Chapter 163: The Art of the Bait

“What did that mean?!”

The smile on Li Moxin’s face froze. His divine sense surged like a raging tide as it swept toward Chu Feng’s private room, his voice filled with shock, fury, and disbelief.

However, Chu Feng’s private room was shrouded in the Thousand Illusions Pavilion’s top-tier formations. His divine sense was like a clay ox entering the sea, failing to stir up the slightest ripple.

“It didn’t mean anything special.”

Chu Feng’s lazy voice continued to echo in his mind,

“It just meant exactly what it sounded like.”

“Thanks for using your own spirit stones to help us put on a great show, successfully convincing everyone that we were a group only interested in medicinal materials and with limited financial strength—a ‘high-quality target’.”

“You… you people!”

Li Moxin trembled with rage, his handsome face beginning to twist,

“You didn’t win the bid, and you were just putting on a bluff here!”

“Who said we didn’t win it?”

Chu Feng chuckled softly, and the voice transmission abruptly ended.

At the same time, inside the Ascension Group’s private room, the atmosphere was completely different from what outsiders imagined.

Where was there even a trace of disappointment on Leng Yanran’s face?

She was holding a jade box with an excited expression. Inside the box, a stalk of Supreme Void Illusory Dream Flower, whose quality was not inferior in the slightest—and was even a bit more vibrant than the one just auctioned—quietly emitted an illusory glow.

“President… this… what is going on?”

Feng Zhiruo was completely stunned. She had participated in the entire auction and had no idea when this flower had been obtained.

Chu Feng took a sip of spirit tea and explained unhurriedly:

“In commercial competition, information is king. When your opponent thinks you’re on the first level, it’s best if you’re already waiting for him on the fifth.”

He looked toward Murong Xue and nodded approvingly:

“This time, our Chief Risk Control Officer made the greatest contribution.”

Murong Xue’s cheeks flushed slightly, but she still spoke calmly to explain.

“Before the auction started, I activated the ‘competitive product background due diligence’ contingency plan according to the President’s instructions.”

“I contacted Senior Sister Liu Ruyan of the Yaochi Sacred Land through private connections.”

The Liu Ruyan Murong Xue referred to was the current-generation Saintess of the Yaochi Sacred Land, a renowned figure on the Prodigies List, and someone with whom she had a close personal relationship.

“Senior Sister Liu’s intelligence network confirmed that before the auction, Li Moxin had indeed had secret contact with Lei Qianjue and Murong Tian.”

“Their plan was to recklessly raise prices on some secondary auction items in the early stages to drain our funds, leaving us unable to compete in the final bidding for the ‘Traverser’s Remains’.”

Hearing this, Feng Zhiruo suddenly realized the truth:

“So everything just now was an act?”

“We deliberately showed weakness to lure Li Moxin into taking the bait?”

“Not entirely.”

Chu Feng shook his finger, the smile at the corner of his mouth unfathomable,

“Putting on a show was only a means, not the goal.”

“Our goal was to achieve two objectives without spending a single spirit stone.”

“First, to reinforce our image as ‘Eastern Wasteland nouveau riche’, numbing all potential competitors.”

“Second, and most importantly, to make Li Moxin—this ‘unstable factor’—pay a price, creating cracks between him and his allies.”

He paused and looked toward the projection of Yao Yue, who had been quietly standing in the corner all along.

At some unknown moment, Yao Yue had already appeared in the private room. She leaned casually against the window railing, listening with great interest to Chu Feng’s ‘case review’, her enchanting eyes shimmering.

“Of course, we also have to thank our landlord in the ‘City That Never Sleeps’, the Pavilion Master of the Thousand Illusions Pavilion, for providing us with a ‘VIP-exclusive off-site transaction channel’.”

Chu Feng raised his teacup slightly toward Yao Yue.

Yao Yue covered her mouth and laughed softly:

“Hehehe, President Chu really knows how to talk. I was just doing business.”

“Someone entrusted our Thousand Illusions Pavilion to privately sell a Supreme Void Illusory Dream Flower for only four hundred thousand top-grade spirit stones, and without having to pay the auction house’s commission.”

“And you just happened to be a distinguished guest of our pavilion, so of course I had to prioritize satisfying your needs.”

She said it that way, but everyone could tell that behind it all was Chu Feng’s advance planning.

He had already anticipated that Li Moxin would cause trouble, so he never intended to openly compete in the auction in the first place!

Using Yao Yue’s channel, before the auction even began, he had already locked in another seller and negotiated the price.

All the bidding on stage just now, from beginning to end, was a zero-cost “baited enforcement operation” tailor-made for Li Moxin!

“This…”

Feng Zhiruo was completely shaken by Chu Feng’s outrageous maneuver.

She prided herself on coming from one of the major western families and having seen countless overt and covert schemes, but methods like Chu Feng’s—playing with human nature, information, rules, and connections as if they were pieces on a chessboard, each link perfectly interlocked without the slightest leak—were something she had simply never heard of!

This was no longer just commercial warfare. This was art!

Beside her, Jian Wuxin listened throughout. Though his iceberg-like face still showed little expression, the hand gripping his iron sword unconsciously tightened.

For the first time, he realized that the mind was truly more useful than the sword.

Meanwhile, Zhao Wuji made a bold, heavy note in his small notebook, the title reading:

【On the Innovative Application of ‘Bait Marketing’ and ‘Channel Supremacy’ in High-End Auction Scenarios】.

He summarized excitedly:

“The President’s move was a textbook-level ‘dimensionality reduction strike’!”

“Not only were the strategic objectives achieved at zero cost, but it also incidentally struck at the competitor’s ‘cash flow’ and ‘morale’, while simultaneously deepening the strategic cooperation with the ‘channel partner’ (referring to Yao Yue)!”

“Killing three birds with one stone—brilliant! Truly brilliant!”

The people in the private room now looked at Chu Feng with eyes that had shifted from initial cooperation and respect to something approaching fanatical worship.

At that moment, the auctioneer’s voice rang out once more from the high platform. This time, it carried an unprecedented mix of gravity and excitement.

“Everyone! After a long wait, we have finally arrived at the final item of this Heaven-Piercing Auction—and the most anticipated treasure of all!”

As his words fell, the atmosphere of the entire venue instantly shifted from earlier clamor to a suffocating silence.

All eyes were locked firmly onto the high platform.

A massive display stand forged from ten-thousand-year black crystal slowly rose from beneath the stage.

Upon it lay a set of shattered metal remains, incomparably ancient, desolate, and exuding a strange aura utterly out of place in this world.

Its structure did not conform to any known artifact-refining techniques. Straight lines, gears, and rivets were everywhere, radiating a cold, orderly sense of “industrial beauty”.

It was precisely the object capable of overturning the entire artifact-refining system of the Mortal Realm—

the remains of a previous generation Traverser!

“The value of this item needs no further elaboration from this old man!”

“The starting price is three million top-grade spirit stones! Each increase must be no less than one hundred thousand!”

Boom!

The entire venue erupted completely!

Inside Chu Feng’s private room, the atmosphere instantly grew tense as well.

He could clearly sense that from Lei Qianjue’s private room opposite, an incomparably domineering thunderous will erupted, filled with absolute determination to obtain it.

And from the Blood God Palace’s private room, Li Moxin’s venomous gaze also locked firmly onto them.

A true war was about to begin.

Chu Feng, however, remained calm. He simply lifted his teacup, gently blew on the steam, and smiled faintly at Jian Wuxin beside him.

“Daoist Jian, it’s time for you, as an ‘investor’, to show some sincerity.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep