Chapter 3687 — Furious Beyond Endurance
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Xu Lingchong broke into a smile at once. To make the three elders present brazenly call black white before everyone's eyes—that, perhaps, lay beyond his power. But to get them to turn a blind eye to a trifling matter like this was no trouble at all.
After all, his grandfather Xu Yuanzheng was a heavyweight who held a seat on the Elder Council itself; even these three elders of the Rear Mountain Hall would have to show him some face.
As for whether the three elders would play along, the answer was plain enough. However quietly Xu Lingchong and the others spoke, there was no hope of slipping anything past the senses of three elders—and yet from first to last they had neither spoken up to stop it, nor said so much as a single word. That silence was itself consent.
Having secured the nod from Xu Lingchong and Hu Yunfeng, Meng Jueming turned at once and went back among the new disciples. By chance he cast a glance in Wei Zhao's direction—and what he saw nearly made him jump out of his skin.
In the time he and Xu Lingchong had been hatching their scheme, that great young miss Shangguan Lan'er had actually stooped to seek out Wei Zhao of her own accord—and this was no mere peerless beauty, mind you. The crux of it was that she was the granddaughter of Shangguan Tianxia, master of the Rushing Heavens Pavilion!
To have a young miss as lofty as a princess descend to strike up a conversation with him—just how many lifetimes of good fortune must that country bumpkin from the mortal world, Wei Zhao, have accumulated?
It was not Meng Jueming alone; every other new disciple in the hall now fixed Wei Zhao with looks of envy, jealousy and hate, some plainly wishing they could kill him with their eyes and take his place.
Even young Master Xu Lingchong, standing up above, changed color at the sight—after all, he was one of Shangguan Lan'er's many suitors!
His grandfather Xu Yuanzheng had warned him time and again that if he hoped to rise in the Rushing Heavens Pavilion in the years to come, he must cling fast to Shangguan Tianxia's coattails, and that courting Shangguan Lan'er was the surest way to do it. The future fortunes of the Xu family hung on this; there was no room for failure.
So for the past few years young Master Xu had poured countless effort into winning the girl's heart, only for Shangguan Lan'er to treat him with cold indifference throughout. And now, of all things, she had taken the initiative to chat up Wei Zhao, that bumpkin from the mortal world—how was a man supposed to stomach that!
The feeling was nothing less than a young lord of noble birth utterly routed by a penniless nobody!
What no one realized was that Shangguan Lan'er had never meant to approach Wei Zhao at all—she had been forced into it! The one truly eager to get close to Wei Zhao was the little curly-furred cub perched on her back, straining with all its might to burrow into his arms!
"You ungrateful little wretch!" Shangguan Lan'er cursed inwardly. Yet under the cub's relentless assault of coaxing and cuddling, she could not bring herself to ignore it, and so had no choice but to grit her teeth and endure all those strange looks from the crowd.
Fortunately, Wei Zhao was not so insufferable as she had imagined. Anyone else, handed such a heaven-sent opportunity, would have pestered her with endless questions like Xu Lingchong and his sort, angling to ingratiate themselves. Wei Zhao, however, showed no inclination to push his luck—he merely greeted her as calmly as ever and said nothing more.
And yet, oddly enough, it was Shangguan Lan'er—so used to being the center of every eye—who found herself nettled. What was this Wei Zhao playing at? Was she really so unappealing in his eyes?
Catching that flicker of strange resentment in her gaze, Wei Zhao was utterly baffled. From first to last, he had given this young miss no offense whatsoever.