This entry is suspicious.

Zhou Ran closed the wooden box and put it in his pocket.

These forbidden items, crafted by the eerie and deadly, belong to the most elite category of forbidden items. Each piece is priceless because they possess an absurd advantage—zero consumption and zero risk.

There's no need to elaborate on the magical treasures of the immortal path. Regardless of their grade, they all require true qi, spiritual power, and divine thought to activate. Even with the advanced technology of the immortal path today, which allows for the installation of built-in power furnaces, there will always be a moment when their energy is exhausted.

Forbidden and bizarre items usually have strict conditions for use and terrifying side effects, such as shortening one's lifespan, causing blood loss, being cursed, being plagued by bad luck, or the random death of a relative after using them once.

If the forbidden item is made from something that is active or dormant in a strange way, you must always be careful to prevent it from reviving.

The root cause is that the strange forces within it are always active.

However, forbidden objects made by the Dead Silence and the Strange are different. This state is equivalent to the Strange being dead, so the Strange power will also fall into permanent dormancy. Therefore, there is no need to worry about consumption when using it, nor is there any risk of the Strange being resurrected.

The only thing to be careful about is that even supernatural powers have their limits; overuse could lead to the destruction and annihilation of the forbidden object.

This is clearly not a drawback.

Zhou Ran was overjoyed to have unexpectedly obtained a forbidden item, and quickened his pace, fantasizing about finding a few more good items next.

However, even after examining all the antiques, the Book of Fate remained completely unresponsive, indicating that there was nothing supernatural about these antiques anymore.

However, there may still be some obscured magical artifacts and forbidden items.

So Zhou Ran activated the [Eye of Truth] and watched it all over again from beginning to end.

This collection of antiques spans a vast historical period, from the 5,000th year of the old calendar to the 300th year of the new calendar, covering more than 5,000 years. As a result, there are many objects with distinct styles and era characteristics, and even some ancient technological creations.

—The mirage bracelet we just saw was an object from the Gregorian calendar, which is over two hundred years old. It's only about four hundred years old now.

The strange powers appeared after the Great Cataclysm, so all the forbidden and strange items have a history of only about six hundred years.

If artifacts related to supernatural forces could be unearthed from even older layers of civilization, the historical community, the field of supernatural studies, and even the entire world would be in an uproar.

Not long after, Zhou Ran stopped again in front of a long, narrow wooden box.

Inside the wooden box lay a rusty longsword, still covered in lingering dust, weathered and looking very old.

However, from the unique perspective provided by the [Eye of Truth], this seemingly decaying longsword is filled with violent purple lightning, so intense and dazzling that it hurts the eyes.

A... dusty magical artifact!

Zhou Ran's breath hitched, and then he fired two more shots!

Shen Fei, the drop rate in your warehouse is really high!

He was both surprised and delighted, and quickly closed the wooden box and hugged it to his arms. This was truly a great harvest!

But before he had taken more than a few steps, Zhou Ran suddenly stopped, staring in astonishment at the batch of antiques in front of him.

Judging from the serial numbers printed on the wooden box, this is an antique unearthed from the same batch as the longsword, all of which are weapons. In the observation of the [Eye of Truth], they all emit a halo of light, some strong and some weak.

Surprisingly... every single one of them is a magical artifact!

Is this the battlefield remnant of the ancient immortal cultivators' great battle?

Zhou Ran examined these weapons and magical artifacts one by one. Unfortunately, most of them were covered in cracks and severely damaged. The energy they emitted was nowhere near as powerful as the Purple Lightning Longsword. Some were as dim as candles in the wind, almost extinguished, having lost all their spirituality and could turn into a pile of scrap metal at any moment.

My excitement was immediately dampened.

Forget it, I shouldn't try to do too much at once. I'll just choose this one.

Before long, Song Ci finished selecting her reward. She relied entirely on her own eyesight to identify the items, and she chose a jade ruyi-shaped magic treasure. It was smooth and lustrous, with a faint shimmering light, and its condition was quite good.

Zhou Ran wasn't too surprised. Rich kids and elite children naturally have some knowledge of various antiques and magical artifacts from a young age, so it's not surprising that they can pick out good items.

"Why are you picking out a bracelet that women wear? Are you giving it as a gift?"

When Song Ci saw that Zhou Ran had taken out a bracelet, she couldn't help but ask him a question.

"My intuition tells me this bracelet is a treasure."

"Where is the baby?"

"I don't know, I have to test it slowly."

"...Is it possible that this is just an ordinary bracelet?"

"Impossible, absolutely impossible." Zhou Ran shook his head decisively. "My intuition has always been very accurate."

"Really?" Song Ci asked, half believing it.

"I hope you'll never need it," Zhou Ran said mysteriously.

Song Ci understood the implied meaning in those words, and his curiosity grew even stronger. He subconsciously glanced at the bracelet a few more times, but still couldn't see anything special about it.

"Have you made your choices? Let's go then." Shen Fei gestured for the two to leave.

Just as the three were about to leave, the warehouse door suddenly opened, and a young man in a suit and tie led a group of people in, chatting and laughing.

