Under the crystal-clear, glazed dome of the East Sea Market, Lu Qingyang, like a crouching leopard, squatted before a jade stall.
His fingertips, delicate as green onions, gently twirled half a star marrow crystal, constantly turning it in the sunlight as if he were handling a rare treasure.
"Shopkeeper, this is a treasure dug from an ancient demon's remains! Its value is at least fifty Spirit Stones!"
The stall owner, whose goatee was stained with mottled tea, like an ancient scroll, sneered and tossed out three rusted copper coins.
The copper coins arced through the air like three worn-out musical notes: "Three Qingfu coins, take it or leave it!"
"Fairy Leng, look..." Lu Qingyang turned, about to pull her in as a witness, but saw the Guanghan Token at Leng Yuehan's waist, like a Cold Moon, emitting wisps of frost.
The Taiyin Soul Slaughtering Wheel hummed in her palm, like a giant beast awakened.
"Tianshuang Pavilion's urgent summons." As Leng Yuehan's wide sleeves billowed like an ocean of ice and snow, an ice mirror materialized.
The mirror reflected the collapsed snowy mountain of the Sect's Forbidden Land, like a canvas torn by a giant.
"If I don't return within seven days, the ice soul hairpin will fly back on its own."
With that, she, like a cold wind, threw out three Jade Slips sealed with extreme cold Qi.
The Jade Slips, like three cold stars, flickered with chilly light: "This item can suppress the Soul Devouring Curse Mark."
Su Meiniang's nine tails, like nine agile snakes, coiled around a black market broker who was about to slip away.
The Burning Sky Silk, like a burning fire Dragon, wrapped around a gilded storage bracelet and tossed it over: "The Fox Fire in Qingqiu Ancestral Land is rioting, Jiejie has to go back and teach those little brats..."
A crack suddenly appeared in the golden bell at her tail tip, and the seeping blood beads carried the Fox clan's curse mark, like burning flames.
"If Little Lord dares to embezzle the auction proceeds—"
"How could I!" Lu Qingyang caught the storage bracelet, and the copper coin sword had already pried open the clasp.
"Oh, Northern Dark Cold Iron, Crimson Fire Essence Gold... Su Jiejie, did you give me your entire family fortune?"
Before he finished speaking, the two graceful figures had already transformed into streaks of light and vanished into the sky.
Lu Qingyang weighed the storage bracelet, then turned and bumped into a chubby Cultivator holding a Pill Furnace.
The purple fire in the Pill Furnace suddenly flared: "Fellow Daoist, this star marrow crystal, would you exchange it for Nine Revolutions Soul Returning Medicinal Pills?"
"Ten bottles!" Lu Qingyang held up three fingers, "Plus thirty Spirit Stones."
"Do you think these are candy?" The Pill Cultivator, with a pained expression, pulled out a jade box: "Three bottles, plus a piece of news—the Starry Sky Merchant Guild's Black Flag Fleet entered the Gui Xu Sea Eye half an hour ago."
The haggling was interrupted by a sudden Dragon roar.
A hundred feet of water mist rose in the East Market as a young man in a black robe, riding a damaged bronze Dragon Puppet, knocked over seven or eight stalls.
A section of a star pattern chain was still hooked on the Dragon's claw: "Get out of the way! This Puppet is out of control!"
Lu Qingyang's pupils suddenly contracted, as if he had seen something extremely terrifying—the pattern of the chain was identical to that of the ancient demon's remains!
The copper coin sword, like an agile snake, picked up a fire-repelling Talisman from the stall and then sharply flung it towards the Dragon's eye.
The moment the Talisman touched the bronze, a Chaos Green Lotus, like a mysterious flower, suddenly bloomed at the Dragon's head: "Little brother, I'll give you twenty Spirit Stones for this Puppet!"
"Are you crazy?" The young man was anxious, quickly forming hand Seals.
The Dragon's tail, like a gale, swept away half a teahouse: "This is from the Northern Dipper family—" "Thirty Spirit Stones!"
Lu Qingyang's palms flew, smashing the attacking Dragon claw like a fragile butterfly.
The roots of the Green Lotus, like cunning rabbits, drilled into the Puppet's core along the cracks: "And one more condition, take me to meet your family's elders."
From the ruins of the teahouse, seven streaks of starlight, brilliant as meteors, suddenly shot out.
An Old Man wearing half a Xuan iron mask, like an Immortal stepping out of the Void Realm, arrived through the air: "What petty thief dares to touch my Northern Dipper family..."
His voice stopped abruptly before he finished speaking.
The Old Man's gaze, like a hawk's, fixed on the star pattern chain being devoured by the Green Lotus.
The compass in his sleeve suddenly exploded into countless pieces of powder, like a lit powder keg.
"The Soul Devouring Sect's star marrow imprint." Lu Qingyang kicked away the still twitching Dragon Puppet, his fingertips gently twirling a wisp of ghostly blue Fox Fire.
"This Puppet has been soaked in the Gui Xu, hasn't it?"
To the west of the market, a sudden thunderous roar erupted, and seventy-two glazed lamps, like a startled swarm of bees, all turned.
