Eleven thousand Primeval Stones.
The moment that outrageous figure left Lin Mu's lips, the air inside the dim study seemed to freeze solid in an instant.
Crack.
A sharp, piercing snap.
Lin Feng had completely lost control of his own strength — and crushed the armrest of his prized huanghuali throne chair to splinters with his bare hand.
Wooden shards drove deep into his palm. Blood welled up and spilled over. He didn't seem to notice.
"Jia Fu... you ruthless bastard."
Lin Feng ground the words out through clenched teeth, like a beast cornered with nowhere left to run, forcing them up from the depths of his throat with tremendous effort.
His bloodshot eyes burned with towering fury — and every last shred of his humiliation was laid, with perfect naturalness, at the feet of the Jia Clan's head.
Meanwhile, Lin Mu stood below, maintaining that same expression of nervous deference.
But beneath his lowered lashes, a faint and peculiar flicker of surprise passed through his eyes.
He had just discovered that the price he'd invented purely to maximize his profit had landed, with uncanny precision, exactly at the edge of Lin Feng's psychological limit.
In the world of Gu, everything had its objective value.
Just as Lin Mu himself would never abandon his carefully cultivated position to become a hunted rogue cultivator over a single Rank 2 Gu — Lin Feng, as the son of a Grand Elder, understood perfectly well where the ceiling on this Gu worm's market value lay.
For a Rank 2 Red Iron Relic Gu, even in the most frenzied sealed-bid competition, a premium of nine thousand — or even ten thousand Primeval Stones — would already be a ruinous overpayment.
Eleven thousand.
That number had long since passed "expensive." It was a direct insult to both Lin Feng's intelligence and his finances.
But the question was: could Lin Feng maintain absolute rationality at a moment like this?
That treasure — one capable of catapulting him to Rank 2 middle stage in an instant — was sitting right there in front of him. Within reach. Almost already his.
That kind of temptation, so close it could be touched, was like a devil whispering in his ear. There was no letting go. Not now. Not at this moment.
The room fell into a suffocating silence.
On one side: Lin Mu, standing motionless in the shadows like a ghost without breath, not uttering a single word.
On the other: Lin Feng, seated in his ornate chair — or rather, perched atop a bed of needles — his composure a facade, his heart bleeding furiously within.
Lin Mu kept his eyes slightly lowered. He was in no hurry. Not even the faintest urge to press.
Because he understood better than anyone: it was Lin Feng who was being roasted over the fire right now.
Time passed — second by second, in the suffocating stillness of their standoff.
After a long while —
Lin Feng seemed to have had all the strength drained from him. The spine that had always been so straight sagged slightly.
He spoke again, his voice hoarse to the point of breaking — carrying the last faint tremor of a man making one final, feeble struggle.
"No room to negotiate?"
"Young Master..."
Lin Mu raised his head. That plain, unassuming face of his was written over with helplessness — but the words that came from his mouth cut off every last retreat Lin Feng had with cold, merciless precision.
"By dusk tomorrow, the caravan breaks camp and departs. And your subordinate has heard... Lord Jia Fu appears to have urgent matters."
"He has already set out ahead of the main caravan with his personal guard — traveling through the night to scout the next stop, Howling Wind Manor. All matters of handover have been fully delegated to the stewards below."
Those words.
They fell like a razor-edged blade — severing the very last thread of hope Lin Feng had been clinging to.
Lin Feng closed his eyes. He drew a long, deep breath. He knew. He had been completely and utterly cornered.
"The cash I have on hand... isn't enough."
With no road left to retreat down, Lin Feng had no choice but to swallow the blood in his mouth and lay down his final card with tremendous difficulty.
"Go ask the steward — can Gu worms be used as collateral for the remainder?"
"Lord Jia gave instructions before he left..."
Lin Mu maintained that same expression of nervous deference — but the words he produced were colder and more cutting than a winter blade, driving into Lin Feng's raw, bleeding wound with surgical precision.