There were quite a few of them, twenty or thirty people. Apart from about ten adults, the rest were all young people. A few looked like college students, but most were teenagers who looked like high school students, clearly brought out by their elders to socialize and broaden their horizons.

There are only so many elite children in Qinghe City, and each family's children have met each other more or less on a regular basis. With a quick glance, Song Ci recognized several familiar faces in the crowd.

Zhou Ran also saw a familiar face – Wei Si.

Wei Si also saw him and raised an eyebrow in surprise, clearly not expecting to run into Zhou Ran here. Zhou Ran was equally surprised, and the two looked at each other, both somewhat taken aback.

"Xiao Fei, what are you doing here?"

The young man in the suit couldn't hide his surprise when he saw Shen Fei. He was Shen Fei's second brother, named Shen Tu.

In his memory, wasn't this kid a hardcore otaku? He basically never left the house except for going to school and comic conventions. Why is he at the warehouse today? Did the sun rise in the west?

Dozens of eyes fell on him at once, making Shen Fei feel extremely uncomfortable. He forced a dry explanation: "I brought some friends to pick up some antiques to play with... This is Song Ci, and this is Zhou Ran, they are both my classmates."

"I see." Shen Tu smiled and turned to the elders beside him, introducing them naturally, "Uncles, this is my fourth brother, Shen Fei, who is currently studying at Xiandao No. 1 Middle School. He's usually a homebody, so this is probably the first time you've met him."

"So this is your fourth child."

An elder smiled and sized up Shen Fei for a moment, a strange thought creeping into his mind: why are his dark circles so heavy? He looks so weak. But he didn't say it aloud: "Young man, you must study hard and strive to get into the top ten, to bring honor to your parents."

"Definitely, definitely," Shen Fei replied with a forced smile.

"Alright, I won't take up any more of your time. You can go back to your work." Shen Tu gave Shen Fei a wink, signaling that he could leave with his men.

"Okay, we'll be going now. Goodbye, Uncle and Aunt."

Shen Fei felt as if he had been granted a pardon and was about to slip away as if his feet were greased.

Song Ci also called out, after all, there were some acquaintances inside, and she couldn't be impolite. Then she greeted a few high school students she knew.

Zhou Ran walked past them calmly when someone suddenly called out to him, "Hey buddy, wait a minute, you look familiar."

"Huh? Me?" Zhou Ran stopped and stared at the other person, a boy who looked like a high school student. He was dressed in a way that suggested he came from a well-off family, but Zhou Ran didn't recognize him.

"Let me think..." The high school boy pondered for a moment, then suddenly clapped his hands: "Your name is Zhou Ran, right? There's still your file in the group."

"Pan?" Zhou Ran was completely confused and didn't understand at all.

"It's a betting odds game!" the boy explained enthusiastically. "Didn't you want to face off against Zhao Ting in the monthly exam? Someone's set up a betting odds game to guess who will win between you two, and your odds are a whopping 9.1!"

"Oh, I remember now!" Someone next to him slapped their forehead. "It was you? So you were the one who provoked Zhao Ting?"

Has this incident become such a big deal? Zhou Ran was slightly taken aback, not expecting so many people to know about it. After all, these people weren't students from Immortal Path No. 1 High School, and they even had offline gambling operations?

"Hey bro, give me a hint, can you beat Zhao Ting?" the boy asked, leaning closer.

"Guaranteed to win."

Zhou Ran didn't take Zhao Ting seriously at all. His mastery of the "Hundred Solutions to Strength" technique, combined with the "Great Strength" skill, was simply bullying a child.

"Really? Then I'm going to bet my entire fortune on you to win."

"Go all in, I'll make your pocket money multiply a hundredfold."

Zhou Ran pondered whether he should participate in the gambling and make a fortune.

"Alright, alright, we have something to do, we'll be going now."

Song Ci pulled Zhou Ran outside. This kid started stirring things up again. If Zhao Ting found out, he might cause trouble again and add more problems. Why can't we just deal with it during the monthly exam?

"etc."

Wei Si suddenly called out to them, "Zhou Ran, come here."

"Huh?" Song Ci was taken aback. Wasn't this Uncle Wei Si, the leader of the third team of the response bureau? How did he know Zhou Ran?

She then thought of the Pearl Hotel incident, in which Zhou Ran was personally involved, so it wasn't surprising that the two knew each other.

However, the others present were unaware of this relationship.

Both the adults and the group of young people turned their gazes toward Zhou Ran, their faces filled with astonishment.

Who is Wei Si? He is a Foundation Establishment cultivator, the leader of the response team, and a person of great power and influence. It took them a long time of persuasion to get him to participate in this meeting. And such a big shot actually knows Zhou Ran?

Even Shen Tu was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously looked at his fourth brother with a questioning look in his eyes: What is the background of your classmate?

Shen Fei was completely dumbfounded.

While everyone was still in shock, Zhou Ran and Wei Si had already arrived at the side.

Wei Si's true energy surged, forming a barrier against peeping and eavesdropping that enveloped the two of them.

"This is our third meeting," Wei Si said.

"So?" Zhou Ran didn't understand what this sentence meant.

Wei Si didn't explain, but instead said, "Do you want to know what happened next in the Pearl Hotel incident?"