Chapter 49: Bizarre and Peculiar Auction Items

Miss Bingnan, long time no see.

A lavishly dressed young master sat down beside Zhang Bingnan.

Zhang Bingnan nodded politely. Master Yan, long time no see.

Yan Hongbo smiled and said, I wanted to come over and say hello to you in the main hall earlier, but unfortunately, I was held up by someone and couldn't get away. By the way, I haven't asked who this is?

Zhou Chen spoke first, I am just an ordinary friend of hers. Hearing there was an auction here, I came to broaden my horizons.

Yan Hongbo had noticed Zhou Chen for a while. His impression of Zhou Chen was solely based on appearance; his attire and grooming did not suggest someone of power or influence.

Seeing Zhou Chen sitting close to Zhang Bingnan made him somewhat uncomfortable.

Zhou Chen could sense that Yan Hongbo was also a modern practitioner, and his cultivation level was higher than that of Chen Wenxu.

It was just that Zhou Chen was not yet familiar with the hierarchical divisions of modern cultivators.

Someone like Chen Wenxu probably belonged to the lowest tier of modern cultivators, whose physical bodies were merely much stronger than ordinary people.

Yan Hongbo, on the other hand, should be at the next realm, having cultivated a stream of internal force within his body, originating from a certain kind of bodily energy.

It was likely the so-called internal energy of martial arts masters.

Following the principle that avoiding trouble is better than courting it, Zhou Chen directly distanced himself from Zhang Bingnan to prevent others from suspecting any romantic ties between them and targeting him out of jealousy.

He wasn't afraid, just averse to unnecessary complications.

Zhang Bingnan was very pretty, but not on the level of Gu Zhaoyue or Cai Yameng.

Mainly, Zhou Chen had no romantic feelings for any woman other than Gu Zhaoyue. He certainly didn't want to unwittingly become a scapegoat and play the role of the face-slapper for some petty, jealous young master from a wealthy family.

He was neither a martial arts master returning from the mountains nor an urban dragon king.

Acting arrogant and slapping faces could be amusing, but it was meaningless.

Unless he could earn some favor in front of Gu Zhaoyue, that would be a different story.

As the heavy doors of the auction hall closed, it signaled the official start of the auction.

A woman swayed gracefully, stepping in strappy high heels that revealed cute, plump toes polished with red nail polish, as she walked leisurely onto the auction stage.

She wore a tightly fitted cheongsam that accentuated her flawless figure.

Her physique was extraordinary, with curves in all the right places, instantly capturing the gaze of every single man present and plunging the auction hall into sudden silence.

Unfortunately, she wore a fox mask, concealing her peerless facial features from view.

Yet, even with only her nose and lips exposed, her enchanting and captivating aura remained undeniable.

Her red lips were tempting and dewy, resembling the finest, plumpest cherry at the top of the tree, making one instinctively yearn to pluck and taste them.

Especially the eyes hidden beneath the mask; they seemed like the chains in the hands of the impermanence ghosts, capable of snatching away a man's soul.

Zhou Chen heard numerous sounds of swallowing, including Yan Hongbo who sat beside Zhang Bingnan.

Swallowing was one thing, but some men with weaker resistance to female beauty were visibly aroused just by looking.

For instance, Yan Hongbo naturally leaned forward in his seat, seemingly trying to conceal something.

A peerless femme fatale.

This was Zhou Chen's evaluation of the woman.

Moreover, drawing upon the memory heritage of the ancient Qi refiners, Zhou Chen recognized that this woman possessed an extraordinary physical constitution.

After all, for her to elicit such reactions from these men without any vocal or physical provocation was decidedly abnormal.

Seductive Fragrance Spirit Body!

Zhou Chen muttered inwardly.

This was a constitution naturally endowed with irresistible charm toward the opposite sex, and in ancient times, it was considered the ultimate cultivation cauldron for practitioners.

If one could harvest her pristine yin essence, the benefits to a cultivator would be immense.

To maximize the efficacy of the Seductive Fragrance Spirit Body, one would ideally nurture her first and harvest her essence in the end.

Fortunately, this was the modern era; even if she had lived in ancient times, she would have been a nation-ruining Daji, fully capable of bewitching an emperor.

Zhou Chen heard quite a bit of whispering around him.

People don't come to the auction for items; they just come to see Miss Yunmei.

Indeed, who buys things at a normal auction anyway? Aren't they all here for Miss Yunmei!

She is too stunning. Just looking at her has got both me and my brother all fired up.

Miss Yunmei?

Yunmei Auction House?

Zhou Chen hadn't expected this woman to be the owner of the Yunmei Auction House.

