Chapter 2429 — The Gambler's Call

No sooner said than done: after resting a brief moment, Wei Zhao began circulating the mental formula and mnemonic of the Wildfire Fist, triggering it from the first form onward — first form, second form… all the way to the sixth with smooth sailing, and at last Wei Zhao set about triggering the seventh form of the Wildfire Fist!

"Boom!"

"Whoosh…" After the seventh form of the Wildfire Fist was successfully triggered, Wei Zhao let out a long breath. Though the seventh form had finally been unleashed in one continuous flow, in Wei Zhao's eyes it was far from perfect — barely triggered at best.

This was a far cry from the flawless execution of the sixth form before it. It would take at least some time to adapt; otherwise, though its power was great, it could not bring out the might the seventh form ought to have.

Once it ended, Wei Zhao tried triggering the seventh form of the Wildfire Fist on its own. This time he could just barely force it out, but its power was far weaker than when unleashed in one continuous flow — only a shade stronger than the sixth form.

It seemed the seventh form still needed practice! He supposed it was because he had only just broken through to the peak of the mid Earth Rank; the Resting Grass had shored up his strength, but after all, it had been far too short a time since the breakthrough. To be able to force out the seventh form at all was already no small feat.

Still, Wei Zhao was not too disappointed. Since he could trigger the seventh form of the Wildfire Fist, all that remained was to grow proficient with it over time. Next, Wei Zhao would try the Wildfire Eight Trigrams Palm!

To no surprise at all, Wei Zhao triggered the sixth form of the Wildfire Eight Trigrams Palm without a hitch, but when it came to the seventh form, he simply could not bring it out no matter what. Fortunately, Wei Zhao had been prepared for this. He began from the first form of the Wildfire Eight Trigrams Palm and triggered them one after another — second form, third form, all the way through the sixth — and then made ready to trigger the seventh in one continuous burst.

This time, however, Wei Zhao was disappointed. The seventh form of the Wildfire Eight Trigrams Palm he had imagined did not come out in one continuous flow. It failed!

It seemed the seventh form of the Wildfire Eight Trigrams Palm corresponded to the seventh form of the Wildfire Fist. Since Wei Zhao could not yet proficiently trigger the seventh form of the Wildfire Fist, it was only natural that he could not fuse the Five Elements Eight Trigrams Palm with it!

Most likely, only a martial art one could trigger with complete mastery could be fused with a new one. If both were half-baked, fusion would probably be impossible.

At that thought, Wei Zhao gave up further experimentation. Once he could proficiently trigger the seventh form of the Wildfire Fist, he would naturally be able to successfully trigger the seventh form of the Wildfire Eight Trigrams Palm.

Wei Zhao wiped the sweat from his brow and was just about to return to the villa for a rest when his phone began to ring.

Taking out his phone, Wei Zhao frowned: it was an unfamiliar number.

"Hello?" Wei Zhao answered.

"Hello, this is Gambler Bro!" Gambler Bro said cautiously. "May I ask… is this Brother Goodhand?"

"Brother Goodhand?" Wei Zhao was briefly taken aback before he realized he had never told Gambler Bro his name, and the account he had given him was anonymous too — naturally the man would not know his name! So he said, "Gambler Bro, is all your money ready?"

"Yes, Brother Goodhand. Thank you for the grace period — my money is all ready…" As Gambler Bro said this, his heart was bleeding. After all, it had taken him most of a lifetime to claw his way up from a street thug to a casino owner. He had taken enormous risks and earned money for so long, and had only accumulated assets worth around a hundred million — and of course those assets were not cash, but properties and stocks he had invested in here and there.

Now Wei Zhao had demanded another twenty million all at once. Gambler Bro naturally could not produce that much cash on the spot; with no other choice, he had sold off several properties and, scraping and borrowing, cobbled together enough to transfer that hefty sum into Wei Zhao's account.

He did not dare welch on the debt. Among that group there was a Heaven Rank expert, and they did not even flinch at the name of the hidden Zhao family — these people were clearly not to be trifled with, so Gambler Bro gritted his teeth and paid.

"Mm, not bad — you keep your word." Wei Zhao had not expected Gambler Bro to be so proper about it, handing over the money as promised. Wei Zhao had many outstanding debts out there, but none of them had been collected — the hidden Zhao family's, for instance, and the Yu family's. Those people clearly meant to stall forever, and they had been his enemies all along; Wei Zhao knew he would never get the money back, so whenever he had the chance he would strike at them.

Just as a few days ago, Old Man Bi had been crippled. If they had paid up readily and pushed Zhao Qilei onto the position of family head, perhaps Wei Zhao would have let them off — after all, the hidden Pi family and the mundane Wu family, who had once opposed him, had both been spared once they submitted to him.

In that light, Wei Zhao was still a rather reasonable man.

"Heh…" Gambler Bro gave a helpless laugh.

"By the way, after we left, did Leader Zhu of the Zhao family come looking for you?" Wei Zhao asked.

"He did… why do you ask?" Gambler Bro was slightly startled, not understanding why Wei Zhao had suddenly brought this up.

"Seeing as you paid up so readily, I'll give you a warning." Wei Zhao said, "Get your casino sold off as quickly as you can, before it brings down some undeserved disaster on you."

"Oh?" Gambler Bro was taken aback, but he felt Wei Zhao was not one to shoot at random — there must be grounds for those words. So he asked cautiously, "Brother Goodhand, what do you mean?"

"The hidden Zhao family has lost a man, and they dare not make trouble for me — but I'm afraid your side…" Wei Zhao did not spell it out too plainly, since it was only his guess. "Work it out for yourself."

"Hiss— thank you!" A cold sweat broke out across Gambler Bro's back with a rush. He had not thought that far before, but now, mulling over Wei Zhao's words, was that not exactly how it was?

Earlier, Leader Zhu had come here, asked him some questions and given him some instructions. At the time Gambler Bro had not thought much of it, but now, following Wei Zhao's line of reasoning, he instantly sensed something was wrong — no matter how he looked at it, Leader Zhu had seemed to be steering him into taking the blame onto the casino!

"Think nothing of it." Wei Zhao had not expected Gambler Bro to be quite so clever, grasping the point at a single touch. But naturally he did not know that Gambler Bro had only reached his decision so quickly because of the connection he had drawn to Leader Zhu's words. (To be continued..)

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