Chapter 149: The rich friend
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——(POV third person)——
"Young master, You certainly have a magnificent collection, can I ask you where you acquired them?" the middle-aged man who introduced himself as Wen Mu asked Cai ZhenKang. After Wen Mu and Cai ZhenKang entered the shop, Cai ZhenKang kept showing him different trees that he had 'collected' in the trial, and each time Wen Mu's eyes would widen a little more. He decided to ask Cai ZhenKang directly as he couldn't hide his curiosity anymore.
Li Huang was looking around the shop to see if he can find something that catches his eyes. After this month's training, he made a small breakthrough in using the peeping eye of heaven, he now could use the peeping eye of heaven with closed eyes. Before he had to look at something and because he didn't have good control over the treasure, a purple glow could be seen in his eyes the moment he used the artifact so he tried to fix this with training.
Alas, the peeping eye of heaven is not only an artifact in the name and it was very hard to control it, so in the short term training wouldn't help Li Huang much. Because of that he changed his technique, he tried to use it with closed eyes but as expected he was seeing the Qi moving on his eyelids and couldn't see past it. To Li Huang, this was a win as he could do something about the Qi on his eyelids, but he couldn't do anything about his low cultivation level in comparison to the artifact's level.
After a month's worth of training, he could safely almost completely close the small Qi passages that were on his eyelids and he could use the peeping eye of heaven in that window of time. It is needless to say that he could do almost irreversible damages to his eyes and brain if something were to go wrong, so Li Huang tried it on smaller scales to minimize the damage. This proved useful as a lot of things went wrong when he was testing this method.
Luckily he was rich, or else his eyes would be a shade whiter now.
Cai ZhenKang looked at the shopkeeper and smirked.
"These are all handpicked from the eternal wail trial." Cai ZhenKang said proudly. Not many could say that they had collected wood in there.
Wen Mu looked shocked and throw a glance at his assistant who had just come back to the shop, and his assistant's nod was enough for him to know who was in front of him. As a well-known merchant, he could be called practically blind if he couldn't even recognize the disciple robes of the heavenly sword sect and the blue bulls sect.
The fact that someone from these two sects was walking together could mean that the rumor about the friendship between the chief disciple of the heavenly sword sect, Li Huang, and the chief disciple of the blue bulls sect, Cai ZhenKang, is true but he wasn't going to call someone by name when he wasn't one hundred percent sure about it. Who knows if these two were to take offense if they were not Li Huang and Cai ZhenKang.
So he did the logical thing and sent his assistant to check if such individuals entered the city today. Such high-profile people would not come here and go unnoticed so it shouldn't take long for his assistant to snoop around and find the information.
What he didn't expect was to find such antique woods that he would lose the track of time. He remembered about this matter just now that Cai ZhenKang talked about the trial. The nod from his assistant was the final thing that he needed to know to be sure that the one he is talking to is Cai ZhenKang and the other one with white hair who is browsing the shop is Li Huang. Li Wanrou had her personal robes like other members of the Li family, so there was no sect insignia on it so you could not blame Wen Mu for not recognizing them.
"Forgive me young master Cai, it seems that old age has got to me. I should have known that such a fine log would be from the eternal wail chasm." Wen Mu said with his merchant way of humbling oneself.
"HAHA, it's fine, it's fine." Cai ZhenKang accepted the flattery without hesitation but Li Huang knew better and could understand that Wen Mu wanted to redeem himself for not recognizing them. Naturally, Li Huang didn't expect him to know him so he didn't feel offended about it.
Wen Mu cupped his fists to everyone who entered with Cai ZhenKang and Li Huang with a sheepish look to show his sincerity. Li Huang and others returned the gesture.
…
A few minutes passed and Wen Mu convinced Cai ZhenKang to sell quite a few wood logs to him. In the meanwhile, Li Huang was looking through the shop. The shop was an antique shop so you could find all sorts of things here. Li Huang choose a few items as he could see their usage in daily life. He was mostly buying them to fill his portable rooms as he would like to have comfort even if he is in a simple room.
He also used this chance to ask Li Wanrou and Hu Anjing about the items he choose. Li Wanrou gave her opinion on a few items and went to buy a few things for other family members that came with her to the five river city.
With Li Wanrou shopping with others, Hu Anjing and Li Huang were alone and this made Hu Anjing embarrassed as it was like a young couple shopping for their marriage. Well, at least to her who knew about the marriage plan, it was like that.
After a few minutes, her embarrassment faded and she participated more in choosing the items. She even choose a few items for herself unknowingly.
"Junior uncle, what is that?" Hu Anjing asked as she pointed at something that looked like a tree branch in a glance. Li Huang took a closer look and he could see the metallic form of this 'branch'. He felt that he has seen something similar but couldn't say for sure, with a blink of his eyes he knew where he saw this item and couldn't help but smile.
"This is the treasure of this shop, Anjing. Good eye." Li Huang said with a smile. This item was not a tree branch but a tree root of a rare tree that would gain this form after 500 years. The main property of this tree root is that it can absorb Qi at an astonishing rate. Because of this, almost all these trees were removed from the face of the world as they could make a place infeasible for Qi training.
Li Huang saw this root used in the golem that he found in the trial and didn't think that he could find such a thing in a shop.
"Shopkeeper, how much for this tree root?" Li Huang asked Wen Mu.
Wen Mu came to Li Huang and looked at the item he was pointing to.
"Young master Li, this tree root is like the treasure of my shop. This tree root can absorb Qi indefinitely." Wan Mu tried to say that this tree root is not just a simple antique.
"I know. For how much you will be willing to sell this tree root?" Li Huang nodded and asked again. He was going to buy this root as there was nothing as overpay for him right now.
"Well, uh…" Wen Mu looked at Cai ZhenKang who was getting close to Li Huang.
Li Huang didn't need to see more and spoke.
"How about that same 10 logs that you saw earlier?" Li Huang asked as he could see that Wen Mu was interested in an exchange.
"How about 50, young master Li?" Wen Mu asked.
"20." Li Huang said flatly.
"41." Wen Mu said.
"30. No more, no less." Li Huang said as Cai ZhenKang was looking at him with wide eyes. He couldn't believe that Li Huang was using his logs to buy something.
"Deal." Wen Mu said hastily as he was afraid Li Huang would change his mind.
Li Huang nodded and turned to face Cai ZhenKang.
"ZhenKang, how does it feel to be the rich friend?" He said with a smile.
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