Chapter 150: Fight At Night

In the quiet, lantern-lit privacy of his study, Lu Feng sat behind his desk. The estate outside had settled into a temporary stillness, broken only by the faint rustle of night leaves and the distant patrols of his guards.

Before him on the polished wood rested the thick, high-grade paper Ye Chenxue had delivered earlier that evening—the formal response from the merchant Lin Laifu. The red wax seal, deeply stamped with Lin Laifu’s renowned commercial emblem, had been broken cleanly along its seam.

Lu Feng picked up the folded parchment, smoothed out its three clean folds, and held it up to the warm candle light to read its contents.

I extend my deepest gratitude and highest personal respects to you. I am pleased to report that my health continues to improve with each passing day, a miracle that I owe entirely to your extraordinary generosity and timely assistance.

Regarding your urgent query concerning our next grand auction under the Lin Merchant House banner: as much as I desire to host an exclusive showcase for your extraordinary crafts, my private schedule does not have a major, full-scale auction planned for another two months.

Furthermore, securing the vast array of rare cultivation commodities, spiritual tools, and defensive artifacts required to fill a catalog for an event of that magnitude takes considerable time, making it logistically impossible to pull my private auction forward without compromising its prestige.

However, a far greater opportunity presents itself to us. Exactly one week from today, Crimson Vale will host its seasonal Grand Mercantile Auction—a massive, city-wide event organized jointly by the grand trade consortiums and local authorities.

It is an enormous gathering that will draw virtually all—or at the very least, the vast majority—of the most wealthy, powerful, and influential figures across Crimson Vale and the surrounding territories. Through my position and industry credentials, I can guarantee that your items are enlisted directly into the main catalog and featured as the premier headlining lots of the entire spectacle.

If you agree to this arrangement, I ask that you provide an exact breakdown of what you wish to put up for bidding. Specifically, will you be consigning another batch of those incredible seventy-five percent purity medicinal pills, or are there other rare treasures, spiritual weapons, or unique materials you wish to liquidate?

I strongly suspect this sudden desire for a massive, highly public auction plays a vital role in your broader, long-term strategy within Crimson Vale. I eagerly await your reply and would be honored if we could sit down to discuss these arrangements in person.

Yours in respect and partnership,

Lu Feng lowered the letter, resting his chin on his interlaced fingers as he contemplated the text.

His eyes lingered on the line mentioning the pills. In the commercial markets of Crimson Vale, standard alchemical pills crafted by local masters rarely exceeded forty or fifty percent purity, with anything above sixty percent considered a rare treasure.

The pills he had provided to Lin Laifu were refined to an astounding seventy-five percent purity, a level of refinement that eliminated almost all toxic residual dross and amplified the medicinal efficacy three-fold. To the merchants and very few cultivators of the city, seventy-five percent purity was nothing short of revolutionary.

"A week from today..." Lu Feng murmured softly to himself.

Lin Laifu’s proposal aligned perfectly with his ultimate goal. Joining an established, massive city auction would give his items maximum exposure without forcing him to waste two months building a private event from scratch. It would establish his financial weight, draw out hidden eyes, and force factions like Iron Fang to react on a stage too large for them to easily control.

Lu Feng reached for his wolf-hair brush, intending to draft a reply. But after dipping the tip into black ink, he paused, setting the brush back down on the porcelain stand.

Sending letters back and forth through messengers would become inefficient and he was sure of it. There were nuance, splits, and security measures that needed to be ironed out face-to-face. He decided then and there that he would go to Lin Laifu’s estate in person to settle the terms of the grand auction.

However, Lu Feng did not rise from his desk immediately. He looked out the window toward the dark, moonlit courtyard.

He had dispatched Ye Chenxue to tail the two released spies and root out the true master behind the surveillance network. Until she returned with news of what she had uncovered—and whether this tatted employer posed an immediate threat to their perimeter—Lu Feng chose to hold his ground. He would finalize his plans and leave for Lin Laifu’s estate only after Ye Chenxue had completed her mission and safely returned.

Miles away, in the dark, decaying lower border zone of Crimson Vale, the atmosphere inside the small, nameless pub had reached a absolute freezing point.

"That," Ye Chenxue murmured softly, her icy blue eyes locking onto the bald, tatted man, "was a very bad idea."

