Chapter 3370 — Yu Xiaoke Fainted

"Yeah, I was just thinking about those old tales from the martial world — the Twin Vajra Demons. Say, Mr. Lin, you're practically their equal now. Eh? Xiaoke, what's wrong?" Yu Dake was still caught up in his excitement when he suddenly noticed that Yu Xiaoke's face had gone deathly pale, her whole body swaying as if she were about to collapse to the ground. He gave a violent start, badly frightened.

"I—" Yu Xiaoke had barely gotten out the single word before she went down with a thud, flat on the ground.

Wei Zhao was badly shaken too. There was already Wang Xinyan fainting at home — surely Yu Xiaoke hadn't come down with some strange illness as well, or why would she just keel over like that? He quickly reached out and pressed his fingers to the pulse point at her wrist, examining the state of her body.

The examination put his mind at ease. There was nothing seriously wrong with Yu Xiaoke — she had simply overdrawn her physical strength and true qi, and her body had given out. Wei Zhao circulated the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art and began replenishing her strength and true qi, and within moments she came to.

"Xiaoke, how do you feel?" Yu Dake breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her awake, and hurriedly asked.

"Nothing much — I just felt terribly exhausted earlier, and then I blacked out." Yu Xiaoke shook her head.

"With this heart-method of Xiaoke's, the higher the level of defense she deploys and the longer she sustains it, the more strength and true qi it consumes. Just now, she was probably running the method at the highest defense she's capable of." Wei Zhao had more or less guessed it. Yu Xiaoke's heart-method was not hard to understand — the stronger the defense, the more strength and true qi she had to expend. That was only natural, the same principle as his own Wild Fire Eight-Trigram Palm. So when her strength ran out, she simply fainted.

"Yes, I was afraid of hurting you!" Yu Xiaoke nodded. "Wei Zhao, you can still channel strength and true qi into me? Then doesn't that mean I can keep up my defense from now on?"

"Yes." Wei Zhao nodded. "But in battle we face our enemies at any moment — it would be hard to find the spare time to replenish your strength and true qi, unless it's a group fight."

"That's true." Yu Xiaoke nodded. "Looks like I still have to work hard!"

"Work hard? Even if you do, you can't absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth now. Your body's meridians have already taken in the pure energy from me and the Qi-Gathering Pills, and they've developed an immunity to such thin, diluted spiritual energy — it's basically useless to you." Wei Zhao shook his head with a bitter smile. "If you want to advance further, you'd have to keep using Qi-Gathering Pills, or wait until I set foot on the Heavenly Dao. But the Heavenly Dao is a nebulous realm — I don't know when I'll be able to enter it, and whether such a realm even exists is hard to say."

"Isn't there still the energy stones? I can cultivate with energy stones myself." Yu Xiaoke was optimistic.

"Of course — how could I have forgotten the energy stones?" Wei Zhao casually drew two energy stones out of his jade pendant's space. To his surprise, both were completely full of energy. It had only been a few days, and they were already fully charged — the charging speed of the jade pendant's space was clearly quite fast. Perhaps it wouldn't even take several days. He hadn't checked before. "Dake, you're already a top expert at the peak of the late Earth rank. Without Qi-Gathering Pills, I can't raise your strength either. Take these two energy stones, one each for you and Xiaoke, and cultivate with them for now. When they're used up, come to me for more."

"Then thank you, Mr. Lin!" Yu Dake accepted the energy stones gratefully. He did not refuse, because he understood Wei Zhao — he could only keep this kindness in his heart.

"One family doesn't talk like two. Now that Xiaoke and I have made our relationship clear, you count as my elder brother too," Wei Zhao said with a smile.

"I wouldn't dare — Mr. Lin is my savior." Yu Dake shook his head again and again.

"Ha ha, suit yourself. It's just a form of address." Wei Zhao waved his hand, unconcerned. "Dake, here's the plan: after you and Xiaoke go back, stay at the villa. You count as one of my helpers now."

"All right, Mr. Lin. I'll leave all these arrangements to you." Yu Dake nodded readily. In his heart, Wei Zhao's kindness was something he could never repay in a lifetime, so he had to repay it.

After the test, Wei Zhao was about to get in the car. But the three of them had just gotten in when they saw Kang Jingming's car returning the way it had come. Wei Zhao frowned at once — what was that boy doing back here?

With a whoosh, Wei Zhao appeared directly in front of Kang Jingming's car and blocked it.

"Oh my god, you scared me to death!" Kang Jingming slammed on the brakes, nearly hitting Wei Zhao. It wasn't that he was afraid of killing Wei Zhao — he was afraid Wei Zhao would kill him! With Wei Zhao's level of strength, he could smash his car into a heap of scrap metal! And he was an alchemist — with poor defense, he might well die along with it! "Leader Wei Zhao, what are you doing? Don't you know you nearly got me killed? If I die, who's going to make pills for you?"

"Why did you come back?" Wei Zhao ignored Kang Jingming's complaints. With his Heaven-rank reflexes, stopping instantly was easy; if they really had collided, that would just have been Kang Jingming's bad luck. So he simply asked.

"Don't even mention it — Little One's corpse is gone. I'm going back to see if it dropped somewhere along the way!" Kang Jingming said with a face full of gloom.

"The corpse is gone?" Wei Zhao closed his eyes and instantly swept Kang Jingming's car with his perception. There was no sign of Little One's corpse inside — Kang Jingming had not been lying.

"Yeah. Say no more, I'm going back to look. See you!" Kang Jingming naturally did not want to explain the specifics to Wei Zhao, because this was an internal matter of their sect, and there was no need to tell him.

"Oh, then go look." Wei Zhao nodded and got back in the car, paying Kang Jingming no further mind. Let him do as he pleased — even if he went back to the Paoli clan, it didn't matter. The Paoli clan could never turn on them again.

The road back was uneventful. Yu Xiaoke's defensive art was not needed after all. What did surprise Wei Zhao, however, was that he received a phone call — from the hidden Yu family!

The call was from the Yu family's old ancestor, Yu Tianxing.

"Greetings, Old Master Yu!" Wei Zhao answered the phone with some puzzlement. In truth, with his current strength, there was no need to show Yu Tianxing any particular respect — especially since Yu Tianxing had never been friendly toward him in the past, and had even tried to make trouble for him.

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