He closed his eyes and quietly sensed; one by one, bright spots lit up around him, densely packed, impossible to count.

The lights varied in color and brightness—some flickered rapidly, some stayed steady, and some would suddenly flare up when he focused his attention on them, as if trying to blind him.

Wen Yan didn't know how this place, with so much weird shit, managed to keep everything under control.

But there sure were a hell of a lot of spiritual items here.

He thought for a bit, then, still with his eyes closed, sensing those bright dots, he shouted loudly.

"I'm Your Dad!"

As soon as those words left his mouth, he felt quite a few of those shining dots burst out with light all at once.

The surroundings became noisy, all sorts of sounds going off—crackling electricity, electric sparks bursting—echoing all around him.

Wen Yan still believed that, since the Scorching Sun Department dared to put all these things together, they could definitely guarantee nothing would go wrong inside.

Sure enough, the noise soon calmed down.

Wen Yan carefully observed the glows in his sense field.

He first weeded out the overly dramatic ones, and those that he'd mocked with his "area of effect" taunt and wouldn't light up were taken out too.

The ones that remained were bright enough, and also steady enough—that counted as the first round of selection, knocking out more than half.

Then for the second round, he activated Scorching Sun, letting his own Yang Energy burst out without restraint.

If something responded to his Yang Energy and resonated with it, that meant a higher affinity, so he filtered those through another round.

From those left, he eliminated over half again.

In the end, only about a dozen items were left. Even with his eyes closed, he could sense the bright spots on the shelves to either side.

He walked up to the first item, the brightest one, and opened his eyes.

He saw a wooden box, inside of which was a somewhat weathered stone sculpture.

It looked like a lynx, but with three tails; the surface details had mostly faded away.

The label on it read:

"No. 7773, Marmot Stone Sculpture, can mute sound."

Wen Yan tried using Precision Appraisal again.

"Two hundred ninety-eight Big Yellow Fish."

Wen Yan was startled. Holy crap, something that looked so ordinary was appraised so high?

The gold grain in his hand—which made Old Meng's eyes shine—was only worth a third as much as this thing.

Wen Yan didn't rush to choose, and moved on to the next potential target.

This time, it was a pitch-black oil lamp, with some solidified lamp oil inside. Who knew what it was made of.

The label read: "Everbright Lamp, from Guanzhong Commandery, unearthed by a Tomb Robber, cannot be blown out by wind, ignited with Yang Energy, estimated to burn for another three thousand years."

This was the one with the longest description so far, and it even specifically noted where it came from.

Precision Appraisal: Five hundred Big Yellow Fish.

Wen Yan put this one right into his little cart. Didn't matter what it actually did—as long as it got through two rounds of selection and had that appraisal, no need to hesitate.

He kept looking at the rest; after seeing a dozen or so, Wen Yan felt a bit regretful.

The lowest appraisal was a hundred and fifty Big Yellow Fish, but sadly, some of them just weren't useful to him, and some were too dangerous to give away.

In the end, he picked the first item—the highest appraised, the Everbright Lamp.

The second one was that stone sculpture.

The third one took Wen Yan a long time to decide—he picked... a shelf.

A combination shelf that looked no different from the others.

This one didn't have a label, but after checking over and over, he confirmed that this shelf had made it through both rounds of his selection.

Also, all the other shelves were worth less than a small yellow fish, but this one's appraisal was four hundred seventy Big Yellow Fish.

He tried out the other items too—there were some cold weapons, but they felt at least two tiers below the Chunjun Mace.

There were others too, but their spirituality was too strong—they were already sentient. Wen Yan felt they were dangerous and didn't want to pick them.

Finally, when he pushed out his little cart, Director Chen stared in disbelief at the shelf—well over two meters high—and the two things on top of it.

"Director Chen, I'm done picking. These are the three."

"The shelf?"

"Yup, the shelf counts as one too. That okay?"

"Hold up."

Director Chen didn't let Wen Yan leave immediately—instead, he quickly went out and called Cai Qidong.

In less than two minutes, Cai Qidong swaggered in like a dragon-stalking tiger.

Cai Qidong frowned, looking at the stuff Wen Yan had loaded on his cart.

A shelf, a grimy oil lamp caked with gunk, and a pretty decayed stone sculpture.

"Forget the rest, but why the hell are you taking a whole shelf? This is a rare opportunity. Take your time picking—otherwise your Eighth Uncle-Master Ancestor is gonna chew me out again, say I screwed you over."

"No no no, just these! "

"You really want to..."

"Minister, I just knew you'd go back on your word."

"How did I go back on my word?"

"Call my phone and see."

Cai Qidong had a bad feeling. He dialed Wen Yan's number and heard Wen Yan's phone—left outside the door—start to ring.

"Even if you find the Imperial Jade Seal in there, you can take it out.

I said it. You record, go on and record me—I said it.

I said it. Record, record, record.

I said it—take it, take it, take it..."

The glitched-out recording echoed down the hallway. The people from Scorching Sun Department all stopped in unison and looked at the phone in the box.

Cai Qidong's face turned green; even his voice cracked.

"You really recorded it?! And made it your ringtone?!"

"Minister, you were the one who told me to record it—that's not me secretly taping you!"

"Wicked! Absolutely wicked! Get out—take your stuff and get the hell out!"

"Aye aye!"

Wen Yan cheerfully pushed his little cart, opened the door, picked up his still-ringing phone, and answered it with ease.

"Hello, Minister, I'm heading out now."

"Go!"

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