Chapter 3289 — The Flaw in the Jade Pendant Space

"Oh?" Wei Zhao could not help frowning when he heard this. These people had actually traced the matter to the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect? To be honest, Wei Zhao felt rather guilty toward the three Patriarchs of the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect. Though it was those three who had done the killing, he himself had reaped the benefits. So he quickly asked, "Then they... have they gone after the people of the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect?"

"They ought to have gone, but... nothing came of it. The men of the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect are all unharmed, while Qian Puguang, the Black Horse Association's chairman, is dead. How exactly he died, I could not find out—I only know that he is dead!" Ge Xian said. "The present situation is this: the members of that revenge assembly have all fallen silent. Who knows what agreement they reached in secret with the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect—and the result is the state of things now..."

"Oh? That is certainly strange..." Wei Zhao frowned. If even Ge Xian, an information broker of ancient pedigree, did not know the inside story, then there was no use in Wei Zhao racking his brains over it. There must be something known to none behind it all—only, at Wei Zhao's present level, it was perhaps still beyond his reach.

At that thought, Wei Zhao said, "Then... apart from that, is there any word of them coming to look for me?"

"For the moment, no. Whatever the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect people said to them, they have all lowered their banners and silenced their drums," Ge Xian said. "There is no news of any progress at present."

"All right, I understand. Keep a close watch on their movements for me—if they mean to come for me, tell me at once," Wei Zhao said after a moment's thought.

Strange as the affair was, Wei Zhao decided it would be no bad thing to wait until matters settled down before going back. For the time being, he would rest here and watch how things developed.

"No problem, Boss!" Ge Xian said hurriedly.

After hanging up, Wei Zhao's mood was none too good, but he did not show it before Yang Qiqi and Xiao Jiu. After all, he had been away from X Island for so many years, and this was a rare return—he wanted only to enjoy himself with the two of them.

At least, during these few days on the island, Wei Zhao had found something of the feeling of his childhood. Xu Shilan and Cheng Yiyi were also enamored of the island's scenery. Yet when they saw the squads of assassins undergoing rigorous training, they could guess just how cruel and joyless Wei Zhao's childhood must have been.

"Brother Wei Zhao, I want to eat mud fish today. Will you go catch some for us?" Yang Qiqi felt a little nostalgic for the mud fish of childhood—though she herself could not say whether it was childhood she missed, or those life-and-death days shared during the trial at the Xuandan Sect.

It was precisely during the Xuandan Sect trial that Yang Qiqi and Wei Zhao had come to know each other. This mud fish could be called a memory of childhood, and also the matchmaker that had brought the two of them together. So Yang Qiqi held a special fondness for it.

"Sure, I'll go right now." Wei Zhao smiled and nodded in agreement.

There was an art to preparing this mud fish. It had to be wrapped in the yellow clay from the riverbank. X Island had fish on hand that could be used directly, but there was no clay—and wild fish and farmed fish did not taste the same.

"It's rather dangerous over there. You two had better not come—I'll go alone," Wei Zhao told them. Given the skill of Yang Qiqi and Cheng Yiyi, there would have been no problem in their coming along, but there were still Xiao Jiu and Xu Shilan. Wei Zhao could hardly leave the two of them here by themselves, so he might as well go alone.

"That works too. Then be careful, Brother Wei Zhao," Yang Qiqi urged. She was, after all, the mistress of X Island, and so she naturally could not slight her guests merely for the sake of going fishing with Wei Zhao.

Wei Zhao nodded and sped off toward the jungle at the back of the island. Along the way, a thousand feelings surged in him—the familiar path, the familiar surroundings—only, he had not returned here for more than ten years, and yet now, walking this road, he found it as familiar as in his childhood.

Following the way as easily as an old hand, Wei Zhao reached the riverbank and plunged headfirst into the little river to catch fish. But after he had caught one, it suddenly struck him that he had forgotten to bring a bucket. One or two fish he could simply carry back in his hand, but with so many people, all with good appetites, he would have to catch a dozen or twenty fish at least—and the fish were not large. How was he to carry them back?

He did not much relish the idea of trekking back for a bucket. Suddenly a flash of inspiration came to him—he had a plan! Did he not have the Jade Pendant Space? Why not put the fish straight in there?

Wei Zhao had once put food into the Jade Pendant Space, and the food had remained motionless within it—that is, its state had frozen at the very moment it was freshly cooked, so that when taken out it was still steaming hot and perfectly fresh. So Wei Zhao intended to put the live fish he caught into the Jade Pendant Space; that way, if they were still alive when he brought them back, they would be all the fresher.

At that thought, Wei Zhao willed it, intending to put the fish in his hand into the Jade Pendant Space. But to his surprise, the fish remained right there in his hand and did not enter the Jade Pendant Space. Such a thing had never happened before!

Could it be... that the Jade Pendant Space had stopped working? Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback. Once more he instinctively tried to put the fish in his hand into the Jade Pendant Space, but again he failed. No extra fish appeared in the Jade Pendant Space, and the fish in his hand had not vanished either!

"How very strange!" Wei Zhao frowned, and tried willing out a spirit-beast essence core from the Jade Pendant Space. The essence core came smoothly into his hand from the Jade Pendant Space, and with another act of will on Wei Zhao's part, the essence core returned once more to the Jade Pendant Space!

That settled it: the Jade Pendant Space had not malfunctioned—something else had gone wrong somewhere! Could it be that it depended on what was being put in?

"Old Jiao, why can't this fish of mine be put into the Jade Pendant Space?" Wei Zhao asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Living things, of course not," Old Jiao said, quite straight-faced.

"Living things? Then aren't you and I alive?" Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback and asked in return.

"You and I are both in abnormal states. You enter the Jade Pendant Space as a primordial spirit, and I am much the same—neither of us is a real body," Old Jiao said. "There is no oxygen here. How could a living creature survive once it came in?"

"So that's how it is. Then only after this fish is dead can it be put into the Jade Pendant Space?" Wei Zhao thought for a moment and asked.

"For the time being, yes," Old Jiao said with a nod. (I stayed up late writing this chapter for nearly six hours—first, because I was so sleepy and muddled that I wrote slowly; second, because the Jade Pendant Space has to lay groundwork for some later plot, so I spent some time thinking it over! All right, the Fishman is off to bed!) RS