Azure Heaven Saber
Chapter 819 - 819 280 Phoenix Wood

Chapter 819: Chapter 280 Phoenix Wood Chapter 819: Chapter 280 Phoenix Wood Feng Yin froze; he already knew the plank was a rare item, with considerable value, but he had no idea how much it was worth or how much to sell it for.

Otherwise, why would he use phrases like “merchants recognize the expert”?

But now he was caught in a difficult situation and had no choice but to stand firm: “Seeing as you seem to know your stuff, what’s your offer? If it’s reasonable, I’ll sell it to you!”

“Why don’t you just tell me what price you have in mind?”

The woman wasn’t fooled, clearly seeing that Feng Yin was unsophisticated and unaware of the true worth of his possession, let alone its value.

Feng Yin immediately stiffened.

Damn, if I knew what price to ask for, would I have gone through the trouble of saying ‘Merchants recognize the expert’?

He was about to declare it was for personal use and not for sale.

After all, what if he sold it at a loss?

Just as Feng Yin was feeling displeased and about to bluntly reject the woman in front of him, an abrupt voice sounded—

“Yo, so the young fellow actually has such a fine item in his hands, truly impressive.”

The voice of the Cat Emperor, lighthearted and smiling, reached them: “Isn’t this Sister Peacock? What’s up, have you taken a liking to this piece of wood of mine?”

The woman in white, her delicate eyebrows behind her veil, frowned immediately and turned to look at the Cat Emperor: “What are you doing here?”

“Indeed, a coincidence. He’s a junior of mine; I brought him out to gain some experience and to offload some odds and ends.”

The Cat Emperor walked over casually, looked at the plank, and smiled: “Ah, it appears to be a formed piece of Phoenix Spiritual Wood. Such a piece of formed Phoenix Spiritual Wood should be referred to as the Nine Skies Ring. Sister Peacock, have you taken a fancy to it?”

To Feng Yin, he said: “This is your Aunt Peacock, the leader of our demon tribe’s peacock clan. Don’t be disrespectful and forget your manners.”

His words were laden with countless implications.

“Yes, hello, Aunt Peacock.”

Feng Yin quickly adapted, switching to an exceedingly obedient attitude.

Good, now I shouldn’t be at a loss anymore.

The Peacock Demon Emperor rolled her eyes and said, “Sister Miao, are you trying to set me up for a kill?”

The Cat Emperor laughed, “How could I? You’re the expert here, after all. As an elder, how could you take advantage of the younger generation? We all know that if you purposely take advantage of the youth and incur karma, won’t it just have to be repaid later? Isn’t it just a matter of time? Why not have a fair trade, where no one owes anything to anyone?”

“Sister Miao’s words are indeed reasonable and make sense,” the Peacock Demon Emperor mused.

Being the leader of the peacock clan, her true form was that of a golden peacock with exceptional talents and great strength.

Initially, she had intended to take advantage of the young man’s ignorance and get a good deal for herself.

But with the Cat Emperor’s arrival and the way she explicitly pointed out her subtle intentions and even brought up the topic of karma, it put the Peacock Demon Emperor in an uneasy position.

Had she bought it before the Cat Emperor arrived, when it was still a matter of mutual consent and fair trade, there would be no issue of karma, right?

Who told you not to recognize the value?

But now with the Cat Emperor here, and after formal introductions, Feng Yin had officially become a younger member of her lineage. If she still intended to exploit the situation, that really would start to generate karma.

What’s more, if the young man readily gave her the wood as a gift, the entanglement would become even greater.

The Cat Emperor smiled at Feng Yin, “Your Aunt Peacock once fought a battle where she faced a formidable enemy and her favored Seven-stringed Sword was damaged. It’s been so many years, and she still hasn’t found a suitable weapon; seeing your piece of wood that’s perfect for making a Nine Skies Ring, she wouldn’t want to miss it.”

Feng Yin, understanding the unspoken message in the music, naturally grasped the deeper meaning of the Cat Emperor’s words.

Dong Xiaoyan also understood, but her insight pointed in another direction.

The so-called Seven-stringed Sword was actually the Seven-stringed Zither, using music as a sword, injuring enemies in a formless and invisible manner. When the zither music played, lives would end!

And this was precisely the Peacock Demon Emperor’s method of cultivation, using music as her path; to her, the zither was the sword, and the sword was the music of the zither!

The Peacock Demon Emperor managed a wry smile: “I better speak for myself. Your comments, one after another, are making me uncomfortable.”

It seemed this Peacock Demon Emperor was also a straightforward character.

“Initially, my life-bound magical treasure, the Seven-stringed Sword, suffered an intense shock that it couldn’t sustain, leading to its fracture. I also received a grave internal injury. Even though I’ve healed over the years, it’s been difficult to find material suitable for making Seven strings. I have personally examined every tree on Wutong Mountain over nearly a thousand years… none were up to standard.”

“So all these years, you’ve been using a flute as your weapon, which has never allowed you to utilize your full combat abilities,” said the Cat Emperor after a pause.

“I remember your original Seven-stringed Sword was crafted from a Wutong tree that was thousands of years old, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But this plank has surpassed the material you used to make your Seven-stringed Sword.”

The Cat Emperor delicately picked up the plank to examine it, and as she did, its light shone brilliantly, as if golden rays were flowing through it.

