Chapter 4773 — The Counterattack of the Smug

"You mean the poisoners are those cooks?" Liu Ziqi's eyes narrowed. She still sensed that something was off, but since so many of them agreed, she could only follow their line of reasoning for now.

"It's possible, but the odds are next to nothing. They're all top-tier magnates of Cloud-Step Island—getting them to poison food would be worse than killing them. Besides, their families are all at the Eastern Continent Academy; there's no reason for them to do such a thing." Ren Zhongyuan stroked his chin and offered his analysis with feigned objectivity.

"Quite right. They have very little contact with us Eastern Continent disciples, so they shouldn't have any motive for this. And if they truly harbored such intentions, they could have acted on the road before we ever reached the Western Island—why wait until now?" Yi Xiaotian chimed in.

Watching the two of them play off each other coldly, Wei Zhao had by now roughly guessed what was going on. They had dragged everyone else's thinking into their rhythm, and the next step would be to turn the spearhead on him.

"If that's the case, then who? No one else can enter or leave the kitchen without permission, so there shouldn't have been a chance to poison anything." Liu Ziqi shook her head. The kitchen was not a place one could simply sneak into under cover of darkness.

"No, it's true that the rest of us had no chance to poison anything—but there is exactly one person who meets that condition: the one responsible for transporting the food today. Once we drag that person out, every question will answer itself!" Ren Zhongyuan finally showed his fox's tail.

"The one transporting the food today?" Liu Ziqi's brows drew together. The work rotations were arranged by a dedicated disciple, and she truly did not know the specific assignments, so she looked at that disciple and said, "Who is it?"

The disciple pulled out the roster, glanced at it, and his expression changed. "It's Wei Zhao!"

In an instant, every gaze fell upon Wei Zhao, filled with shock and fury. None of them had ever known Wei Zhao, none of them bore him any grudge—who would have imagined that the moment this creature boarded the ship, he would scheme to poison them all?!

"Wei Zhao? How could it be Wei Zhao?" Liu Ziqi was equally startled. She had felt something was wrong from the very start, and now it had indeed come to pass.

"That's right, it's him! I saw him transporting the food earlier!" A disciple quickly stepped forward to testify.

"Yes, yes, I saw it too!" Quite a few other disciples echoed in agreement. This was hardly a secret—more than half the Eastern Continent disciples present had witnessed the scene of Wei Zhao carrying the food.

The crowd was in an uproar, and Wei Zhao was instantly made the target of every spear, thrust in a single moment into opposition to all of them. Under threat of death, they could only clutch at this one straw of salvation. Only by pinning down Wei Zhao as the true poisoner could they obtain the antidote!

"Hmph, wolfish ambition indeed! We kindly let you hitch a ride on our ship, and instead of gratitude you mean to poison every last one of us to death—what exactly is your game?" Ren Zhongyuan stared coldly at Wei Zhao, the corner of his mouth unconsciously curling into a strange arc of conspiracy come to fruition.

"No point wasting words on this kind of scum. Seize him at once and force the antidote out of him—every moment we delay is another moment of mortal peril. We cannot afford the delay. What say you, Vice-Headmistress Liu?" Yi Xiaotian incited the crowd.

"Right, seize this true poisoner and bring him to justice, force the antidote out of him at once!" The crowd was indeed frantic now. Anyone who discovered a time bomb of poison drifting through their body would find it hard to stay rational.

"This…" Liu Ziqi found herself in an awkward bind, as if riding a tiger and unable to dismount. Of course she did not believe Wei Zhao had done the poisoning, but the situation was visibly spiraling out of control. If she did nothing, there was no telling what might happen next.

"Vice-Headmistress Liu. Surely you don't mean to shield him even at this juncture? You are the leader of our Eastern Continent delegation—do you truly intend to disregard the lives of so many people? Are you resolved to stand with scum of such wolfish ambition?" Ren Zhongyuan sneered.

It wasn't only Wei Zhao who had humiliated him yesterday—this old woman had been an accomplice as well. Naturally she deserved to be put through the wringer alongside him. Today he would force her to lay hands on Wei Zhao herself!

Liu Ziqi shot him a glare, but at this moment she could not directly refute him; otherwise the many Eastern Continent disciples would truly explode. In a sense she had already been taken hostage by public sentiment—even if she raised every doubt, it would only make the crowd think she was shielding Wei Zhao and inflame their discontent.

"Hold on!" At this, Huo Yudie stepped forward and looked coldly at Ren Zhongyuan. "You say Wei Zhao is the true poisoner—but what about motive? He bears no grudge against any of us here, so why would he poison anyone?"

"Exactly. Wei Zhao is the consort of our Western Island—you slander him with such baseless words, do you truly think the Western Island is so easy to bully?" Ning Xuefei joined the attack at the same moment. Her strength might not amount to much, but her status was what it was; having grown up at Ning Shanghe's side and steeped in such an environment, she now genuinely carried a measure of the authority of one born to command.

At these words the crowd faltered somewhat. They were not fools either—many of the suspicious points Liu Ziqi could see, they could see just as well. Their furious clamor was purely a matter of taking the easy way out.

If Wei Zhao happened to be the true poisoner, they could obtain the antidote straight away; if not, then at worst they would have wronged Wei Zhao alone and could hurry on to the next suspect. Whether Wei Zhao lived or died mattered not one whit to them.

But now, faced with the challenge from Huo Yudie and Ning Xuefei, they dared not be the one to stick their neck out. Once Wei Zhao was wrongly accused, there would be a price to pay. For a time, every gaze turned back to Ren Zhongyuan.

"The motive is simple. Didn't you all say I overturned his table yesterday? Hmph—then he must have harbored a grudge. His strength is far beneath mine, so poisoning was the only卑鄙 trick available to him. What do you have to say to that?" Ren Zhongyuan retorted with a cold laugh.

"Absurd! Even if Wei Zhao truly wanted revenge on you, he would only need to poison you alone. Why blow the matter up so enormously and poison everyone? Wouldn't that be inviting trouble for himself?" Huo Yudie demanded.

"Exactly. Our Wei Zhao is not as foolish as certain people—using such a crude frame-up with not a shred of skill to it!" Ning Xuefei pursed her lips in agreement.

"Hmph, he's no fool, but he's deeply vindictive! Yesterday when I overturned his table, because no one else came to help, he simply bore a grudge against all of them together. How could we normal people possibly fathom the mind of such a sinister wretch?" Ren Zhongyuan retorted unhurriedly, his eyes brimming with smug satisfaction. (To be continued.)