Dragonblood Chaos Heir

Chapter 18: The Auction of Broken Things

The Gilded Cricket’s upper room became Lin Feng’s war room. He barred the door, not with the flimsy lock, but with a subtle weave of chaotic energy that would disintegrate any prying spiritual sense and warn him of any physical tamper. The strongbox of spirit stones sat open on the narrow bed, their soft, multi-hued glow the only light he allowed.

One hundred and seventy-five mid-grade spirit stones. To a wandering hunter, it was impossible wealth. To a growing heir of chaos, it was fuel, leverage, and camouflage. He would not absorb them directly; their energy was too stable, too "civilized" for the Chaos Dantian’s current preference for wild, potent sources. They were currency. And currency bought things more valuable than power: information, influence, and masks.

He spent the morning methodically planning. The city was a nervous animal, and he had just poked it. The official response would be a frenzy of activity around the false lair. The Deng would likely withdraw further. The Lin were leaderless. The Lei would see their opening and strike.

He needed to understand the shape of that strike. And for that, he needed to be somewhere the city’s powerful gathered not for war, but for profit. A place where masks were worn, secrets were traded, and the true state of things was measured in bids and whispers.

The Verdant Cloud Exchange held its monthly grand auction at sunset.

It was the perfect stage.

The Exchange was a fortress of commerce, a sprawling complex of pillared halls and private viewing galleries in the wealthy merchant district. At dusk, it blazed with light from thousand-candle chandeliers fueled by spirit stones. Carriages lined the streets, bearing the emblems of the Lei, the Deng, minor merchant houses, and even the City Lord’s office. Guards in rich livery stood impassive, their eyes scanning the crowd for threats less spectral than the one haunting the woods.

Lin Feng approached not as a hunter, but as a buyer. He wore robes of deep, unadorned grey bought that afternoon from a tailor who asked no questions, paid for with three low-grade spirit stones. His hair was tied back simply, his face clean. He carried an air of quiet, focused purpose, and the small but heavy purse at his belt, filled with fifty mid-grade stones, lent him an invisible weight. The rest were hidden in a void-space he’d crudely forged within the lining of his cloak using a fragment of devoured spatial energy from a rare, disoriented bat spirit-beast—a risky, temporary measure, but secure enough for a night.

He presented five mid-grade stones as an entry deposit, a sum that made the doorkeeper’s eyes widen just enough, and was ushered into the main hall. The air inside was thick with competing perfumes, the murmur of calculated conversation, and the subtle hum of countless low-grade artifacts on display. He took a seat in the middle tier, neither too prominent nor too obscure, and let his senses expand.

He was not here for the lots: the gaudy spirit swords, the defensive talismans, the tracts of land near depleted mines. He was here for the audience.

He spotted his targets immediately.

In the foremost private gallery, draped in silks the color of a stormy sky, sat Lei Zong and his daughter, Lei Meili. The Patriarch looked relaxed, a half-smile on his face as he surveyed the room like a farmer eyeing a ripe field. Lei Meili sat beside him, a vision of detached perfection. She wore a gown of icy blue that made her skin seem like polished jade. Her expression was one of mild, polite boredom, but Lin Feng’s sharpened senses caught the calculating flicker in her eyes as they swept the crowd, assessing power dynamics, noting who was present, who was missing. She was not here to buy jewelries; she was here to read the ledger of the city’s fear.

In another gallery, the Deng contingent was small and dour. Patriarch Deng Lei was absent, likely fortifying his holdings. His younger brother, a man with a perpetual squint, represented them, his expression sour. The Lin gallery was… empty. A stark, screaming vacancy at the heart of the social tableau. The message was clearer than any proclamation.

The auction began. A master of ceremonies with a magically amplified voice extolled the virtues of each lot. Bidding was brisk, but tense. The usual competitive joy was muted, replaced by a brittle, performative normalcy.

Lin Feng waited. He bid on a few minor lots, a set of topographic maps of the deeper Blackroot Woods, a cache of high-quality beast-repelling incensez, winning some, losing others, building the persona of a serious, well-funded professional hunter or explorer. Each bid drew a few curious glances, which he ignored.

The turning point came with Lot 47: "The Jade Tear Pendant."

"It is said to have been worn by the last matriarch of the Lin Clan," the emcee announced, holding up a delicate necklace from which hung a single, teardrop-shaped piece of luminescent green jade. "A piece of their history, now offered to commemorate… new beginnings."

The ghoulish implication hung in the air. This was a piece of Lin Feng’s own grandmother’s jewelry, likely looted from the clan vaults by Uncle Tian to raise quick capital or, more likely, planted here as a test—to see who would dare bid on Lin "trash," and to humiliate the fallen clan’s memory further.

A wave of uncomfortable silence rolled through the hall. Bidding on this was a political statement. An alignment.

