Chapter 4797 — The Beauty Pill

"The Beauty Pill?" Ren Zhongyuan's eyes darted about, and in an instant he understood why Yi Xiaotian had brought it up. "My father happened to refine a batch of Beauty Pills not long ago, on someone's commission. Sliding one out of the batch won't be difficult. Brother Yi, are you saying I should use this Beauty Pill to win over Leng Rufeng?"

"Wrong—quite the opposite. We're going to give this Beauty Pill to Ning Xuefei," Yi Xiaotian said with a mysterious smile.

"Give it to Ning Xuefei?" Ren Zhongyuan looked at him, baffled. Using the Beauty Pill to win over Leng Rufeng, and thereby set Leng Rufeng on Wei Zhao's tail—that was the logic any normal person would follow. What kind of move was giving it to Ning Xuefei?

"Think about it, Brother Ren. With a temperament like Leng Rufeng's—stubborn as a lump of stone—even if you presented him with a Beauty Pill, are you sure you could get him to do your bidding?" Yi Xiaotian answered the question with another.

"That... I really can't say I could..." Ren Zhongyuan shook his head. Leng Rufeng was not merely absurdly strong; his temper was proud and unbending to match. With a man like that, even if you caught hold of his weak spot, you had no hope of making him submit obediently. His likeliest response was to fight you to the death.

Especially since there was no small amount of bad blood between them already. Leng Rufeng made no secret of the contempt he held for the two of them. Getting him to willingly serve as their hired blade was all but impossible.

"Exactly. A single Beauty Pill won't be enough to command him—at best it serves as a pretext for stirring up trouble. We give the Beauty Pill to Ning Xuefei. Then, along the way, we make sure that woman of his happens to overhear. Brother Ren, what do you suppose happens next?" Yi Xiaotian chuckled, his face a mask of cunning.

"Brilliant! His woman has been half out of her mind over her ruined face, and now she watches a Beauty Pill pass right before her eyes. If she can restrain herself from snatching it, I'll write my surname Ren upside down!" Ren Zhongyuan slapped his thigh in excitement.

"Just so. The moment that woman makes a move on Ning Xuefei, Wei Zhao will surely step in, and then Leng Rufeng can't possibly stay out of it. Word has it he's a devoted fool—there's nothing he won't do for his woman!" Yi Xiaotian said smugly. The proof of it was that Leng Rufeng had been willing to accompany his woman back from the Mystic-Rank sea region. Anyone else, with even one chance in ten thousand of staying on in the Mystic-Rank sea region, would have died before coming back.

"A fine scheme! A fine scheme!" Ren Zhongyuan exclaimed again and again. Then he thought a moment and added, "And if the two of them don't come to blows after all, we can still leak the news that Wei Zhao carries Thunder Mystic Vine. A Beauty Pill and a Thunder Mystic Pill—those are exactly what his woman needs most right now. Leng Rufeng can't help but be tempted!"

The two of them volleyed back and forth, and a flawless plan soon took shape. Their counsel concluded, Ren Zhongyuan went straight home to fetch the Beauty Pill. He wanted to watch Wei Zhao's downfall this very moment; he could not bear to wait another instant.

Taking advantage of Ren Tianzheng's absence, Ren Zhongyuan, familiar with every corner of the house, fished out the Beauty Pill with practiced ease, then came out to confer with Yi Xiaotian. They picked a reliable underling to deliver the pill. Li Yuzhou and Sun Baolu, after all, were far too conspicuous—Wei Zhao and Ning Xuefei would never believe a word from them.

This underling was named Qian Rui. Having heard his instructions, he solemnly received the Beauty Pill from Ren Zhongyuan's hand, then waved it at Li Yuzhou and Sun Baolu, who stood watching with longing eyes, and grinned. "Brother Li, Brother Sun, you two rest easy. I guarantee I'll handle this errand beautifully. Just sit back and enjoy the show!"

Li Yuzhou and Sun Baolu bared their teeth in fury. They were underlings of Ren Zhongyuan and Yi Xiaotian, just like Qian Rui—and they had always kept him firmly under their thumb. To think this time he'd been handed the chance to turn things around. Damn it all, it stung!

But there was nothing to be done about it. They could only watch as Qian Rui swaggered off. If he pulled this off, the lad really might rise through the ranks—and whose fault was that, when it was their own business with the photographs that had dug their graves?

Humming a little tune the whole way, Qian Rui followed Ren Zhongyuan's instructions and sauntered to a separate courtyard. This had once been Leng Rufeng's dwelling—secluded enough to be a good place to recover from wounds—and after returning from the Mystic-Rank sea region, he had simply wrested it back from its occupants.

Apart from Leng Rufeng and his woman, no one ever came to this place. Qian Rui craned his neck and peeked about outside for a while. Not a stir from within.

According to their intelligence, Leng Rufeng had gone to the merchants' quarter first thing that morning, presumably to find a way to obtain Beauty Pills and Thunder Mystic Pills. So the only one left here now was his disfigured woman—Yang Qianshuang.

Speaking of Yang Qianshuang, she had once been a cold, aloof beauty held in high esteem at Xiangyun Academy, first-rate in both looks and strength. Had it not been so, Leng Rufeng would never have taken a liking to her, still less have been able to bring her along to cultivate in the Mystic-Rank sea region—that was no place one could reach merely on someone's patronage; one's own strength had to be equal to it.

Qian Rui licked his lips and crept cautiously along the courtyard wall to the rear court. Peering through a gap in the fence, he stole a look inside—and sure enough, there she was, in the pavilion in the back court. Though her face was ruined, even the sight of her back made a man's thoughts wander in spite of himself. She had been a peerless beauty once, after all.

Having fixed Yang Qianshuang's position, Qian Rui at once tiptoed back around to the front court and deliberately began muttering to himself, "Where in the world does this Ning Xuefei live? The old shopkeeper's gone senile for certain—one moment he's urging me to deliver the Beauty Pill to this young lady Ning as a congratulatory gift, the next he won't give me a specific address. How am I supposed to find it, eh?"

His voice was neither loud nor soft. That said, Qian Rui threw the full force of his divine sense into listening—and sure enough, Yang Qianshuang, who had been sitting lifeless in the rear court but a moment before, suddenly stirred.

Done it! Qian Rui's heart gave a leap, and without a moment's hesitation he turned and ran. His strength was only the early Nascent Soul stage, while the other, even gravely wounded, was still at Nascent Soul perfection. If he were a beat too slow and got caught on the spot, the fun would really begin.

Qian Rui was swift. Once out of that secluded courtyard he made straight for the newcomers' compound. By the rules, every disciple newly admitted to the academy had to live there for their first year—an ironclad rule, and not even someone of Ning Xuefei's standing was exempt. Of course, only formal disciples were entitled to that; registered disciples did not count.

This, however, was an entirely different matter from the North Island's Welcome Pavilion! (To be continued)