章 40: Getting Stolen From is Only Retribution

As Lu Xifa went to her closet to put the notes back in its place, she felt a bit suspicious.

"When I let him borrow my Spatial Distortion Technique, I only lent it to him for a second before taking it away. Yet, not only did he not have any complaints, he even had that weird satisfied look on his face.

"The same thing happened just now, he must've wanted to borrow my notes to gain insight into the technique since he didn't actually see anything last time. But he didn't complain when I took it away after a second?"

Lu Xifa contemplated in the closet, all the while Lan Xiang grabbed a tankoubon of a manga from her shelf and started reading.

"I was at this chapter last time..."

Lu Xifa came out of the closet.

"Hey, Xiang..."

"Hmm? What is it?" Lan Xiang turned to the next page.

"Why did you plead for my notes, but when I took it away after a second, you didn't even complain?"

For a split second, Lan Xiang froze. Soon enough, he had "found" a reason in his mind.

"Listen, Xifa. I wanted to be considerate. Since you took it before I could even read one word, there must be some sensitive or embarrassing information in the notebook, right? And you just gave it to me to stop me from pleading further.

"I mean, if you want me to complain, I will. Just that, everyone has their reasons for doing things. It's not my place to complain about it since it's yours to begin with."

Lan Xiang shrugged as he turned the page again.

Lu Xifa stood there, taking in what Lan Xiang had just said. "This guy is really considerate, huh? If I get a boyfriend, I would want it to be him— I mean, be like him..."

Seeing Lu Xifa's emotional expression relieved Lan Xiang. "Phew. Guess she bought into my bullshit. That was close, I shouldn't do this again."

After a while, Lu Xifa opened a rift that connected back to the auction house's storage room. This time, she peeked her head through first to survey the surroundings.

"There's no guards, let's go."

After both of them went through, Lan Xiang went up to the door and locked it. He turned on the light switch.

Lu Xifa looked around the room. "Ah, none of the crates have been opened yet, as usual. We have no way of knowing what's inside each one of these boxes."

"Luck of the draw, I guess." She approached one of the boxes and tried to break it open.

"Stop, Xifa." Lan Xiang activated his All-seeing Eye. "I can see inside the crates."

"...What?" Lu Xifa was a little confused. She had never heard of any skill that let one see through crates.

"To be more specific, I can see through any solid object."

"Ah, really?" Lu Xifa didn't think too much of it...

She suddenly turned red and placed her hands over her privates.

Lan Xiang rolled his eyes. "I'm not using it for that purpose!"

Lu Xifa held her suspicions and let her guard down a little bit.

Lan Xiang walked to a specific crate, one located in the corner. The wood had dark spots all over its sides.

He blew a gust of wind out his mouth, the dust that accumulated on top flying away and spreading.

Wizard Powers is really useful, huh.

Lan Xiang activated his Dragon Fist, a yellowish orange dragon coiling around his left arm, its head mounted on his fist.

He punched the crate.

In a split second, cracks spread around the box before it completely exploded, little wooden shrapnel bursting from the explosion. The loud sound echoed throughout the room.

Lu Xifa looked warily at the door. "Xiang, that was too loud!"

Lan Xiang retracted his fist and shrugged. "Nothing I can really do about that. I can't control sound..."

Ah, I just got a new idea.

The content of the crate revealed itself as the fog slowly dissipated into the rest of the room.

"This is... more books?" Lu Xifa was kind of disappointed.

"That's what I came here for anyway."

Lan Xiang sucked all of the techniques inside the crate inside his storage ring.

Since it was about to be auctioned, there must be some good techniques here. As for stealing from the Ning family... Hm, let's just say it's retribution for Ning Luoxue's actions. Hehe.

"What about the other crates? Aren't you going to look through them?"

The prospect of being able to tell the contents of the crates without destroying them excited Lu Xifa. Before this, she would destroy one crate and look at what was inside, then leave.

Every visit she made, she never stole anything and only broke crates to browse through the items inside, looking for a specific item.

As for pitying the Ning family... who cares? Lu Xifa didn't feel the need to pity a rich and powerful family, and the latter most likely didn't need it anyway. It was just her breaking a bunch of crates.

"Nah, I only need this right now." Lan Xiang pointed to the destroyed crate behind him.

Besides, I already have the teleportation technique. I can go back here anytime I want to. On second thought, Lan Xiang decided he wasn't going to tell Lu Xifa that he would soon be able to teleport like her.

"Then, can you look for something for me?"

"Sure, what is it?"

Lu Xifa reached into her shirt and took out a necklace. It was hidden inside her shirt this whole time. She took it off and presented it on her palm.

"A necklace that's similar to this one."

Lan Xiang grabbed the necklace and took a closer look. The string was black and thin. Hanging from it was a black, droplet-shaped pendant with a white dot in the center. As it stayed on his palm longer, he felt a negligible amount of his energy getting sucked into the pendant.

"Hey, isn't this Yin?" Lan Xiang raised his eyebrow.

"Yes, it's Yin. There are two necklaces that complement and complete one another, two that form Yin and Yang. This necklace of mine is one of those two."

"Are you sure this isn't from a souvenir store or something?"

"Wha- Of course not! This is an important Lu Family heirloom, passed down through the women in our family." Lu Xifa snatched the necklace back.

"You already know that I live in Pei Luan, right? The only reason I came here was that I heard rumors that some family named Ning had the necklace stored in their auction house.

"My grand aunt also pursued those rumors, but ended up meeting and marrying Grandpa Xie. So now, I'm continuing her investigation."

"Hmm..." Lan Xiang couldn't shake off the familiarity that he felt when looking at the necklace. "...Is it really not from a souvenir store?"

"..." Lu Xifa.

In the end, Lan Xiang shook the feeling off. It was likely he felt familiar with it because, well, it was the well-known Yin and Yang. Most people would probably feel familiar as well.