to make it in time for dinner."
[T/n: He's calling Qian Mian "A-Qian" this time, not Zhuang Qian lol.]
As Qi Shaorong's words fell, Yi Fan's magical powers flared up.
Zhuang Hao's eyes suddenly widened, "This is…"
The two elements of water and fire instantly surged forth in the air, and five ice dragons and five fire dragons flew out, intertwined with each other. The two opposing types of magic mixed together and exploded with a loud bang! The magical blast with dual-attributes produced a power comparable to that of a level eight cultivator. Elder Yan Xin was hit by this magical power and was immediately disintegrated into pieces.
The sudden explosion of the two elements of extreme heat and cold, put everyone in a daze.
Zhuang Hao looked at Qi Shaorong and said in surprise, "He knows fire magic?"
Qi Shaorong nodded, "Yep! He has a dual-type, mutually destructive magical constitution like me."
Zhuang Hao looked at Qi Shaorong and said, "I'm just afraid that this isn't the only similarity you two have." If Qian Mian knows fire magic, then there's a good chance that the person who injured Yi Bing in the secret dimension was…
Qi Shaorong looked at Zhuang Hao and said, "Young Master Zhuang, in which aspects do you think we're similar?"
Zhuang Hao frowned and said, "Nevermind, it's nothing."
Footnotes:
Secure life: To not have to worry about having things to eat and drink
Senior: Qianbei.
Gu: I think it's been brought up before, but it's a legendary venomous insect in fiction.