Chapter 453: Selling Real or Fake Goods

Without hesitation, Lin Dong and Yun Lan went to the edge of the crowd.
“Bidding? What bidding?”
Hearing the lively discussions, Lin Dong looked at Yun Lan in confusion.
Yun Lan replied with slight surprise, “Bidding is a feature of the shops on Tianfeng Street. It’s said that whenever a shop has high-grade spiritual materials or artifacts, they’ll post a notice in advance and choose a day to start selling. On that day, anyone interested in purchasing these items can get a slip of paper. The buyer can write down their bid amount, and at noon or evening, all the slips are collected and the highest bid wins the item.”
Lin Dong was speechless. It sounded similar to bidding, just much simpler.
“By the way, since it’s bidding, does that mean there are good items for sale inside?” Lin Dong suddenly widened his eyes.
Yun Lan was at a loss, realizing this only now. With such slow reaction, if faced in battle, he might not even think of how to dodge the first attack until after being struck dozens of times.
“Make way, make way!” Lin Dong activated his energy barrier, enclosing himself and Yun Lan. No one could get within a meter of them. As they moved forward, the dense crowd couldn’t withstand the force of the barrier and stepped aside.
Only upon reaching the entrance did Lin Dong understand why so many people were gathered outside—it wasn’t because the inside was crowded, but because there was a fee to enter. Ten thousand taels of silver per person, and it was non-refundable!
Lin Dong glanced inside. Unlike other shops, this spiritual materials store had chairs placed outside its counter—over seventy of them in an area of about a hundred square meters. If all the chairs were occupied, the income alone would be over seven hundred thousand taels.
Lin Dong couldn’t help but marvel at how many fools existed in this world. Already, seventy percent of the chairs were occupied. Whether anyone wanted those spiritual materials or not, over five hundred thousand taels would still be earned.
Suddenly, a familiar figure came into Lin Dong’s sight. It was a man in the first row. Though only his fleshly head was visible, Lin Dong remembered him well. He was 90% sure the owner of that head was the chubby Ling Chenyue. Next to Ling Chenyue was a person wearing a fedora and a loose white robe.
Since the person’s face and gender were indistinguishable, Lin Dong’s curiosity piqued, and he sent his mind out to investigate. To his amusement, he realized this person was a powerful warrior at the first stage of the Reverse Heart phase. The aura of spiritual energy he sensed was none other than Zi Han, whom he had met at the Wanxian Tower.

That day, Ling Chenyue and Zi Han’s reactions made Lin Dong think they must have some hidden relationship, and that Ling Chenyue wasn’t as useless as the rumors suggested. Now, the first guess had been confirmed.
As a sucker, Lin Dong wasn’t averse to playing that role when necessary. Learning that bidding would start at noon and that the items for sale were high-grade spirit herbs for cultivation, along with three seeds as a bonus, he immediately took out 20,000 silver coins and entered the shop.
Finding two chairs side by side at the back, Lin Dong asked softly, “What are the effects of this Snow Red Grass?”
“The Snow Red Grass is an eighth-grade spirit herb. When ground into powder and swallowed with strong liquor, its effects last for three days in the meridians. If fully absorbed within those three days, it will have effects similar to those of a ninth-grade spirit material for cultivation. If taken consecutively for six times, it should help you break through from the sixth to the seventh stage of the Heart Reversal Phase,” Yun Lan explained softly. “It’s impossible for you to absorb it within three days with your current strength, but if Elder Ding or Senior Feng helps, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lin Dong was amused. If he could get the seeds of the Snow Red Grass, he could plant them in large quantities. In addition to the Blue Green Fruits, Red Thousand Fruits, and Lingyun Tree branches, Lin’s Inn would now have another high-grade spirit material for cultivation.
This trip to Tianfeng Street would definitely yield great rewards.
Of course, that was assuming he could buy the Snow Red Grass and its seeds.
Lin Dong calculated his assets and asked, “According to your estimate, how much silver would it cost?”
“It’s not certain,” Yun Lan shook her head. “High-grade spirit materials or pills for cultivation aren’t like high-grade spirit weapons or other high-grade materials. Every sect lacks them. Even a sect like our Tianjian Sect, which is renowned for alchemy, only has four or five varieties of cultivation spirit materials, with the highest-grade ones being only eighth grade. Compared to other sects, our advantage as alchemy experts lies only in having more lower-grade materials. For high-grade cultivation spirit materials that can’t be transplanted, we just have more methods to find them. So, it’s almost certain that even if a major sect finds such materials, they won’t trade them for silver that isn’t very useful.”
“Then why does this spirit material shop sell them?” Lin Dong was puzzled.
“When I was here last time on Tianfeng Street, I asked a junior disciple from our Tianjian Sect stationed here. According to him, many of them are sold just to attract customers,” Yun Lan replied.
“Attract customers?” Lin Dong was stunned.