Carefully examining it revealed that the grain of the wood formed tiny, vibrant phoenixes, seemingly fluttering back and forth, never ceasing their joyous leaping.

“The true essence of the phoenix has already begun to emerge on this surface, coupled with its full spiritual nature. With your current cultivation, you should be able to dazzle and confuse onlookers, but if you can advance further, when it is truly pushed to its limits, the true phoenix essence on this surface will transform into phoenixes that fly out to slay enemies—a matter of no great concern!”

“You must know there are as many as hundreds of true phoenix essences within this piece of wood!”

“With only a master craftsman’s meticulous crafting, the seven-stringed zither made with this as a foundation will surpass the power of your past Seven-stringed Sword, and not by a small margin. With the foundation of this piece of wood, each zither pillar is fully wrapped with phoenix patterns—it’s more than sufficient.”

“If you ask me, only the seven-stringed zither made from this wood can truly be worthy of the sound of the Nine Skies Ring.”

With each statement from the Cat Emperor, the eyes of the Peacock Demon Emperor blazed with a degree hotter of fervor.

When focusing on those patterns that formed a complete phoenix shape, breaths started becoming more rapid.

“Clang clang…”

Suddenly, the Ice Phoenix perched on Dong Xiaoyan’s shoulder cried out twice and flew up, proudly landing on that piece of Wutong Wood. It was unclear whether it was out of curiosity or whether the Wutong Wood naturally attracted phoenixes.

Then, with a couple of gentle pecks on the wood with its small beak, the calls it made were filled with a tone of warmth.

That feeling, it was as if it had encountered its own kind.

Immediately following those pecks, the wooden board in the Cat Emperor’s hands emitted ‘clang clang’ ethereal sounds, as if in harmony with the Ice Phoenix.

The sound was flowing and, though faint, it traveled far.

It left everyone who heard it deeply moved.

“Is this… the music of heaven’s making?!”

The Peacock Demon Emperor’s beautiful eyes widened to their fullest in an instant.

The Cat Emperor paused, then said in surprise, “How can it be naturally occurring? How could such a structured piece of wood be naturally formed?”

The Peacock Demon Emperor said excitedly, “Although it’s hard to believe, this board is naturally formed… I think this wood must have been willingly condensed by a certain Wutong tree. It has not been processed with ax or saw; there’s not a single mark of repair—it’s a naturally perfect material. Moreover, there are intense intentions of the mother tree itself mixed within.”

“If it weren’t so, it’s difficult to explain such a celestial ringing sound, so blessed by heaven! But… this is truly too incredible! How could such an extraordinary spiritual material appear in this world!”

The Peacock Demon Emperor became more and more astounded as she thought about it, shocked by her own judgment.

In fact, the Peacock Demon Emperor’s astonishment wasn’t unfounded, for wood in the world must usually go through the ordeal of being cut down before it appears.

Who would ask, without human touch, how could a mighty Wutong tree transform into a neatly formed plank?

This piece of wood, however, was different, having been offered by the Wutong mother tree with the sincerest heart, a pure and willing contribution of its most essential part.

That was the unimaginable, particularly rare aspect of it.

Everyone knows that an average tree doesn’t have spiritual intelligence!

To speak of willingness, one must first find a Wutong tree with spiritual intelligence, or perhaps one that has become sentient. Just that is a nearly impossible task!

And this is only the first, relatively simple step!

Because another key point to creating such a dream-like, extraordinary piece is… willingness!

Assuming that it’s a spiritually sentient Wutong tree, how do you communicate with it to have it offer up its most essential part willingly…

This would be like a ridiculously impossible fairy tale!

“Even those Wutong trees that have developed intelligence and are old and decaying, willing to benefit a person of destiny, would find it tough to condense such a flawlessly regular piece of wood. It’s likely they would run out of essence and perish before the wood could even form!”

To create a piece of spiritual wood with this material quality, the Wutong mother tree has to be at its peak, focusing wholeheartedly on condensation. Only then could such a fantastic material come into being. But where in the world can one find such a Wutong mother tree willing to sacrifice its own essence to create a piece of spiritual wood—it just doesn’t make any sense!”

The Peacock Demon Emperor gently touched the wooden board, her face wholly enraptured.

“Could you tell me how you obtained this piece of spiritual wood?” asked the Peacock Demon Emperor to Feng Yin.

“Your Majesty, you’ve really stumped me there. I don’t have much of an impression of this board… It seems like I picked up a few planks during a mountain excursion once, and I just put them away without much thought. If it weren’t for the nice patterns on it, wanting to take it home to make some furniture or something, who would bother putting wood into their spatial artifact?” Feng Yin confessed with a trace of embarrassment. “Actually, you have quite the keen eye. I had even forgotten about this piece of wood, and when I was selling off stock, I just took it out as a display item… If I hadn’t forgotten about it, it might have already turned into tables and chairs by now.”

Tables and chairs?! When she heard this explanation, the Peacock Demon Emperor felt a darkness before her eyes and nearly collapsed, barely stopping herself from grinding her silver teeth to pieces.

If you had turned such a treasure into tables and chairs…

If I had known about it… I would have been utterly outraged!

The Cat Emperor certainly didn’t believe Feng Yin’s gibberish.

This guy’s ability to spout nonsense with a straight face was something she had experienced countless times. He was truly not the least bit honest—the likelihood was that nine and a half out of ten statements he made were lies, and even the half-truth was a mix of lies and honesty!

Pure and utter blarney!