220 Incite – Part 1
Head Eunuch Rang, the royal guards, servants, and Liu Bian turned to Cao Mao. They got interested, "What do you know?"
"Don't you feel that the auction earlier was a little strange?"
Liu Bian nodded. Indeed, they had been under the influence of an unknown array during the auction, and they had only discovered it after the morning session had ended.
Cao Mao stood up and gazed at the VIP box seats, where Sun Wentai, Xu Lanying, Zhang Junyi, and Niu Fu had used, "Several people had bid for this thing previously, but why didn't they push as hard as you, Your Highness?"
Liu Bian and Head Eunuch Rang squinted their eyes. They turned to look at each other as if they could communicate through their gaze.
Cao Mao kept pushing, "I think the Qiang Clan also played a part in this scheme. Isn't it odd that Qiang Han could change the auction schedule? Usually, no auction organizer would have allowed it since it was THEIR AUCTION, not the Qiang Clan's auction. I believe that Tang Deming might have colluded with the Qiang Clan, and they were aware that this was a counterfeit item, Your Highness."
"…"
"Think of it in a simpler way - how the hell did Tang Deming and the Qiang Clan know that this piece of rock contained the secret of time-and-space!? Even if there's a way to decipher the codes, no sane clan would have revealed it to the public! If it were me, I would have kept the mural to myself and secretly learned the time-and-space law! Then, when I have mastered everything, I would have subjugated every foe and rival to become the overlord of this continent!"
Head Eunuch Rang's face was solemn, but Liu Bian's face flushed in red before it turned purple. The latter clenched his fists and bit his lower lips.
Cao Mao was right. No sane clan lord would have shown this piece of information to other rivals.
This auction was a hoax!
Yet, it took Liu Bian a few breaths to control his anger. He stood up and cupped his fist, bowing to Cao Mao.
"Thank Sir Mao for opening the eyes of this na?ve prince. If you haven't explained it to me, I wouldn't have realized how many people who might be into this wicked scheme."
Cao Mao's face briefly changed into Light Yagami's [All According to Plan] expression for a moment before he resumed his pokerface. He cupped his fist and returned the bow.
"This alchemist simply talked nonsense."
"No, no. That wasn't something nonsense! I owe you one. I'll reward you handsomely after I deal with those mongrels behind the scene!"
Cao Mao got interested, "What will you do to those evil people, Your Highness?"
"Of course, we'll obliterate this city and everyone all together!"
Liu Bian picked a spatial ring, which contained 100,000 refined stones in there. He added one essence core in there as the price of the camping chair and passed it to Cao Mao, "Please take this, Sir Mao. Also, you should go back and tell your family to leave this city or lead them to one of my battleships. You can take this ring as my token of apology. I'll give you more once I'm done with my business here."
Cao Mao frowned as the number of refined stones was nothing to him, but he still accepted it. He looked at the prince, "Err, my master's items are still with Tang Deming and his goons."
"I'll make sure to pay you ten times the market price as compensation for the trouble. For now, please leave the city with your master and your family. I will start attacking everyone after the auction has ended."
"…"
Although Cao Mao's provocation ploy was successful, it disrupted his money-gathering plan. He paused to think for a moment before he shook his head, declining the prince's suggestion.
And then, Cao Mao had another inspiration.
"Then, I shall take your advice. I'll go to my family and warn them to leave the city."
Liu Bian nodded, "That's good. Oh, by the way, what's the items that your master has put in the auction?"
Cao Mao snickered, "Lightning Element Pallet, Fire Element Pallet, and Wood Element Pallet."
Head Eunuch Rang and Liu Bian widened their eyes. They began calculating how much money that they had to pay Cao Mao if they were to ruin the auction.
Each heaven-grade pill was more expensive than sentient weapons combined. As the element Qi in the pill could potentially enable a cultivator to use another element, core pillar experts and even nascent soul experts could still benefit from eating such pills. Many essence gathering cultivators could also consume the pills to awaken their first primary element, so clan lords always searched for one of these pills for their children.
As a result, the demand for these element pallets was always high, and the market price kept increasing. Every sect and clan was willing to pay an arm and leg or even sell their daughters to get their hands on it.
Yet, not many alchemists were willing to concoct such pills since they were time-consuming, and they might lose a portion of their elemental Qi during the process of pill-making.
Whenever an elemental pill or pallet came out to the market, it always caused an uproar and chaos.
Liu Bian estimated that each of these pills might be auctioned for at least 10,000 essence cores. Moreover, the highlight of this auction, the Gold Element Pallet, might be even more expensive than his fake time-and-space mural.
After getting the rough estimation, Liu Bian's face was brimming with joy. He planned to ransack the auction house and stole the pills. Then, he would pay Cao Mao with the looted essence cores from the dead cultivators here.
"Sir Mao, I'll make sure to keep my promise. How about this? I'll pay you a visit after this, and I'll pay you 30,000 essence cores as compensation for the loss of opportunity and the pills."
Cao Mao laughed, "Ah, thank you very much, Your Highness! By the way, didn't you say [Ten times the amount]?"
"…"
Liu Bian's face distorted. He couldn't afford to pay Cao Mao over 300,000 essence cores or his imperial clan would be bankrupt.
