Realms In The Firmament

The man in black was aiming to jump higher than Ye Xiao so that he could occupy a commanding position in order to attack Ye Xiao with a fierce strike. However, Ye Xiao had noticed his intention and struck out earlier than the man had expected. Now it was Ye Xiao who occupied the higher position!

There was no turning-around for both of them. Both of their hands collided in an instant. – Bang! – Golden lights flashed out and dazed the surrounding people, all of them suddenly lost their vision because of these flashing lights.

The man in black felt confused and withdrew his hand. He stopped his offence and immediately decided to focus on his defense. He tried everything he could to defend himself in order to stay unharmed. He wasn’t rising up anymore; instead, he was falling to the ground. Ye Xiao was still above him and his golden hand was reaching for his scalp, while constantly emitting a golden glow. Ye Xiao was being extremely aggressive in order to beat the enemy as soon as possible.

The girl in white had watched every move made by Ye Xiao. She looked worried instead of calm, and she said, “Hei-San will suffer… He shouldn’t have jumped like that. The way he fights is only suitable for the situation where he has the higher position. Now he is fighting from a lower position. He may have won if the enemy had been much weaker than him, but he has made a rash move as he didn’t know his enemy completely. How could an experienced cultivator like him make such an uncharacteristic mistake?”

The other man in black, who was still standing behind the girl answered with a straight face, “Yes, he did make a mistake. But if it was me, I would take the same approach. We want to beat that guy in a challenging way so as to bring honor to you. The guy looked like he was only at the Grade of Renyuan and should have been very weak compared to Hei-San and me, so we were confident that we could beat him anyway. However, we didn’t know that the guy was hiding his energy. In fact, he has at least reached the intermediate level of the Grade of Diyuan! It must be a snare he uses to fool people like us. I don’t think we can win this fight.”

The girl in white hadn’t expected the man in black to talk this much, as he was usually quiet.

During the time they were talking…

Ye Xiao landed on the ground with a laugh. He then proceeded to use both of his two golden hands at the same time which moved rapidly and created two lines of golden flashes. This made his hands look like it was lightning.

- Swish! Swish! Swish! -

He was making unpredictable moves; he completely sacrificed his defense and focused only on his offence.

The man in black, who was at a disadvantage, was ashamed and angry. He strained all of his muscles to keep his defense up and wait for an opportunity to counter-attack, but he got no such opportunity under the relentless barrage of strikes given by Ye Xiao.

The man in black, Hei-San, hadn’t thought that his enemy could hit so aggressively. He hadn’t expected that he would fall into such an awkward situation where he could only suffer and not be able to retaliate. All he had done was just make a mistake in gauging the opponent’s strength at the beginning!

He didn’t understand why Ye Xiao could pressure him to such an extent, as he knew that he was much stronger than Ye Xiao! He wasn’t even getting time to breathe!

Hei-San was finally forced down to the ground after he jumped up and fought against Ye Xiao. Although, only a very short amount of time had passed since Hei-San had jumped to attack Ye Xiao, he had already taken nearly 40 solid slaps from Ye Xiao!

- Bang! –

Hei-San stood on the ground with his feet planted firmly, like two metal pillars. The floor suddenly cracked and splinters flew in the air!

He finally stood on the ground after taking some severe hits. He stood straight up after only staggering a bit! His eyes turned red. He felt humiliated and was preparing to start a furious attack of his own.

On the other side, Ye Xiao took a beautiful somersault in the air during which, he clapped his golden hands once, causing them to revert back to their previous state. By the time he had stepped on the ground, his hands had completely turned normal. It was a beautiful movement. He then spoke peacefully with his hands on his back, “You are washed-up!”

Hei-San stared at him and replied with a beast-like voice, “Am I?”

“Yes you are.” The girl in white agreed, “Although you are at the higher level than him in cultivation, you touched the ground first… So, you lost.”

Hei-San showed angry blush, “But… I… No one says that the one that touches the ground loses!”

The girl stopped speaking and remained silent.

Her silence was eerie and actually made the men in black feel stressed and terrified.

Hei-San’s face suddenly turned pale and he stepped forward in terror, “I am so sorry my lady. I was wrong.”

The girl glanced at him and said nothing.

