Chapter 288: Beast Tide
Wei Chen sneered. This guy certainly knew how to twist words.
"My violence was a reaction to your violence. What was I supposed to do? Lie down and let you squash us so you could feel good about yourself? Besides, if I didn’t stop you, the people down there would have been affected by the collateral damage you caused." Wei Chen argued with simple facts.
"You are provoking a power beyond your comprehension, mortal!" Long Ao Tian threatened.
"Says... the power that just got slapped by a mortal." Wei Chen quipped.
Long Ao Tian gritted his teeth in anger, but he knew that if he did not unseal his cultivation, he would not be able to defeat this terrifying mortal.
But here lay the dilemma.
If he unsealed his cultivation, the Law of Heaven and Earth would immediately detect him and force him to ascend, causing the mission he had come here to accomplish to fail.
He would still have some time, at least a few minutes, before he was forced to ascend. But could he finish this mortal during that time?
No...
He shouldn’t.
He should prioritize the mission first.
But letting this humiliation go was not his style either.
He needed something to regain his face.
"I suggest you kneel and kowtow to me before I decide to go all out!" Long Ao Tian threatened.
"Oooh~ Scary~" Wei Chen mocked, deliberately dragging out the word.
"That does it! You insolent mortal! I will...!"
Boom!
Before Long Ao Tian could finish his sentence, Wei Chen vanished and drove a full-powered punch straight into his stomach.
An intense pain surged through Long Ao Tian’s body. It felt as though all the air had been knocked out of him. His knees buckled from the overwhelming pain and nausea as his stomach caved inward to a frightening degree.
"Ugh... Urrrghaaa!"
Long Ao Tian immediately vomited everything he had eaten before arriving at the auction house. Among the mess was a golden pill that had not even been one-quarter digested.
His face instantly turned pale the moment he saw it.
The pill’s medicinal power was far too potent for him to absorb in a single sitting. When he heard there was a mission in the lower realm that his father had assigned to the captain of the clan guards, he had eagerly stolen the assignment in order to earn merit and prove himself to his father.
Because of that, he had not had enough time to fully refine and absorb the pill before descending.
Without a second thought, Long Ao Tian picked the golden pill out of his own vomit and swallowed it again.
He nearly vomited a second time as the sour, revolting taste of his own bile completely overwhelmed the pill’s medicinal fragrance.
Watching him swallow it back down, Wei Chen felt his skin crawl. A wave of disgust ran through his entire body.
He had heard stories about drunkards collapsing into their own vomit.
But this was the first time he had ever seen someone willingly eat it again.
"Bro... I mean... are you alright? You don’t have to eat your own vomit. If you’d just asked nicely, I would’ve cooked you something good." Wei Chen suddenly felt a strange sense of sympathy.
Just how miserable must this guy’s life have been if he had to eat his own vomit like that? He looked like some homeless bum who had gotten lucky, stumbled into a fortune, and came to the auction house just to experience the life of the rich.
"You! You! Unforgivable!" Long Ao Tian roared.
He decided to unseal his cultivation, but...
Boom!
Another punch shattered his concentration.
The seal had only been halfway undone before Long Ao Tian was smashed face-first into the ground, right into the exact spot where his own vomit lay.
He tried to get back up.
But.... another round of beating came.
Boom! Bam! Pow!
This time, Wei Chen did not hold back in the slightest.
He needed to put this guy to sleep first.
This lunatic was no different from an asylum patient. Once they started crashing out, the only solution was to put them to sleep.
Bam!
A full-powered punch to the chin finally knocked the daylight out of him.
Long Ao Tian collapsed onto the ground, unconscious at last.
"Phew... It’s finally resolved." Wei Chen wiped away imaginary sweat from his forehead and let out a sigh of relief.
Then he turned around and saw Song Lei sitting on the sofa, frozen in fear like a statue.
But unknown to Wei Chen, beneath the fear and horror brought on by his PTSD, Song Lei also felt a strange sense of joy and satisfaction at the scene before him.
Someone else had received the exact same treatment from the monster named Wei Chen.
