Chapter 145: Inviting the thief into your house (Part - 4)
"Take this, and leave... And never show your face around my naive nephew again," Song Yan told Gu Fan coldly.
"What is this?" Gu FGan did not care how she looked at him. If this thing was useful, he would take it along with her.
"You only need to know that this is something you can’t buy even if you have all the wealth of this world." Song Yan replied in her cold tone, not wanting to reveal much.
"I can’t take something I don’t know what it is." Gu Fan shrugged, "You don’t even know how to play the rich father properly. You need to offer me something that I can’t refuse to break your naive daughter’s heart."
"You have a very strange... Well, it does not matter," Song yan sighed as she looked away from Gu Fan into the nothingness of her study.
"This... This belongs to my late husband." she began to speak.
"My late husband gave me this jade hairpin as our betrothal gift decades ago, and because it was forged by a supreme Grandmaster Blacksmith, it contains a hidden, high-tier defensive array capable of easily absorbing eleven direct, full-power strikes from a peak Nascent Soul cultivator."
She stood there with her arms crossed under her generous, heavy curves, looking like an untouchable goddess.
"A treasure of this calibre is worth more than the entire medical inventory of any clan in this valley," she sneered softly.
"My nephew... I have seen how he talks about you."
"He believes in you."
"So take it and go. You have earned a massive fortune today without even needing to drop so low to break his heart."
"Please go."
"How beautiful," Gu Fan let out an amused snort and slowly walked over to the stone table.
Without any caution he casually picked up the glittering jade hairpin, and swirled it between his fingers, and the absolute second his skin made contact with the artifact, the transparent blue system interface flashed directly in front of his eyes.
[ITEM ANALYSED: FAKE JADE HAIRPIN]
[Grade: Trash Artefact]
[Description: A cheap, completely useless artefact made of low-quality green glass and painted stone, containing a non-functional, temporary illusion array designed to mimic a faint spiritual pulse.]
[Defensive Capability: 0% (Will shatter into powder upon a single strike from even a mortal child).]
"Heh?!" Gu Fan looked at the notification in front of him and then at the Jade hairpin and his lips curled into a taunting smirk beneath his mask.
He tossed the piece of garbage in his hand, and tossed it in his hands like a toy, ’Good heavens. Her husband scammed her. And she still treasures it decades later. Yet she calls Song Tianyu naive?!’
Song Yan’s brow immediately furrowed, "Be careful. That treasure is priceless."
"Tell me, Madam Song," Gu Fan chuckled teasingly, twirling the fake hairpin between his fingers as he looked into her cold face, "Have you ever actually tested this supreme lifesaver of yours, or did you just blindly take your dead husband’s word for it?"
Song Yan’s pale brow furrowed in slight irritation as she scoffed at his insolent question, "A defensive treasure of that immense power is meant strictly for life-or-death emergencies, so of course I have never needed to waste its precious spiritual energy just to test its strength."
"How naive... For someone who keeps calling Song Tianyu naive... You are surprisingly adorable yourself!" Gu Fan laughed out loud, and with a lazy flick of his wrist, he tossed the glittering jade hairpin directly back onto the stone table, letting it bounce uselessly against the rock like a piece of common trash.
"Take your precious betrothal gift back, Madam Song," Gu Fan sneered smoothly, "You rich clan people talk so high and mighty but when it comes to show... You are all hand to mouth. Che... Giving me a glass toy in the name of jade."
"What?"
"I said," Gu Fan pointed toward the hairpin, "That’s not jade. It’s barely even an artifact."
"In fact, calling it an artifact is already giving it face." Gu Fan chuckled, shaking his head.
Song Yan stared at him. Then at the hairpin. Then back at him.
The temperature inside the pavilion suddenly dropped.
"What... What did you say?" Song Yan’s eyes opened wide in shock, and her cheeks flushed furious red as her icy composure twisted under his blatant disrespect.
"You... you ignorant, short-sighted fraud!" she hissed angrily, her slender body trembling slightly as she glared at him, "What do you know?"
"You do not even know what is good for you! To think you would dare call a treasure capable of resisting peak Nascent Soul cultivators a glass toy!"
"Because it is!" Gu Fan shrugged.
"You!" Spiritual Qi began gathering around Song Yan’s body, as her silver hair fluttered slightly. She was one sentence away from throwing him out of the pavilion.