The emcee, sensing the chill, started the bid low. "Do I hear ten low-grade spirit stones?"

Silence.

"Five, then?"

More silence. The pendant was beautiful, imbued with a gentle wood-attribute energy for calming the spirit. But its history was now poison.

Just as the emcee was about to withdraw it, a clear, melodic voice rang out from the Lei gallery.

"One mid-grade stone."

All heads turned. Lei Meili had spoken. She didn't look at the pendant; she looked at the empty Lin gallery, a faint, cold smile touching her lips. It was not a bid of desire. It was a bid of conquest. A symbolic purchase of a broken clan’s dignity for pocket change.

The squinting Deng representative shifted uncomfortably but said nothing. No one else moved.

"One mid-grade stone going once…" the emcee began.

"Ten."

The new voice was calm, neutral, and came from the middle tier.

Every eye, including Lei Meili’s icy orbs, snapped to Lin Feng. He sat perfectly still, his gaze on the pendant, his face a mask of mild interest.

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Who? The grey-robed nobody bidding against the Lei heiress on a toxic heirloom?

Lei Meili’s smile didn't falter; it sharpened. "Fifteen."

"Twenty."

"Thirty."Her voice gained a slight edge.

"Fifty."

A gasp went up. Fifty mid-grade stones for a sentimental bauble? It was madness. Or a declaration of war.

Lei Zong leaned over, whispering to his daughter. Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. She was here to read the room, not to waste family resources on a symbolic spat with an unknown. She gave a minute, regal shake of her head.

"Fifty mid-grade stones to the gentleman in grey!" the emcee cried, slamming his gavel with relieved force. "A bold and appreciative bid!"

Lin Feng felt the weight of a hundred stares as an attendant brought the pendant to him. He paid from his purse without a word, the stones clinking softly. He took the jade teardrop. It was cool in his hand, pulsing with a gentle, sorrowful energy that felt like a sigh. His grandmother’s sigh. He tucked it into his robe, over his heart, next to the broken half of his engagement jade.

The act was complete. He had drawn a line. He had, in the most public way possible, contested the Lei Clan’s claim over the Lin legacy’s carcass. He had painted a target on his own back, but it was a target he controlled.

The rest of the auction passed in a blur. The atmosphere had shifted. The unknown bidder was now a person of intense, nervous speculation. As the final lot was sold, Lin Feng rose to leave. He felt a presence fall into step beside him as he moved through the pillared corridor toward the exit.

"You spend your coin interestingly, stranger."

The voice was Lei Meili’s. She had descended from her gallery, moving with liquid grace, two discreet Lei guards hovering a few paces back.

Lin Feng stopped and turned. Seeing her up close for the first time since the Broken Engagement Ceremony was like looking at a beautifully painted mask. The beauty was there, but it was a surface over absolute, glacial calculation.

"I buy what I find valuable," he replied, his voice carefully modulated to a generic, cultured tone.

"The pendant has little practical value," she said, her eyes searching his face, trying to place him. "Its value is in its story. And that story, most agree, has an unhappy ending."

"Perhaps I appreciate tragic stories," Lin Feng said. "Or perhaps I believe some stories aren't finished being told."

A flicker of something—irritation, curiosity—crossed her face. "You are not from here."

"No."

"And you are not afraid of making powerful enemies."

"I find most power is an illusion,"Lin Feng said, meeting her gaze directly. He let a sliver of his own presence, not the chaotic storm, but the immense, quiet cold of the abyss, seep into his eyes for a single, fleeting instant. "Like a mountain. It seems solid until the ground beneath it opens up."

Lei Meili’s perfect composure cracked. A tiny flinch. A dilation of her pupils. She had felt it, not power, but perspective. The perspective of something that had seen the futility of mountains.

Before she could formulate a response, a commotion erupted at the Exchange’s main doors. Shouting. The clash of arms.

A city guard, his armor dented and face smeared with soot, burst into the hall, his voice ragged. "FIRE! The Lin Clan compound! The main hall is ablaze! And… and there's a message! Scrawled on the gates in something that won't burn!"

The entire crowd froze, then erupted into chaos. Lei Zong was suddenly at his daughter’s side, pulling her away, his face alight not with concern, but with avid interest. The Deng representative scurried for the door.

Lin Feng did not move. He watched the panic, a silent spectator.

Lei Meili, being led away by her father, looked back at him over her shoulder. In that moment, the mask of icy detachment was gone, replaced by raw, analytical intensity. She mouthed two words, lost in the din, but he read them on her lips.

Who are you?

He gave no answer. He turned and walked out into the night, away from the panicked nobility, toward the quarter where the first orange glow of a significant fire was beginning to paint the underbelly of the clouds.

He had not set the fire. But the message on the gates… that was his.

The auction of broken things was over.

The reclamation had just begun.