“In other words, after the store’s business slows down for a while, they bring out the high-grade spiritual materials collected and hold an auction to compete over them. The store itself doesn’t intend to sell them; it just wants to use this auction to promote itself. During the auction, a disciple is sent in advance to bid,” Yun Lan explained. “Over a hundred years ago, a spiritual materials store offered an eighth-tier spiritual fruit in an auction. Fearing it might be bought by someone else, they even set an exorbitant price of one billion taels. Although this was somewhat too obvious, even if they set a price of thirty to fifty million taels, no one would bid that much either. As long as it’s not too obvious and those participating can save face, and they get to see high-grade materials for cultivation, no one would object to spending ten thousand taels.”

“By that logic, without thirty to fifty million taels, we can’t guarantee getting this Snow Red Grass?” Lin Dong was greatly disappointed. Initially, he thought that opening a store to sell high-grade spiritual materials and beasts would mainly allow him to exchange them with other stores. As for making money, as long as Lin’s Inn continued to expand, it wouldn’t lack funds in the future—any extra money would just be like having piles of stones, offering little help to his strength or the inn’s business. Now, he wanted to abandon this idea.

There was nothing to do; even heroes struggle without money. Before coming to the capital, Lin Dong had arranged for all members of his guard team to take silver bills to various counties and prefectures to open branches and control the troublemakers in each city. For this, not only was all his savings spent, but everyone also carried some low-grade cultivation materials as a backup in case of insufficient funds. Since then, Lin Dong’s portable cash register had always contained a ten-thousand-tael silver bill.

The imperial palace currently held about thirty-two million taels in silver bills, temporarily kept for Yang Shun. Adding in the earnings and savings from Lin’s Inn’s branches over the past few months, they could roughly gather thirty to fifty million taels. Even so, the total was still less than forty million taels.

If Lin Dong were given ten days or half a month, not to mention thirty to fifty million taels, even doubling that amount by holding a massive sale of Blue Green Fruits, causing a sensation throughout the Great Han Kingdom, would be sufficient to raise the needed funds. But now, with only one or two hours left until noon, it was impossible to handle the Blue Green Fruits personally—there simply wasn’t enough time.

Seeing Lin Dong’s frustrated expression, Yun Lan smiled and said, “Don’t forget—we, the Tianjian Sect, also have a store on Tianfeng Street.”

Lin Dong was stunned, then slapped his forehead—he had actually forgotten about this.

“There’s not much time left. I’ll be back soon. Stay here and check each person’s strength one by one, especially those inside the shops, to see how many are at the Heart Reversal stage or above,” Yun Lan said in a low voice. “Not all high-grade spiritual materials are just displayed to attract attention. Some sects are in urgent need of a large amount of spiritual stones and need money for operations, so they’ll offer a few items for sale. Such sects usually send a few elders from their sect, as Tianfeng Street has many strange rules. For example, if something is stolen inside a shop, the shop is fully responsible. But once it’s outside the shop, the shop takes no responsibility. Even more, if it leaves Tianfeng Street, the sect to which the shop belongs can also send people to retrieve the spiritual materials. If they really want to sell them, they can be bought for seven or eight million taels of silver. Also, find out more about the situation inside the shops so that if we buy them later, we can quickly arrange measures to deal with any attempts at robbery.”

Lin Dong nodded. The price difference was enormous. Not to mention tens of millions of taels of silver, even millions was a huge amount. Lin’s Inn had over a hundred branches, with more than eighty being profitable, yet their monthly profit was only around four hundred thousand taels.

Earlier, driven by impulse, he had wanted to acquire the spiritual materials at any cost. Now, he naturally preferred to spend as little as possible. Besides, Tianfeng Street seemed to have the custom that items could be stolen just by leaving the shop. Otherwise, given Yun Lan’s personality, she wouldn’t have mentioned it to him. By saying so, she was clearly reminding him that if he couldn’t buy them, he could still steal them later.

If there were benefits, Lin Dong agreed wholeheartedly with the saying “adapt to local customs.”

There weren’t many clerks inside the shops—only five—and in addition, there was an old man in his fifties. Lin Dong sensed their strengths externally. None of the five clerks were strong, only at the second to fourth stage of the Mind Realm. As for the old man, he must be an elder from a major sect, with a strength reaching the fourth level of the Heart Reversal stage.

After checking each of the unsuspecting people in the shops again, Lin Dong felt somewhat helpless. There wasn’t a single person whose mind he couldn’t sense. Moreover, those who had reached the strength of the Heart Reversal stage, including Zi Han, a famous prostitute from the Ten Thousand Immortals Pavilion, totaled only two.

Not counting himself and Yun Lan, there were only two strong people in one room. Outside, this would be astonishing. But in Tianfeng Street, Lin Dong believed it was definitely insufficient when selling high-grade spiritual materials and pills used for cultivation.

Those who know that the Spirit Materials Shop sells advanced auxiliary cultivation materials today have undoubtedly deduced from various clues that the shop has no real intention of selling Snow Red Grass; at most, only a small number of people are waiting outside in hopes of getting some. If everyone truly believed that Snow Red Grass would definitely be sold, many powerful individuals who couldn’t secure advantageous positions to snatch it would have entered the shop to wait for their chance.