Early on the morning of the Golden Pearl monthly auction Lian Cai Yi made her way over to Lian Xie Mei’s courtyard. Lian Cai Yi had visited this younger sister of her’s multiple times in the last period of days and every time she had been completely ignored. Lian Cai Yi did not let this stop her however and continued her completely one sided conversation.

“Oh yes and did you hear that the monthly Golden Pearl auction is going to be held today?” Lian Cai Yi finally got to the point of why she had come today. “I plan on going to the auction later today, would you be interested in joining me?”

Lian Xie Mei paused for a moment then gave a nod.

“Wonderful! I will send a servant to tell you when I am leaving so you can join me!” Lian Cai Yi exclaimed in delight, after mentioning a few more trivial things, having accomplished what she set out to do Lian Cai Yi left.

Lian Xie Mei turned to look at Lian Cai Yi as she left, Lian Xie Mei still had no idea why this elder sister of her’s continued to visit her. Over these last many days Lian Xie Mei had settled completely into this new body of her’s, now she was completely healthy. Lian Xie Mei had been doing a lot of work. She had hidden her identity and gone to the Golden Lotus to sell her Meridian Cleansing Liquid and now had a lot of money on hand. Not only that but something in her consciousness had woken up, it turned out to be the jade phoenix from her previous world! Apparently when her life blood has spilled on the statue it had woken up and formed a contract with her, bringing her to this world to inhabit the original Lian Xie Mei’s body. The little phoenix was still very weak and needed to absorb a lot of energy, hopefully at this auction she could find something to help it.

That afternoon just as Lian Cai Yi said she sent a servant to inform Lian Xie Mei when she was leaving. The carriage ride was short with Lian Cai Yi chatting about nothing in particular, and Lian Xie Mei just ignoring her like always. 

“The South Prime Minister has a private box at the Golden Pearl and I have gotten permission from Father to use it. The private boxes are very nice and the servants even bring various snacks and teas to enjoy while you bid.” Lian Cai Yi said while she exited the carriage after they finally arrived. She looked around for a bit before calling out to a group of well dressed girls near the entrance of the auction house. “Tang Xun Guiying! Over here!” Hearing Lian Cai Yi the girls quickly came over.

“It’s so busy! If you hadn’t called out I wouldn’t have been able to find you!” Tang Xun Guiying said leading the group, displeasure barely discernible in her eyes.. 

Tang Xun Guiying’s father was an official, he hadn’t come from a family of officials like many of his peers so he was on shaky ground. To help solidify his position he had told his daughter to try and become friends with the daughters of other officials. Tang Xun Guiying was usually always surrounded by this entourage of girls whose fathers were from families that had given birth to a long line of officials, but their positions were all slightly below her own fathers. There was another thing her entourage all had in common, they were not as pretty as Tang Xun Guiying. Tang Xun Guiying was very vain and hated being near anyone prettier than her. Lian Cai Yi was the eldest daughter of the South Prime Minister so there was nothing she could do against her which always greatly displeased Tang Xun Guiying. Seeing that Lian Cai Yi had brought another girl, also prettier than herself, Tang Xun Guiying was rather upset. 

“Oh who is this?” Tang Xun Guiying asked, hiding her hatred with a smile.

“This is my younger sister Lian Xie Mei, I invited her out to join us today.” Lian Cai Yi replied simply. “Come on let’s get into this room and away from the crowd.” Lian Cai Yi walked into the Golden Pearl. 

Following behind Tang Xun Guiying’s smile turned vicious. She might not be able to do anything against Lian Cai Yi, but Lian Xie Mei was just an unfavored concubines daughter. She had heard rumors that a bunch of servants had been fired from the South Prime Minister manor for mistreating this youngest miss. She would take it upon herself to teach Lian Xie Mei a lesson.

Lian Cai Yi led them to a private room on the balcony, after she sat down some people who were already seated in the public seats looked up at them and whispered to each other. Lian Cai Yi hadn’t been seen in public much after she got ill. Rumor was that she was still sick and had to stay home to recover, some even said she was still on death’s door! However seeing her rosy cheeked complexion it appeared that they had really been nothing more than baseless rumors. 

Lian Cai Yi made small talk with Tang Xun Guiying and her entourage while waiting for the auction to start. This suited Lian Xie Mei perfectly fine as she was planning to slip away so she could disguise herself and bid on anything she thought was interesting. However every time she thought she might get a change Lian Cai Yi would turn everyone’s attention to her by asking a question. Lian Xie Mei sighed in her heart, it looked like she would have to wait until they were all distracted by the auction to be able to leave without them noticing.

“Recently one of my sister’s has been kicking up a fuss.” Tang Xun Guiying began judging that it was time to make her move.

“Oh? What happened?” Lian Cai Yi asked, smiling.

“Apparently one of my servants has been disrespecting her. She went to Father demanding that the servant be punished, but of course nothing came of it. She refused to let it go and continued to complain, finally father had enough and confined her to her courtyard.” Tang Xun Guiying explained.

Lian Cai Yi frowned, “Did your servant disrespect her?”

“Does it matter? This was my fourth sister, you know, the one born from a concubine.” Tang Xun Guiying said 

“What are you implying?” Lian Cai Yi’s frown deepened.