But unfortunately for her, before she could act, her face suddenly turned deathly pale.
The icy Spiritual Qi surrounding her instantly became chaotic, and Song Yan’s pupils contracted.
Instinctively her hand flew toward her chest.
"Ughhhh!" And the next second she vomited a thick mouthful of dark blood that instantly froze into sharp, bloody ice crystals the moment it hit the wooden floorboards.
A terrifying cold spread through the room., and Gu Fan could see it on her face that her curse had flared up again.
Unable to keep her balance, Song Yan staggered, and her body swayed
Gu Fan’s eyes narrowed under his mask and he instinctively stepped forward, just about to reach out and help the collapsing Song Yan when another sharp, metallic chime echoed inside his head.
Gu Fan barely managed to catch the poor lady, and a bone-piercing chill instantly surged through his arm.
The cold was so terrifying that Gu fan felt his blood run cold. He could literally feel his blood freezing into ice.
Yet Gu Fan barely noticed it as as the system began to speak in his head.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: SCAN COMPLETE!]
[Target Profile: Song Yan.]
[Age: 47 (But she can still give your precious bai bing a run for her money thanks to her bloodline).
[Current Cultivation: 6th Stage of the Spirit Realm (Rapidly declining).]
[Peak Cultivation: 5th Stage of the Origin Realm.]
[Innate Bloodline: Nine-Yin Glacial Python Bloodline (Highly potent ice element). Heaven Grade Bloodlione.]
[Primary Affliction: Yin-Consuming Heart-Rotting Gu]
[Description: Ancient parasitic spiritual organism currently feeding upon host’s dantian, bloodline, and cultivation foundation.]
Gu Fan’s expression gradually became serious as he learnt the new information. It was a Gu worm. Not a curse as he thought?
These things are infamous in the cultivation world.
This series of events was vicious, cruel, and above all...
Intentional.
The system continued, and new lines of information rapidly appeared in front of him.
[BACKGROUND RECORD UNLOCKED]
[THE TRAGEDY OF THE GLACIAL FAIRY]
Decades ago, Song Tianming (current Patriarch) was always a step behind his talented younger sister, Song Yan. be it in terms of cultivation and clan merit.
At one point, many clan elders had secretly supported her succession as the next Patriarch, to inherit the absolute seat of power.
Unfortunately...
Some people had different plans.
And it was none other than her own dear brother. Someone she trusted with her eyes closed.
Song Tianming conspired with the greedy Second Elder to permanently ruin her future.
They hired a handsome, silver-tongued rogue cultivator to court and seduce the proud Song Yan, and slowly and steadily as he gained her trust, he secretly planted the Yin-Consuming Heart-Rotting Gu deep inside her body.
However the rogue cultivator decided to spread his legs out of the sheets.
So to ensure no loose ends could ever be traced back to them, Song Tianming and the Second Elder quietly murdered the "live-in son-in-law" the very same night he was supposed to claim the ultimate prize, on his wedding night.
It was a sudden, tragic illness that consumed him and left a grieving, cursed Song Yan behind to slowly waste away in isolation while they enjoyed the clan’s absolute, undisputed authority.
Gu Fan read through the entire digital text on his blue screen, and his chest rumbled with admiration for Song Tianming. To think someone with such a gentle face could be so vicious under his skin. So admirable.
Gu Fan looked at the beautiful, completely oblivious silver-haired woman in his arms. He could not help but smile looking at her confused face. Naive... Naive... Naive...
Fake hairpin.
Fake husband.
Fake romance.
Fake siblings.
Everything was just so fake.
"What are you laughing at?" Song Yan demanded, her dark eyes flashing with lethal coldness as her silver hair ruffled slightly from her flaring Qi.
Gu Fan simply tightened his strong arm around her slender waist, supporting her weak body against his chest as his eyes stared directly down into her pale, beautiful face with an intensity of a predator.
"I was just thinking," Gu Fan whispered as his face moved inches away from hers.
"I was just thinking that your older brother is a remarkably generous man."
"He once opened the doors of his sister’s chambers for a thief decades ago."
"Today your dear nephew has done the same."
"But unlike your dead husband."
"I am absolutely going to enjoy cleaning out every single treasure he died before stealing."
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