CHAPTER 182: 182- XIAO PEI [2]

Fang Yin clasped her hands together, her face alight with innocent excitement.

"Wow!" she breathed, her delight infectious.

Fang Yuan shook his head with faint amusement before his smile returned, bright and unshakable.

"Alright then. I’m sure you all remember my dear brother... Xiao Pei?"

A wave of nods swept through the chamber.

Of course they remembered. Xiao Pei, the quiet benefactor who had solved so many of their troubles.

The one who had given generously when the Fang clan teetered on the edge, lifting burdens both financial and personal.

His name alone carried the weight of gratitude and reverence.

Fang Yuan’s expression softened with warmth before brightening once more.

"With his help..." he began slowly, each word measured, deliberate, "I was able to procure... a few more resources."

The elders leaned forward ever so slightly, breath strained, waiting.

Fang Yuan inhaled, holding the silence, savoring their anticipation.

His eyes swept the council, meeting gaze after gaze, letting the tension coil tighter, heavier.

Then, his voice dropped, low, almost a whisper, yet clear enough to reach every ears present.

"...A hundred Golden Core Pills."

The words struck like lightning.

For an instant, the hall seemed to shatter. Elders jerked upright, eyes widening so far they threatened to tear.

A few mouths opened, then snapped shut, unable to form words.

The sheer weight of the revelation crashed over them like a tidal wave, leaving only stunned silence in its wake.

A hundred...?

That number was absurd. Even unthinkable.

Fang Yuan smiled faintly, savoring the shock etched on every elder’s face.

If only they knew, he mused, his expression betraying nothing. That I also have a hundred Nascent Soul Pills... no, better yet, the ten Hollow Spirit Pills in my hands. Hah... their eyes would pop clean out of their sockets. They’d even think I’d been possessed.

Meanwhile, at the exact same moment, far to the south of the Tharz Kingdom—

"Achoo!"

The sneeze rang out suddenly.

"Shhh! Not a sound," came a woman’s gentle, lilting voice.

It carried both amusement and warning, like silk brushing against glass.

On a low bed lay none other than Xiao Pei.

His robes were open, chest bared, the lamplight catching the taut lines of his muscles.

Seated beside him, a woman traced her fingers across his chest with infuriating leisure, her touch both feather-light and deliberate.

"Is th-that... r-really... n-necessary?" Xiao Pei stammered, his usual composed voice breaking into an embarrassingly squeaky tone.

"Oh, yes," the woman replied with a slow, charming smile, her eyes glinting with mischief.

"After all... I’m your nurse right now. And a patient should listen to his caretaker, shouldn’t he?"

Her hand wandered again, deliberately teasing along his chest.

Xiao Pei shut his eyes tight, jaw clenching as his lips pressed into a thin line.

Just then, the doorsbcreaked open and an old hunched figure shuffled in, his head bowed over a flickering spirit-jade tablet.

"Interesting... interesting..." the old man muttered, the words a dry rustle of leaves.

His fingers, stained with ink and powders. "Most peculiar..."

The nurse was instantaneous. Her seductive looks vanished and in one fluid motion, her exploring hands snapped back, and she snatched a cloth from a basin nearby.

She began dabbing at Xiao Pei’s chest with brisk, clinical efficiency, her previous smolder replaced by a mask of professional detachment.

And then another woman stepped through the doorway, and it was as if the gloom itself parted for her.

Her hair was a cascade of pale moonlight, a stunning, silvery white that seemed to glow against the room’s dark wood and shadowy corners.

She brought with her a sense of cool, serene authority.

Xiao Pei’s head jerked up. A wave of palpable relief washed over his face, tightening his throat.

His eyes, wide with a mixture of desperation and hope, locked onto her.

"Du Juan, I—" he began, his voice choked with emotion.

She cut him off, her voice calm yet firm, like silk gliding over stone.

"Please bear with it for a while. Matriarch Fang wishes for the best for you." Her gaze, however, was not on him.

It settled on the muttering old man, her expression unreadable.

The strange little doctor finally looked up, his beady eyes sharp and bright behind spectacles.

"It is exactly as you have speculated, milady" he chirped, pointing a bony finger at Xiao Pei.

"The blood of his... it’s indeed special. ah! If only I could have him permanen— Aha!" He exclaimed, as if struck by a brilliant idea, and swiveled his head to stare at Du Juan with unabashed greed.

Eyes locking onto Du Juan with a startling intensity.

"How much," he rasped, the words not a question but a demand, "for the human?"

Du Juan’s expression did not change, but the air around her grew several degrees colder.

"He is not for sale," she stated, her voice flat and final, like a slab of granite.

"Oh ho ho ho!" The doctor’s laugh was a dry, rattling sound. He waved a dismissive, ink-stained hand, his confidence unshaken.

"Everyone has a price. Everyone. Name it." His grin returned, wider and more presumptuous, utterly convinced that his wealth could claim even this extraordinary specimen.

Then, he saw the change in Du Juan. Her luminous eyes seemed to capture all the light in the room, glowing with an otherworldly intensity.

Her smile widened, a beautiful, terrifying curve of her lips that promised nothing good.

Xiao Pei, from his place on the divan, felt a cold dread that had nothing to do with his ailment.

"You’ve gone senile, old man," she said, her tone almost conversational, yet each word dripped with glacial contempt.

"We came here for a solution," she continued, the polite pretense shattering, "not to get rid of the problem."

The shift was instantaneous.

A pressure descended upon the room so immense it felt like the ceiling had dropped.

It was not a physical force, but a spiritual one, a suffocating, weight that spoke of an insurmountable gap in power.

The doctor’s smug grin vanished, replaced by a mask of shock and agony.

His knees buckled with a sickening crack of protesting joints, and he crashed to the floor, his spectacles skittering away.

A strangled gurgle was all he could manage.