500: Chapter 500 Retaliatory Price Hikes: A Deadly Cycle!

"Qingluan."

Xie Jinghong's voice drifted out from the depths of the secret chamber.

The voice was cloyingly sweet and soft, as if she were acting spoiled, every word wrapped in three layers of honey.

But to Qingluan's ears, it felt like someone was using an ice pick to tap up her spine, vertebra by vertebra.

She knew her Young Miss all too well.

The more Life Qi the Young Miss had, the sweeter her voice grew.

Sweetness at the first level meant she was unhappy.

Sweetness at the second level meant she was going to mess with someone.

Sweetness at this current level—

Someone was about to be skinned and have their tendons pulled.

"This servant is here!"

Qingluan practically rushed to push the door open, keeping her head low and her eyes fixed firmly on her toes, not even daring to glance at Xie Jinghong's face with her peripheral vision.

"Pass on my order."

Xie Jinghong reclined on a chaise longue that already had a cracked corner, extending a finger as white as jade to tap the armrest repeatedly.

The rhythm was unhurried, like a cat sharpening its claws.

"The Pengcheng Branch of the Lingbao Trading Firm in the West Qingyou Continent."

"Effective immediately, for the auction on the first of next month, the starting price for all categories will be increased by fifty percent."

Qingluan's head buzzed.

She snapped her head up, her face practically screaming two words—Absurd.

"Young Miss! This... this simply won't do!"

She was so anxious her voice cracked:

"The Pengcheng Branch is located in the West Qingyou Continent; it's already a remote place where even the birds don't poop. Just the shipping costs add thirty percent to all goods, so the prices are already much higher than other branches."

"Now you want to raise everything by another fifty percent? That price... that price will go straight to the heavens! Who would buy? Only a madman would buy!"

"Young Miss, we are merchants, not mountain bandits!"

"Oh? No one will buy?"

Instead of getting annoyed, the corners of Xie Jinghong's mouth curled up slightly.

When she smiled, her fox-like eyes narrowed into two crescent moons, looking incredibly beautiful.

But seeing this smile, Qingluan only felt a cold wind whistling down the back of her neck.

"It doesn't matter if no one buys."

Xie Jinghong's fingertip flicked lightly, landing right on the cover of the closed beast-skin diary beside her.

"Anyway, isn't there a sucker who absolutely must buy it?"

Her voice was soft and sweet, like she was coaxing a child.

"Oh, I almost forgot."

She tilted her head, adding as if she just remembered something.

"The immortal body marrow core, price it separately."

"On top of the fifty percent increase for all categories, raise its starting price by another seventy percent."

"Thud!"

Qingluan's knees went weak.

She didn't kneel.

But she was only a hair's breadth away.

Her face turned pale instantly, even paler than the white servant dress she wore.

"Yo... Young Miss!"

"You're not joking, are you?!"

Her voice was so high it broke, and she even forgot the etiquette of status before the Young Miss.

"The starting price for an immortal body marrow core is one million high-grade immortal stones; that's already a sky-high price among sky-high prices!"

"First, a fifty percent increase makes it one and a half million!"

"Then add another seventy percent—that's two million, five hundred and fifty thousand high-grade immortal stones!!"

She held out her fingers and calculated in the air, scaring herself with the number.

"That's more than double the market price!"

"This isn't doing business anymore; this is putting a knife to someone's throat and carving out their flesh!"

"Young Miss, I beg you to reconsider! If word of this gets out, the Lingbao Trading Firm's century-old reputation will be completely ruined!"

Qingluan knelt on the ground with a bitter face, her voice carrying a hint of a sob.

Her mind was in turmoil, unable to understand who on earth could have provoked the Young Miss to such an extent.

To go as far as ruining her own reputation just to screw someone over.

"Reputation?"

Xie Jinghong stood up from the couch.

Stepping on the cold jade floor, she walked toward Qingluan step by step.

Her slender fingers reached out, gently lifting Qingluan's chin.

She looked down at Qingluan, her smile extremely gentle.

"Qingluan, you've been with me for so many years; there's one thing you should understand."

"On the Lingbao Trading Firm's territory, I don't care how others love to curse me."

"Call me black-hearted? I accept it."

"Call me insatiably greedy? That's a compliment."

"Call me a snake-hearted woman? If they say it to my face, I'll even treat them to tea."

Her tone was light, as if she were chatting about the weather.

"But."

Her tone shifted.

The smile in those fox-like eyes was like the thinnest layer of ice on a winter lake, cracking with a "crack" to reveal the bottomless cold pool beneath.

"Calling me—"

"A nickname."

As those words escaped from between her teeth, even the air in the secret chamber froze for a moment.

"This price is very expensive."

She enunciated every word clearly.

"Very, very expensive."

Qingluan was completely petrified.

"A toe... nickname?"

She opened her mouth, ten thousand question marks spinning wildly in her head before crashing into a muddle.

The Young Miss... because someone called her a "nickname"... was going to turn the prices of the Pengcheng Branch upside down?

Just for those few words?

She suddenly really wanted to know how many heads the person who dared to call the Lingbao Trading Firm's Young Boss a "nickname" actually had.

But what she wanted to know even more was, Young Miss, as the number one person in the business world of the Tiannan Immortal Domain, why do you care what a pauper says about you?

This wasn't right.

This was far too strange.

But she didn't dare ask, not even a single word.

Xie Jinghong let go, turned around, and sat back down languidly on the chaise longue.

"Go and pass the order."

"Not a single word is to be changed."

"If that fat man Zhou Fu dares to give any discounts or make any adjustments..."

She looked up, smiling radiantly.

"Tell him that he can spend the rest of his life mining for me on the Ten-thousand-year Glaciers of the North Frost Cold Continent. It's minus thirty thousand degrees there all year round, quite cool and suitable for his weight loss."

Qingluan I shivered., knowing the matter was set in stone. Advising one more word would be throwing her life onto the edge of a blade.

She stood up despondently, bowing her head as she backed out of the secret chamber step by step.

Her back swayed as if half her soul had been sucked out.

"Click."

The door to the secret chamber closed.

The entire space fell silent.

Xie Jinghong picked up the beast-skin diary again, flipped to the page where the words "nickname" were written, and stared for a couple of breaths.

The coldness on her face receded bit by bit.

First, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly.

Then it curved into an arc.

Finally, it turned into the playful look of a cat that had caught a mouse's tail but was in no hurry to bite down.

"Su Chen..."

She rubbed the handwriting in the diary with her thumb, her voice low, carrying a hint of amusement that only she could hear.

"Let's play slowly."

Her tongue lightly brushed over her lips, an unconscious display of excitement after finding the perfect prey.

She felt she had discovered something.

A game ten thousand times more fun than earning the Immortal Stones of all the Cultivators in the Tiannan Immortal Domain.

And the name of this game was "Teasing that nickname named Su Chen."

As for the first round of this game.

It was to let him see with his own eyes, when he opened the price list of the Pengcheng Branch, exactly how much calling her a "nickname" was worth.