Her porcelain fingers clamped around his thick wrist like a vise forged from solid glacial steel. The heavy glass liquor bottle he had swung toward her temple hovered an inch from her skin, completely immobilized in mid-air.

The bald tatted man’s blood ran cold, but he was no mere tavern brawler or low-tier mugger. He was an experienced rogue cultivator who had survived decades in the violent underbelly of Crimson Vale. Realizing his surprise attack had failed, his survival instincts kicked into overdrive.

"Get off me, broad!" he roared, his gravelly voice echoing off the low timber ceiling.

With a sudden, violent surge, the dark, intricate ink tattoos covering his scalp, neck, and arms began to glow with a sickly, dark crimson light.

A dense, heavy aura of coarse, blood-tinged Qi erupted from his body, creating a localized shockwave that blew the silver coins off the bar counter and shattered the glass liquor bottle in mid-air.

He was a late Qi Condensation Stage cultivator specializing in a heavy, body-refinement martial art. The dark tattoo runes etched into his flesh were array lines designed to amplify his physical strength and density whenever his Qi circulated.

His left arm swelled with thick, dark veins. Gathering his heavy Qi into his left fist, he drove a brutal, mountain-shattering uppercut straight toward Ye Chenxue’s chin to force her to release his right arm!

BOOM!

Ye Chenxue didn’t even flinch. She simply tilted her head back by half an inch.

The bald man’s fist cut through empty air, the sheer wind pressure from his punch blasting upward and tearing a gaping, two-foot hole straight through the wooden ceiling beams above them! Dust, dried moss, and splintered timber rained down around them.

Before he could pull his arm back, Ye Chenxue twisted her grip on his right wrist downward with terrifying force.

CRASH!

She slammed his heavy body face-first into the solid oak bar counter. The thick, reinforced hardwood exploded into a cloud of jagged splinters, collapsing the entire bar structure onto the floorboards.

The bald tatted man let out a strained grunt, coughing up a mixture of dust and blood. But despite the violent impact, his body-refinement technique protected his skeleton from breaking.

Rolling through the debris with surprising agility for a man his size, he kicked off the stone hearth wall and vaulted backward into the center of the tavern room.

Reaching into his leather vest with blinding speed, he drew a pair of short, thick iron cleavers. Channeling his crimson Qi into the metal, the dark iron blades flared with a jagged, three-foot razor aura that hummed with lethal intent.

"I don’t know who the hell sent you, bitch," the tatted man snarled, his eyes bloodshot as his tattoo runes burned brighter, "but you picked the wrong rat to corner!"

He stomped his heavy boot onto the floorboards.

BANG!

His attack shattered the wood beneath him as he launched himself forward like a cannonball.

Sanguine Serpent Slash!

He unleashed a furious, wild barrage of cross-cleaves. His iron blades blurred into a storm of red arcs, slicing through the air with screeching speed.

The onslaught was genuinely impressive for an independent cultivator in the lower districts. His strikes carried enough weight to chop through solid stone pillars and cleave armored warriors in two.

Yet, to Ye Chenxue, his movements looked agonizingly slow.

She didn’t even bother drawing the cold sword resting at her waist. She moved like a ghost draped in dark silk, her lightfoot technique allowing her to glide across the sticky floorboards without her boots seemingly touching the wood.

She sidestepped an inch to the left, swayed her shoulders to the right, and let his heavy aura blades slice through empty space.

SLICE! SLASH! CRASH!

Every strike he missed decimated the tavern’s interior. His razor-sharp Qi cleaved through the building’s support pillars, tore open the outer wooden walls, and shattered heavy oak tables into matchwood. Casks of low-grade wine stacked along the far wall were chopped open, spraying dark alcohol across the room.

However, the moment the liquid hit the air surrounding Ye Chenxue, it didn’t splash.

The passive, arctic chill radiating off her body frozen the spilled wine in mid-air, turning the liquid into sharp, crimson icicles that crashed uselessly to the ground.

"Die!" the tatted man roared, growing increasingly panicked as he failed to touch even the hem of her robe.

Realizing he was completely outmatched in speed, he decided to stake everything on a single, devastating area-of-effect strike. He bit the tip of his tongue, spraying a mist of essence blood onto his glowing tattoo runes!

BUZZ!

His crimson aura expanded wildly, doubling in size. The sheer pressure of his surging blood-Qi blew away the surrounding debris and shattered every shuttered window frame in the tavern into fine sawdust.

