"I don't get why Senior Brother Yu dragged us here. This is Netherworld City, a city of cold graves. We're just Foundation Establishment. Marching in feels like walking into misted tombs."

"Keep it down, or the locals will hear. Senior Brother Yu said to broaden our horizons. We just follow, like ducks in a rainstorm. Why whine?"

"Mm... but I'm really scared. My knees feel like ice in winter water."

It sounded like a senior lecturing a junior. The auction hall buzzed like a beehive. Sitting off to the side, Nana Toki missed most of it, catching only three words: Senior Brother Yu.

"Don't tell me that Senior Brother Yu is that bastard Tianqi Yu again." Nana muttered under her breath, the words a pebble dropped in a dark pond.

Maybe she's cursed. Even if she doesn't poke the plane’s protagonist nest, the damned Plot will shove her into the thorns later. Friction sparks, and she gets forced across the line.

Tsk. If the timing allowed, Nana would pin that mangy Plot to the ground and beat it like a dusty rug.

System: "..." The host’s temper’s getting spikier by the day.

Nana watched the crowd thicken like storm clouds. When the seats filled, she drew her gaze back, calm as a cat by a brazier. She waited in the auction’s shadowed corner for the host to take the stage.

The host was a voluptuous woman in a scarlet robe, curves traced like brushstrokes on silk. She stepped in and every eye swung to her like iron to a magnet. Her face wasn’t nation-toppling, but it bloomed like a peony, and that red robe carved valleys and peaks. Many male cultivators lit up like lanterns.

"Have men these days never seen a woman?" Nana clocked the slack jaws and piggish grins, then rolled her eyes, a flick like a fan snapping shut. The moment didn’t last. After a lilting intro, the auction slid onto its rails.

Auctions in Netherworld City weren’t like the world outside. In the mortal markets, you bid on things you could hold. Here, you bid on coffins. Big, small, strange. The host wouldn’t tell you what lay under the lid. You gamble on your eyes and whatever luck sits on your shoulder.

"In this coffin auction, we’ll present ten coffins from Netherworld City," the red-robed woman purred, her voice like warm wine. "No minimum bids. Anything may be used to bid, including barter. We go until the highest offer stands. Anyone may bid."

Nana’s brows drew tight, a knot in rain-soaked rope. Her purse was thin as paper. At best, she could win two coffins, and only if no one chased her bids like dogs after a hare.

If this all leans on guessing and luck, even a two-in-ten is fog at night.

Nana didn’t believe in one-shot miracles.

"Looks like it's time for this System to shine!"

A swollen, smug voice popped by her ear like a bubble. Nana knew that voice. Her own System, brain half-wired, was too familiar. Even with a voice changer, she’d spot it like a neighbor’s cough.

"You? Really? Don’t slap your face to puff yourself up." Nana’s eyes narrowed, flat as winter lake ice, her stare at the System empty of warmth.

This idiot System had burned her more than a few dozen times. It promised to carry her through this plane, then faceplanted by chapter three and went offline like a dead firefly. Appraising coffins by sight now? She had zero reason to trust this junk.

"Heh-heh-heh. Don’t underestimate this System. My eye for treasure is cosmic-tier." The loli System kept inflating like a parade balloon.

Nana: "..."

"Hate to break it to you, but I’ve never not underestimated you."

"..."

Silence fell like frost. The System’s smug face froze mid-smirk.

Her own host giving her no face—that, she hadn’t expected.

"Well, if you want me to stop underestimating you, show me. Use this auction as your stage." Nana lifted her chin and glanced at the first coffin the woman cooed over, a thin smile like a hidden blade.

"So, what’s inside that coffin?"

The first lot was a tiny, ancient wooden coffin, about the size of a grown man’s palm. Patterns curled along the lid like a celestial map, the lines deep as mountain ravines. The more you looked, the more it pulled you in, like moonlight on black water.

While Nana and the System traded words, bids climbed like ivy. The price hit over a hundred thousand spirit crystals.

"What treasure? It’s stuffed with low-grade pills," the System sniffed, barely glancing. "Those carvings look profound, but it’s stage smoke. The coffin’s true value can’t break four digits."

"Then why would the auction house dare sell it?" Nana tilted her head, curiosity like a cat’s paw.

"Who said low-grade pills can’t be auctioned?" For once, the System spoke like a sly merchant. "They set the rule: no minimum bid. That means someone might win tens of thousands of value for a single crystal. So why can’t a one-crystal coffin sell for sky-high money too? Bidding is willing hearts, like gambling on jade. No one forces your hand."

Not long after the System finished, the first coffin closed at 173,000. A Golden Core Stage cultivator won it, pride bright as a torch.

"If you don’t believe me, watch the opening. If this System misses even once, after this plane ends, I’ll personally pick three artifacts for you."

"Listen to yourself. If it were that divine, ghosts would dance." Nana shot her System a look. "Three artifacts, pick whatever? I don’t care." Her hidden space held treasures like a hoarder’s attic. She could grab a handful and spill a hill.

System: "..." Her host’s brain still zigged where others zag, like a kite tugging crosswind.

Just as the System said, the first coffin opened to reveal cheap pills, price tags limp as wilted grass. Together they weren’t even worth ten thousand.

The Golden Core Stage cultivator who’d paid over a hundred and seventy thousand coughed blood like splattered cinnabar, then collapsed on the spot.

"Tsk. Looks like you’re not totally useless." Nana propped her cheek on her palm, watching the staff carry the man away like a broken statue. "At least you’ve got eyes."

"Of course. Look who created this System. How could I shame my maker?" Loli System, inflating x3.

"Mm-hmm. So you can also tell if these ten coffins include the Eight Cornered Ghost Algae Fish?" Nana’s eyes narrowed, her tone light as drifting snow, her intent sharp as a hook.

"Naturally." The System’s confidence rang like a bell. "This System never misreads."

"Then show me. If I don’t get the Eight Cornered Ghost Algae Fish, I’m taking it out on you." Nana arched a brow, amusement coiling like incense smoke.

"Bring it on. This System fears nothing!" Going full tilt, steady as a drunk on stilts.

...

The woman on stage auctioned five or six more coffins in a row. Gold coffins gleamed like dawn. Wood coffins showed old grain like river rings. Crystal coffins shone cold as glacier glass. Ice coffins breathed winter fog.

But the treasures inside were painfully ordinary. Tens of thousands of spirit crystals and rare herbs vanished like stones into a lake. Plenty of cultivators ended up with empty baskets after a rainy market. A few hotheads cursed the house as swindlers, only to get blasted out by a Netherworld City expert, their bodies tumbling like leaves in gale wind.

"Next is the seventh coffin of this auction." The sultry host drew out a coffin woven from bamboo strips and set it on the table. The whole thing glistened wet, as if dredged from a riverbed. Several strips were split, fibers fraying like torn reeds. It looked ready to fall apart at a touch.

Honestly, it was the worst-looking coffin yet, ugly as a mud puddle.

"The starting price is still one spirit crystal. Bidding begins now."

Her honeyed voice fell, and for once, the hall stayed quiet, a pond without ripples.

No wonder. Six coffins in and not one earth-shaker had appeared. Add this bamboo wreck of a coffin, and no one wanted to throw coins into a dark well.

"I bid one hundred crystals."

A voice cut the hush like a pebble flicked against glass. Many bidders blinked, then craned their necks like geese, eager to see which fool’s taste ran that crooked.