Chapter 902 — Finally Awake

"All right..." Gu Mengyao nodded, which served as her answer to Gu Pengzhan's suggestion.

Gu Pengzhan shook his head, turned, and left the villa.

Time slipped by, second by second. In the blink of an eye it was past one in the morning, and yet none of the three girls felt the least bit sleepy.

"Gu Mengyao, Shen Yushu, why don't you two go and rest first? I'll wait here for Wei Zhao by myself, you don't have to keep me company..." Tang Zhi looked at Shen Yushu, who was yawning again and again yet still had her eyes wide open, and felt sorry for her — she looked like she could use a matchstick propping up each eyelid.

"Who says we're keeping you company? We're waiting for Wei Zhao to wake up too — after all, he got hurt because of us..." Gu Mengyao said with a bitter smile after hearing Tang Zhi's words.

"Yeah, yeah, we care about Brother Arrow even more than you do!" Shen Yushu nodded as well.

"Hah... I'm afraid if all three of us keep this up, sooner or later none of us will be able to hold out," Tang Zhi explained somewhat helplessly. "We can go one day without sleep, and two days we can just barely manage, but by the third day we'll have to sleep, won't we? What if we all doze off, and Wei Zhao wakes up right then and needs our help, and there's no one to be found — what then?"

"Put that way, you do have a point..." Gu Mengyao nodded after hearing Tang Zhi out. "In that case, why don't we take shifts? One person sleeps while the other two stand watch — how about that?"

"That's what I was thinking too..." Tang Zhi agreed. "Shen Yushu, you seem to be the sleepiest — why don't you go rest first?"

"No, you go first, I'm not sleepy, I'm not sleepy... yawn..." Shen Yushu yawned again. Her constitution was in fact none too strong, which was also why, the last time Zhong Yongliang had locked them in that cave, she had not held out as long as Gu Mengyao.

"Xiaoshu, go to sleep. Be a good girl!" Gu Mengyao ordered her.

"Oh... all right then." Shen Yushu really was sleepy. Now that they had reached a consensus, there was no need for her to force herself to stay awake — resting now was so that she could wait for Brother Arrow with more energy later...

Yawning, Shen Yushu went upstairs... General Weiwu seemed to sense the tense atmosphere in the living room as well; he raised his head to glance at Shen Yushu, then lay back down in place and did not move...

Three days. The three girls lost count of how many times they had swapped places, and no one bothered to keep track. Whenever one woke, another went to sleep, over and over, round and round. Who knew how many cups of instant noodles they had eaten; dawn came and darkness fell again...

At last, some movement came from Wei Zhao's room!

At that moment Tang Zhi and Shen Yushu were on watch. Hearing the sound, they scrambled to their feet and rushed toward Wei Zhao's room.

Neither of them dared make any loud noise, however. When they reached the door of Wei Zhao's room, anxious as they were, they still opened the door gently and carefully, and cautiously peered toward the direction of Wei Zhao's sickbed...

Wei Zhao's eyelashes twitched. His eyelids were terribly heavy, but at last he struggled them open...

"Phew!" Wei Zhao let out a long breath. He had finally woken up! This had been the hardest time of all since he was injured! Before, at most a single night had been enough for his strength to recover by seven or eight tenths, or even to improve slightly! But this time, merely repairing the injuries to his body had taken three days and three nights, and his own strength had not recovered in the slightest!

Running the inner-energy method of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art, Wei Zhao discovered, somewhat bitterly, that the meridians within his body were still in a damaged state, and that there was not a trace of energy he could call upon. In other words, he was now no different from an ordinary person!

Though he had long since come to terms with it inside the jade pendant, Wei Zhao, back in the real world, still felt a touch of disappointment — to go from a skilled fighter to an ordinary man in the space of a single instant! Yet Wei Zhao did not regret it!

Under the circumstances at the time, Wei Zhao had had no choice. Without using the energy bomb, he had stood no chance of winning whatsoever!

Ma Zhu was an oddity among external-school experts; what he practiced was the Golden Bell Shield, which made him impervious to blades and spears. On top of that, Wei Zhao was two grades below him in strength. An internal-school expert at the peak of the early Mystic rank could still handle an external-school expert at the mid Mystic rank, but against an external-school expert at the peak of the mid Mystic rank he would struggle — and Ma Zhu was a madman besides.

With no chance of victory whatsoever, Wei Zhao could only stake everything, throwing himself into a deadly situation in the hope of coming out alive!

If, as Jiao Yazi had said, he had kept back a third of his energy to repair his meridians, would the energy bomb formed from the remaining two-thirds have dealt Ma Zhu the same damage? Wei Zhao could not be sure...

Even a hundred-percent energy bomb had failed to kill Ma Zhu — it had only blown off one of his arms. What, then, could a bomb at two-thirds strength possibly do to him? And if that single strike failed, Wei Zhao would have squandered two-thirds of his energy for nothing, while the remaining one-third would be of no use at all!

So if that scene were to play out again, Wei Zhao would still make the same choice!

Heh. All things considered, he supposed he had been a competent enough follower. True, when Gu Pengzhan first hired him, the man's main intent had merely been to have someone accompany the young miss through her studies and daily life, not to serve as a full-time bodyguard — but Wei Zhao was a stubborn man! In what he did, he looked not to money but to loyalty and friendship!

If he had not come to feel something for the young miss and Xiaoshu, would Wei Zhao have risked his life fighting someone for thirty thousand yuan? That would have been impossible!

"Wei Zhao, you're awake?" Tang Zhi ran over, a note of joyful surprise in her voice.

Shen Yushu was not about to be outdone; she too hurried over at a quick pace to claim her share of the credit: "I knew Brother Arrow would be fine — he's the most amazing, isn't he!"

"Heh..." Though Wei Zhao had been unconscious before, he had still been able to sense what was happening in the outside world afterward; he simply had no way to force himself awake, because his body was far too weak. Only after his injuries had been thoroughly healed did he finally come to: "You've had a hard time of it! Thank you — for staying with me three days and three nights!"

"Huh?" Hearing Wei Zhao's words, both Tang Zhi and Shen Yushu were stunned! How did Wei Zhao know that they had stayed with him for three days and three nights?

"Though I seemed unconscious on the surface, I was awake the whole time!" Wei Zhao said. "Heh, this time, you two can finally get some proper rest, can't you?"

"We're not tired..." Tang Zhi shook her head.

"That's right, Brother Arrow, you must be hungry, aren't you? What do you want to eat? I'll go make it for you!" Shen Yushu said.

"Heh, I don't want to eat anything. I want to rest a while longer. You two go rest as well — otherwise, if you make any noise, it'll disturb me." Looking at the red rims around Tang Zhi's and Shen Yushu's eyes, Wei Zhao knew they had not rested properly at all; the only way to make them go rest was to say this.