Chapter 3863 — Only Enemies Remain

This time she was truly furious, her dignity wounded beyond bearing. The aura of a cultivator at the very peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage surged from her body without the slightest reservation, bearing down upon Wei Zhao's head.

No matter how she might play the frail flower, she was in the end a genuine expert at the peak of early Foundation Establishment. To deal with a mere "early Foundation Establishment" cultivator like Wei Zhao would, in her estimation, be no more than a matter of reaching out and taking what she wanted.

Women are not to be provoked—and a woman of her sort, narrow of heart yet formidable in strength, is even less to be provoked!

"I shall ask you one last time: do you mean to be my friend, or my enemy? Think it over carefully before you answer, or you will live to regret it—this beauty guarantees it!" Murong Zhen declared in a cold voice.

"Ha, so seduction having failed, you turn to coercion? Barely a day in the Welcome Pavilion, and already she cannot wait to build her own faction—this woman's ambitions seem anything but small!" Wei Zhao laughed inwardly at the sight, though his face betrayed nothing at all.

Under the pressure of Murong Zhen's aura, Wei Zhao paused a moment, then answered with perfect composure, "Miss Murong, we might have kept to our own wells and our own rivers. I had no intention of making an enemy of you. But if you insist on it, then I shall have no choice but to oblige."

"Hmph! Oblige? You, an early Foundation Establishment cultivator up from the mortal realm—do you even have the right to say such a thing in my presence? You are far too arrogant for your own good!" As she spoke, Murong Zhen made to strike in her fury.

Not a friend meant an enemy—there was no third possibility.

As for Wei Zhao's talk of wells and rivers, to Murong Zhen it was so much flatulence. If she meant to have her revenge on Shangguan Lan'er, she must at any cost accumulate strength and build her own power. And among all the newcomers of Qingyun Pavilion, those with the true potential to serve as her cannon fodder numbered only a scant few.

Among them, the likes of Meng Zhou were of Meng Jueming's inner circle, and Meng Jueming was one of Xu Lingchong's men. Against him Murong Zhen could not contend for the present—which meant that even if she cast aside her pride and offered herself in seduction, she could never make Meng Zhou and his kind truly loyal to her. At best she might use them a little behind Young Master Xu's back.

But Wei Zhao and his companions were different. They were true nobodies, utterly without background or patron to speak of. A little cunning and a few tactics might well be enough to bring such men groveling at the hem of Murong Zhen's pomegranate skirt.

To subdue Wei Zhao's little band, the crucial first step was naturally to subdue Wei Zhao himself—capture the bandit chief first, and the rest follow. Once Wei Zhao was dealt with, the two beneath him, Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai, would be no trouble at all.

Moreover, in Murong Zhen's eyes, Wei Zhao himself was in truth the most capable and promising of all the newcomers. Once he was hers, then should some stroke of fortune come his way in the days ahead, he might well grow into a personage of some consequence.

So subduing Wei Zhao was for Murong Zhen an absolute necessity. That was why, even after the cold rebuff she had suffered by day, she had come to his door by night, cast aside her dignity, and offered herself in seduction—and if need be, she would not even have minded letting Wei Zhao taste a little sweetness. After all, Murong Zhen had always been most confident in her own flesh.

A fine vision it had been—only by now it had all dissolved into mist. Since seduction had failed, she could only change tack: if soft means would not serve, then use hard ones, and bring the full weight of her strength to bear until Wei Zhao bowed his head.

The cultivation world had always revered the strong, and this Wei Zhao, she supposed, would be no exception.

Just as Murong Zhen was about to overawe Wei Zhao by force, he suddenly spoke: "Are you sure this is wise? To fight a private battle here without first filing a declaration—in this Welcome Pavilion, that draws severe punishment. Miss Murong, are you not afraid someone will shove you the rest of the way down the well?"

He spoke with his usual calm, not the slightest trace of alarm about him—as though it were no more than an idle reminder. And if Murong Zhen chose to pay it no heed, then he would not mind seeing it through to the end.

At these words Murong Zhen's aura faltered. When the meaning of them caught up with her, she could not suppress a shudder.

Just as Wei Zhao said, her present situation was hardly favorable!

She who might have been a member of the Ascendant Pavilion's second-generation inner circle had been dashed to the dust, reduced to a lowly newcomer of no standing at the bottom of Qingyun Pavilion. And if she were to commit some offense now, she had no doubt that those who had banished her here—eager as they were to please Shangguan Lan'er and Xu Lingchong—would be only too glad to trample her down further, to shove her the rest of the way down the well.

Then Murong Zhen might well find herself on the Welcome Pavilion's blacklist, and by then she might not even be admitted into Qingyun Pavilion at all, cut off utterly from the Threefold Pavilion—and that would be a true tragedy, with never another chance in this life to turn the tables and rise again.

At the thought, Murong Zhen hastily reined in her aura and shot Wei Zhao a venomous glare. It was all the fault of this arrogant, loathsome wretch—he had nearly made her commit a grave error!

"You just wait, this beauty will make you regret this!" Leaving that much behind with a face full of malice, Murong Zhen twisted her waist and turned away. Seduction had failed, and force was barred to her; to linger any longer would only be to invite further humiliation.

Watching Murong Zhen's alluring figure retreat, Wei Zhao drew a deep breath. What nonsense this was—seduction failing, and then coercion? If ridding himself of her now would not have brought him so much trouble, she would already be dead.

The matter of the Southern Heaven Pass was still unresolved, and Wei Zhao had no wish to reveal his strength again. Still, the woman had earned herself a place on his blacklist.

There might be trouble ahead, but what was done was done—there was no help for it. The woman was no prize in any case; if she wanted enmity, then enmity she should have. Wei Zhao had enemies scattered far and wide, and one more made little difference.

What Wei Zhao did not know was that even had he not fallen out with Murong Zhen today, given her enmity with Shangguan Lan'er, he would inevitably have found himself set against her in the end. What he had done today was merely to make the lines between friend and foe clear a little sooner.

But it hardly mattered. When the soldiers come, a general will meet them; when the water rises, earth will dam it. Wei Zhao shook his head with a faint smile, then without further ado entered the space within his jade pendant and resumed his cultivation.

While the seedlings of the Heart-Devouring Linglong Grass were not yet ripe, what Wei Zhao must do was continue to consolidate his present realm at the peak of early Foundation Establishment, shoring up his foundations as thoroughly as he could, and make ready for the breakthrough to come.

It was true that once he could refine a Foundation Establishment Golden Core, his breakthrough would be assured—but cultivation had never been a matter that could be solved by swallowing pills alone. RS