Dual Cultivation God Returns - Chapter 1075 - 1075: On this auspicious night

The owner of the Silverleaf Trade Hall, Shiguan Xiaodiao, was meditating as during any night, with closed eyes in a lotus position, in his mansion located also in the Eastern Outskirts, not that far from the headquarters.

His mood was elevated as tomorrow was a big day. The day when a big source of his annoyance and frustration as of late would finally be dealt with.

‘It’s finally time to shut down those upstarts. Hmph! They must be feeling proud of themselves because they managed to stay afloat until now. Oh~ look at us, we can compete with the Silverleaf Trade Hall~… Guess what? It’s not that we couldn’t crush you like bugs, we chose not to! It’s all about the timing!’, a smirk appeared on his lips.

‘You think you can just come into my territory and do what you please?’, he then frowned as he thought about this thorn in his side that appeared out of nowhere and was tormenting him all this while, ‘But really, how are they doing it? There is no way they can bypass the scrutiny at the World Stone, so how are they getting their supplies of goods? They can’t be manufacturing them since there’s nowhere for them to hide such a massive operation… whatever, it’s all going to be revealed when we crush them, their secrets are going to belong to me as well…”

His expression turned into a pleased one again, but soon shifted to a slightly sour one, ‘Though we had to request help from the Thousand Treasures Hall on this one… there’s no way we could organize a comparable auction in time without them. So I suppose we’ll have to share in the spoils…’

He thought about the annoying man who came as a representative of the Thousand Treasures Hall, a low-level member of the Bao Family who came from a branch of a branch – so far on the outskirts of the family tree it became dubious if he was even part of the Bao Family at all.

And yet, despite such a lowly standing, or perhaps because of it, his attitude was the epitome of pompous arrogance.

Shiguan Xiaodiao had to cater to and act subservient to such a man for several months now, which only added to his frustrations.

This irritation was then also directed toward the Soaring Feather Trading Company whose fault it was that he had to go through such pains.

He then once again tried to improve his mood by thinking what a triumph it would be to announce their lineup of treasures and completely steal the thunder of the Soaring Feather Trading Company.

‘Hehehe, I wish I could see their faces when they have to open an almost empty auction, hahahaha!!! Just imagine, thinking you have everything in your grasp only to lose it all! Hahahaha! Oh, the irony-….’, his happy thoughts, however, were interrupted as a ripple came from his communication jade set aside on a table some distance away from the bed he was sitting on.

‘Hmm?’, his eyes opened.

Normally, he would leap up or use mental power to instantly fly the communication jade to his hand, considering it an emergency – no one in their right mind would dare send him a communication talisman message during night, if it wasn’t urgent.

But in recent months this was a rather regular occurrence with the Bao Family member here.

Shiguan Xiaodiao’s face turned into a grimace of annoyance, ‘It’s all those damn Soaring Feather Trading Company’s fault! Oh, how I am going to enjoy-…’

However, his communication jade made another ripple, interrupting his thoughts again, which finally sent off some alarm bells in his mind, especially since now ripples came out of it simultaneously, signaling that more than a dozen communication talisman messages came almost at the exact same time.

But before he could even sink his Spiritual Sense into the communication jade that flew into his hand, loud sounds from outside shook him to the core – gongs and signal flares from the headquarters.

Goosebumps made his whole body shiver, as he suddenly had a very bad premonition – not a conscious one as his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of actions, as he flew out through the balcony door with the highest speed he was capable of.

His eyes caught the sight of signal flares lighting up the night sky, as more and more of them went up with loud whistling sounds and exploding up in the air, now not only from the headquarters but also from all around in the Eastern Outskirts as they repeated the signal, gongs now ringing like war drums.

A few moments, and he appeared in the skies above the headquarters with a sonic boom, only to come face to face with utter chaos and confusion, as the gongs and signal flares continued to fill the night air with both loud sound and bright lights, part of the people who were already out in the open were shouting in absolute panic all at once, making it almost impossible to make out what each of them were saying, and part were coming out from indoors or arriving at the scene as clueless as him.

This disorderly commotion already irritated the Hall Master, but the final straw was seeing one person appear on the scene. It was the representative of the Thousand Treasures Hall.

Silverleaf Trade Hall absolutely could not allow this shameful disorganized ruckus to continue in the presence of this person, not to mention that the look of disdain and contempt was even more apparent on the latter’s face now that he was witnessing this farce.

“Silence!!!”, Shiguan Xiaodiao’s roar, along with a wave of his Essence Ignition Realm cultivation base pressure spread through the headquarters, as well as far beyond, as his voice was backed by spiritual qi, “Stop beating that damn gong and wasting more signal flares you idiots! If someone hasn’t woken up or wasn’t alerted by now don’t bother – they’re dead!”

The sounds of gongs and signal flares both stopped, though the latter were still going up in various parts of the Eastern Outskirts outside the headquarters, but were now too distant to make too much distraction.

“Mubai!”, the owner of the Silverleaf Trade Hall called out the name of the highest-ranked person in charge of security.

“Here, Hall Master”, a tall muscular man clad in armor flew out of the surrounding crowd.