"Collateral is acceptable. However... the Jia Clan Caravan has its rules. Pledged items are assessed at liquidation value — the market floor price, with a further ten percent deducted."
BANG!!
A thunderous crash shook the room.
That prized huanghuali throne chair — under the force of Lin Feng's raging Primeval Essence and the full weight of his fury — finally disintegrated entirely into a heap of scattered splinters.
But he had no choice.
For that Rank 2 middle stage cultivation, so close he could almost taste it — he could only do what a gambler who had lost everything does.
Red-eyed, trembling, he accepted the humiliation and swallowed it whole.
"Wait outside."
Lin Feng forced those words through his teeth, turned, and walked into the inner chamber.
A long wait.
Lin Mu stood outside Lin Feng's courtyard like a lifeless grey statue — patient, unmoving, utterly still.
The deep cold of the early morning dew soaked through his collar. He didn't so much as furrow his brow.
He waited the entire night.
At dawn, when the first faint thread of morning light pierced through the heavy mist blanketed Black Wind Ridge and fell across the bluestone slabs of the Silent Stone District —
Creak.
The heavy door was finally pushed open — slowly, as though it weighed a thousand jin.
Lin Feng stepped out.
His eyes were red and raw, threaded with terrible bloodshot lines.
He looked as though he had aged ten years in a single night — a wandering ghost in human form.
He said nothing. He simply raised one hand with hollow, mechanical numbness, and hurled a heavy storage Gu at Lin Mu — the way a man throws away something that has burned his hand.
Lin Mu caught it steadily with both hands.
He sent his will inside.
Within that storage Gu — not a particularly large space — lay nine thousand Primeval Stones, crystalline and gleaming, arranged in a breathtaking mass.
And beside the pile of stones, set out in neat rows, were five Rank 2 Gu worms radiating their own distinct auras — offered as collateral to cover the remaining balance.
For this one Red Iron Relic Gu, Lin Feng had hollowed himself out almost entirely.
After handing over that crushing sum —
Lin Feng didn't spare Lin Mu so much as a glance. He gave no instructions regarding the handover. No parting words.
He simply clutched the jade box containing the Red Iron Relic Gu against his chest — the way a man guards his own life — and turned away.
He walked back into the dim inner chamber.
Bang.
The door slammed shut with tremendous force.
Outside in the courtyard, the morning sun finally broke through the clouds and fell across Lin Mu's shoulders, casting a faint gilded edge along his silhouette.
Lin Mu stood quietly in the empty courtyard.
He opened the heavy storage Gu slowly — and began, with unhurried deliberateness, even a thread of quiet enjoyment, to count through that staggering wealth of eleven thousand Primeval Stones.
Then — as he reached the five Rank 2 Gu worms offered as collateral —
His gaze stopped.
With a peculiar, almost eerie stillness.
Among the five Gu worms radiating their different-colored auras, one lay unmistakably among them: a beetle covered from end to end in jade-green veining, as though carved from the finest emerald.
Rank 2 — Jade Tendon Gu.
The very one he had been forced to offer up with his own hands — a stepping stone to earn Lin Feng's trust, to dissolve what had been a certain death trap.
And now, Lin Feng — scraping together every last stone to meet that eleven-thousand price — had, with perfect irony, included it among the collateral.
Returned it to Lin Mu's hands, untouched, exactly as it had been.
The wheel of fate had, in this moment, completed a flawless and exquisite full circle.
"Heh..."
The corners of Lin Mu's mouth curved — slowly — into a smile of quiet, genuine pleasure.
He extended a fingertip and stroked the cool shell of the Jade Tendon Gu — the one he had lost and now held again — with the lightest of touches.
In that empty courtyard, with nothing but the morning wind moving through it, a low murmur left his lips.
"What is mine will always find its way back to me."
"Jade Tendon Gu... after all this wandering... you've come home."