536: Chapter 536 If the auction doesn't squeeze every last drop out of you, I'll change my surname to yours!

Lingbao Trading Firm Pengcheng Branch.

Top-floor secret room.

Xie Jinghong was holding a radiant Glazed Tea Cup, sipping tea with an elegant posture.

The Projection Formation in front of her faithfully recorded Su Chen's every move in the Loose Cultivator market.

When Su Chen ignored all the normal stalls and specifically delved into the nooks and crannies, she only slightly raised an eyebrow.

When Su Chen squatted in front of that dirty old man's stall and rummaged through the scrap metal, her brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

When Qian Duoduo grabbed Su Chen's hem and wailed piteously, she even let out a light chuckle, finding this team to be ridiculously cute.

However—

The moment Su Chen pulled out that bulging Storage Pouch from his Storage Ring and slammed it onto the tattered beast skin.

The glazed cup in Xie Jinghong's hand let out an imperceptible cry of distress.

A spiderweb-like crack instantly spread across the entire cup from where her fingertips touched it.

It wasn't crushed by her.

It was her immortal essence as a Seventh Heaven Profound Immortal that had completely spiraled out of control in that instant!

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Instead, it was an extreme contraction!

The light inside the secret room suddenly dimmed, and all the floating spiritual lights were forcibly extinguished by an invisible force!

In an instant, the air became more stagnant, heavy, and sharp than Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice!

The maid at her side, Qingluan, couldn't even muster a thought of fear; her Divine Soul felt as if it were gripped by a cold, giant hand, and her blood, immortal essence, and even her thoughts were completely frozen under this pressure.

Her body collapsed uncontrollably, her knees hitting the ground heavily, her face as pale as paper.

The immortal essence of a great Profound Immortal Cultivator spiraling out of control.

It was like the sun being burned by its own flames.

Absurd, and lethal.

There was only one reason.

Anger.

Pure anger.

In the Projection Formation, the image was cruelly clear.

Su Chen took out one million high-grade immortal stones.

He slammed them down on a pile of scrap metal that even a passing dog would detour around in disgust.

Then, with a joyful expression as if he had "made a killing," he contentedly collected that pile of trash.

One million!

Xie Jinghong's chest began to heave violently, the hem of her Gold and Silver Quicksand Immortal Dress fluttering wildly as she paced irritably.

She knocked over the jade table beside her that held Thousand-Year Spirit Fruits; those precious fruits, each worth a fortune, rolled all over the floor, but she didn't even spare them a glance!

Her pearly teeth were clenched tight, emitting a faint but clear grinding sound—a protest from between her bones caused by extreme rage.

Yesterday!

Just yesterday!

This man had stood before her, his mouth full of talk about "black-hearted merchants," crying poverty more miserably than a temple priest whose oil money had been squeezed dry!

He had looked at her with eyes that seemed to view her as a "pitiful gambler who had lost even his underwear," filled with sympathy!

In the end, he "bestowed" a thousand high-grade immortal stones upon her!

Charity!

He actually dared to use a thousand Immortal Stones as charity for her, the Thousand-Faced Goddess of the Lingbao Trading Firm!

Yet, the moment he turned around, he threw out a million at a street stall without even blinking!

One million, to buy trash!

He wasn't buying trash; he was using a million Immortal Stones to slap her face over and over again!

He was pressing her face to the ground and rubbing it back and forth with that pile of scrap metal!

He did it on purpose!

He absolutely did it on purpose!

This bastard must have seen through her "Shen Que" disguise, so he was using this method—this ultimate humiliation—to warn her, to mock her!

Making her let down her guard and think he was a poor ghost who hadn't seen the world, just so he could take advantage of her at the auction!

The more Xie Jinghong thought about it, the angrier she got, until her scalp felt numb; that Dao Heart, which had long been as still as an ancient well, was now burning with raging karmic fire!

"Young Miss..."

Qingluan tremblingly handed over a handkerchief woven from Ice Silkworm Immortal Silk.

Xie Jinghong snatched it away.

Then, right in front of Qingluan, she twisted that soft and tough immortal silk handkerchief into a braid.

The immortal threads within the handkerchief let out an overburdened "crackling" sound as they snapped.

"Good."

Her voice was incredibly soft, like a lover's whisper, yet it made Qingluan's blood freeze in an instant.

"Su Chen."

Every word seemed to be squeezed from between her teeth, carrying a honey-like sweetness and a bone-scraping steel-knife-like coldness.

"Spending money like water at a street stall—one million, without even blinking."

"Yet, in front of me, you pretend to be poor."

She paused, a smile slowly curling on her face that was both extremely radiant and extremely cold.

That smile caused the temperature in the entire secret room to plummet to the freezing point.

When the last sentence came out, her voice was no longer sweet, but a declaration.

"Just you wait for the First-of-the-Month Auction."

"If I don't squeeze out every last Immortal Stone you have and make you cry while pawning your underwear to me... my name, Xie Jinghong, will be written backward from now on!"

She tossed it aside, and the handkerchief, twisted into a piece of junk, landed precisely in the Ten-Thousand-Year Sunken Wood trash can in the corner.

Inside the bin lay the fragments of the glazed cup worth thirty thousand Immortal Stones.

Outside the bin, the Spirit Fruits worth a hundred thousand Immortal Stones, now stained with dust, were scattered on the floor.

Along with this fifty-thousand-stone handkerchief and yesterday's losses...

Because of this man named Su Chen, she, Xie Jinghong, had lost nearly three hundred thousand high-grade immortal stones for nothing!

This realization was like a ladle of boiling lava, ruthlessly poured onto her already burning rage!

In all her years traversing the Immortal Realm, when had she, Xie Jinghong, ever suffered such a loss?!