541: Chapter 541 Boss! This is a bit hard to chew!

The auction officially began.

On the high stage, an Auctioneer wearing a magnificent spiritual robe was in high spirits, his goatee trimmed meticulously.

“Fellow Daoists! Welcome to the Lingbao Trading Firm Pengcheng Branch's First-of-the-Month Grand Auction!”

The red silk was unveiled, and a bottle of High Grade Heaven-Returning Pills served as the appetizer, instantly igniting the atmosphere in the hall.

“Starting price: fifty thousand high-grade immortal stones!”

“Fifty-five thousand!”

“Sixty thousand!”

The bidding voices rose and fell, one after another, in a heated frenzy.

Inside Box Number One, Su Chen kept his eyes closed throughout, turning a deaf ear to the clamor below.

None of these were what he was waiting for.

Qian Duoduo, on the other hand, watched with great interest, his two small eyes filled with “$” symbols; with every bid, he was rapidly calculating the profit margin in his head, his professional habit having reached a terminal stage.

Su Chen was immersed in his own world until an extremely subtle yet incredibly familiar sound quietly drifted into his ears.

“Crunch.”

Crisp and clean.

Su Chen's eyelids twitched imperceptibly, but he did not open them.

“Crunch... crunch...”

The sound continued, like a little hamster stealthily nibbling on the hardest spiritual grain in a corner.

Qian Duoduo was also annoyed by the sound. He glanced back impatiently and complained to Su Chen in a low voice.

“Boss, aren't you going to do something? What is this little ancestor gnawing on now?”

“The tables and chairs in this private room are all made of Ten-Thousand-Year Warm Jade and Thousand-Year Immortal Wood. If she gnaws off even a corner, it'll cost tens of thousands of Immortal Stones!”

Ten-Thousand-Year Warm Jade? Thousand-Year Immortal Wood?

Su Chen's heart suddenly skipped a beat, and those eyes that had remained closed snapped open!

He turned his head slowly, even somewhat stiffly.

With just one look, the lazy, carefree expression on his face shattered bit by bit.

In a corner of the private room, Wang Baobao was squatting obediently on the floor.

In her small hands, she was holding that half-broken, rust-covered, unremarkable hilt—the remnant of the golden immortal artifact he had spent a million to buy back!

At this moment, Wang Baobao was trying her best to open her mouth as wide as possible, her two rows of pearly-white teeth clamped firmly onto the end of the hilt, her cheeks bulging as she struggled with it like a squirrel battling a nut.

“Crunch!”

Another heart-wrenching snap.

A small fragment of metal shimmering with a dark golden luster fell from the corner of her mouth to the floor. The sound it made seemed to be the sound of Su Chen's heart breaking.

That was a Golden Immortal Rank immortal material! Theoretically indestructible and eternal through ten thousand tribulations!

Yet in Wang Baobao's mouth, it seemed to be no different from a piece of two-cent Crispy Rice from the street.

Su Chen's pupils constricted to the limit in an instant.

Inside his mind, there were no landslides or tsunamis; instead, the entire Universe had collapsed, leaving only four blood-red characters echoing frantically.

【STOP! BITING! THAT! NOW!】

【That's my nuclear warhead! My final trump card! The ultimate weapon I prepared to flip the table with!】

【You... you're using it as a teething stick?!】

“Boss...”

Qian Duoduo also followed Su Chen's gaze. When he saw clearly what was in Wang Baobao's mouth, the color instantly drained from his chubby face, and his voice cracked in terror.

“Isn't... isn't that the pile of... the pile of junk you bought yesterday?”

Before he could finish, Su Chen's figure had already turned into an afterimage!

He lunged forward with extreme speed and snatched the ill-fated hilt right out of Wang Baobao's mouth!

A fresh gap had actually appeared at the end of the hilt!

The bite mark was as smooth as a mirror, as neat as if it had been cut by some supreme divine weapon, and it even clearly bore two rows of small, rounded, yet incredibly terrifying teeth marks.

Qian Duoduo leaned in to look at the gap, then at the golden powder remaining at the corners of Wang Baobao's mouth. His stout body shook violently, and he clutched his chest tightly with both hands.

“It was bought for a million high-grade immortal stones... She... she almost... ate it?”

The veins on Su Chen's temples bulged, throbbing violently, once and then again.

He looked down, staring intently at the innocent-looking Wang Baobao in front of him.

Wang Baobao looked up, her large, dark eyes full of innocence. She even smacked her lips as if she hadn't had enough, giving her review in a milky voice.

“Boss, this Crispy Rice is so hard; it's a bit tough on the teeth.”

“Pfft—”

A sweetness welled up in Qian Duoduo's throat. Unable to withstand this double blow to his spirit and wealth, his eyes rolled back, and he fell straight backward.

Fortunately, Jian Buping was quick-witted and caught his heavy, two-hundred-plus-pound frame.

Su Chen closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

Then, he let out a long, slow exhale.

He felt his sanity swaying wildly on a tightrope named “Wang Baobao.”

In his heart, he silently counted from one to ten with the most devout tone, forcibly placing a Seal on his about-to-explode Dao Heart.

Only after doing all this did he, with a posture bordering on pilgrimage, most solemnly place that golden immortal artifact hilt—missing a corner—back into the safest and most hidden corner of his Storage Ring.

Immediately after, he fished out a low-grade Immortal Stone with the poorest quality and most mottled Spiritual Qi from another compartment of his Storage Ring and stuffed it expressionlessly into Wang Baobao's hand.

“Gnaw on this.”

“But Boss, this one isn't as tasty as the one just now,” Wang Baobao wrinkled her small nose in disdain.

“Look at what you're sitting on,” Su Chen's voice carried no emotional warmth.

Wang Baobao looked down at the shimmering chair beneath her, which emitted a refreshing woody fragrance, and said honestly, “A pretty chair.”

“This is a Thousand-Year Immortal Wood chair,” Su Chen's voice was as cold as Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice. “If you ever dare touch anything in my Storage Ring again...”

“You will gnaw on this chair.”

“One leg a day. If you don't finish gnawing it, you're not allowed to eat.”

“...”

Wang Baobao's small body shuddered violently. Her survival instinct made her immediately stuff that low-grade Immortal Stone into her mouth.

“Crunch, crunch,” she began to gnaw obediently, not daring to say another word.

On the other side of the private room, Jian Buping, who was supporting Qian Duoduo, had his gaze fixed firmly on the tooth marks on the hilt Su Chen had just put away.

His Adam's apple bobbed violently and uncontrollably.

A Golden Immortal Rank immortal material...

Had a piece bitten out of it by a seemingly harmless little girl using her teeth.

He subconsciously reached out and gripped the sword at his waist.

The moment his fingers touched the hilt, that imperial sword given by the Boss suddenly let out a sharp wail from the depths of its sword spirit's Divine Soul!

It wasn't Battle Intent.

Nor was it excitement.

It was fear!

It was as if that sword was using the most shrill and desperate voice it could muster to scream frantically in his mind:

Stay away from her!

Quick! Stay away from that little monster!

She'll eat me!

She really will eat me!!!