It made sense; without sufficient power and backing, such a woman would be far too dangerous, the kind of beauty who would easily fall victim to assault just walking down the street.

Welcome, distinguished guests, to the Yunmei Auction House. I am delighted to witness everyone here helping the auction items attain their rightful value.

I won't say much more, Yunmei Auction House's auction begins now!

Xiao Yunmei's voice was soft, brushing against everyone's heart like a feather and leaving them with an unbearable itch.

Let me introduce the first auction item of this event—the Tomb-Raiding Amulet!

I suppose many of you know about the artifact called the 'Tomb-Raiding Amulet' from tomb-robbing TV dramas, assuming it only existed in fiction. Yunmei wants to tell you all that the Tomb-Raiding Amulet truly exists!

A Bunny Girl walked up carrying a bizarre-looking claw-like object on a tray.

The Tomb-Raiding Amulet was crafted from the claw of a pangolin, inscribed with the ancient seal script characters for 'Tomb-Raiding', and possessed warding properties against evil spirits. However, its exact efficacy remained unknown.

If there are no questions, bidding for the first item starts now. The starting price is ten million!

Zhou Chen grew interested. He had also watched TV shows and movies like Grave Robbers' Chronicles, but he hadn't expected Tomb-Raiding Amulets to actually exist.

It seemed those authors who wrote tomb-robbing novels were probably writing autobiographies, and getting locked up wasn't entirely unjustified.

Through the Zerg Shared Vision, Zhou Chen could indeed sense that this Tomb-Raiding Amulet was quite extraordinary.

As an immortal cultivator, Zhou Chen could perceive a faint fluctuation of energy emanating from the amulet, confirming that it could indeed offer a certain degree of protection against evil entities.

However, Zhou Chen had no personal interest in it.

If he actually encountered a malevolent ghost, Zhou Chen would probably be the most excited of all.

After all, with the Soul-Devouring Insects at his disposal, he possessed the ultimate nemesis of all spectral entities, which fed precisely upon souls and spirits.

In the end, this Tomb-Raiding Amulet was successfully bid for by a young man surnamed Pan at a price of 150 million.

Zhou Chen could sense a faint aura of malevolent yin and corpse miasma lingering around this young man; it seemed he genuinely might be involved in tomb robbing.

This made Zhou Chen feel that the world was becoming increasingly fascinating, heightening his anticipation for the upcoming lots.

The Yunmei Auction House did not deal in antiques or jewelry collections; many of its items were rather bizarre curiosities.

Things like a soft-shelled turtle that had lived for over a thousand years, ritual implements blessed by masters, or ancient martial arts manuals.

The most important thing was that all auction items were guaranteed to be genuine.

The blessed ritual implements were actual magical tools capable of repelling evil and subduing demons.

The so-called ancient martial arts manuals were indeed authentic cultivation techniques, though they belonged to the modern cultivation system, drawing intense competition among contemporary practitioners.

Zhou Chen had no interest in any of these trifles.

In Zhou Chen's eyes, these magical tools were far too weak.

Yet, to his surprise, their auction prices were exorbitant; a single blessed ritual implement could fetch hundreds of millions.

Zhou Chen was somewhat unimpressed, thinking that if he were to forge a magical tool himself, it would easily sell for tens of billions.

As time passed, the auction soon reached the bidding for the thousand-year-old ginseng.

Both ordinary people and cultivators understood the immense benefits of this item, making the competition fiercer than ever.

Even a one- or two-hundred-year-old ginseng could command millions, let alone a millennium-old treasure of such extreme rarity.

Consequently, the starting price alone was set at 300 million.

Zhang Bingnan also placed a bid, doing so only once, representing the entirety of the funds she could possibly muster.

However, she was quickly outbid and stood no chance in the ongoing contest.

It wasn't until the bidding price was on the verge of breaking three billion that the momentum finally slowed down.

Zhou Chen couldn't help but marvel inwardly; his own grandfather also possessed a thousand-year-old ginseng, which meant he was practically a second-generation wealthy heir himself.

Yet his grandfather's cultivation realm was so profound that he disdained selling the millennium ginseng for money.

For an elder of his stature, lacking neither food nor clothing, maintaining good health to live a few more years was far more valuable than any amount of wealth.

Zhou Chen chose not to bid, as the current price had already exceeded his expectations, and he only had a little over 1.8 billion on hand.

Nevertheless, Zhou Chen could distinctly sense the Life-Devouring Mother Insect's intense craving and desire to consume this ginseng.

After all, being a thousand-year-old ginseng, the vital energy contained within every single rootlet was colossal.