Chapter 4981 — How Did He Deal With You Before?

"I've no time to waste words on you. If you had any sense you'd get out now—otherwise don't blame me for what comes next." Wei Zhao flicked him a glance, cool and flat.

"Oh ho! As expected of the man at the head of the Heavenly Elixir Pavilion—so young, and such a big mouth on you!" Diao Huanshan laughed aloud, his face a mask of mockery, then sneered: "But a big mouth alone won't frighten anyone. You think you're the Heavenly Dao Walker or something, that one casual sentence will cow an expert of my caliber—late Nascent Soul? I'll throw those words right back at you: if you've any sense, crawl back into your Heavenly Elixir Pavilion at once, or don't blame me for showing no mercy. The Heavenly Dao Walker is not here now, and it would be child's play for me to put you snot-nosed pups in your place!"

"Is that so? And how, exactly, did Brother Heavenly Dao Walker deal with you last time?" Wei Zhao asked, the subject veering all at once.

"What?" Diao Huanshan started, thinking Wei Zhao meant only to shame him with the memory—but before his embarrassment could curdle into rage, Wei Zhao's hand had already swung up and slapped him across the face.

Diao Huanshan's instinct was to strike back—only to discover, to his utter horror, that he could not move at all.

There was no mystery to it. The aura pouring off the man before him was simply too monstrous, stronger even than the Heavenly Dao Walker's had been in his day.

A Mystic Ascension expert! Diao Huanshan was struck dumb on the spot, and the whole crowd of onlookers with him, every last one of them staring at Wei Zhao in disbelief. The man was one of the legendary Mystic Ascension experts!

A personage of such terrifying rank—ought he not keep himself secluded and rarely seen? What was he doing in a market street like this? And from what Diao Huanshan had just let slip, this man was at the head of the Heavenly Elixir Pavilion?!

Wei Zhao had employed no martial art at all, only the simplest offhand wisp of true qi—and Diao Huanshan was sent flying in full view of everyone. He was, after all, only a late Nascent Soul cultivator; if trash of that sort could still strike back against Wei Zhao as he was now, then the sun would truly have risen in the west.

Diao Huanshan was slapped clean out of sight, and the square was left with nothing but the rise and fall of gasps, a chorus of sharp intakes of breath. Some who had been swayed by his words a moment before now changed their minds again—so it seemed the Heavenly Elixir Pavilion, young as it was, had backing that was no small matter, and might not necessarily lose out to the Famous Medicine Sect.

"Everyone!" Wei Zhao cupped his hands and spoke in a clear, carrying voice to the assembled crowd. "My Heavenly Elixir Pavilion does business with its doors open, and our reputation has always spoken for itself. I, Wei Zhao, make you this pledge here and now: be it fourth-grade, fifth-grade, or sixth-grade, whatever elixirs the Famous Medicine Sect has, the Heavenly Elixir Pavilion will have—and what they don't have, we will have as well. I ask only that you wait and see!"

The words set the whole square abuzz, and every appetite there was whetted at a stroke. Diao Huanshan had gone to such lengths for no purpose but to steal away their trade, yet once Wei Zhao crossed his scheme, not only had the crowd failed to be drawn to the Famous Medicine Sect—their anticipation for the Heavenly Elixir Pavilion had only grown. What kind of smash-the-signboard visit was this? It was plainly a delivery of goodwill...

That said, Wei Zhao walked into the Heavenly Elixir Pavilion, flanked by Tianchan and Xueli. Two years had passed, and the furnishings and arrangement within had not changed in the slightest; it was just as it had been, and the sight stirred a pang of feeling.

The three went straight upstairs, leaving the business below in Wei Shenjin's care for the time being. In the old busy days Wei Shenjin had helped out often enough, and after two years he had the work down pat.

"So you finally came to see us!" The moment they stepped into the room—before the door was even shut—Tianchan and Xueli had burrowed, impatient, into Wei Zhao's arms.

"It's been hard on you both these two years. The fault is mine—I should have come to see you sooner." Guilt threaded Wei Zhao's voice.

The two women sniffed in unison. These two-odd years had indeed been bitter ones for them—not that they begrudged the labor of holding up the Heavenly Elixir Pavilion alone; it was purely that they could not see Wei Zhao. True, they knew he could not be at their side always, but surely twice a year was not too much to ask? And yet one parting had stretched into more than two years, until the two of them were near to turning into stones waiting for their man.

"You'd better believe it. From now on you're not allowed to run off and leave us two sisters like this again, or else—" Tianchan broke off abruptly.

"Or else what?" Wei Zhao smiled.

"Or else I'll kick you!" Tianchan, cheeks flaming, gave him a light little kick.

"Me too!" Xueli, on his other side, followed suit—though when she caught hold of Wei Zhao it turned into a gentle embrace.

Wei Zhao did not know whether to laugh or cry. The two women had no real wish to kick him, of course; it was only a bit of fondness, that was all.

"After so long apart, when did you two learn to start kicking people? So savage! It seems I'll have to come pay my respects to you honestly and often from now on." Wei Zhao put on a show of meekness.

"You said it yourself—no taking it back!" Tianchan and Xueli exchanged a smile.

"That reminds me—I wonder how Brother Tian has been lately. From what Diao Huanshan said just now, can it be that he's no longer on Middle Island?" Wei Zhao turned the subject.

"That's right, he's not on Middle Island. If Brother Tian were here, would that piddling Diao Huanshan dare be so insolent?" Xueli said indignantly. Given the Heavenly Dao Walker's towering fame on Middle Island, Diao Huanshan would not have dared come swaggering in to make trouble if he'd been lent ten times the nerve; had he truly dared show his face before the Heavenly Dao Walker, he'd have been slapped to death on the spot.

"Oh? Has Brother Tian some pressing business, then—a mission to another Cloud-Tier Island?" Wei Zhao asked, curious. Just as Chu Wentian had been sent to West Island last time, the Heavenly Dao Walker, likewise a vice-island lord of Middle Island, would quite naturally be dispatched to represent Middle Island on other Cloud-Tier Islands.

"Not that. Brother Tian had reached the bottleneck of Nascent Soul Great Perfection, so some time ago he set out for the Eastern Continent, meaning to make his breakthrough to Mystic Ascension there," Tianchan explained.

"I see." Wei Zhao nodded. In the past he would surely have wondered why one had to go to the Eastern Continent for a Mystic Ascension breakthrough, but after his own journey along the Road of Giants, he understood it perfectly now.

It was not, to be sure, that a Mystic Ascension breakthrough could not be attempted elsewhere; but under ordinary circumstances it was very hard to draw down a tribulation lightning by one's own power alone—one had to meet with the right weather. And to reach the intensity of a tribulation lightning, an ordinary thunderstorm would never suffice; only if the heavenly thunder grew powerful enough to a certain degree would it serve. Plainly put, it came down to the will of Heaven.

The Eastern Continent was different, however. There was Thunder Plain Island and other such places where the thunderbolts gathered—the one and only choice for a Mystic Ascension breakthrough. And with the Heavenly Dao Walker's standing as vice-island lord of Middle Island, calling in a favor to gain entry to the Road of Giants would surely be no difficult matter.