Chapter 4500 — Even Dead, He's Still Useful

A victory banquet that ended with hosts and guests alike thoroughly pleased, and once everyone had drunk their fill they drifted away one by one. Wei Zhao did notice, however, that Qi Mingyuan and Zhao Shanying had deliberately sought out a private room for a candlelit talk deep into the night—plainly to hammer out the terms of future cooperation between their two escort agencies. This was the sort of weighty business that could reshape the whole configuration of the South Continent Escort Alliance, but it had nothing to do with Wei Zhao. As he himself had said, he had no interest in meddling in agency affairs.

Thus the South Continent Escort Grand Gathering came to a close—yet the various agencies did not disperse. On the contrary, what followed was precisely the moment that set the hearts of every agency head pounding.

By the established custom, the South Continent Escort Alliance Conference would convene the next day, and this conference would draw representatives from over a hundred trading companies great and small across the South Continent's seas. The massive contracts, the truly enormous orders, would all be settled at tomorrow's conference.

It was a feast for carving up the spoils of victory. The higher an agency ranked, the greater its share of the benefits—and beyond all doubt, the Qingtian Escort Agency was bound to emerge the biggest winner of all.

But none of this had anything to do with Wei Zhao anymore. The only thing left for him now was to conserve his strength and, once matters here were finished, return to the North Island.

Of course, given Wei Zhao's temperament, he could never sit idle. Even with only a single night to spare, he would devote himself to cultivation and seek a breakthrough.

Meanwhile, in another fine inn one street away from the one where the Qingtian Escort Agency was lodged, inside an elegant upper room at that very hour, Long Kuiba sat drinking alone in his gloom, his face steeped in despondency.

How could he not be despondent? In this very room, only the night before, he had been clinking cups with Cheng Haonan and Wu Baoliang, painting rosy visions of trampling the Qingtian Escort Agency underfoot and ascending to the throne of escort-world overlords. A scant day had passed, and everything had changed beyond recognition: the demonic-cultivator identities of Cheng and Wu had both been exposed before all present—one dead, the other fled.

And now the second place his Dragon Boat Escort Agency had fought so hard to win had been revoked on the spot. Whether they could even remain in the South Continent Escort Alliance hereafter now depended on other people's goodwill. At the thought of tomorrow's "spoils-sharing" conference, Long Kuiba was so overcome with melancholy that he wanted to weep but had no tears; two cups of sorrowful wine and his mind was already swimming in a haze.

The window rattled, and a gust of cold wind blew in full in his face. The muddled Long Kuiba could not help but shiver, and instinctively rose to shut the window—but when he caught sight of the figure that had suddenly appeared beside him, he gave a violent start. Every trace of drunkenness was frightened clean out of him in an instant, and he shouted at once: "Who's there?!"

"How easily the great forget. Is Chief Escort Long so quick to fail to recognize even me?" As the words fell, Cheng Haonan's features at last resolved clearly before Long Kuiba's eyes.

"Ah! It's you—" Long Kuiba was startled afresh. As a demonic cultivator publicly denounced on the spot by Hai Wuliang, Cheng Haonan was now in Demon Cold City nothing short of a rat scurrying through the streets with every man's curse upon it. Anyone else would long since have fled under cover of night. Who would have thought he would still be here—and brazen enough to come back looking for him?

"What's this? Chief Escort Long surely won't tell me I'm unwelcome?" Cheng Haonan shot him a glance that was half smile, half sneer, then helped himself to a seat, poured a cup of wine, and drank it down with perfect composure.

"How could I? Deputy Chief Escort Cheng, you're reading too much into it..." Long Kuiba cast another involuntary glance out the window, and only after making certain no one had noticed did he sit back down. With a bitter smile at Cheng Haonan he said: "I knew long ago that you were a demonic cultivator. A great man doesn't fuss over trifles—orthodox cultivation and demonic cultivation are merely different methods, that's all. I'm not one of those hidebound hypocrites. Now that this confounded mess has blown up, it's entirely because that old bastard Hai Wuliang broke his word—why would I blame you?"

"Good, then. Chief Escort Long is indeed a man worth making friends with—I wasn't wrong about you!" Cheng Haonan nodded, then with venomous feeling sighed: "Ah, we had success in sight, and it all came to ruin at the last moment—all because of Hai Wuliang and that Ling Yi..."

"Exactly—Hai Wuliang and Ling Yi, it's all their doing!" At the mention of it, Long Kuiba too ground his teeth in fury: "If Hai Wuliang hadn't played us false, today's business would never have happened. But if not for Ling Yi, Deputy Chief Escort Cheng would never have been forced to use that move and blacken himself all over. That way, at most Hai Wuliang would have taken the dead Wu Baoliang for a demonic cultivator—it would never have been traced back to you, Deputy Chief Escort Cheng."

"Quite so. Wu Baoliang is dead anyway—dead men tell no tales, as they say. So long as we deny it to the bitter end, no accusation of Hai Wuliang's would avail. But being pressed so hard by Ling Yi dragged me down along with him—the sheer outrageousness of it!" As he spoke, Cheng Haonan tossed off three cups in a row, then sneered with a savage face: "Hai Wuliang deserves death, and this Ling Yi deserves it even more. I will never let them off!"

"Oh? Has Deputy Chief Escort Cheng some clever scheme, then?" Long Kuiba's spirits rose at once. From Cheng Haonan's tone, this did not sound like mere grumbling and venting—it seemed he had a plan in mind.

Though not reduced to such wretched straits as Cheng Haonan, Long Kuiba's hatred for Ling Yi and Hai Wuliang was in no way inferior to his. After all, it was thanks to those two that the Dragon Boat Escort Agency had sunk to its present precarious, half-dead state—and this was the foundation he had poured his life's blood into.

"Heh heh, since you ask, I do indeed have a clever scheme." Cheng Haonan smiled with a show of great profundity.

"Tell me, quickly!" Long Kuiba pressed him eagerly.

"My clever scheme is really quite simple. It only takes one man to step forward, and neither Ling Yi nor Hai Wuliang will escape certain death. Heh heh heh heh." Cheng Haonan took a complacent sip of wine.

"Who?" Long Kuiba's eyes lit up.

"Wu Baoliang." Cheng Haonan glanced at him and slowly let the three syllables fall from his lips.

"What? Wu Baoliang? Isn't he dead?" Long Kuiba was struck dumb. In the ruins of the arena that day, Wu Baoliang had died in full view of everyone—blasted by Ling Yi's Frenzied Flame Thousand Burst Fist until he was burnt crisp outside and tender within, plainly dead beyond any possibility of deader. Could even that be reversed?

The more Long Kuiba thought about it, the more incredible it seemed—but after all, he was no demonic cultivator. For all he knew, there might well be some heaven-defying technique among the demonic cultivation methods that could raise the dead...

"That's right, he is indeed dead." With a single sentence Cheng Haonan dispelled Long Kuiba's fanciful conjectures. He gave a cold laugh: "But even dead, he's still useful..."

"How do you mean?" Long Kuiba was taken aback, utterly at a loss: "What use could he be?" (To be continued)