Ye Fan came out not long after entering, holding a piece of paper in his hand.
The paper had an address written on it. The staff said the other party wanted to meet in person.
Ye Fan looked at the address and couldn't help but cluck his tongue.
Although everything seemed normal, he felt that something was not quite right.
Even though he had no cultivation now, his intuition, honed over a million years, was still there.
"I don't care, I'll see first," Ye Fan mumbled and hailed a 'beast-car'.
This intuition for danger had saved his life more than once.
In the past, he might have hesitated.
As for now...
For Ye Fan, who was wholeheartedly seeking death, danger was nothing but a fleeting cloud!
The only thing he feared was that the other party wouldn't be strong enough, and he would have needlessly charged the dog system...
Speaking of which, the dog system hadn't made a sound in a while.
Every time the dog system went silent before, it would do something big afterward.
He wondered what kind of trouble it would cause this time...
The place was not far from the exchange.
After paying and getting out of the car, Ye Fan walked into the mansion before him.
This mansion looked quite old.
Coupled with the lack of proper maintenance and repair, it looked like a haunted house from a horror movie at first glance...
Ye Fan couldn't help but twitch his lips.
Bad guys always seemed to like meeting in places like this, as if they were afraid others wouldn't notice...
There was no one in the front yard, and it was eerily quiet all around.
Ye Fan searched the entire mansion, but didn't find a single person.
"What's going on?" Ye Fan muttered in confusion, "They wouldn't be this bored, would they?"
If they had just tricked him into coming here for nothing, how bored would they have to be?
"Are you Mr. Ye Fan?"
Just as Ye Fan was wondering, a voice came from behind him.
Ye Fan turned his head and saw a middle-aged male cultivator.
This cultivator looked a bit down and out.
His eyebrows and beard were a messy tangle, and it seemed like they had been knotted together from not being washed for too long...
His clothes were shiny with grease, and they were so dirty that the original color could no longer be seen.
Before the man even reached him, a pungent odor rushed towards him...
It felt like a stinky sock that had been fermenting in a garbage dump for hundreds of years, it was truly overpowering!
If it weren't for the news about the jade pendant, he would never have stayed another second!
"I am," Ye Fan almost rolled his eyes from the stench, "Tell me, what are the terms of exchange?"
Seeing that Ye Fan had no cultivation at all, the man's initial reserve instantly disappeared.
"One hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones." The male cultivator grinned, a few leeks stubbornly sticking out, "Don't you think it's too expensive. We brothers risked our lives to get this."
"The price can be discussed," Ye Fan touched the ring on his hand, "But I need to inspect the goods first."
Even if Ye Fan were a fool, he could tell that this male cultivator was definitely suspicious.
When they first met, the man seemed a bit reserved, as if he was afraid Ye Fan would harm him.
If that were the case, why didn't the other party simply choose to place the item at the exchange?
Their only condition was money, and there was no need to meet him in person.
It looked like they were deliberately trying to attract his attention.
Also, when the other party saw that he had no cultivation, his expression seemed to relax suddenly. Unfortunately, his disguise wasn't very good.
He seemed to relax, but in fact, he was still reserved.
It seemed like the other party was somewhat afraid of him...
Perhaps it was from one of the little demoness's past actions, that he or his people had witnessed it.
The man's acting was so fake, it didn't seem like he wanted to harm Ye Fan.
Otherwise, a bunch of people would have jumped out and beaten him up by now.
Since he couldn't figure it out, Ye Fan decided not to think about it.
Compared to the other party's intentions, he cared more about the matter of the jade pendant.
"Alright." The male cultivator looked at Ye Fan thoughtfully and took out a jade pendant from his ring.
Upon seeing the jade pendant, Ye Fan's gaze sharpened!
The formation patterns on it had clearly been altered, and they were exactly the same as what he had seen in the tomb murals back then!
Just as Ye Fan was contemplating, the male cultivator had already begun to inject his true qi into the jade pendant.
A faint light emerged from the center of the jade pendant and then transformed into a shield that protected the male cultivator.
"This protective shield can withstand a full-powered attack from a cultivator in the early Void Glimpse stage. For this shield alone, ten thousand isn't expensive," the male cultivator explained, "If I weren't short of money recently, I wouldn't be willing to sell it!"
"Deal." Ye Fan nimbly took out the spirit stones.
After the transaction was completed, the male cultivator happily took the money and left, as if he had really only come to trade with Ye Fan today.
Ye Fan took out his tools from his ring and thoroughly cleaned the jade pendant.
After ensuring that the male cultivator's odor had been washed away, Ye Fan picked up the jade pendant and sniffed it.
"It is indeed fake..." Ye Fan sighed and put the jade pendant away.
The jade pendant he made had three symbols representing his granddaughter's names, in addition to the protective shield.
And the formation that constructed the symbols was hidden within his simplified Chinese signature.
Even if this jade pendant had been altered after arriving in this world, the other party could not have altered the content within the simplified Chinese characters.
After all, formations were intricate systems, and the other party wouldn't be able to change the content within them without understanding the simplified Chinese characters first.
Moreover, he had written the symbol patterns with sand dust ink back then, but this jade pendant did not have it.
Things written with sand dust ink were transparent after drying but had a unique scent.
Although sand dust ink was not a high-level material, its stability was definitely among the top three for all inks.
This stability naturally included the scent: even after hundreds of years, the scent would not dissipate, making it a fossil-like existence.
The unique scent of sand dust ink was not only long-lasting but also extremely potent.
It was impossible to mask it with other substances.
In fact, he could have smelled it directly just now. The cleaning was purely because he found the male cultivator's smell disgusting...
Did the other party truly not know, or was it intentional?
If it was intentional...
In the eyes of others, he was just an ordinary person without any cultivation. What were they after?
...
With a heart full of doubts, Ye Fan left the 'haunted house'.
In a private room of the restaurant next door.
The male cultivator watched Ye Fan leave and then took out a communication jade.
After the communication jade was connected, a shadowy figure appeared.
However, the figure seemed to be shrouded in gray mist and could not be clearly seen.
"The transaction is complete. Ye Fan didn't say anything else," the male cultivator reported truthfully, "But he deliberately pretended to have no cultivation. I can't tell if he believed it or not."
"Since he accepted it, whether he believes it or not doesn't matter," the other party replied faintly, "Continue to monitor him and proceed as planned."