Chapter 3570 — Three Distinguished Guests

In the past, if Wei Zhao had called Jiao Yazi "Jiao," the man would have flown into a rage—but now there was truly no reaction at all.

"Kid, save your breath. That old thing has been like this since a while ago." A voice suddenly spoke up beside Wei Zhao—it was the Ghost Thing, and it gave Wei Zhao quite a start!

"Uh... Senior Ghost, you're awake? What do you mean, 'like this since a while ago'?" Wei Zhao had not expected the Ghost Thing to awaken, and he asked in some confusion.

"It started when you teleported over from the mortal realm to Cloud-Tier Island. The old thing has been like this ever since," the Ghost Thing said blandly.

"Uh... you don't say? Could my coming to Cloud-Tier Island really have affected Old Jiao? It seems... what he said before was true!" Wei Zhao sighed, but then a doubt surfaced: "But Senior Ghost, how is it that you're fine?"

"What do you mean, how am I fine? Do you actually wish something would happen to me, brat?" the Ghost Thing snapped angrily. "How could I be the same as him? I originally came out of Cloud-Tier Island. Who knows how he got here?"

"Uh... slip of the tongue, slip of the tongue." Wei Zhao gave a dry laugh to calm the Ghost Thing down, then asked in surprise, "So you came out of Cloud-Tier Island?"

"Naturally!" the Ghost Thing said lightly. "Now, I don't mind chatting a bit more with you. Your strength is, at present, reasonably satisfactory to me! Do me a favor in the future—consider it repayment for the many times I've helped you!"

"Fine, so long as it's within my power!" Wei Zhao did not refuse. After all, the Ghost Thing had helped him a great deal—it had even left the puppet avatar in Wei Zhao's villa in the mortal realm, protecting his family and friends.

"Didn't that old thing say earlier that he wanted to pass some memories on to you? You didn't receive them? My guess is that this Jiao Yazi was previously something like the terminal of a puppet avatar—able to move about on his own, yes, but controlled by a mother body behind the scenes. I suspect that after you reached Cloud-Tier Island, the mother body lost contact with him—in other words, he can no longer receive the mother body's command signals, and that's why he's like this..." Drawing on his own situation, the Ghost Thing explained to Wei Zhao, "Although I can still establish contact with the puppet avatar, that connection is already quite strained. It only holds to this extent: when your family is in danger and issues a command to the puppet avatar, it can automatically go fight the enemy. But what it sees now, where it is—I can no longer sense any of that! So then, if the mother body behind Jiao Yazi is not as powerful as I am, or if it simply never imagined he could come to Cloud-Tier Island, losing contact is only to be expected."

"So that's how it is!" Wei Zhao was somewhat disappointed upon hearing this, though he also knew that if the Ghost Thing spoke the truth, then for the time being he need not think about restoring Jiao Yazi.

What rather puzzled Wei Zhao, though, was that he seemed not to have received any information at all. Could it be that the memories could only be unlocked once one's strength reached a certain level? He thought Old Jiao would not deceive him, so he would just wait and see!

Besides Old Jiao, the Thunder Pig was also lying within the jade pendant space. Wei Zhao had brought it along for its treasure-seeking instincts, but it too had fallen unconscious. Fortunately its life was not in danger; it seemed that so long as it rested in the jade pendant space for a while, it should recover in time.

It seemed that even inside the jade pendant space, spirit beasts were affected to some degree. This teleportation array had likely been designed specifically for human cultivators!

Taking the attitude of "when in Rome, do as the Romans do," Wei Zhao decided to first consolidate his Heaven-Tier strength—that is, his early Foundation Establishment cultivation—before doing anything else.

Having only recently broken through to early Foundation Establishment, Wei Zhao's foundation was not yet very stable; he needed to consolidate it as quickly as possible.

Two hours later, Wei Zhao suddenly opened his eyes. He had felt the restrictive spell on his cave dwelling tremble just now—not the violent kind of tampering, but more like some sort of message, as if someone in the mortal realm had rung a doorbell.

Rising to release the restrictive spell, Wei Zhao stepped out of his cave dwelling and found that the other newcomers had also emerged from their own caves with puzzled expressions. The situation seemed the same as his—they too had received a message.

Seeing Wei Zhao come out, Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai both consciously drew near. After the earlier business of switching cave dwellings, the three of them had formed a small group, and its backbone was naturally Wei Zhao.

At the same time, the Miserable Senior Brother standing not far away also walked toward the three of them.

"Greetings, Senior Brother Ku." Wei Zhao and the other two offered their greetings one after another. Not only Wei Zhao and Xiao Che—even Qiao Hongcai dared not show the slightest disrespect. Of course, this was all out of consideration for Wei Zhao; otherwise, even if he did not outright ignore this management senior brother who was weak to the point of utter insignificance as the others did, he would not have greeted him so eagerly.

"Greetings, three junior brothers." Seeing the three greet him together, the Miserable Senior Brother actually grew somewhat excited. Ever since he had taken up the post of management senior brother, he had never enjoyed such treatment.

True, for other management senior brothers, no matter how many newcomers eagerly greeted them, it would be taken as a matter of course. But he was different—from the very first day he took office, he had been completely sidelined by that domineering senior brother Meng Jueming, reduced to an utterly marginal, invisible figure.

All the dirty and exhausting work was his, yet he held not a shred of power; his nature was weak, and he commanded neither restraint nor awe among the newcomers. Anyone who dared draw a little closer to him would even be retaliated against by Meng Jueming. For such a man to expect people to treat him with respect—that would be a fine joke indeed.

But now, with a few new junior brothers like Wei Zhao under his wing, the Miserable Senior Brother had unexpectedly recovered a measure of the dignity of a management senior brother, and he could not help but feel tears welling in his old eyes. In his heart he secretly vowed that, if only for the sake of these few junior brothers, he could no longer remain as spineless and unprincipled as before—at the very least, he must not let them be bullied too badly by Meng Jueming in the days to come.

"Senior Brother Ku, was it you who just triggered the restrictive spells on our cave dwellings?" Wei Zhao asked.

The Miserable Senior Brother nodded. "That's right. Senior Brother Meng ordered it. He has gone to receive a few distinguished guests, and told me to call you all out here to wait."

To receive a few distinguished guests? Summoning everyone out—such a grand affair. Could some great personage from above have come down?

As everyone exchanged glances in bewilderment, Meng Jueming had already arrived from the distance, leading his people over. To Wei Zhao's surprise, the arrivals were all familiar faces. There were three in all: at their head, the reception envoy from the Soaring Heavens Pavilion whom they had met at the very beginning, and behind him, Kang Jingming and Zhong Yongliang.