“Report”

“There was~… ehm~…”, the man hesitated, glancing at the member of the Bao Family, which made the Hall Master turn an astonished gaze to him, and then hurriedly continued after bracing himself,”… a theft-…”

“Theft?! Hah! No wonder I was worried about this countryside, what a joke!”, the member of the Bao Family interrupted, snorting with derision, and then shook his head, “Tsk tsk tsk, Owner Shiguan, is this how you’re conducting business?”

Shiguan Xiaodiao’s face paled as he fiercely battled the intense desire to shut this pompous man up and continue hearing Mubai’s report. His rational mind prevailed as he cleared his throat and spoke in a polite and conciliatory tone, “Daoist Bao, please forgive us for showing such an unsightly scene and disturbing your rest, I assure you, this is the first time something has been stolen in this Silverleaf Trade Hall. We will find and punish the perpetrator”

“Hmph! I sure hope so, otherwise the auction my Bao Family went to all this trouble to set up for you will be disgraced by such shameful news”, the latter folded his arms over his chest, raising his chin up.

‘What ‘my Bao Family’, you pompous bastard?! Is there even enough drops of Bao Family blood in your veins to claim to be a part of it, let alone say such a line?!’, Shiguan Xiaodiao inwardly fumed, but showed a polite smile on his face, “Of course, we will make sure to make an example of the brazen thief”

And then turning to Mubai, nodded for him to continue with a more solemn expression.

The latter’s face, however, turned into a grimace as he cursed inside to be the one breaking the news, clearing his throat, “T-That is… the Auction House’s main vault was broken into and completely emptied out-…”

“What?!?!”, this time it was Shiguan Xiaodiao who interrupted as his mind went blank, releasing a wave of pressure that disrupted the flow of qi in the whole of the headquarters and made the vast majority of Nine Mortal Realms cultivators faint on the spot, and others to grit their teeth as they had to endure with various degrees of difficulty, while he first shouted, and then began stuttering, “Impossible!!! I-It i-i-i-i-i-is i-i-mpossible!!!”

His voice turned shrill, breaking into a high-pitched squeal at the end, his face a mask of bewilderment, disbelief, and horror.

The representative of the Bao Family also turned pale, starting to shout something incoherent in an equally shrill voice.

Shiguan Xiaodiao wasn’t listening to him though, too preoccupied with a jumbled mess of thoughts of his own, struggling to accept the reality as he bolted toward the Auction House.

Only when he stepped into an empty vault did he finally realize it was true, and fell to his knees with a lost expression that seemed to ask endless questions.

‘How did it happen? When? How did no one notice the thief? Where is everything now? Where is the thief? Who is the thief? Why is this happening? And why now? What in the Heavens is happening?!’, all of those and a thousand more exploded in his head like fireworks all at the exact same time, making him feel like it was swelling and going to burst, as he constantly gulped his saliva for the throat that ran dry nevertheless, his dry lips cracking.

He then turned his bewildered and vacant eyes to the person who arrived in the vault after Mubai and the Bao Family member – it was the general manager.

‘General Manager… … !!! …!!! That’s right!!! GENERAL MANAGER!!!”, he shot up from his knees with the eyes of a madman, grabbing the general manager by the shoulders as cracking sounds reached the ears of those around along with a pained shriek of the one grabbed, but ignoring that cry of pain Shiguan Xiaodiao shouted at the top of his lungs, spitting saliva everywhere, “TREASURE!!! MAIN TREASURE FOR THE AUCTION!!!!! TELL ME YOU HAVE IT!!!”

The general manager heard that scream through the pain, and then his heart sank with realization that numbed the pain. His spiritual sense sank into his spatial ring, and with horror, he closed his eyes and grit his teeth, his face now resembling a mask of pain – not even the physical pain from his broken bones but one of the mind.

Just not long ago, he was as gleeful as Shiguan Xiaodiao about taking a big stinky dump on the Soaring Feather Trading Company’s auction with this precious treasure. And now, it was gone.

Shiguan Xiaodiao, on the other hand, understood everything without an answer. But he couldn’t believe it, he grabbed the spatial ring of the general manager, dislocating the finger in the process but he didn’t care, as he wore it.

Those around him clearly saw signs of minor qi deviation from the moment he slumped down onto the floor, but couldn’t do anything for him – it was almost impossible to help someone going through qi deviation.

They could only shout, trying to calm him down, but Shiguan Xiaodiao wasn’t listening to them, and the Bao Family member’s shrill half-incoherent screams weren’t helping.

And as Shiguan Xiaodiao confirmed the treasure was not there, his Crystal Core showed signs of cracks beginning to form as it spun in a wobbling way.

However, just as everyone around thought he was lost, an invisible hand touched Shiguan Xiaodiao’s back, and through the fog of half-madness he thought he heard a voice say, “Let’s not do this on this auspicious night when my Ye’er and Fairy Yue celebrate having not killed anyone”

He also remembered thinking, ‘Auspicious? Auspicious night? Auspicious my a-…’

And then his consciousness sank into slumber as his Crystal Core mysteriously stabilized – something which was later called a miracle.