Chapter 2230: Chapter 2232: Don’t Pick Things Up Carelessly

As Yi Jue spoke, Elder Cang Jing’s brows also furrowed, looking as if she wanted to speak but held herself back.

Feng Jun, however, didn’t care. He just answered casually, "As long as it’s not a True Treasure of the Spirit Plant path, then it doesn’t matter. What I value is the material of this treasure. I’ll take it apart later. Especially the canopy material—it can make a pretty good defensive artifact."

"I really don’t know where you get your luck from, just casually finding a True Treasure," Elder Qing Ji sighed enviously. "But I suggest you don’t dismantle it yet. There’s still a faint trace of Dao intent remaining on the canopy. If you take it apart, that’ll be wasted."

"If it’s wasted, then so be it," Feng Jun replied indifferently. "Dao intent can be found again later, but if I don’t dismantle it and someone comes knocking on my door over it someday, that’ll be annoying... I don’t like trouble."

Hearing this, Elder Cang Jing finally let out a soft sigh. "Originally I didn’t want to meddle, but Yi Jue is young, and Qing Ji is from the lower realm, so neither of them spoke to the root of it. This umbrella... brings great entanglement and once triggered a war between Xuanhuang and Yuangang. If you dismantle it, a great calamity may befall you!"

Before Feng Jun could react, Yi Jue and Qing Ji’s expressions changed. "Could it be... that umbrella?"

"That’s right," Elder Cang Jing sighed faintly. "It is that umbrella of the Yuangang Sect."

"Which umbrella?" Feng Jun frowned. "We’re talking in the Void; that shouldn’t cause any problem, right?" 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

No one answered him. After a long while, Yi Jue finally spoke, bold as ever. "Its name is Gazing at the Firmament, a supreme-grade True Treasure, the core weapon of successive Yuangang Sect Leaders. It went missing twelve thousand years ago, and for it, Yuangang Sect and Xuanhuang Sect fought a brutal war for three hundred years."

Elder Qing Ji couldn’t help adding, "Dozens of True Immortals fell. In the end, it was only because the Star Devouring Clan invaded Tianqin that the Qin Dao came forward to mediate and dissolve the grudge between the two sects."

Feng Jun did know about the Star Devouring Clan’s invasion. That battle didn’t last that long, but it still went on for over eighty years. Tianqin suffered heavy losses; it was also a key factor in the eventual split between the Spirit Plant path and the Lingmu Sect.

But he still didn’t understand. "Why would the disappearance of this umbrella cause conflict between Xuanhuang and Yuangang? And how did you determine this is Gazing at the Firmament?"

Elder Cang Jing spoke slowly, "My grandmaster once saw the bounty notice for the search. The appearance is roughly the same. There are plenty of umbrella-shaped True Treasures, but among the yellow ones, only Gazing at the Firmament is truly famous. Others either don’t dare imitate it, or disdain to imitate it..."

After a brief pause, she spoke again. "Most crucial is that there aren’t many True Treasures that bear Dao intent to begin with, and even fewer that can retain it in the Void for so long."

This process of elimination was well used. Feng Jun nodded. "But you still haven’t said what Xuanhuang Sect did back then."

"How would I know that?" Elder Cang Jing shook her head. "It concerns the Sect Leader’s core weapon... there’s no way either sect would spread it around."

Feng Jun thought for a moment, then asked in a low voice, "If that’s the case, I’ll just dismantle it in the Void. Yuangang Sect shouldn’t be able to deduce anything, right? After all, the umbrella was in the Void before and they never found it."

"That’s hard to say," Elder Qing Ji replied solemnly. "It’s ultimately the Sect Leader’s core weapon. Once this kind of causality is involved... it’s very hard to gauge the extent. You should know that what Out-of-Body True Sages lack the least is mastery of the Art of Causality."

For low-level cultivators, causality is actually the hardest to deduce. And such deductions mostly affect the deducer themselves, so no one is willing to delve too deeply into it.

But for Out-of-Body True Sages, sensing the laws and auras between heaven and earth has already become routine. Especially regarding the fortunes and disasters they themselves might encounter, they possess a perception akin to instinct—Out-of-Body True Sages are the favored children of heaven and earth; having such abilities is only natural.

So even those Nascent Soul cultivators who aren’t very skilled at divination will naturally grasp causal deduction once they advance to the Out-of-Body realm.

Feng Jun understood this principle as well. Hearing this, he frowned. "In that case, I’ll just throw it away to avoid trouble."

"Throw it away?" Qing Ji and Elder Cang Jing stared wide-eyed. "Are you serious, you’re going to throw this away?"

Only Yi Jue gave a slight nod. She felt this was a good idea. A true heaven’s favored does indeed have such confidence—since it might bring inexplicable trouble, better not to have it at all. Without this external object, what real impact could it have on me?

But Feng Jun answered with a wry smile, "I can’t bear to throw it away either. That’s why I’ve been asking again and again what exactly happened between Xuanhuang Sect and Yuangang Sect... Since none of you know, then I really can’t keep it. I’ll just treat it as losing wealth to ward off disaster."

"But... there’s a bounty on it!" Elder Cang Jing said firmly. "And a very generous one at that. I remember it was at least thirty thousand high-grade Spirit Stones. If you’re really set on discarding it, why not give it to me instead?"

"You can give it to me too. I can pay Spirit Stones for it," Qing Ji followed up immediately. She was very concerned about saving face, but for Gazing at the Firmament, face wasn’t important anymore. "We’ll just say I picked it up in the Void. I’m not afraid of them."

