Chapter 1437 — Keep Your Word: Though Now Is a Time of Need, Wei Zhao Must Use Wu Chengtian to Protect Gu Mengyao, Shen Yushu, and Tang Zhi, and Only by Doing His Utmost Can He Ensure Their Safety
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Xuan Rank? The shock that tore through Wu Chengtian's heart was beyond all reckoning. He was already a fighter at the very peak of the late Huang Rank, and that alone had left him astonished and content. Could anyone really go, in a single day, from a man who knew no martial arts at all to one at the peak of the late Huang Rank? Wu Chengtian thought not—at least he had never seen it happen. Yet now, before even a full day had passed, after a mere night's effort, he had become precisely such a fighter. And that was still not enough; he was to ascend to the Xuan Rank besides?
Wu Chengtian felt his entire body trembling, thrilled beyond all measure. Back when he had acknowledged Ergoudan as his leader, there had indeed been an element of gamble in it: what he had been betting on was Ergoudan's external skill, hoping to learn a thing or two from him and so raise his own strength. He had never once imagined that his strength would indeed rise—but rise in the internal arts, not the external!
Yet before Wu Chengtian could even grow excited, he felt a mighty surge of true qi flood into his body. It detonated in an instant, growing even stronger! In that single moment his body swelled up like an inflated balloon!
"Ah—" Wu Chengtian let out a groan of agony, but in the very next instant he clenched his teeth tight. He had said long before that he could bear it; so now, rather than let Wei Zhao think less of him, he gritted his teeth and bore the pain, refusing to let a single sound escape.
Wu Chengtian's fortitude rather surprised Wei Zhao. On Wei Zhao's side, his own part was already complete; the rest was left to Wu Chengtian himself, and there was nothing further Wei Zhao could do to help. Whether he succeeded or failed would depend on Wu Chengtian's talent and fortune.
With the precedents of Chen Yuxuan, Qiu Lingshan, and the Mighty General before him, Wei Zhao was not this time worried that anything might go wrong with Wu Chengtian. This method of compressing energy to raise one's strength seemed, for the present, to be workable—at the very least, when breaking from the peak of the late Huang Rank into the Xuan Rank.
Wei Zhao, for his part, was not idle either: having raised Wu Chengtian's strength, he now found that dawn of the second day had already broken.
Voices reached Wei Zhao from beyond the door—it must be Qingbo and Gu Pengzhan. They had surely learned of his safe return from the young miss, and so had hurried over first thing in the morning.
He pushed the door open and stepped out, and there, just as he had expected, Gu Pengzhan and Qingbo were sitting on the living-room sofa, while Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had already finished dressing and getting ready, plainly preparing to set off for school.
"Uncle Chu, Qingbo—you're here." Wei Zhao nodded to them.
"Xiao Yi, hearing that you'd come home safe, Qingbo and I rushed over to see you," Gu Pengzhan said. "Though, from what Yaoyao tells me, you may be leaving again?"
"Yes, Uncle Chu. I have to go in search of the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit to cure Xiaoxiao's illness, and I'm afraid it won't be long before I set off," Wei Zhao said.
"Then how long will this trip of yours take? The college entrance exams are almost here—you'll surely miss them, won't you?" Gu Pengzhan asked.
"Uh... Uncle Chu, do you mean that once Yaoyao and the others are at university, I'm to go on staying by their side?" Wei Zhao blinked in surprise. If Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu went to university, they would certainly go to another city; staying in Songshan City was out of the question—after all, Songshan had only one medical university, and the two girls' ambitions plainly did not lie in medicine.
"Precisely. It's rare for Yaoyao to take such a liking to someone, and you know her character—she doesn't open up to strangers easily. So my proposal is this: you get into the same university as she does, and go on guarding her at close quarters!" Gu Pengzhan said.