The rest of the night was uneventful with everyone retreating to their quarters to rest.
Meanwhile, Xue Chang was still sitting near the window of the living room while gazing quietly into the sky.
"The stars changed again..."
Ever since he awakened his strange new were after facing the bear, he always spent some time every night gazing at the star.
It wasn't really a hobby, but more of a desire. Where ever he gazed into the night sky, he felt like something was calling for him.
"Why do some of the stars in the sky change their position?" He wasn't asking this question to anyone particular, but he expected at least Yong Heng to give him some random facts or something.
Yet everything was quiet. Almost too quiet.
As he continued to stare, he could hear voices whisper in his ears. And if he concentrated a little...
"What are you doing up late at night?" Suddenly Lou Lan, who was having trouble sleeping, stepped out into the living room to find Xue Chang just standing there.
"You know kids like you should be getting as much sleep as possible right? If not how do you expect to grow up big and strong like me?" While saying this, Lou Lan began to flex his biceps in a show of strength.
Xue Chang in turn, looked over his shoulder and silently gazed at Lou Lan for a while before walking toward his room and whispering, "I don't plan to."
________
"There! That one looks nice!"
Lou Ning pointed toward an exquisite painting of a forest surrounded by mystifying floating lights. The shop keeper approached the art piece and smiled lightly as he pulled it off its mantle and brought it to the back for wrapping and delivery.
Meanwhile, Lou Lan, Tian Hai, Tian Kai, and even Xue Chang stood behind her with their hands full of bags, ornaments, and all types of other trinkets.
While each one weren't made of anything grand, their outer appearance was dazzling and bright.
The group had spent the entire morning shopping around the city for things to adorn the house with.
Their travels have brought them to and from the villa around four times just to transfer all of the items Lou Ning had bought, and yet she hadn't even used up half of the bag!
"Why are we here..." Tian Kai was completely perplexed by the turn of events.
Just this morning, they were all having a peaceful and calm breakfast until Lou Ning charged into the kitchen suddenly.
"Let's go shopping now!"
Seeing his cousin for the first time that morning and hearing her words, even Lou Lan couldn't help but pause for a second, "Lou Ning, we haven't even finished eating yet. Come, sit down and join us for a second."
A cold snort could be heard from her as she sneered at the four of them and said, "Goes to show how truly foolish you all are. Don't you know if the saying, the early bird gets the worm? Shopping early in the morning allows us to get first picks at all of the wares the city shops may have. If we wait then who knows what treasures we might miss while just dilly dallying around!"
Before any of them could rebut her words, she had already approached Xue Chang and and grabbed him by the collar.
"If you won't come with me by yourselves then I'll just have to make you!" And with a heaven she tried to lift up Xue Chang.
Yet to her surprise, he didn't even budge.
She didn't use all of her strength at first in fear of injuring him, but now she gave another tug using even more of her strength. Yet it was like lifting lead as no matter how much she pulled she couldn't even feel him give way.
Sighing to himself, Xue Chang stood up on his own volition and slowly removed Lou Ning's arms from his robes.
"Well we were just finishing up our food anyway. And I was just getting bored, so a little shopping might do us some good. Plus I have some old friends to visit."
Thinking of the face of the steam bun vendor when he witnesses Xue Chang's return, Xue Chang chuckled quietly to himself as he prepared to leave the house.
Tian Hai had already explained to truth about the situation to Xue Chang in private a while ago. But even so, Xue Chang didn't really mind.
It wasn't like he was trying to hide from o hers. He just didn't plan to explain things when he didn't have to. Plus he already offered them a chance to stay in his house, he couldn't just take his word back now.
Of course he would be lying if he said the sack of gold sitting nearby them wasn't part of the reason why he allowed them to stay.
He was taking a break from his other identity for the time being and as such needed a new source of income.
"Maybe renting out a few rooms isn't such a bad deal after all."
Now it was nearly the middle of the day and they had visited a couple of places already. And as they continued to walk from shop to shop, they eventually reached a certain street that Xue Chang was familiar with.
You guys wait here, I'll be right back!
Without another word, he rushed forward without making a sound and snuck up to a certain little shop on the corner of the street.
The air, damp with steam, had a familiar scent that wafted into his nostrils. With his stomach growling in agitation, he walked toward the pile of steamed buns stacked on top of one another in a pyramid shape.
With a mischievous grin on his face, he reached out and was about to grab one of the hot steamy buns. But before he could even come close to touching one, a thick metal ladle bopped his head lightly.
Looking up without losing his smile, Xue Chang saw the steam bun vendor once again.
"Look what I caught here, a little thief."
"Long time but see Bun Uncle!"
________
A couple of minutes later, Tian Hai, Lou Ning, and the others caught up to where Xue Chang had ran off two.
They arrived to find him on the ground with a large white bun shoved into his mouth.
"Don't you enjoy taking my products!? Here, take more TAKE MORE!"
An older man with an apron wrapped around his waist stood over Xue Chang tossing buns down at him.
While Lou Lan and Lou Ning were completely bewildered by the sequence of events, Tian Hai and Tian Kai just looked on with a "he had it coming" look.
Seeing his friends and new acquaintances arrive on the scene, Xue Chang immediately spat out all the buns in his mouth and hopped to his feet merrily.
"You guys are finally here! This man is an old friend of mine, he's a popular bun maker in the city. And his buns really are the best in my opinion."
Lou Lan, although still confused, approached the man and greeted him politely, "Hello sir, I'm Lou Lan."
With him taking leading, everyone began to introduce themselves to one another.
Afterwords they got together and purchased a couple of buns from the man before having some idle chatter.
"You certainly seem to be doing well for yourself."
Lou Lan couldn't help but comment on how many people were buying food from Uncle Bun's stand, as time passed the crowd only continued to grow and he only got a break whenever he ran out of food and had to close down to make more for a short period of time.
"Yeah, things have been pretty crazy these days, especially with all of those rich people coming over to our city for the auction."
"Auction?"
Being surrounded by people often, Uncle Bun was someone who could make casual talk with anyone. As such his circle of information was much wider than most people would expect, as such he was sometimes privy to some news and rumors other people usually wouldn't know of.
"You didn't know? Supposedly, the guild in this city had found a large pool of condensed earth fire. Now I'm not sure what the hell that is exactly, but what I do know is that from what people say it is worth a ton of money. But it is hard to find the market price for something like this. As such, some high ranking people have decided that they were going to hold an auction to sell off some of it, that way they might be able to get a grasp on its true worth when they officially sell off the rest later."
Hearing the words of Uncle Bun, a glint of excitement could be seen within Lou Lan's eyes. Looking over toward Lou Ning, he gave off a brilliant smile and said, "Change of plans, we are going to that auction!"