In a certain pawn shop, a column of light, red as blood, suddenly shot skyward.
The shopkeeper, clutching the cracked town-shop cauldron, rushed out the door like a stray dog: "Robbers! The Starry Sky Merchant Guild is forcibly seizing the Yin and Yang Spring Map!"
Lu Qingyang flashed to intercept the rolling cauldron ear, and Tiantian Daowen spread along the cracks in the cauldron body: "Old man, how about these fragments for the teahouse repair fee?"
With a subtle push of Qi from his palm, the Big Dipper star pattern on the inside of the cauldron ear quietly aligned with the star map in his embrace.
"Stop that kid!" Three Black-Robed Cultivators rushed out of the pawn shop, their brow star patterns identical to those of the spy Fairy Leng had killed earlier.
The leader conjured a bloody Formation Plate, and the market's paving stones suddenly surged like waves, as thousands of soul-devouring chains burst forth from the ground.
The Northern Dipper family's young man in black suddenly threw out a bronze umbrella.
When its ribs unfolded, it actually revealed twelve layers of Restrictions: "This is my Northern Dipper Xuanji Umbrella, I'm lending it to you temporarily to settle the debt!"
He turned and, dragging the Old Man, leaped onto the damaged Dragon Puppet: "Third Uncle-Grandpa, hurry, the Blood Refinement Great Formation is about to be completed!"
Lu Qingyang, holding the umbrella, sped away like a meteor, shattering three sturdy chains.
The Green Lotus roots, like agile spirit snakes, quickly burrowed into the cracks of the Formation Plate: "Pill Cultivator! Where are your Nine Revolutions Soul Returning Medicinal Pills?"
"Catch!" The chubby Cultivator, like a cannonball, flung out a jade bottle.
The Medicinal Pills exploded in mid-air like fireworks, transforming into a thick purple mist.
The soul-devouring chains that inhaled the mist seemed to have their sinews drawn out, suddenly becoming incredibly soft.
The star fire, stirred up by the copper coin sword, melted them into molten iron like lava.
A crisp bell chime echoed from deep within the pawn shop, and the fragments of the Soul Suppressing Cauldron, like startled birds, suddenly sped towards the black market.
"The aura of Northern Dark Ice Marrow..." Lu Qingyang, like an enraged lion, tore his sleeve, and the star pupils on the surface of his bronze fate opened wide, like burning flames.
The moment his fate touched the cauldron fragment, the entire market seemed to be flipped over by an invisible giant hand.
The bluestones, like shattered stars, turned into a sky full of star dust, revealing the roaring Gui Xu vortex beneath.
The Northern Dipper Old Man, like a startled tiger, suddenly crushed a Jade Slip, and the Xuanji Umbrella, like a dazzling sun, erupted with ten thousand feet of green light: "Kid! This is the Starry Sky Merchant Guild's Heaven-Stealing, Sun-Swapping Formation!"
The compass fragments in his palm, as if endowed with life, condensed into a sharp needle, pointing directly at the bronze coffin floating in the center of the vortex: "That is the true Formation Core!"
Lu Qingyang, like a dashing Young Master, elegantly flung out the Crimson Fire Essence Gold from his storage bracelet.
The copper coin sword, like a golden Dragon, enveloped in brilliant golden light, pierced into the coffin's crack with thunderous force: "Pill Cultivator, cast fire! Young man, control the Puppet! Old Man, break the Formation!"
The Green Lotus roots, like agile green snakes, grew wildly along the sword body, tightly entwining the Primordial Xuanhuang Qi gushing from the coffin: "Three of you, you can have thirty percent of this Mother Qi essence!"
"I want fifty percent!"
The Pill Cultivator, like a proud Immortal, conjured a purple-gold Pill Furnace: "And the 'Yellow Court Medical Canon' from inside the coffin!"
"The Northern Dipper family wants that section of chain!" The young man, like a mysterious controller, manipulated the Dragon Puppet to bite the coffin lid like a hungry tiger pouncing on its prey.
"Deal!" Lu Qingyang, like an peerless master, kicked open the coffin lid, and the Chaos Green Lotus, like a startled Phoenix, suddenly retracted into bone armor.
The star marrow erupting from the coffin, like countless stars, condensed into the illusion of a Ferrying Calamity Boat, and the black flag emblem of the Starry Sky Merchant Guild was clearly imprinted on its bottom.
The roar of the collapsing market was like a tragic symphony.
Lu Qingyang, like a celestial Fairy scattering flowers, made three imprints of the Yin and Yang Spring Map and threw them to everyone: "See you in Northern Dark three months later!"
As he, like a nimble eagle, soared into the sky on the afterimage of the Ferrying Calamity Boat, no one noticed the half-bloody Guanghan jade pendant hidden in his sleeve—it was an item that fell from the golden bell at Su Meiniang's tail tip when she tore through the Void Realm.
The sea breeze, carrying fine snow like a mischievous child, swept across the Northern Dark coast, and Lu Qingyang, like an elegant artist, gently caressed the frost patterns on the jade pendant and chuckled: "Guanghan Palace Grand Elder... this interest is getting more and more interesting."