The Hou auction house was supposed to hold an auction the last day but they postponed it a day because they were "taking care of matters".
The skepticism within the commoners and the other clans only grew when they heard this news. They were at first doubtful that they still had the pills announced, but now they were sure that the pills were stolen by some random commoner!
Now that the Hou auction was holding an auction, all of the clan heads visited, even Li Fu. He invited his children to come along, to which they declined. What he didn't know was that they were seated right below him, one seat.
Yu Fang was the presenter again, as she threatened the Hou auction house that she would depart and join another auction house should they not accommodate her request to present again. The Hou auction house knew Yu Fang's value, she wasn't to be thrown away just like that!
Yu Fang walked to the center of the stage and the hundreds of commoners who came here just for her stared at her.
"Everybody, welcome to the Hou auction!"
Yu Fang shouted loudly. Everyone in the hall heard her voice and got quieter, especially the ones that had an obsession with her. They were excited, but they needed to respect her as well, otherwise, she would get angry at them.
At the highest floor, the various clans' representatives and even clan heads themselves were seated. Li Fu was one of the people present. Of course, everyone heard the news about the extravagant pills that the Hou auction was selling, but Li Fu already knew who the source was: his son.
Li Fu attended this auction just so he could witness, with his own eyes, the sky-high prices the pills supposedly obtained during the last auction. The prices were surely going to be higher than last time because the Gem Light Pill is higher level than the Marking Pill.
If by chance, something else than his son's pills' prices interested him, then he would undoubtedly take a shot at buying it. He had brought some money, but it wasn't a big amount so he didn't expect to take home anything.
Right beside him seated the Liu clan's head himself, Liu Gong (刘刚)! When he heard news from his representative who was at the auction last week, he knew that he had to attend the next one.
Liu Gong and Li Fu had friendly relations, helping each other out when one was in trouble. However, the total number of times that the Liu clan helped the Li clan was bigger than the number of times the Li clan helped the Liu clan.
The Li clan owed Liu clan a ton of favors. If this was between two other clans, the bigger one surely would have already enslaved the smaller one, abusing them. The Li clan was inferior in almost all areas. The only one they weren't in worse in than the Liu clan - strength.
"Old friend, what Level Mark are you now?"
Liu Gong started the conversation between the two old geezers. He was fifty years older than Li Fu, but he respected him nonetheless because of his amazing cultivating speed. Li Fu's cultivation level had already surpassed Liu Gong's.
Liu Gong was probing on how strong the geezer beside him actually was at the moment. The last time they met, Liu Gong was higher than him one gem. Liu Gong picked up his teacup and started sipping.
"Ah, I'm in a bottleneck, stuck on Fifth Level Mark 9-gems..."
Liu Gong suddenly spit out all of his tea back! F-Fifth Level Mark 9-gems?! Liu Gong was only at the Fifth Level Mark 4-gems, and he was half a century older! This was why the Liu clan never attacked nor antagonized the Li clan.
Aside from Li Fu, many others in the Li clan have reached Fifth Level Mark, an unprecedented achievement. The only reason why the Li clan wasn't an influential and major clan in the city was that the other minor clans allied to suppress them.
In terms of rankings, the Li clan stood at the very top of the minor clans by any means. But the weakest of the major clans right now, the Yang (杨) clan, had much more power than the Li clan, so the minor and major clans weren't even comparable to each other.
So even though the Li clan had higher cultivation levels than some of the major clans, they were still weak enough to be suppressed by the minor clans, much less if the major clans decided to take action.
The scene of Liu Gong and Li Fu being friendly with each other was confusing to the other major clans, as they didn't know about the strength of the Li clan. They brushed the Li clan aside as a minor clan and therefore didn't need attention.
Seated beside Liu Gong was the head of the Yang clan, Yang Fen (杨甫). He kept his distance from the head of the Liu clan, seeing that he was conversing with a minor clan's head. This was a weird sight for him, as he knew that Liu Gong was prideful and condescending. What made him act so friendly and polite towards this lowly clan head?
When he thought about the reasons, he would always think of a counter to them himself. Was the Liu clan afraid of this minor clan? He could easily erase this head's clan by using his raw strength alone, much less use strategies! Was this minor clan actually a minion of the Liu clan? Why did Liu Gong act so friendly then? There were no more reasons he could think of, so this left him puzzled.
The Liu clan was the fourth of the eight major clans! They had the right to be prideful. The Yang clan was merely the last of the eight. So even if Yang Fen was baffled by this scene, he didn't want to make an enemy out of the fourth of the eight major clans within the city. He acted naturally despite feeling awkward sitting next to the two chummy old geezers.
