Chapter 3678 — Internal Strife, Part One
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"That's true enough. Then there's only one explanation left—before they came out to rob spirit herbs, those two must have hidden their own baskets somewhere. Probably they were afraid of some mishap, of Leader Wei Zhao and the rest of us robbing them right back!" Qiao Hongcai reasoned.
Xiao Che nodded. "I was thinking the same. But everyone else with them is still carrying their herbs—only those two hid theirs away first. Sneaky bastards, the pair of them!"
As they spoke, they had raced all the way to the clearing beneath the giant tree, and their hearts leapt with joy. They remembered this tree—reaching it meant the Rear Mountain Hall was not far now.
But before their relief could settle, two figures burst out from the diagonal ahead, and both of them felt their eyelids twitch. Those two figures were none other than Meng Zhou and Li Zhengming, who had been chasing them all this way.
"Are you two part rabbit? Fast on your feet, I'll give you that—shame you still can't escape this lord's palm in the end!" Meng Zhou blocked their way ahead with a sinister, grating laugh.
Among the newcomers of Azure Cloud Pavilion, apart from that freak Wei Zhao, he and Li Zhengming were the strongest to begin with—and unlike Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai, they were neither worn out nor wounded. Small wonder they had cut them off.
In truth, if Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai hadn't been running for their lives all this way, Meng Zhou and the others would have intercepted them long before.
Xiao Che's heart sank. He glanced back—the footsteps of the other newcomers were clearly drawing nearer and nearer. If the two of them got tangled up with Meng Zhou now, the consequences didn't bear thinking about.
"Don't stop—leave these two to me!" Before Xiao Che could react, Qiao Hongcai had already charged ahead, straight at Meng Zhou and Li Zhengming.
Xiao Che drew a deep breath. Matters had come to this; there was no other way. He would have to grit his teeth and break through head-on.
Watching the two of them hurtle toward him, Meng Zhou smiled contemptuously. "Two fools with a death wish—knowing it's suicide, and still you come knocking! Li Zhengming, you take that wounded piece of trash Qiao. As for Xiao Che—he's mine to deal with personally!"
Li Zhengming glanced at him. At this moment, both Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai were at the end of their rope, but there was still a difference between them—and the greatest difference was that one carried spirit herbs and the other did not.
Meng Zhou had a cloth bundle strapped to his back now, holding the spirit herbs seized earlier from Qiao Hongcai. And now he had designs on Xiao Che as well. By that reckoning, all the herbs would end up in his hands in the end—not a single one set aside for his partner?
"Fine. But the spirit herbs on Xiao Che—I want half," Li Zhengming said.
His demand was hardly excessive. From the very start he had never meant to contest first place with Meng Zhou; so long as he could secure a top-three finish and the Foundation Establishment Pill, he would be well content.
But if Meng Zhou wouldn't share even a single herb with him, that goal might just slip out of reach. After all, among so many newcomers in their own gang, there was bound to be one or two with outrageous luck—and add to that the formidable Wei Zhao, and he really might not be sure of it.