It had almost become a twisted pleasure for him to see someone else forced to eat the same humble pie.
"Hmmm..." Wei Chen frowned as he studied Song Lei carefully. "Say... have we met before? I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere."
"Ah... Oh! Sir! I... I am Song Lei. Song Lei of the Song Clan. I think we met before the Inter-Provincial Competition," Song Lei replied.
"Hmmm... Song Lei! Oh! You’re the guy who claimed that robbery was the right of the strong!" Wei Chen finally remembered. He recalled having educated someone like that before.
"Err..." Song Lei smiled wryly. This guy really never gave anyone face. "Yeah... but I’ve learned my lesson. Now I call robbery robbery instead of dressing it up as something else." Song Lei nodded repeatedly. More than anything, he wanted this god of plague to leave his VIP booth as quickly as possible.
"Yeah.... Oh right, your surname is Song. Are you related to Song Wan?" Wei Chen asked.
"Song Wan? Ah! She’s my younger sister!" Song Lei replied.
"That’s great! Then we’re all on the same side! Why don’t you come to our booth? We have lots of games and snacks! You’re going to love it!" Wei Chen invited enthusiastically.
Faced with Wei Chen’s eager expression, Song Lei did not have the courage to refuse.
It felt exactly like a victim facing a bully demanding lunch money.
He simply could not say no.
"Of... Of course, Mr. Wei... I’ll follow you. Please lead the way," Song Lei replied, while inwardly wanting to slap himself for not refusing.
"Great! Follow me then!"
With that, Wei Chen led Song Lei back to their VIP booth.
By now, Ximen Hao had already instructed people to clear the area, clean up the damage, and calm the guests so the auction could continue.
This auction hall was the jewel of the Ximen Clan.
Moreover, this was the once-in-ten-thousand-years grand auction.
There was no way he would let it end just because some hooligan had decided to cause trouble.
He still needed to earn back his investment.
"Oh! Elder Brother!" Song Wan greeted Song Lei the moment he entered the room with Wei Chen.
"Oh... you’re here as well? I thought you were still head over heels for that brat Ximen Ren," Song Lei said.
"Hmph! Elder Brother! Please don’t mention that name. That man is nothing more than a disgusting hypocrite!" Song Wan replied with deep hatred.
"It seems a lot has happened. Why don’t you tell me about it while we watch the auction?" Song Lei said as he slowly took a seat nearby.
Song Lei naturally noticed Mo Xingyao, Dream Butterfly, and little Ningning as well, but he simply regarded them as Wei Chen’s family and had no improper thoughts toward any of them.
The auction soon resumed.
The guests gradually calmed down and returned to their seats.
Meanwhile, Wei Chen asked Ximen Hao to send someone to bring an extremely potent knockout drug, the kind capable of putting an entire pack of powerful fierce beasts to sleep if it ever got into their mouths.
Wei Chen knew this guy was from the Immortal Realm, so using an exceptionally powerful sleeping drug was necessary to keep him unconscious throughout the auction and preserve the peace.
Ximen Hao readily agreed.
He even had a small warehouse worth of knockout drugs potent enough to affect a Great Ascension Realm expert, and he did not mind wasting it on this troublemaker.
As the auction continued, every bidding war was settled with wealth alone. No one dared to rely on their name or status to force others to relinquish an item anymore.
As a result, the auction master’s smile bloomed like a flower as her commission continued to pile up. Without any troublemakers causing disruptions, several rare treasures even exceeded one hundred million high-grade spirit stones, making Ximen Hao’s smile grow brighter and brighter. After all, that money would ultimately go to the Ximen Clan.
Watching this, Mo Xingyao turned green with envy.
This guy made money far too easily.
She had to rack her brain and come up with countless ideas just to seize a small portion of the Ximen Clan’s market share.
But then again...
That was only natural.
This was Ximen Clan territory, after all.
As the auction continued, a stoic man in blue armor walked into the VIP booth. He nodded to Wei Chen and Song Lei in greeting before politely making his way over to Ximen Hao and whispering something into his ear.
"What!? What did you say? A beast tide?" Ximen Hao blurted out in surprise.