We made our way to the auction house, the so-called Hall of White Jade. I had never been there before— as I had never had any money to spend— but I had heard of it before, and I knew the most elementary of auction house procedures.

We went up to the entrance of the auction house, where a butler of sorts was standing, and before I knew it the attention of the entire street was on us. Normally in this city, nobody would recognize me or give Natsuki more than an odd glance, but the auction house was a cultivator's institution, so some servants from the sect were mingling outside it, and I could hear them whispering,

"That's Bai Chunxue, the lowest-ranking trash of my boss' sect."

"Bai Chunxue? I heard some of the Long family folks saying that Bai Chunxue is the shame of the Bai family."

"Wait, if he's trash in the sect and trash among the Bai family, then how can he afford to join the auction?"

"Maybe it has something to do with that... person? next to him."

"Who is that?"

"Is that the foreigner everyone is talking about?"

"I'm not sure... I heard there was a foreigner visiting the sect, but I don't know what they look like."

"Didn't they say the foreigner looks like a rakshasa?"

—Natsuki patted me on the back, and I, silencing my ears to the chirping of the crowd, walked up to the butler.

"Uh... is there... an auction today?" I asked him.

"Yes," replied the butler with a nod. "It stared about an hour ago, but you may still enter. Can you show me your proof of identity?"

Supposedly in these situations it was most standard to show proof of family membership, but I did not particularly want to alert the Bai family to my presence. Since this was a cultivator's institution, any proof of association with a recognized cultivation group would suffice, so...

"I'm from the Phantom Orchid Sect," I said, pulling out the necklace containing my sect token from under my robes.

Raising his eyebrows, he turned his gaze to Natsuki. "And this one with you is...?"

"A guest," I said. The laws of the jianghu were loose enough that that was all I needed to say.

The butler shrugged. "Alright. You may enter. Take a seat anywhere in the main chamber."

I took a step into the building, and—

—"Ah, one last thing," Natsuki called out. "We are not in the habit of carrying your— spirit stones, I think you call them, so would it be a problem if we paid with these?"

She pulled out a bar of gold from her sleeve and offered it to the butler, whose hands trembled as he examined it.

"Is that solid gold?!" someone in the crowd shouted.

"No way. It can't be. Who would carry around solid gold with them?"

"It must be fake, right?"

"I remember when scammers would plate silver bars with gold and sell them for 'cheap'. My boss almost got duped by that once."

"There was also that incident where they would shave the gold off yuanbao and replace it with pyrite."

"That's why we use silver taels now."

"Well, the Hall of White Jade wouldn't fall for tricks like that anyways."

"Of course not!"

The crowd began snickering and laughing, even though they had taken no more than a glance at the bar of gold. Of course, that was because I was there.

"Um..." The butler gulped audibly, then said, "This... appears to be legitimate..."

The crowd went silent.

"I will... have to take this in for further examination, but I expect that it would be worth about two hundred-odd spirit stones."

"That's fine. I have more." Giving one final smile to the crowd, Natsuki followed me into the auction house.

—"What is Bai Chunxue doing with someone so wealthy?"

The crowd broke into murmurs, though none of them expressed any shame for the vitriol they had spit.

----------------------------------------

The most prominent local families and organizations had seats reserved at the front of the hall, so naturally, we sat towards the back. I cast my glance over the room, and I thought I saw someone wearing Bai family robes sitting at the front, but I could not tell who it was from looking at the backside of their head, shadowed as it was.

"Next item is... this cultivation manual, on the Water Curtain technique," stated the announcer lazily. "Bidding starts at... twenty spirit stones."

"Water Curtain technique? Have you heard of that?"

"No, but it sounds weak."

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"Eh, I'll risk it for twenty."

"Twenty-one."

"Twenty-two."

I leaned over and whispered to Natsuki, "I don't think you're allowed to bid as a guest, so if there's something you want, I'll bid for you."

She nodded.

"Twenty-nine."

"Thirty."

"Thirty-two."

The muttering died down, and this thirty-two bid ended up winning. A figure stepped up from the first row to claim the manual. When they turned around to walk back down the steps from the stage, I saw their face and winced. It was Gu Lianying, an inner sect cultivator in Wang Wujiu's faction.

"Next item... a Phoenix Elixir. It will not revive those who are dying or dead, but it will restore crippled cultivations and drastically speed up bodily healing for cultivators of the appropriate realm. Bidding starts at... three hundred."

"I'll bid three hundred and—"

"Five hundred twenty," boomed a voice from the front row.

I winced again. I knew that voice. It was Canyue.

The crowd went quiet, and nobody dared post another bid.

Except for one person.

"Five hundred and—"

Someone slapped the head of the person who dared to speak up.

