Chapter 3026 — The Strange Little Shu (Part One): Fiery Cloud Sees Shen Yushu Addressing Gu Mengyao as Elder Sister and Concludes She Must Be Wei Zhao's Concubine, Yet He Dare Not Offend Her, and Can Only Ask Meekly

"Who are you? What business do you have with Wei Zhao?" Gu Mengyao blushed, yet did not contradict the address. She told herself inwardly that this man knew none of them, and there was no need to explain so much to him.

Shen Yushu, however, was momentarily startled to hear herself called so by Fiery Cloud, and then realized she had apparently misunderstood something. Fiery Cloud had indeed come here for Wei Zhao, not for her. Earlier, Shen Yushu had assumed on instinct that Fiery Cloud had come for her sake, and when he spoke of growing familiar upon a second meeting, that was why her reaction had been so fierce.

Now, hearing Fiery Cloud call her second sister-in-law, she was instantly delighted. "Oh, so you know how to read the room—I am Arrow-Brand Brother's little wife!"

"Arrow-Brand Brother?" Fiery Cloud blinked, having no notion who Shen Yushu meant. Even so, he circulated the mnemonic of his internal-energy cultivation method and evaporated the water from his body outright. He was a fire-element cultivator; this was an effortless matter for him.

"You are... a cultivator?" Gu Mengyao was somewhat surprised, but she quickly turned to Little Shu. "Why did you say earlier there was no Wei Zhao here?"

"Oh... oh... that was because he was asking for some Young Hero Lin, some Brother Lin, and there is only Wei Zhao Arrow-Brand Brother here, no Young Hero Lin or Brother Lin, so Little Shu drove him off!" Shen Yushu explained.

"......" Gu Mengyao plainly thought Shen Yushu was talking nonsense, yet with an outsider standing right there, she could hardly press her on it. She could only explain to Fiery Cloud, "Little Shu does call Wei Zhao Arrow-Brand Brother. There may have been some misunderstanding in all this."

"I am Fiery Cloud, junior sect master of the Fire Flame Mountain sect in the southern outskirts, and I have come this time to call on Brother Lin. Might I trouble the two sisters-in-law to introduce me?" Although Fiery Cloud too had been puzzled by Little Shu's earlier reaction, the matter was at last cleared up, and he spoke in haste.

"Fiery Cloud of Fire Flame Mountain?" Gu Mengyao nodded. She had never heard of this sect, but clearly the man bore no hostility; had he come with hostile intent, Shen Yushu soaking him through would never have earned such courteous words. So Gu Mengyao said, "Wei Zhao has gone out on some business and has not yet returned. What business do you have with him?"

"It is like this: our Fire Flame Mountain sect holds a deep and bitter grudge against Zhang Naipao of the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect. Have you by chance heard of Zhang Naipao?" Fiery Cloud asked.

"Zhang Naipao?" Gu Mengyao started. "He was a former classmate of Little Shu and me, and of Wei Zhao as well..."

"Er... you are all classmates..." Fiery Cloud was instantly taken aback, his expression shifting slightly. "Could it be that you are disciples of the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect as well?"

"How could we possibly be disciples of the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect?" Gu Mengyao was likewise startled, and found the question baffling.

"Then you say Zhang Naipao was your classmate?" Fiery Cloud thought it over and decided it was impossible. If Wei Zhao and Zhang Naipao were fellow disciples of the same sect, there was no way Wei Zhao could have struck at Zhang Naipao! He came from an ancient sect and had only a hazy notion of what a classmate was, taking it to mean fellow disciples. But now, thinking again, the truth dawned on him. "Could it be that you and Zhang Naipao were classmates in the secular world?"

"Yes, we were high-school classmates," Gu Mengyao nodded.

"High school?" Fiery Cloud was taken aback once more. He knew nothing of how Zhang Naipao had taken a master, and since Zhang Naipao was so formidable, he had assumed the man had cultivated within the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect since childhood as one of its core disciples. But if Gu Mengyao was his high-school classmate, and she looked to be no great age herself, then Zhang Naipao could not have joined the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect long ago. He asked at once, "Might I ask what year you are in now?"

"First year of university. Why do you ask?" Gu Mengyao found Fiery Cloud's question rather odd.

"Then... that means Zhang Naipao joined the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect three years ago at most?" Fiery Cloud found it unbelievable that Zhang Naipao could possess such strength in so short a time. Was the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect simply that formidable, or was Zhang Naipao's talent simply that monstrous?

"Less than a year, even," Gu Mengyao shook her head. "His advancement has indeed been fast, even a little faster than Wei Zhao's. At the very beginning, Wei Zhao was a Yellow-Rank expert and Zhang Naipao was an ordinary man, but now both Zhang Naipao and Wei Zhao are early Heaven-Rank experts..."

"Pfft... cough, cough, cough..." Gu Mengyao's words sent Fiery Cloud into a fit of coughing from sheer shock! Zhang Naipao's rapid advancement he could accept, for that was the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect after all, one of the mightiest of the ancient sects. But Wei Zhao was a lone wanderer, a loose cultivator, and he too had climbed from the Yellow Rank to the Heaven Rank in under a year. What kind of concept was that?

One had to understand that advancement for a loose cultivator was a thing of immense difficulty, and Wei Zhao was moreover young, rising at breakneck speed. To Fiery Cloud this was beyond imagination! How was this Zhang Naipao faster than Wei Zhao? Plainly Wei Zhao was faster than Zhang Naipao by no one knew how many times over!

How could a loose cultivator and the scion of a sect even be compared? And besides... Fiery Cloud suddenly realized something: had Wei Zhao not previously been a late Earth-Rank expert? In the trials, with only late Earth-Rank strength, he had defeated Zhang Naipao of the early Heaven Rank. Yet now, after so short a time, Wei Zhao had stepped into the early Heaven Rank? Did that not make him all the more formidable?

In Fiery Cloud's eyes, the true worth of Wei Zhao's early Heaven Rank far exceeded Zhang Naipao's. If Zhang Naipao remained at the early Heaven Rank now, then Wei Zhao could crush him utterly.

"What is the matter with you?" Gu Mengyao looked at Fiery Cloud in bewilderment. In truth, she had deliberately brought up Wei Zhao's strength out of lingering distrust for Fiery Cloud: by laying out Wei Zhao's power, she ensured that if Fiery Cloud truly harbored ill designs, he would not dare act rashly.

"Nothing... Brother Lin is formidable indeed. Might I ask when Brother Lin will return?" Fiery Cloud asked.

"That is hard to say. If you wish to see him, you may come by often to check," Gu Mengyao said.

"Then... might I trouble you to let me stay here a while and wait for Brother Lin's return?" Fiery Cloud asked. His thinking was entirely in the manner of the martial world; to him, paying a call on someone and lodging in their home was the most natural thing in the world, for many ancient sects were tucked away in remote mountains and ancient forests where inns were exceedingly rare, and most visitors simply stayed within the host sect's grounds.

"That would be rather inconvenient, would it not? We are hardly well acquainted," Gu Mengyao said, refusing Fiery Cloud's request.

Just as they were speaking, Wu Chengtian returned. He had gone to the supermarket to buy some food and daily necessities; since Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu did not go out, this task naturally fell to him. When he saw Fiery Cloud standing at the door, he asked in some puzzlement, "Yaoyao, what is this man doing here?" (To be continued.)