“I’m not implying anything,” Tang Xun Guiying looked at Lian Xie Mei directly. “I’m just saying that some people need to think about who they are before they start going around demanding things like they deserve it.”

Tang Xun Guiying’s sneer abruptly fell from her face when she was suddenly doused in a warm liquid. The few people that were still watching their box from below nudged their companions and soon the whole auction house was quiet. Lian Cai Yi stood next to Tang Xun Guiying, an empty cup in her hand, where she had obviously just splashed it on Tang Xun Guiying. 

“You dare to say you are implying nothing, I will not condone you talking nonsense.” Lian Cai Yi spoke clearly and her voice seemed to spread around the inside of the auction house until most everyone could hear her. “I will not sit here as you talk badly about my younger sister, concubine born or no, I think the person who needs to check their position before they speak is you. Now I must ask you to leave as I do not want your nonsense to infect my younger sister.”

Tang Xun Guiying sat there staring up at Lian Cai Yi dumbfounded. She had no reply as she picked herself up and left, her entourage following behind her. As she walked out the door Lian Cai Yi could see her shoulders shaking with rage, Lian Cai Yi had humiliated her today. Tang Xun Guiying was a petty person, she had never had to suffer injustice like this before. She seethed, but she could not retaliate against Lian Cai Yi; her position was too far above her own. That bitch Lian Xie Mei was another story, just because Tang Xun Guiying couldn’t talk bad to her face doesn’t mean she couldn’t ruin Lian Xie Mei’s reputation.

Lian Cai Yi smiled to herself, she guessed that tomorrow a whole host of rumors about Lian Xie Mei would start. If any would implicate Lian Cai Yi herself her father would stop them, but he didn’t care enough about Lian Xie Mei to stop rumors impacting her, at least not immediately. “Lian Xie Mei I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have invited Tang Xun Guiying today, I had hoped to introduce you to some of my friends...” Lian Cai Yi glanced at the retreating figure of  Tang Xun Guiying leaving the auction house as fast as possible, “It seems I am a worse judge of people than I thought. As an apology, how about I buy you an item from the auction?”

Lian Xie Mei contemplated the question for a second then nodded. Lian Cai Yi fell back into her now usual role of chatting aimlessly while Lian Xie Mei ignored her. Eventually Lian Cai Yi fell into silence when the auction began. The auction passed uneventfully until the Meridian Cleansing Liquid came up for sale.

“As many already know our sister store the Golden Lotus has been gifted some heaven defying Meridian Cleansing Liquid, invaluable to cultivators in the Qi Condensation level. These three bottles,” The auctioneer motioned to the three bottles on the table behind them. “Is all that is left. We have no idea when or even if the immortal who gifted this to us will grace us with more. For all we know these could be the last bottles we see within the Sheng Kingdom in our lifetime. We will auction off all three in one lot, and there will be no starting price, the bidding will begin now.” 

The Auction House was in an uproar, the sound of people bidding filled the hall as very quickly the price rose out of the range of what an even moderately wealthy person could afford. The bidding had a slight pause at one hundred taels as those only casually bidding were replaced by the serious competition for the items.

Lian Cai Yi turned to her sister, “Father mentioned how much he wanted some of that liquid! I must win this lot!” Lian Cai Yi raised her hand to indicate that she was bidding, “One hundred and fifty taels!”

“One hundred sixty!” Someone in another private room raised her.

“One hundred seventy five!” Lian Cai Yi responded.

They went back and forth for a while before Lian Cai Yi bit her lip and looked at Lian Xie Mei before sitting down sadly. “I promised I would buy Sister something, and if I go any higher I won’t have anything left to spend. I guess I can only give up on this liquid.” She smiled sadly and received a quiet stare as her response.

[“You never planned on getting that trash father of ours anything in the first place, so why did you pretend so hard?” Yang asked.]

[“Even if we don’t want to give him anything we still must act as the filial daughter. Plus...” Yin looked down at the person who had won the liquid. “I recognize them, they are the herbalist that father eventually found to make his own version of the elixir. The effects were not nearly as good, but if a cheaper version comes out it will lower the sales when Lian Xie Mei tries to sell more.”]

[Yang began to nod in understanding then abruptly stopped. “How did you know Lian Xie Mei was the one that made it?”]

[“In the past life after the Meridian Cleansing Liquid came out for the first time, Lian Xie Mei suddenly had money to throw around. There is no way that Father gave it to her, so how did she come across it? If my theory is correct she is most likely the black-cloaked stranger we lost the Jade to last time.” Yin replied.]

While Yin and Yang were talking the auctioneer brought out the last item. The Spirit Storing Jade.

“That would be a perfect gift for the Emporer’s-” Lian Cai Yi began but was cut off by Lian Xie Mei.

“That is what I want.” She spoke up for the first time the entire time they had been in the auction house.

“That... That is what you want?” Lian Cai Yi paled slightly, “Well I did promise that I would get you something...” She said reluctantly as she joined the bidding. 

The servants inside the room, there to serve refreshments and snacks, looked at one another. Wasn’t that concubine born daughter a bit too forward? Even if she had been promised to be able to buy something wasn’t choosing the Jade too much?! Did she not hear how the official daughter had said she was going to get it for the Emperor?! The servants spoke to each other with their eyes as they frowned slightly.

Seeing them out of the corner of her eye Lian Cai Yi smiled, a new rumor to be added against her “dear” sister.