Wu went blue in the face, it turned out that he was merely a piece of trash in Shan's eyes. It was embarrassingly ridiculous that he imagined Shan punishing him.
Wu Gui was a disciple of the Taixuan Clan after all. On hearing Shan's sentiment, Li had an indignant twitch on the corner of his mouth. Now that Wu Gui was a good-for-nothing in Shan's eyes, then most of the clan's disciples were even worse than that.
On a second thought, Li felt wryly pacified, as he was a good-for-nothing per se, let alone Wu Gui, against the backdrop that the Taixuan Clan had gone to the dogs.
Li sighed inwardly, with a tinge of abjection flashing across his face. But he promptly came to his senses and tried to sound Shan out, with an obeisance by cupping his hands, "Then which one had won favor with Immortal Shan? Could you please tell me how he looks?"
Shan had offended quite a few people by speaking his mind, which was why he seldom spoke. He caught himself making an improper remark, but he wouldn't apologize to Li Taixuan on his footing.
Seeing Li come to his senses so quickly, Shan further took to him and hastened to describe the disciple's looks.
"He was a 15 or 16-year-old comely teenager, but the distinguished sophistication in his eyes is hardly comparable. Though he is not sufficiently proficient in martial arts and still at the preliminary stage of the Refining Divine Environment, he has strikingly sharp six senses, and an undercurrent of unbridled power lying dormant in him. On a side note, he was with your disciple just now, and his name is Lin Xiao."
Shan Chengfeng deliberately concealed Lin Xiao's endowments in alchemy, lest that Li wouldn't let him go. Shan's martial attainments were so striking that he could map out everything about Lin Xiao in detail with a single glimpse.
" What?!" Some great seniors stopped and shook their heads in sync on hearing Shan asking for Lin Xiao, unanimously disagreed.
Their unexpectedly drastic reaction aroused a grim sense of foreboding in Shan Chengfeng. " Could it be said that they were already aware of that young lad's innate talent? But I shall stand firm and win him over today in whatever manner I see fit," he thought.
Thinking of his own accomplishments of alchemy, Shan felt emboldened, "It's a waste of talent for him to stay in the Taixuan Clan. As long as you hand him over, I shall spare no efforts to offer anything you need and keep your clan safe and sound on behalf of the Danling Clan."
He concluded his offer with a smirk curving his mouth corners, as he deemed it unlikely that Li Taixuan wouldn't have a change of heart for his tempting terms.
Li was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Shan's offer was irresistibly munificent — not to mention the material ones, the last term alone was sufficiently hard for Li to turn down. Setting up a tie with a great clan as the Danling Clan was could bring long-term security to the Taixuan Clan, then neither Suomo Clan nor the string-puller dare ride roughshod over them headlong ever again.
Nevertheless, Li Taixuan had no courage to give Shan his permission — handing over Lin Xiao, his own martial uncle, was by no means at his discretion.