Leaping ten feet into the air, his head nearly touching the exposed roof tiles, he raised both iron cleavers above his head, fusing their red aura blades into a single, massive ten-foot phantom cleaver!

’Earth-Shattering Serpent Execution!’

He brought his hands down with all the QI essence in his dantians, aiming to split Ye Chenxue, and the entire tavern building, in half!

The descending shockwave hit first, crushing the floorboards and threatening to collapse the entire roof structure onto their heads.

Ye Chenxue looked up at the descending giant blade with a face as calm and unbothered as a frozen lake.

She raised her right hand, her delicate, pale fingers forming a simple, fluid palm seal. The very first technique she had actually used. "Frost Lotus Shield."

A brilliant, crystalline lotus flower composed of dense, ancient Ice Qi bloomed in mid-air right above her upturned palm, glowing with an ethereal blue radiance.

BOOOOOOOM!

The massive crimson aura blade slammed directly into the delicate blue lotus!

The resulting collision was catastrophic for the tavern. A violent shockwave of compressed wind and energy erupted outward in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree ring.

The remaining three exterior walls of the pub blew outward into the alleyway like cardboard, and the entire wooden roof collapsed in a thunderous shower of shattered tiles, snapping beams, and flying timber!

Dust, smoke, and debris filled the night air as the building was reduced to absolute ruin.

When the dust began to settle under the pale moonlight, the bald tatted man was panting heavily, hovering in the air as he landed on a pile of broken rubble. His arms were numb, his breathing ragged, and his tattoo runes were flickering weakly as his blood-essence boost faded.

He looked forward, expecting to see his opponent crushed under the weight of his ultimate strike.

His blood ran completely cold.

Standing in the exact center of the ruined, roofless pub, completely untouched by the fallen timber or flying debris, was Ye Chenxue. The blue Frost Lotus above her hand hadn’t suffered a single crack.

Her dark robes remained pristine, without a single grain of dust or a drop of blood on her silk. Her porcelain skin was smooth and unblemished; not a single mark had been left upon her.

"Is that all?" Ye Chenxue asked softly.

Before the tatted man could even scream in terror, Ye Chenxue dispersed the ice shield. She crossed the ten-foot gap between them in a second, appearing directly before him like a spirit.

She thrust her open palm forward, striking him lightly in the center of his chest. ’Glacial Heart Palm.’

THUMP!

There was no explosive boom. Instead, a terrifying frost wave surged directly through his sternum, entering his main meridian pathways.

The bald man’s eyes widened in absolute, agonizing shock as he felt his internal Qi instantly freeze solid inside his veins. The intense cold shut down his blood circulation and paralyzed his nervous system in a fraction of a second.

He opened his mouth, coughing up a cloud of white frost mist, before his vision went completely black. His heavy, muscular body collapsed backward, crashing limply into the frozen timber rubble of his destroyed tavern, completely unconscious.

Silence returned to the ruined alleyway under the pale moon.

Ye Chenxue stood amidst the frozen wreckage, her breathing completely steady, her posture relaxed. While the bald man had put up a fierce, desperate fight that showcased the full extent of his body-refinement cultivation, he simply wasn’t strong enough to pose a true threat to her or leave a single mark on her frame.

She walked casually over to where he lay sprawling in the dirt.

Crouching beside his limp body, Ye Chenxue extended two fingers. She knew that body-refinement cultivators possessed exceptionally durable lifeforce and might regain consciousness prematurely while being transported.

To prevent any inconvenient surprises, she channeled condensed needles of Ice Qi from her fingertips and jabbed his major meridian nodes along his chest, spine, and dantian.

Puk! Puk! Puk!

The sub-zero energy formed solid internal blocks inside his Qi channels, sealing his cultivation completely and ensuring he would remain paralyzed and unconscious for at least twelve hours.

Satisfied with her work, Ye Chenxue stood up. She reached down with her right hand, grabbed the heavy, unconscious cultivator by the thick collar of his leather vest, and casually lifted him off the ground.

Dragging his heavy, limp body behind her through the destroyed tavern entrance, Ye Chenxue stepped back out into the moonlit lane.

Without turning back to look at the ruined building, she began her unhurried walk back across Crimson Vale, hauling her new prisoner back toward Lu Feng’s estate while evading the eyes of the people who were bound to arrive soon to check what had happened there.