554: Chapter 554 Qian Duoduo: Lie down, shut up, and wait to die!

Han Rui's brows were tightly furrowed.

His fingertips tapped rhythmically against his knee.

"Lin Wan, calm down a bit."

His voice betrayed a hint of exhaustion as he suppressed his temper to persuade her.

"We already spent thirty million on the immortal body marrow core just now." Han Rui paused. "If we fight for this formation diagram too, our funds will run dry, and it's far beyond the budget approved by the Sect."

"If it runs dry, then let it run dry."

Lin Wan answered very bluntly.

She smiled sweetly, but her eyes were laced with venom.

"Think about it." Lin Wan lowered her voice. "If he really gets a formation diagram capable of trapping and killing a Profound Immortal and sets it up outside the city in advance, what will happen to the six of us if we charge in?"

Han Rui fell silent.

He closed his eyes.

As a member of the Law Enforcement Hall, he knew the lethality of a Formation better than anyone.

A fragmented primordial killing formation, even if it only exerted thirty percent of its power, would severely wound the several True Immortals present.

He could not afford such a loss.

"We absolutely cannot let him have this formation diagram," Lin Wan slowed her pace.

"Taking it away is cutting off his path to survival."

"Outside the city, I want him to not even have the right to fight back, left entirely at our mercy!"

Han Rui opened his eyes.

His reason was completely overwhelmed by a sense of crisis.

"What's the limit?" he asked.

Lin Wan smiled.

The dimples beneath her black veil deepened, radiating a sense of fanaticism.

"There is no limit."

She stared intently out the window.

"However much we have, we spend."

"Once we're out of the city, we'll take it back from his corpse with interest."

The curtain of Private Room Number Seven lifted slightly.

"Thirty-five million!"

Han Rui's voice boomed out.

The hall erupted into a frenzy.

The Loose Cultivators were reduced to mere spectators. The battle between the immortals in the two private rooms had driven the price straight into the stratosphere.

Box Number One.

Su Chen's brows furrowed sharply upon hearing the bid.

[The fish has taken the bait.]

[And it's biting quite hard.]

He immediately put on an anxious expression, as if someone had intercepted his prize halfway.

His breathing became rapid.

He slowly raised his hand.

"Thirty-five million five hundred thousand."

He only added five hundred thousand.

His tone had noticeably dropped. The previous arrogant shouting was gone, replaced by the unwilling struggle of someone gritting their teeth to hold on.

After calling out the price, he even swayed his body in a very cooperative manner.

Qian Duoduo stood dazed on the spot.

He just dropped thirty million in one go, and now he's only adding five hundred thousand?

The boss really is about to run out of money!

His plump body gave a sudden shudder.

His face turned pale in an instant.

[Duoduo's acting is quite touching, perfectly natural.]

[I'll have to give him some extra Immortal Stones later.]

Su Chen's inner monologue scrolled joyfully.

[The art of bidding lies in the rhythm. Blindly smashing money will only make the opponent wary.]

[Dropping thirty million at the start was to show my stance.]

[To tell the other side: this formation diagram is a life-or-death necessity for me; I can't survive without it.]

[But after that, I must never increase the price by a large margin again.]

[Switch to grinding them down by five hundred thousand or a million at a time.]

[First, it makes the other side think I'm short on cash and struggling to hold on. Something a nearly bankrupt person is fighting to buy must be their final trump card. The more they think it's a life-saving straw, the more they'll refuse to let go.]

[Second, it's like boiling a frog in warm water. Each cut is small; it hurts, but not enough to make them flip the table and give up right then and there.]

[By the time they come to their senses, they'll already be trapped by this ridiculous astronomical figure.]

Private Room Number Seven hardly hesitated.

"Thirty-six million." Han Rui's voice carried the air of a victor.

Su Chen continued to grind.

"Thirty-six million five hundred thousand."

Another five hundred thousand.

His voice trembled even more. He deliberately turned away, avoiding the gazes from the hall.

He looked wretched yet stubborn.

The hall was deathly silent.

Everyone held their breath, their eyes darting back and forth between the two private rooms. This wasn't an auction; it was a bloody, close-quarters struggle.

"Thirty-eight million." Private Room Number Seven tried to crush him.

"Thirty-eight million five hundred thousand." Su Chen's voice was as thin as a mosquito's buzz, sounding exhausted.

"Forty million!" Han Rui increased the pressure, wanting to settle the matter once and for all.

Su Chen paused for five breaths.

The hearts of everyone present hung in mid-air.

Then.

He squeezed out six words from between his teeth.

"Forty million five hundred thousand."

Desperation to the extreme.

Qian Duoduo collapsed completely onto the floor.

His eyes were vacant, and his brain had long since crashed.

He instinctively chose to lie flat, shut up, and wait for death.

Su Chen's peripheral vision swept over the ball of flesh in the corner.

[Once we're out of the city, I'll definitely treat you to a good meal.]

Inside Private Room Number Seven.

The muscles at the corners of Han Rui's eyes twitched.

It was forty million.

Adding the previous thirty million, it was a total of seventy million high-grade immortal stones.

This far exceeded the Law Enforcement Hall's operational budget. He had no choice but to start dipping into his personal savings; more than half of his net worth was being burned away.

A sharp pain of financial loss rushed to his head.

"Forty-three million." He spoke through gritted teeth.

"Forty-three million five hundred thousand." Su Chen followed up immediately.

"Forty-five million!" Han Rui smashed the armrest with a palm strike, nearly roaring.

"Forty-five million five hundred thousand." Su Chen's voice cracked, sounding like someone who had given up and was just throwing caution to the wind.

Every single time.

Su Chen only added five hundred thousand more.

Not a bit more, not a bit less.

It landed exactly on that subtle psychological price point.

Scraping off a layer of skin each time.

But it simply couldn't be stopped.

The price was fast approaching fifty million.