Chapter 3861 — A Midnight Visit

Wei Zhao had no choice but to guard against this, so it was necessary to inoculate them in advance.

"Rest easy, boss—we'll do whatever you do!" Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai nodded without the slightest hesitation. To be sure, after spending so long in a place like the Welcome Pavilion, packed to the rafters with men, a woman like Murong Zhen held a certain appeal for the two of them—but it had not yet reached the point of being blinded by lust.

Xiao Che went without saying; from childhood in the mortal world he had seen every shade of human warmth and coldness, and his calm, his rationality, and his self-restraint were beyond question. And though Qiao Hongcai seemed hot-blooded and simple, his handling of Meng Zhou in the earlier challenge tournament had made one thing clear: the fellow was coarse on the outside but fine-grained within, not the sort to be used by anyone so easily.

Back at his cave dwelling, Wei Zhao fell into his usual habit and entered the jade pendant's space. Beyond his daily cultivation, his foremost task now was to tend the two Heart-Devouring Linglong Herbs that had just taken root and sprouted.

Because these were seeds the spirit herb nursery had mass-cultivated by special methods, they belonged to the inherently deficient category; and since the method of infusing true qi to alter their growth cycle was itself an injury to seeds already short on vital essence, the herbs grown this way were ordinarily of the lowest grade and could hardly reach even the average standard.

To have gotten hold of two Heart-Devouring Linglong seeds by rare luck, only to end up with two malnourished Heart-Devouring Linglong Herbs—such an outcome Wei Zhao plainly could not accept.

Fortunately, the abundant heaven-and-earth spiritual qi within the jade pendant's space made up for the inherent deficiency to a great extent. The quality was not what one would call fine, but it could at least reach the average standard.

What Wei Zhao had to do now was keep tending these two Heart-Devouring Linglong seedlings until they were fully grown, at which point he could set about refining the Foundation-Establishing Golden Pill.

Apart from the two Heart-Devouring Linglong Herbs, Wei Zhao did not simply take the other spirit herb seedlings that had taken root in the jade pendant's space and hand them in for contribution points; he left them there. As for the spirit herb seeds he had gotten from the others, he returned the seedlings to them in successive batches.

The reason he deliberately did it in successive batches was to avoid suspicion. After all, once the others took those seedlings back, they had no such heaven-sent cheat as Wei Zhao's jade pendant's space; in their hands the spirit herb seedlings simply would not survive, and they could only hand them all in at once.

If they really did that, then when Xiao Che, Qiao Hongcai, Li Zhengming, and even Zhong Yongliang of the Soaring Sky Pavilion—against the general backdrop of almost nobody being able to keep even a single spirit herb seed alive—all handed in ten or more spirit herb seedlings at the same time, it would have been impossible not to draw attention.

And then, if anyone with an eye for such things really did investigate, not only would the secret of how these few cultivated spirit herb seeds risk standing exposed, but more critically, it might drag Zhong Yongliang and Li Zhengming down with it and blow their cover as moles. That would be trouble indeed.

The sissy steward at the spirit herb nursery had said it plainly enough back then: cultivating spirit herb seeds depended not only on strength and skill, but even more on luck.

If a few people had a somewhat higher survival rate, the rest could only look on in envy; at most they might suspect these few had grasped some key trick or other—they would not read anything more into it.

As for the spirit herb seedlings belonging to Xiao Che and the others, Wei Zhao had them take them out in successive batches. But his own thirty-nine spirit herb seedlings, apart from the Heart-Devouring Linglong Herbs, he did not hand in in batches; he kept them in the jade pendant's space all along, intending to bring them out all together at the end.

How many eyes would be dazzled then—especially those of the likes of Kang Jingming, who was itching to see him make a fool of himself. Well, let them wait and see.

After nightfall, just as Wei Zhao was cultivating, his heart suddenly stirred: someone was triggering the restriction on his cave dwelling.

Coming to see him at such an hour—could Li Zhengming have some new intelligence? That was Wei Zhao's first thought. Yet when he released the restriction and opened the door of the cave dwelling, he looked at the person standing before him and could not help but freeze.

"Brother Lin, my little wooden hut lets light through on all four sides—might I borrow your cave dwelling for a bath? The weather's so hot, and my body feels all sticky and uncomfortable!" Murong Zhen, dressed in something very thin, leaned against the doorway in all her luscious beauty, her eyes throwing charge after charge at Wei Zhao.

Wei Zhao gave her a cold look and raised an eyebrow slightly. What was this now—a beauty trap?

"Sorry, I don't think there's any water in this cave dwelling of mine," Wei Zhao declined, his expression unchanged.

It had to be said that this Murong Zhen really did have considerable beauty, and in her present seductive posture—even though Wei Zhao had seen every kind of lovely woman—he had to admit she was quite peerless.

Yet Wei Zhao felt not only no interest in such a woman, but rather a deeper wariness in his heart.

Once one came into too close contact with this woman before him, trouble would inevitably follow—and by then it would be impossible to dodge.

Wei Zhao still did not know what this Murong Zhen intended by so boldly and aggressively seducing and approaching him, but one thing was certain: anything out of the ordinary must hide something strange, and this woman surely had no good intentions.

Seeing that Wei Zhao's reaction was as cold as it had been during the day, Murong Zhen—who had been so sure she could make him submit this time—was stunned once again.

Over the past half day, with her abilities it had been simplicity itself to find out the current situation among the Green Cloud Pavilion newcomers. To her, an outside observer, though Meng Zhou had Meng Jueming backing him, in terms of real strength he was still far inferior to Wei Zhao and his group.

Summing up all the various deeds that had previously occurred around Wei Zhao, one would find that this newcomer from the mortal world not only far surpassed the other newcomers in strength, but his potential was likewise not to be underestimated.

To be able, single-handedly, to leave even the steward senior brother Meng Jueming—who had Xu Lingchong, the young master Xu, at his back—with no recourse: was that the sort of thing an ordinary person could do?

This man was no simple matter! That was the judgment Murong Zhen reached about Wei Zhao after compiling the past intelligence offered up in bits and pieces by the chatter of the various newcomers. And precisely for that reason, after being given the cold shoulder during the day, she was still willing to lower herself and come to his door at night, when no one was around, to seduce him.

To achieve her aim of taking revenge on Shangguan Lan'er, the eldest young miss of the Soaring Sky Pavilion, Murong Zhen had to rack her brains for every means to accumulate power; even among these Green Cloud Pavilion newcomers of little background and strength, she had to scheme to pick out a few with potential to serve as cannon fodder.