Lu Yang tallied up his losses. At a bare minimum, he had lost eight million spirit stones in the East Sea.
Heartache gripped him. Eight million! That was enough to buy Old Meng's dog life.
Meng Jingzhou eyed Lu Yang from the corner of his eye, having a nagging suspicion that the kid was badmouthing him.
Li Haoran offered comfort in earnest: "The East Sea is just like this. You'll get used to it. Back in the day, Qin Haoran made a fortune right here in the East Sea by churning out bootlegs. That was how he got the starting capital to marry Yiren."
Lu Yang: "..."
"Why is Master's portrait here?" Lu Yang noticed a portrait of Daoist Buyu posted on the notice board. Glancing at the header, he saw it was a wanted poster.
Daoist Buyu, Sect Master of the Dao Seeking Sect. Bounty: one billion spirit stones.
The bounty had even been issued jointly by the Sea Race and the human race.
"I'd long heard that Master commands a steep price on the black market, and seeing it today confirms it," Lu Yang remarked. One billion spirit stones—that was far more expensive than Old Meng's eight million.
Besides Daoist Buyu, there were many familiar faces on the wanted posters, such as the Grand Elder, the Sixth Elder, the Seventh Elder, and the Eighth Elder.
Half of the Dao Seeking Sect's leadership was up there. Of course, their bounties couldn't compare to Daoist Buyu's; he held the top spot firmly, his position unshakeable.
Before departing, Lu Yang had heard from Old Ba that the Grand Elder had charged in and out of the tombs on Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou seven times. On top of that, he had modeled a structure after ancient tomb designs and built one on an island somewhere in the East Sea. When the Three Islands of Penglai discovered this tomb, every one of them assumed it was an ancestral tomb belonging to their own faction, and they nearly beat each other's brains out over it. In the end, Penglai Island prevailed and gleefully hauled the coffin back. After spending half a day cross-referencing their genealogy, they knelt and bowed reverently to the coffin—whereupon the Grand Elder flung open the lid and rose up...
Back then, the Sixth Elder had been in the midst of breaking through with her Immaculate Immortal Physique, and her Immaculate Domain had been exceedingly unstable—sound-activated, in fact. Whenever she attended a banquet, the moment the host spoke, her Immaculate Domain would deploy. Every single time someone spoke, it would open again. From then on, she was blacklisted from banquets.
As for the Seventh Elder and Eighth Elder, taking advantage of the fact that Great Xia's laws couldn't reach here, they went about running scams everywhere. Their trickery grew more sophisticated by the day until the East Sea could finally bear it no longer. Having tried and failed to catch them multiple times, they requested Great Xia to invoke the principle of personal jurisdiction to arrest the Seventh and Eighth Elders and bring them to justice. Great Xia, however, cited respect for the East Sea's sovereignty and declined to take the case.
A passerby looked at the wanted poster, felt a sense of nostalgia from its age, and recalled the past.
"To think Daoist Buyu is still posted here. It's been several centuries now. He hasn't shown his face in the East Sea for two hundred years, has he?"
"Isn't that the truth? Remember back when his bounty was five hundred million spirit stones? Daoist Buyu feigned capture and partnered with the Dao Seeking Sect's Grand Elder to scam the bounty money."
"After that stunt, his bounty was raised to a billion, and whenever news of him surfaced, Tribulation Transcendence powerhouses would personally lead teams to capture him."
"One billion spirit stones! If someone could actually catch Daoist Buyu, they wouldn't have to worry about cultivation resources for several lifetimes."
"Catch Daoist Buyu? Dream on! I heard that back then, some cultivators tried doing wicked deeds under Daoist Buyu's name, but after all that happened, not even marauder cultivators dare use Daoist Buyu's name anymore."
Lu Yang felt fortunate that they were currently using identities as disciples of the Five Elements Sect.
Given the relationship between the Dao Seeking Sect and the Five Elements Sect, even if the Five Elements Sect minded, it wouldn't do them any good anyway.
Chapter 811