Yi Jue couldn’t stand watching any longer and took the initiative to speak. "How about this... first hide Gazing at the Firmament. Don’t take it with you when we leave. I’ll have people inquire with Yuangang Sect about what kind of grudge there was back then."

Feng Jun tilted his head and thought it over. In the end he smiled, raised his hand, and tossed Gazing at the Firmament to Yi Jue. "I’m giving it to you. How you handle it is your business. I only have one request... don’t drag me into it."

When all was said and done, the one he trusted most was still Yi Jue, and her style of doing things was the closest to his own ideals.

Elder Qing Ji and Elder Cang Jing exchanged a glance at the sight, both thinking the same thing: this guy really doesn’t take Spirit Stones seriously, does he?

Yi Jue, however, didn’t refuse. She directly put Away-the-Heavens Canopy away and spoke blandly, "I’ll go find a way to shake them down a bit. Any Cultivation Secret Techniques or Heaven and Earth Treasures we get are mine, the Spirit Stones are yours... no problem, right?"

What Feng Jun appreciated was exactly this kind of free-and-easy attitude of hers, whereas those two Elders lacked that and had a bit more calculation in them.

Not that those two were bad. Strictly speaking, Yi Jue reacting this way was purely because the two of them had spent a long time together and built up a tacit understanding, while those two were just a bit short of that. Given time, they might well reach that level of friendship—one must know that Cang Jing could also step in to help Yi Jue.

But when it comes to dealing with people, the most important thing is fate, while temperament and ideals and such are actually secondary.

Still, Cang Jing and Qing Ji weren’t ordinary people. Once they realized the situation was beyond salvaging, they stopped fussing about it. Elder Qing Ji even asked with a smile, "The things Mountain Master Feng finds really are all top-grade. Do you have any other relatively intact True Treasures?"

"Mm, we can help you take a look," Elder Cang Jing said with a smile. "If we can see where they come from, at least... at least we can reduce unnecessary trouble, don’t you think?"

"That doesn’t really matter," Feng Jun smiled. Those broken treasures or fragments he’d collected had originally been drifting in the Void all this time. Others hadn’t gotten them simply because they lacked the ability, not because he’d done anything to tamper with them. He wasn’t afraid to take them out.

As for this umbrella, Away-the-Heavens Canopy, it was actually just an accident. How many True Treasures can there be that happen to be stained with the feud between two major sects?

So Feng Jun took out quite a few treasure fragments. Among them, the relatively intact one was that broken Daoist Crown.

"Hm?" When Elder Cang Jing saw the item, she couldn’t help but furrow her brow. "Why do I feel it vaguely carries the aura of our sect?"

"Don’t start," Feng Jun gave her a flat look. "If you have evidence, bring it out. I don’t mind giving it to your Xuanshui Sect. But if you have no evidence... then don’t just randomly try to cozy up."

"Evidence..." Elder Cang Jing tilted her head and thought about it, then decided to speak honestly—in dealing with Feng Jun, being straightforward worked better than anything else. "There really is no evidence, but the style of this Daoist Crown coincides with Xuanshui’s standard design from fifty thousand years ago."

Feng Jun nodded and put the Daoist Crown away. "Then I’ll trouble Elder Cang Jing to ask around."

Cang Jing was so annoyed that she rolled her eyes. "With Yi Jue, you can casually toss out a broken True Treasure. When it’s me, you won’t even leave a sample?"

Feng Jun didn’t get angry. He just answered with squinted eyes and a smile, "First time we’re unfamiliar, second time we’re old friends. It takes a process."

Cang Jing curled her lip, as if wanting to say something, but in the end she stayed silent.

It was Qing Ji who took the chance to speak. "Mountain Master Feng, Yi Jue and I heard your idea about stone gambling and think it’s quite good. So we brought a few stones for the two youngsters as well... Accompanying them for two years is pretty tiring too. You don’t mind, do you?"

"I already told Yi Yi we’d talk about it later," Feng Jun shook his head in amused exasperation. "Why are you suddenly bringing this up now?"

"Isn’t it just that we happen to have four people now?" Qing Ji replied with a smile. "The little one and Liu Yiyi agreed to split the income fifty-fifty. I’ve got no objection to that. What I want to know now is: who’s in charge of selling?"

Feng Jun tilted his head, thought for a moment, and spoke. "Is that so important? I figure we just deduct the sales costs."

But Qing Ji had already worked through the key points. She spoke in a deep voice, "I think it’s better to have little Liu handle this. That way, it’ll help you, Mountain Master Feng, control the market."

"Control the market?" Feng Jun couldn’t help being taken aback—not because she was wrong, but because he really hadn’t expected people in this plane to be aware of that sort of thing.

Then thinking it over again, Elder Qing Ji had lived over two thousand years. What could she not see through? It was one thing if she’d never thought about it before, but if she were willing to spend a bit of time on it, it really wasn’t that hard to understand—there’s nothing new under the sun.

However, he wasn’t very interested in her suggestion. "Who am I to actually ’control the market’? You’d be doing well enough just selling in Jinwu."

"How could we sell in Jinwu?" Elder Qing Ji knew very well what was what. She could agree verbally to Lan Yun, but she didn’t think highly of doing it that way. "Wan Qing’s body still hasn’t been found. If we sell stones obtained from the Void... wouldn’t that just be asking people to poke us in the spine?"

When Feng Jun heard that, he had to admit the reasoning was solid. After thinking for a bit, he tentatively asked, "How about we split the profits three ways—you take one share and back the youngsters up?"

Elder Qing Ji answered with a dark face, "Wan Qing is my man. If I ignore whether he lives or dies just to do this, do you think that’s appropriate?"

(Updated to here, calling for monthly tickets.)