Xuanyuan and Bai continued walking side by side. The people around them were glaring at Xuanyuan and cursing his good luck.
Bai sighed and said, “Master Xuanyuan, we are friends, you don’t have to pay for these instruments. If you are willing, I can still gift the instruments to you. Not even Xingcan can fault you for that.” She said.
“Lady Bai, friendship should be a symbiotic relationship, not extortion from one side. Even if Xingcan didn’t fight with me, I would still pay for them. I’m very grateful for your kindness. It’s my pleasure to have gotten to know you.” Xuanyuan spoke with a kind and soft voice.
“Xuanyuan, you don’t understand. A million king coins can be exchanged for a lot of merit points within the Sect. Then you can obtain techniques, or practice in a time dimension to aid your training. Those are the things you can’t get outside the Sect even with money.”
“Lady Bai,” Xuanyuan glanced at the people walking by and lowered his voice, “Why do you think I killed the servant from the Yin Family, even though he didn’t attack me first? Why do you think he chased me with so much effort? You are bright. You should have already guessed part of it.”
Bai’s heart jumped, “Yin Family’s technique of the Heavenly Dragon! No wonder all his moves resembled a dragon. But, how come I can’t sense the Heavenly Dragon aura around him? What’s going on?” Bai thought. She started to feel that Xuanyuan was becoming more and more mysterious.
“All right. Xuanyuan, what do you want to buy next?”
“Fighting Talismans. Powerful ones, for both offense or defense. I just saw a place that was selling them. Shall we go and have a look?” The fight in the Shi village was won because of the talisman of explosion. They were extremely important in battles.
Bai smiled. She approved of his attention to details.
“Follow me then.” She said.
Xuanyuan followed her through the streets. They were moving farther and farther from the gigantic building of Taibai Trading Centre but they still had not left the Taibai estate.
Xuanyuan could hear the sound of water flowing onto stones. He could gradually see a green bamboo field growing next to a few small ponds. Koi fish were swimming inside these small ponds and birds were singing in the trees. It was a Shangri-la. Clearly, ordinary customers wouldn’t be able to enter this place.
They walked up to a wooden house. Inside, you could smell the fragrance of incense. Xuanyuan inhaled deeply and the scent cleared his mind.
“Lady Bai, what is this place?”
She smiled and showed her dimples once again, “This is where I live.”
Xuanyuan was astounded, “Aren’t we going to buy talismans? Why are we here?”
“To give you talismans, of course.” Bai chuckled and took out an ice-blue talisman from her fighting ring.
“This is the Talisman of Ice. When you activate it with your Qi, it can instantly freeze a top king realm fighter to death. Even if they have powerful instruments, they still wouldn’t have the power to defend themselves.” She said.
She put the Talisman of Ice into Xuanyuan’s hand. She then took out a grey coloured talisman, “This is the Talisman of Wind. You will be able to fly along the wind with it. Not even king fighters will be able to keep up with you.”
She then continued to take out a dainty, golden talisman, “This is the Talisman of Protection. It can act as a shield. Unless its power is used up, you will be protected from even the grandmaster realm fighters. All three talismans are grandmaster class items. Keep them. They are my gifts to you. I’ll get very angry if you bring up money this time.”
Talismans, like everything else in the martial arts world, were ranked in different classes. The lowest being spiritual, then they went to wild, king, grandmaster and imperial. All of them were very expensive. Grandmaster class talismans were worth at least 100,000 king coins each.
Xuanyuan knew better than to argue with her, so he took the talismans and smiled. “Great, I won’t say anything more then. Since everything is settled, I should take my leave and head to the Sect. Brother Fung Lie must have been waiting for me. I really shouldn’t delay him.”
Bai rolled her eyes, pretending to be angry, “There’s a place for you to live here. I brought you here so you could stay a few days. It doesn’t matter if you arrive a little later.”
Xuanyuan smiled bitterly, “No matter what, time is important. I don’t want to delay things. The earlier I arrive at the Sect, the quicker I can start making progress.”
“So the time we spent inside Taibai is wasted? Young master Xuanyuan, you are just breaking my heart.” Bai looked at him accusingly, making Xuanyuan smile bitterly.
“You know that’s not what I meant, lady Bai.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll let you off the hook this time. You don’t have to call me lady anymore. Just call me by my name.” She laughed. She understood Xuanyuan’s determination to grow stronger, so she didn’t want to stop him.
“Thank you, Bai. Then I’ll get going now.” Xuanyuan left the house immediately. Looking at his back as he left, she frowned and sighed. “So many people want to be close to me, and you do your best to escape me. Am I really that scary?”
Xuanyuan left from the same route he was led by. Many people saw that he came from the Garden of Taibai and looked at him with suspicion.
“Isn’t he the boy who was following Lady Bai to the Garden? How come he is leaving by himself?”
“I wonder what they did inside. What a lucky bastard.”
“Lady Bai wouldn’t do that sort of thing. So many men have tried to win her heart, why would she fall for this kid?”
“Wait, what’s this smell? It’s agarwood! I’ve heard that Lady Bai’s house is built from agarwood. Was he inside her house?”
“Damn it. This kid has gone too far.”
“I knew that I hated him from the first glance. Let’s follow him and teach him a lesson.”
“Good. We’ll let him know that there’re things that he shouldn’t touch.”
Xuanyuan couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he could clearly feel the hostility in the air.
“I should get out of here.” He thought.
Just when he stepped out of the Taibai complex, he saw Huxuan, who was also on his way out. Huxuan smelled the agarwood scent from Xuanyuan, and a complicated expression flashed in his eyes, but after a short while, he laughed happily, “Xuanyuan, I always go to the Sect to visit Fung Lie. I’ll make sure to visit you as well. Take care on your journey.”
“Thank you, Master Huxuan. I’ll welcome you whenever at the Sect. I need to go now, otherwise the Sect won’t be happy that I delayed.” Xuanyuan knew that Huxuan was trying to protect him from the hostile gang that was following him, so he left after answering him loudly.
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