Chapter 2302 — Back at the Inn

"Yes, Father!" Tagan Gao thought it over, and it was indeed so—one look at the anxious faces of the Sixth and the Twelfth was enough to tell him they cared more about Tagan Long's safety.

"That reminds me—where has Lazi gone? Why isn't he back yet?" Tagan Gan suddenly thought of Lazi. Hadn't the fellow gone off to find the Twelfth Elder and the others? So why had the Twelfth returned while Lazi had not?

"Right—Lazi ought to know more than any of us. Where is the boy?" Tagan Gao was taken aback as well. He turned to the Second Protector and the Third Protector and asked, "Didn't Lazi come back with you?"

"Lazi? No," the Second Protector said, looking puzzled. "Lazi only phoned us to say that Tagan Long had been wounded by Zhang Naipao. Isn't he here at the estate?"

"What? He phoned you? But you were in the Wulonghaote Mountains—there's no signal out there..." The moment Tagan Gao heard this, he sensed something was off.

"The Wulonghaote Mountains? We weren't in the Wulonghaote Mountains," the Second Protector said, frowning. "Zhang Naipao came down the mountain earlier, and the Third, the Twelfth Elder, and I went after him together, so the phones worked fine..."

"This is bad! Call Lazi at once and ask him where he is!" The more Tagan Gao thought, the more wrong it seemed.

"Right!" The Second Protector snatched up his phone and dialed Lazi's number—but the voice on the other end informed him the phone was switched off! His expression changed at once. "It's off..."

"That Lazi—there's definitely something wrong with him!" Tagan Gan's face changed too. He recalled that he himself had not seen the enemy, yet Lazi had, and even knew it was Zhang Naipao's doing. If the man were clean, why would Wei Zhao have left him alive?

Or else—Lazi had long since discovered that Wei Zhao and Tagan Long were fighting. Why hadn't he warned the clan in advance?

"Investigate! Dig up eighteen generations of Lazi's ancestors and drag him back here!" Tagan Gao's expression was ugly as well. The affairs of the Tagan clan were now in his hands; he was the clan head. Though he had no say in Tagan Long's cultivation or in great matters—that was the First Protector's domain—the businesses were all his to run, and Lazi had been working for him, in a manner of speaking. How could he not be furious that something had gone wrong?

But Lazi, having dared to flee, was naturally unafraid of any investigation. His identity was all fake—even the name "Lazi" he had casually invented while reading a web novel. However great the Tagan clan's power in Ruileida Town, Lazi had fled to the border town, and once out of Ruileida Town, the Tagan clan could do nothing to him.

Wei Zhao's injuries were not especially severe, but neither were they light. Tagan Long's martial skill was truly formidable, beyond anything Wei Zhao had imagined. Once he reached the border town, Wei Zhao quickly made his way back to the inn where he had stayed before—the place he and Sun Jingyan had agreed upon.

And there at the inn's entrance, Wei Zhao dialed Sun Jingyan's number.

"Wei Zhao?" Sun Jingyan picked up quickly, startled and overjoyed. She had been worrying about him all along, yet dared not call at random for fear of disturbing him. Since returning to the inn, she had lived every day on tenterhooks, unable even to sleep soundly at night.

"It's me. I'm back in the border town. Where are you?" Wei Zhao asked.

"I'm at the inn we agreed on—room 302. And you?" Hearing that Wei Zhao was safe, Sun Jingyan let out a breath of relief.

"I'm near the inn. Coming up now." Wei Zhao said no more and hung up.

Entering the inn, Wei Zhao told the innkeeper the room number and went straight upstairs to the door of room 302. He knocked.

"Who is it?" Though Sun Jingyan suspected it was Wei Zhao, she still asked cautiously. She was no cultivator, after all, and when someone knocked in the middle of the night, she had to take a little care.

"It's me," Wei Zhao said.

Sun Jingyan hurried to open the door—and found Wei Zhao's face deathly pale. Outwardly he seemed normal enough, yet Sun Jingyan could sense that he must be very weak. "You're hurt?"

"Yes, wounded. I need to heal." Wei Zhao nodded.

Sun Jingyan let him in, double-locked the door, and then said, "Is there anything I can do?"

"Just get me a wet towel to wipe my face." With that, Wei Zhao sat cross-legged on the bed of his own accord, circulated the second layer of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art, and began to heal himself.

Vast true qi poured ceaselessly from the jade pendant's space into Wei Zhao's meridians, repairing his injured body and bringing him immediate relief—yet in his heart he felt all the more shocked and frightened in hindsight. Thank heavens Tagan Long was only an early Earth-Rank expert; had his strength been a little greater, the one gravely wounded today would surely have been Wei Zhao himself!

Though he had kept the thought of flight in mind and could probably have escaped in the end, it would never have been so easy.

Sun Jingyan fetched a towel from the bathroom, wet it, and came back meaning to hand it to Wei Zhao—but seeing that he had already sat cross-legged on the bed and begun healing through his art, she did not disturb him. Instead she took the towel herself and began to wipe his face...

Gazing at Wei Zhao's pallid face, Sun Jingyan felt a strange stirring in her heart. Gratitude? Guilt? Or something else?

To Sun Jingyan's mind, Wei Zhao must surely have been wounded so badly because of her. She had used the Thousand-Silk Mask to slip past the Tagan clan's search, while Wei Zhao had been forced to fight his way out. And with the Tagan clan's experts gathered thick as clouds, that Wei Zhao had escaped with his life at all was a blessing among misfortunes—yet still Sun Jingyan felt she had wronged him.

At the very beginning, when she had called Wei Zhao her lover, there had been a certain intent to make use of him. But later, as the two grew familiar and their bond drew closer, "lover" became a joke between them. And now, Sun Jingyan felt an urge to truly become Wei Zhao's lover!

A man who would give so much for you—even if only from the standpoint of a friend—moved Sun Jingyan to the depths of her heart! Never, from childhood to now, had anyone done so much for her!

Her parents had passed away early, so she had been independent since childhood. Though the old master of the Sun family doted on her somewhat, Sun Jingyan had still formed the habit of handling her own affairs. Only after Wei Zhao appeared did she realize that some things she truly could not do alone—and that at her side, she truly needed a man... (To be continued) RQ