"Just kidding. We'll take what you can afford."
"… Thank you for your understanding. Oh, could you give me your phone number, so I can contact you later?"
"Sure, sure!"
Cao Mao grinned as he revealed his J-Phone to the prince and let him see the number on the screen.
However, he had injected his fire element Qi into the phone.
Killer Queen's ability – The Bomb Transmutation had been planted!
Cao Mao placed one hand behind his back, and that hand was holding the [Invisible Switch]. As long as he could press it, Liu Bian would die by the Killer Queen's detonation.
Unfortunately, Head Eunuch Rang coughed before Cao Mao could press the switch, "Ahem! I didn't know that we need to use fire element Qi to charge your J-Phone these days. Is the phone technology nowadays so advanced that we need to use element Qi instead of yang Qi now?"
"…"
Cao Mao inwardly clicked his tongue. He canceled the transmuted bomb skill since the head eunuch seemed to notice his ability.
The plot armor of Liu Bian might still be active. It was impossible to kill the prince and escape in one piece under the watch of this nascent soul eunuch.
In the end, Cao Mao took the phone back without doing anything to the prince.
…
Cao Mao strolled out of the room with a bright smile, pretending to be happy.
Head Eunuch Rang came out with Cao Mao to send the latter off. However, he didn't go far. The eunuch stopped after they had reached the stairs to the lower floors.
"I shall return to my master. I bid you farewell."
"Good luck to you, too," Cao Mao nodded and walked downstairs.
But the eunuch grabbed Cao Mao's shoulder. The old man leaned closer and whispered, "Your assassination attempt is commendable, but the prince belongs to me. If you do that again, I'll kill you and your master."
"…"
The eunuch let go of Cao Mao. He stood there and waved his hand.
"You can go. I won't tell the prince of what you did. But if you come back, I'll kill you."
Cao Mao looked back in hesitation. He still had unfinished business on this floor, but the old eunuch was blocking the stair hallway.
"Alright."
Without a choice, Cao Mao walked down the stairs. As he was descending to the first floor, he could sense the killing intent from the eunuch.
Fortunately, the eunuch stopped using his domain power and his killing intent when Cao Mao had reached the ground floor.
As soon as the pressure was lifted, Cao Mao could heave a sigh of relief.
'Haa. Dammit. That was scary!'
Cao Mao regretted his decision. He was too impatient that he had tried to take the shortcut to kill the prince. Also, he had forgotten that Liu Bian's plot armor was a lot stronger than Xie Tian's.
That was a big blunder. Fortunately, the eunuch didn't kill him.
Meow! (That sissy guy almost killed you, you know?)
Even Mao Xueyan could tell how close Cao Mao was to death.
"I know."
From the looks of it, the eunuch was not loyal to the prince. On the contrary, he seemed to be a manipulative type or a corrupted politician, who had aimed to use Liu Bian as a puppet.
Thus, the blunder just now was not that bad. He had simply alarmed another hidden villain among Liu Bian's ranks.
He might have made a mistake, but it was redeemable.
Cao Mao patted his cheeks to psyche himself. He looked around, scanning his surroundings. Then, he called the nearest guild worker, who was looking in Cao Mao's direction.
"Excuse me, do you know where the latrine is?"
The worker pointed at the hallway further away, "You can keep going that way and turn right. The toilet is over there."
Cao Mao smiled and walked toward the toilet.
But as soon as he took the right turn and got out of everybody's line of sight, he activated his new stealth skill, which he had copied from a certain mermaid's clone.
Cao Mao's body, clothes, and all of his belongings became transparent. Even Mao Xueyan inside his clothes became invisible as well.
As soon as Mao Xueyan could see through everything, she panicked.
Meow! (WHAT THE HELL!?)
"Shh, be quiet. I'm going to sneak back to the fifth floor."
Earlier, the nascent soul eunuch was monitoring him, so Cao Mao couldn't activate this skill and walk from the prince's VIP room to the other room without being detected. Had he strolled to the other VIP room right away, the eunuch might have killed him due to the suspicious activity.
He had to sneak back to the fifth floor to proceed to the next plan.
As Cao Mao and Mao Xueyan became invisible, they got back to the fifth floor undetected. He took the southern path toward another hallway, away from the prince's room and Zhao Bao's room.
In the hallway toward a southern VIP room, several vampires and succubi were guarding the path.
All vampires were graceful men and women, dressing in black robes and a black cloak. As for the succubi, they only wore see-through lingerie and thin white robes. Their sexy curvy bodies, pretty faces, perfect skin, and perky breasts could make any ED old man energetic.
Cao Mao stopped walking and contemplated if he should enter Xu Lanying's room like this. He closed his eyes to think.
'Going in like this is too risky. Those manipulative warmongers will definitely notice me and capture me again. Eh, but I need their cooperation if I want to weaken Liu Bian's forces.'
Negotiating with Xu Lanying and Fu De face-to-face was impossible. Since these villains were untrustworthy, showing himself in front of them was akin to suicide.
They would have definitely captured Cao Mao had he appeared in front of them again!
Thus, Cao Mao picked a pen from his invisible spatial ring. Then, he began writing something on the wall.
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