Chapter 2698 — Tang Yuqi's Invitation

Getting Yu Xiaoke to fall for Wei Zhao—now that would be a challenge of the highest difficulty. Wei Zhao thought it sounded like a rather good game.

To be honest, Wei Zhao really did like Yu Xiaoke quite a lot, and he worried about letting her go on the way she was. That little firebrand would do anything for the orphanage children, and she always threw herself into the most dangerous things. Wei Zhao was afraid that one careless moment and she would be gone like a wisp of fragrant smoke.

"Fine, then it's settled. I'll wait for you at the orphanage gate. Whoever gets there first waits for the other a while," Wei Zhao said.

"All right, be there or be square!" Yu Xiaoke said happily.

"Mm, be there or be square." Wei Zhao shook his head and hung up.

Having fixed a time with Yu Xiaoke, Wei Zhao called White Leader and told him they would set out Friday night, asking him to get ready in advance. White Leader had no problem with that.

Qiu Lingshan received another call from Tang Yuqi. Though she had been putting him off all along, covertly observing his character, Tang Yuqi was no ordinary man—he was a detective, and he had already noticed that Qiu Lingshan was hiding something from him.

Precisely because he was a detective, he did not act rashly. Drawing on the care and patience of his investigative work, he decided to first become friends with Qiu Lingshan, and only then slowly uncover the truth of the matter.

"Miss Song, are you free tonight? Let me treat you to dinner, as thanks for all your help. There's still no word of my second uncle, but you've been making inquiries and working things out on our behalf all this time, and I'm deeply grateful," Tang Yuqi said.

"This..." Qiu Lingshan hesitated. Tang Yuqi's words were so grand and proper that she had no way to refuse.

"Miss Song, you wouldn't deny me this small courtesy, would you?" Tang Yuqi said with a smile.

"Very well, then." Qiu Lingshan actually wanted to observe Tang Yuqi's character and get a closer look at his true aims and background, so she agreed. Tang Zhi's matter was no trifling thing, after all—she could not rashly tell Tang Yuqi about it.

The dinner was arranged at a Western restaurant near the police station. Western food here was generally synonymous with romance; most of those dining there were couples. For Qiu Lingshan and Tang Yuqi to eat at such a place would easily invite misunderstanding.

Qiu Lingshan had wanted to refuse, but considering that Tang Yuqi had returned from overseas and was a Westerner, eating Western food was for him as ordinary as eating at home, so she agreed after all.

Over dinner, the two only talked about some matters of Tang Yuqi's family. Qiu Lingshan did not breathe a word about Tang Zhi or Tang Jucheng, and Tang Yuqi did not press to ask, seeming simply to express his gratitude to Qiu Lingshan, which let her breathe a sigh of relief.

Still, through this dinner Qiu Lingshan found Tang Yuqi to be a decent enough person. But was it a surface put on for show, or was that truly how he was? Until she genuinely understood him, she could not easily speak.

In the blink of an eye it was Friday night. Wei Zhao, carrying a large backpack, rode in White Leader's car toward Songshan City.

Wei Zhao did not drive; if he had, Yu Xiaoke might easily have seen through him later. White Leader had a car anyway, so Wei Zhao simply rode with him.

In the backpack Wei Zhao had packed the Heavenly Thunder Pig and the Thousand-Silk Mask. He had left the Male Thief mask behind—there was no longer any need for it.

"In a bit I'll go with Xinxin to visit her grandfather Guan Xuewen. You go eat first, and call me when you're done," White Leader said to Wei Zhao.

"All right." Wei Zhao nodded.

"Wei Zhao, be careful..." Guan Xin grew nervous at the thought of Wei Zhao and White Leader going into the ancient tomb. Wei Zhao had been there once before, but she knew the many perils of that tomb; it was precisely her lingering fear that made her worry.

"It's fine. This time is different from last time—I have experience now, and the Heavenly Thunder Pig will be with me. There shouldn't be any problem." Wei Zhao was fairly confident. In fact, on the second trip into the tomb last time, encountering the Heavenly Thunder Pig had made the rest of the journey smooth, for the pig knew the tomb far better than Wei Zhao and Yu Xiaoke did.

"That's good, then..." Guan Xin let out a breath. She rather envied Yu Xiaoke, who could go adventuring with Wei Zhao, while she could only stand quietly in the distance and watch him. Though Guan Xin asked for nothing, she too hoped to become someone who could help Wei Zhao, someone useful to him.

Guan Xin vowed silently to master the art of alchemy so that in the future she could help Wei Zhao and be of use to him. Otherwise, Wei Zhao had no shortage of pretty faces around him—girls with nothing but sweet looks were a dime a dozen.

"Teacher Bai, that matter I mentioned to you last time—have you thought it over?" Wei Zhao asked.

"You mean healing my injuries?" White Leader immediately understood what Wei Zhao was referring to.

"That's right, that very matter," Wei Zhao said. "If you want to recover, there's no time like the present—let's do it before we enter the tomb."

"I've thought it over. If it's possible, of course I want my injuries healed. But will it be a burden to you?" White Leader hesitated a moment, then asked, "I know a cultivator's true qi doesn't come from nowhere—it's all hard won through training. I understand that better than you do. Healing someone and restoring their injuries probably takes a great deal of true qi. You've just finished healing Jingjing—do you still have the energy to tend to me? And besides, we're about to go exploring in the tomb right after. Won't it affect the plan?"

"It won't," Wei Zhao said, shaking his head. "Everyone in this car is one of us, so I'll speak plainly. I can heal your injuries, and even restore your strength—but limited by my own level, I can only restore you to the peak of the late Mystic Rank. Take a Small Qi-Gathering Pill and you can advance to the early Earth Rank. But your strength will be stuck at the early Earth Rank, and no further."

"Oh? What do you mean by that?" White Leader was briefly taken aback, then said, "You mean you can raise my strength to the peak of the late Mystic Rank, and after I take a Small Qi-Gathering Pill and become an early Earth Rank expert, I'll never advance again?"

"You could put it that way—unless you have a Qi-Gathering Pill to take," Wei Zhao said.

"I understand what you mean. You raise my strength, and the aftereffect is this: the true qi you transmit when raising my strength is so pure that afterward I can no longer absorb the spiritual qi of heaven and earth to cultivate, and can only advance by taking pills?" White Leader had grasped Wei Zhao's meaning.