Chapter 786 — Xiaoke's Boyfriend?

Wei Zhao quietly set the Xuan Yuan Dragon-Taming Art circulating within him, and the energy born inside his body poured in an unbroken stream into Yu Xiaoke. Her injuries were in truth not severe, and the amount required was not great, so Wei Zhao felt no dizziness or exhaustion; before long, color returned to Yu Xiaoke's cheeks.

The old woman's eyes went wide with shock. Wei Zhao had done nothing but hold Yu Xiaoke's hand, yet Yu Xiaoke's condition was steadily improving? How could that be? It defied all reason.

Suddenly, a frightening possibility came to the old woman's mind... When she was young, she too had suffered a grave injury; not only had her martial arts been crippled by another, but her whole person had been left hanging by a thread. To keep her alive, her master had passed on the cultivation of a lifetime to her through the transmission method.

And after the transmission, her master was like a lamp with its oil spent and its wick burned out, walking toward the end of her life.

The old woman was deeply grateful to her master, and it was through this that she had come to understand the strange and almost unbelievable business of transmitting cultivation. Could it be that Wei Zhao was now transmitting cultivation to Yu Xiaoke as well?

What exactly was the relationship between Wei Zhao and Yu Xiaoke, that Wei Zhao could do such a thing? What kind of sacrifice was this—could ordinary friendship accomplish it? If it were the old woman herself, and Yu Xiaoke lay injured beyond cure, she could without hesitation give up her own life to save Yu Xiaoke's—but that was only because she was Yu Xiaoke's master, and the bond between master and disciple ran deep.

But why should Wei Zhao make such a sacrifice? Could it be that Wei Zhao was the boyfriend of this child Yu Xiaoke? The old woman suddenly struck upon this possibility and began to wonder. If not, then on what grounds would Wei Zhao sacrifice himself to save Yu Xiaoke? Was he a fool?

Once the thought took hold, the old woman grew ever more certain of her guess. Yu Xiaoke was eighteen this year, after all, old enough for love. She herself had overlooked the matter, still treating the girl as a child—but in truth, Yu Xiaoke was no longer small.

And the pressure Yu Xiaoke bore every day was simply too great. Supporting an orphanage all on her own was too hard and too exhausting; with the comfort of affection, her burden might at least be eased a little.

Of course, the old woman's standards for Yu Xiaoke's boyfriend were strict. But now, seeing Wei Zhao use his true qi to save Yu Xiaoke, she dismissed her doubts about his character at once. If he did not truly care for Xiaoke, who on earth would go to such lengths?

"Phew..." Wei Zhao let out a long breath and released Yu Xiaoke's hand.

The true qi Yu Xiaoke required was far less than what Feng Xiaoxiao, Gu Mengyao, or General Weiwu had needed, so although Wei Zhao had lost some true qi, to him it was no more than a drop in the bucket.

"There, she should wake before long." Wei Zhao let out a breath of relief. He had his own standards for how to conduct himself; though he could help Qiu Lingshan solve her case, he could just as well thwart Qiu Lingshan's pursuit of Yu Xiaoke. "I'll be going now."

"What? You're leaving already?" The old woman was truly baffled now. What baffled her, first of all, was that after using his true qi to save Yu Xiaoke, Wei Zhao neither flushed nor panted—which struck the old woman as very strange.

There were only two possibilities for such a thing. One was that Wei Zhao's strength far exceeded anything she could imagine. The other was that what Wei Zhao had used was not true qi at all—then what was it?

The second thing that baffled the old woman was this: Wei Zhao had spent such effort to save Yu Xiaoke, and by any normal reckoning he ought to be waiting for her to wake, at which point Yu Xiaoke would surely be touched beyond measure.

That was what ought to happen between a young couple under normal circumstances, was it not? Yet Wei Zhao seemed not to care at all.

"I have other business, so I'll be off." Wei Zhao nodded. "By the way, if Qiu Lingshan keeps giving her trouble and won't let it go, have her call me. This is my number..."

With that, Wei Zhao wrote a string of digits on the calendar beside Yu Xiaoke's bed.

"Wait a moment... may I ask, just now when you treated Yu Xiaoke, was it true qi you used?" The old woman voiced the doubt in her heart.

"You could say so." Wei Zhao nodded.

"Your true qi—Yu Xiaoke can use it?" Though the old woman's strength was not great, she knew that between different schools and methods, the similarity of true qi was nearly nil and could not be shared. To force it into another's body would not only fail to benefit them but do great harm.

"She can." Wei Zhao said, "Very well, I'll be going now."

With that, paying the old woman no further heed, he turned and walked straight out of Yu Xiaoke's room.

Wei Zhao and Yu Xiaoke were in truth not well acquainted, and with the old woman even less so. So where helping Yu Xiaoke was concerned, for Wei Zhao to have done what he had was already quite good enough.

Wei Zhao helped Yu Xiaoke this way also because he admired the girl. Life was hard for her, yet she remained cheerful, finding joy in hardship nearly every day. She had stolen so much money, yet never spent a cent on herself. She wore the cheapest clothes from street stalls, and her room was pitifully simple: rusted iron window bars, a battered old desk, not even a decent wardrobe. Her only luxury, perhaps, was the computer on the desk!

Its bulky monitor was long obsolete, the case was missing a side panel, and the keyboard and mouse were of the oldest design. Yet all of it was wiped spotlessly clean. Someone must have discarded it and donated it, he supposed.

And for a young, pretty girl, the essential things - cosmetics, a dressing table, a wardrobe - were nowhere to be seen in Yu Xiaoke's room. Apart from a bottle of Dabao lotion on the desk that counted as skincare, there was only a tin of hand cream in a shell case, the kind rarely seen anymore.

It was hard for Wei Zhao to imagine how the girl lived day after day. All that money, and she had never once been tempted?

As for a wardrobe, there was only a large cardboard box on the floor, holding a few scattered garments - pitifully few. Apart from underclothes, there were just two or three changes of outer clothing. It really was rather sad.

So if he could, Wei Zhao would not begrudge Yu Xiaoke his help - not for Yu Xiaoke alone, but for all the children in the orphanage!

Wei Zhao stepped out of Yu Xiaoke's room and saw the boy called Xiaoken lurking furtively not far off, peeking around. Realizing he had been spotted, the boy stopped hiding and came out looking embarrassed. "Brother, I'm sorry. I was wrong about you..."