"Dumbass! You can't place a bid on this!"

"Huh? Why not?"

"That's Bai Canyue, the heir of the Bai family! Are you trying to piss her off?!"

"It's not about pissing anyone off, it's about bidding for a fair price."

"Five hundred would be a fair price! She's giving us face by bidding at five twenty, so she's asking us to shut up and let her take it!"

"Yeah, but I want—"

"Dumbass!" The wannabe bidder's head was slapped again, from the other side this time. "If your superiors are going out of their way to give you face, why would you spit on theirs?!"

—"This is interesting," Natsuki muttered. "In the auction houses I have seen, matters were considered more of a game. A game of wealth, to be sure, but a game nonetheless. However, it seems that your social mores infect even these spaces of supposedly-pure economic activity."

"Oh, uh... I suppose..." It was difficult for me to respond, as I had never really thought about such things.

—Canyue won the auction for the elixir.

"Next item is... this painting of a tsunami off Huoshanlong Archipelago." The auctioneer unfurled a wide painting of a great ocean's wave towering over the land. "Starting price, four spirit stones."

"How inauspicious," someone grumbled.

"It radiates sha qi. How could I put this in my house?"

"I wouldn't take this if you paid me four spirit stones."

Natsuki turned to me and whispered, "You should buy this. Its latent mana— intent, I think you call it— is quite impressive. If you study this, you will be able to fight more wisely."

I nodded. "I'll bid four," I called out.

Cold pinprick gazes suddenly converged on me from all across the hall. And one in particular was colder and sharper than the rest.

"You bastard..." Canyue stomped up the aisleway, a murderous aura trailing in her wake. "What do you think you're doing here?" She stood, towering over my seat, killing intent radiating from every pore of her body, lighting flames in the very air around her.

"I— I—"

My tongue was leaden in my mouth. I could not speak.

"Chunxue," Natsuki whispered as she laid her hand over mine. "Speak as you wish. If necessary, I will protect you."

"I—" I inhaled sharply. "I am here to bid, like everyone else."

"While you're here having fun, do you have any idea how Xiaolong is suffering?!" she cried out, sorrow in her voice but only fury on her face. "Because of you, Xiaolong— Xiaolong is—!"

"Calm down, First Sister," I sighed. "People are watching. If you act like this, people will criticize the Bai family."

She suddenly grabbed me by the collar and stared right into my eyes, her gaze twitching with rage, her fists hardening with materialized qi.

"You don't fucking understand, do you?" she growled. "In that case, should I beat it into you?"

She raised a fist, and—

"BAI CANYUE!" A voice echoed across the hall from somewhere beyond it, carrying such force upon its resonance that the walls and floor seemed to shudder like tuning-forks. "Do you even have me in your eyes?! If you are not going to bid, then either sit down or get out! If you dare lay a hand on one of my guests, the Bai family will never again be permitted to set foot in any auction house in all the Great Plains!"

I did not recognize the voice, but it was probably the owner of the auction house, who— despite certainly not knowing my name— would defend me, if only incidentally in the process of defending the honor of the institution he directed.

Canyue's face contorted with rabid anger, but she did not attack me. She dared not. She let go of my collar and leaped back down the aisleway. "Fine. In that case, allow me to bid fifty."

"This kind of spite-bidding was not uncommon in the other auction-houses I have seen," Natsuki muttered. "Chunxue, keep it under four hundred, preferably."

I nodded.

"Fifty is a lot," someone commented. "Someone in the outer sect could reasonably scrape together four or five spirit stones, but there's no way they could do fifty."

"It's kind of weird to sit here and watch family drama, but you can't disrespect Bai Canyue."

"How is she going to justify this purchase to the family, though...?"

I exhaled slowly, then called out. "One hundred."

For a moment, the hall was silent.

Then—

"No way. That's bullshit."

"Not even the best of outer sect disciples could spend a hundred spirit stones on a worthless painting like that one."

"Bai Chunxue is just daring Bai Canyue to bid higher. He can't actually pay that much."

"How disrespectful. No wonder the Bai family considers him trash."

The auctioneer made a hand signal, and the crowd gradually calmed, though they all kept their eyes on me. "Bai Chunxue," she grunted through a disgusted grimace, "do you take this place for a joke? Don't make fun of us by bidding what you can't afford. This is a reputable auction house, with branches all throughout the Great Plains. Even the Emperor attends our auctions in the Imperial Capital, and even he doesn't have the right to insult us like this. If you're not going to be serious, then get out, or you'll have to pay the price for disrespecting us."

Natsuki placed three bars of gold in my hand. "You do not always need force to beat people into submission," she said with a crooked smile, and I immediately understood her intent.

I thrust the gold into my robes and stood up from my seat.