Chapter 689: Primordial Tianling Flower Specimen

Xu Bai lingered in the shop, and the shop owner made no move to stop him.

A man with a countenance as peerlessly beautiful as Xu Bai's could draw the attention of passing cultivators just by standing there, doing nothing.

Cultivators could reshape their appearances, and those of stunning beauty were not rare. Still, Xu Bai captivated all at first glance.

His transcendent, mysterious aura only deepened the allure.

Men and women alike paused in the shop. They sized Xu Bai up in secret, buying a Tianling Flower as a pretext to linger.

Business boomed, and the shop owner beamed with joy. He only wished Xu Bai would stay in the shop all day and night.

That, clearly, was impossible.

Two days later, the Tianling Flower Xu Bai had selected bloomed in proud splendor.

At first the crowd paid it little mind, their gazes still fixed on Xu Bai.

But when Xu Bai lifted the flower into his palm, and they glanced at it without meaning to...

Gasps rose one after another.

"Is that...?"

"A true red tinged with pink, so faint it's barely visible. That's a first-grade Tianling Flower!"

"I heard a first-grade Tianling Flower sold for a hundred thousand contribution points not long ago. This pot shouldn't go for any less. And he bought it for a thousand? That's a massive profit!"

"Not only is he beautiful, his luck is just as good. I'm envious..."

So this is the subtle use of providence. Even without seeking it deliberately, every word and action steers reality toward a favorable outcome. Xu Bai held the Tianling Flower in his hand, quietly working out how providence shaped reality.

He felt a portion of his own providence dissipate and immediately drew on the Xuan Bird Feather to replenish it.

When he came back to himself, he found the shop owner and the other cultivators staring at the flower in his hand, agitated.

Xu Bai smiled faintly.

Even the fairest face cannot sway hearts the way profit does.

Before everyone present, he spoke calmly. "First-grade? It's trash."

Spiritual qi surged in his hand, and in an instant the twelve-petaled first-grade Tianling Flower turned to ash.

"What are you doing?!"

The scene erupted into chaos.

Xu Bai owned the flower, and how he handled it was his own affair. But it was a treasure worth over a hundred thousand contribution points. To destroy it so casually, and call it trash on top of that...

That was going too far.

The faces of the cultivators present darkened.

A scholar-like cultivator, holding his own Tianling Flower, strode up to Xu Bai with a grim expression. "Fellow Daoist! If you can't love it, at least don't harm it!

"The life of a Tianling Flower is already fleeting. Upon blooming, it should be shown to the world in all its glory..."

He was still mid-declaration when Xu Bai produced a folding fan and nudged him aside.

"Move. You're blocking my way."

Xu Bai ignored him and walked on.

"You...!" The scholar's face flushed red.

He wasn't bad-looking, strictly speaking, but next to Xu Bai he lacked a certain charm. Xu Bai's earlier dismissal had already irritated him; now jealousy and rage surged up in him at this fresh insult.

"First-grade Tianling Flowers are trash? Bold claim!" the scholar shouted. "You should know that in the absence of primordial specimens, the most beautiful Tianling Flowers in this world are the few top-grade blossoms. Have you ever even seen one?"

He kept his tone restrained, wary of offending someone he shouldn't, but the probing question slipped through anyway. "From what I know, the moment a top-grade Tianling Flower blooms, it's bought up at once and sent to the high officials of the Immortal Alliance. What status do you hold, and when have you ever laid eyes on one?"

Xu Bai turned around.

With a sharp crack, he snapped his folding fan open, gave it a light wave, and smiled, shaking his head. "I've never seen those so-called top-grade Tianling Flowers either."

"Then you're just a clown seeking attention, a fool with no fear..." The scholar relaxed, pouring his anger into the reprimand.

"But in my eyes," Xu Bai said, his voice soft yet landing on the crowd like a thunderclap, "those top-grade Tianling Flowers are trash too."

The scholar froze.

Then he laughed, furious. "By your reasoning, perhaps only..."

Xu Bai finished for him. "Exactly. Only primordial specimens deserve the name of true Tianling Flowers."

He extended his right hand.

A sheet of crystalline "paper," thin as a cicada's wing, unfurled across his palm.

On it, a Tianling Flower appeared, vibrant and lifelike. The scenery on each of its seventeen petals was crystal clear, and the whole blossom seemed to quiver.

Silence fell over the scene like a shroud.

Everyone present had studied Tianling Flowers, and the one in Xu Bai's hand seized their complete attention.

"A primordial specimen?"

After a moment, someone snapped out of their daze and cried out in shock.

"That's a primordial specimen!"

"A peerless vision of Tianling, truly unmatched. Next to a primordial specimen, every first-grade and top-grade flower, tainted by even a hint of blood, is just trash!"

The insolent scholar wasn't the only one stunned. The cry of "primordial specimen" drew the gazes of cultivators all across Tianling City.

More and more of them arrived, drawn by the news, staring blankly at the primordial Tianling Flower in Xu Bai's hands.

Thud. The flower pot in the scholar's hands crashed to the ground, and he didn't even notice.

Fixated on the primordial specimen like a man possessed, he crept toward Xu Bai, eyes lost in obsession.

Just as he came close, Xu Bai withdrew the flower.

"No..."

The scholar's face twisted into a mask of rage, as if he had lost his most beloved thing in an instant. With a crazed howl, he lunged at Xu Bai.

Combat was forbidden within the Immortal Alliance's sky cities.

Before the towering statue of the Heavenly Venerable Dao Teacher could even mete out punishment, a flash of light rippled across Xu Bai's robe.

Xu Bai stood unmoving as some rebounding force sent the scholar flying, screaming.

Then a beam of light fell from the Heavenly Venerable's statue and charred the scholar black.

He convulsed once, then lay still. Dead.

Cultivators from the Martial Hall hurried over to collect the corpse. Between that and the death phenomenon lighting up the sky, the crowd finally quieted.

Xu Bai cupped his hands in a perfunctory salute to those around him, then drifted away.

"It's over. The Tianling Flower business is finished." The shopkeeper stared at Xu Bai's retreating figure, his face ashen, muttering to himself.

Then his gaze swept across the shelves crammed with Tianling Flowers. He hastily scrawled out a sign reading "90% Off" and hung it outside the shop.