Chapter 89 Landscape Painting
Su Qingwu raised her eyes and saw a majestic silver-winged unicorn with two wings on its back coming down on the clouds.
On the horse's back, there is a giant lotus jade seat with icy silk hanging from it, which is constantly rotating.
Situ Ran, the chief disciple of the Lord of Baihua Valley, sat in the middle, with a maid holding a lamp on each side.
At this moment, the Silver-Winged Unicorn was slowly descending towards the auction table.
When they were about ten feet away from the ground, Situ Ran stood up from the Lotus Jade Throne, chanted a spell with one hand, and floated down to the ground with the two maids.
Then he waved his sleeves again, and a lotus jade table about half a meter high suddenly appeared on the empty auction table.
In the center of the jade table, there was a pot of snow lotus emitting a strong icy aura.
Situ Ran glanced at the cultivators in the room and spoke loudly:
"Welcome all Taoist friends to come to Qionghua Mountain Villa to participate in the auction. The first item for auction is a 200-year-old Tianshan Snow Lotus, which is suitable for cultivators with ice spirit roots. It can be taken raw to improve ice spirit power, and can also be used to refine ice soul pills. The starting price is 800 spirit stones, and each bid increase must not be less than 20 spirit stones."
......
There are very few cultivators with ice spiritual roots, and in this auction, no one possesses this spiritual root.
As a result, only a few people participated in the bidding for the Tianshan Snow Lotus, and it was finally sold for 920 spirit stones.
The person who took the photo was Su Qingwu.
Although she did not possess ice spiritual roots, she could harvest the Tianshan Snow Lotus at any time if she planted it in a pot. If she watered it with a stone bottle, she could gain rewards in her cultivation.
Spiritual plants that are over a hundred years old will definitely bring in a lot of spiritual benefits after being harvested.
The first item for auction received a cold response, but Situ Ran had anticipated this situation. He kept smiling and quickly took out the second item, a pot of spiritual plant that was shaped like crystal with transparent branches and leaves, and introduced it.
"A three hundred year old attributeless jade bone flower can be used to refine a rare beauty pill, and it also has the effect of growing new flesh. If you lose arms and legs when fighting an enemy, taking this flower can help you grow new limbs. The starting price is 1,500 spirit stones, and each bid must not be less than 40 spirit stones."
As soon as he finished speaking, there was a continuous stream of bidding.
"One thousand five hundred!"
"One thousand five hundred and forty!"
"One thousand six hundred!"
......
About half a cup of tea later, the Jade Bone Flower was sold for six thousand spirit stones.
The person who took the photo of this sacred plant was still Su Qingwu.
As for the purpose, it is the same as before.
As early as when the auction began, she had made the decision to bid on all the high-aged spiritual plants that had not been harvested, until all the spiritual stones were used up.
She doesn't care whether this will attract attention.
She would keep a low profile when she could, but in the current situation, when she encountered something that was extremely beneficial to improving her cultivation, she couldn't give it up.
......
As time went on, the number of items up for auction dwindled.
Of the thirty-nine items that were sold, fifteen were bought by Su Qingwu, who spent a total of four hundred and eighty thousand spirit stones.
Among them, the oldest sacred plant is the Cangyun bamboo, which has been in existence for a thousand years.
At this moment, in Qionghua Villa, obscure gazes from all directions fell on Su Qingwu from time to time.
In the eyes of some people, she has become a fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered.
There were also some people who were more perceptive and secretly observed her expression and behavior, and found that she remained calm and composed, so they completely gave up some bad thoughts.
......
The total amount of spirit stones that Su Qingwu had obtained before was 740,000, but after a series of auctions, only 260,000 were left.
As time went by, the items being auctioned became more expensive, but there were no more unharvested high-aged spiritual plants.
Soon it was the turn of the three most important items to appear.
At the auction table, Situ Ran waved his sleeves and took out a monster skeleton that was about thirty meters long.
"This is the remains of a green-scaled snake that is about to transform into a dragon. It is well preserved. If there are any Taoist friends who are good at refining puppets, you can bid for it. Once the refining is successful, you will have a powerful helper with the strength of a Jindan stage. The starting price of this treasure is 500,000 spirit stones, and each bid must not be less than 10,000 spirit stones."
Having said this, Situ Ran quickly added a sentence.
"If the puppet is successfully refined and the Taoist who won the bid does not intend to keep it for his own use, Baihua Valley is willing to purchase it at a very high price. We hereby promise that it will be at least a hundred times higher than the transaction price of this auction!"
As soon as these words were spoken, all the practitioners were shocked.
The starting price of 500,000 is a hundred times higher, so the purchase price will be more than 50 million.
And according to past rules, the final transaction price of the top item is at least four times the starting price.
Until this moment, all the cultivators finally understood why the auction in Baihua Valley was hosted by the valley master's first disciple.
Its purpose is probably to target the green-scaled snake puppet that is about to transform into a dragon.
Su Qingwu also thought of this aspect, but she still had some doubts in her heart.
Why didn't Baihua Valley directly employ monks who were skilled in refining puppets with large sums of money, but use this roundabout method?
Although the purchase price offered by this force is extremely high, if the person who wins the bid for the puppet intends to keep it for personal use after the puppet is successfully refined, then wouldn’t their plan be in vain?
As the saying goes, when something is out of the ordinary, there must be something fishy going on. Su Qingwu guessed that there was something else going on, and there were many monks who thought the same way as her.
However, the remains of the green-scaled snake that was about to transform into a dragon were rare to come by in a thousand years, so anyone with enough spirit stones basically participated in the auction.
The bidding lasted for three incense sticks, and finally the item was sold for nine million low-grade spirit stones and was won by a monk who had completed the foundation-building stage.
At the auction table, Situ Ran took out the second top item, a scarlet fire-attributed sword, a low-grade magic weapon.
The starting price is also 500,000 low-grade spirit stones.
Compared with the Green-Scaled Serpent Relics, the competition among cultivators for this treasure was not fierce.
In the end, this low-grade magic weapon was sold for 2.9 million spirit stones.
The last item to be auctioned was a surprisingly ordinary-looking landscape scroll.
Situ Ran only said that this item could not be destroyed by any attacks from spiritual weapons or magic weapons, and was definitely not an ordinary item. As for the rest, he knew nothing.
The starting price for this item was also 500,000 low-grade spirit stones, but no one in the field bid.
Those who can afford it don't like the scroll, and those who want to take a picture don't have enough spirit stones.
Su Qingwu belonged to the latter. She was quite interested in this thing, but unfortunately she did not have enough spirit stones, so she could only watch.
She did not regret having bought so many old spiritual plants before. After all, as long as they were watered in stone bottles, they could be used directly to improve her cultivation.
And there is a certain probability that this scroll is useless.
Comparing the two, even if time could go back, she would still make the same choice.
......
As time went by, no one bid for the last lot. If this continued, the scroll would become the only item in the history of Qionghua Villa to be sold at a low price.
Before Situ Ran came, he was ordered by the Valley Master not to let this happen.
Once there are signs of a failed auction, you can choose to lower the starting price by half.
After waiting for a while and seeing still no movement, she glanced at the cultivators and changed the starting price to 250,000 low-grade spirit stones.
Finally, someone spoke up to bid.
Su Qingwu now only has 260,000 spirit stones left, and after participating in the bidding, the amount is beyond his affordability.
Fortunately, she asked and got a response that if the spirit stones were insufficient, she could use the remaining treasures to offset them.
In the end, she added a top-grade dagger-like spiritual weapon obtained from a killer in Jueying Tower and won the bid for this landscape painting.