Hei-San was sweating a lot and finally kneeled at the girl’s feet after some thinking. He laid his forehead on the ground and spoke in a low voice, “My lady. I was wrong! I beg your forgiveness!”

The girl looked at him and sighed, “When you lost, you lost; it is no big deal. If you kept such attitude all the time, you can only be a boor. The world of the martial arts would never accept you! Think about it… If it was not me whom you were talking to; instead, if it was… Do you think you would still be alive after talking like that?”

Hei-San was shivering; he was too terrified.

“Get up.” The girl in white spoke with a charming voice.

Hei-San stood up to and returned to the left side of the girl, keeping his head lowered. He dared not to say anything now. The other man in black looked at him with a look which said ‘thank god, you are so lucky’.

The men in black felt relieved.

The girl looked at Ye Xiao and spoke cheerfully, “Well fought. May I have your name please?”

Ye Xiao kept his hands on his back and stood naturally, like an expert cultivator. He answered casually, “Feng.”

“Master Feng.” The girl immediately turned distant, “You are a good cultivator with spectacular skills. However, you insulted my man. That is quite an offence… Now as the auction is about to begin, it’s better that we don’t spend too much time talking. What do you say that you accompany me after the auction, if you have guts?”

Ye Xiao laughed, “A challenge? Do you think I, as a man, would fear you, a girl? Ok. See you after the auction.”

“ A promise is a promise.” The girl added.

“A promise is a promise!” Ye Xiao nodded seriously.

What happened before was nothing important; what mattered the most was the agreement which they had made at the end.

The girl nodded lightly and looked at Ye Xiao. And then she left with the two men in black.

“Wait.” Ye Xiao smiled and threw over a small bottle. The bottle dropped into Hei-San’s arms.

“My golden hands were poisonous.” Ye Xiao spoke calmly.

Hei-San was shocked and looked at Ye Xiao.

The girl frowned and said to Hei-San, “Take it.” And then she smiled to Ye Xiao, “Thanks Master Feng.”

Ye Xiao smiled, “No problems. It wouldn’t be good for anybody if someone died.”

Then they both laughed.

The girl in white went on walking away with the two men in black.

They became more cautious and confused, “Golden Hand? Poisonous? Got poisoned imperceptibly? What is that skill?”

They felt that this Master Feng deserved their respect.

They didn’t know that the ‘Golden Hand’ was like Feng Zhi-Ling’s face – a disguise.

When the two men in black walked past him, Ye Xiao felt uneasiness in his mind.

The men in black had brought Ye Xiao a sense of familiarity.

He seemed to know them.

Moreover, when he was fighting against one of them, Ye Xiao had a felt something peculiar- a feeling of bloodlust, originating from a blademaster.

He knew that only expert bladesmasters could produce such a feeling.

Ye Xiao had noticed that the man had many calluses on the edge of his palm.

The calluses were special.

“They were not the calluses that were caused by casually playing with swords. He was a blademaster.” He thought, “Blades. Blademasters. It feels familiar…”

Ye Xiao suddenly recollected the figures that had flown away from his house the other night. He looked at the direction where the girl had gone, but they had vanished into thin air.

“It was you.”

…

Ye Xiao had successfully gained vital information from the contact with the girl’s bodyguard. He turned around and entered the salesroom. When he had just stepped inside the salesroom and the door was about to close, two new groups of people arrived at the scene.

These two groups did not utter a single word and casually walked into the salesroom.

…

- Dong! –

The bell rang. The salesroom turned silent.

Guan Wan-Shan stood on the stage wearing a red robe. He was presiding the auction all by himself this time. His old face was filled with pride and delight.

He was quite confident that, with this auction, a new record would be created.

The thirty balconies were fully occupied, so was the main court in the first floor.

Guan Wan-Shan was completely pleased. He looked at the big crowd in front of him and felt a sense of achievement. Usually… it was difficult to invite just one or two of these people to attend an auction, but now they were all here!

“I declare the auction to have begun!” Guan Wan-Shan knew well that these words were what the people wanted to hear the most, so he went straight to it.

He didn’t need to say anything to build the atmosphere. It might displease people if he spoke superfluous words, as right now, was definitely a special auction.

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[1] Hei-San: This name literally translates to Dark-Three. The name must be a secret agent codename similar to the name Hei-Jiu, who had appeared in Chapter 27.