Chapter 3937 — The Cruel Final Battle
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"What the devil is Meng Zhou up to in there? It can't be Meng Jueming torturing him inside, can it? Screaming that miserably—the man's gone stark raving mad!" Qiao Hongcai jeered with undisguised relish.
Xiao Che, meanwhile, hazarded a puzzled guess: "Could he be cultivating some sinister, unorthodox martial art? From what I know, only certain external-school deviant techniques put a body through that kind of punishment—but Meng Zhou is hardly an external-school adept, is he?"
Wei Zhao gave a faint smile and said thoughtfully, "My guess is he swallowed something that didn't sit well. Doesn't matter. If he wants to howl, let him howl."
Wei Zhao could more or less guess what Meng Zhou was doing now. After all, he had Li Zhengming as his inside man, and during that month in the outer reaches of the back mountain he had already heard from Shangguan Lan'er about the existence of the Midnight-Noon Heart-Shattering Pill. It did not take much to connect the dots.
Anyone else in his position would by now feel a measure of unease in his heart—the more sinister a power, the more likely it was to grow formidable in a short span, and such things were common enough in the cultivation world. Unfortunately for all such worries, Wei Zhao simply did not care.
Whether Meng Zhou grew stronger or was ruined outright, Wei Zhao had never taken it to heart. At present he cared about one thing only: to consolidate his mid-Foundation Establishment realm as quickly as possible and gain complete mastery over his newly surging power. Everything else was so much passing cloud.
Ten days later, all the newcomers of the Welcome Pavilion gathered in one hall to prepare for the final stage of the newcomer assessment—the stage that would decide their future prospects, the one that mattered most of all.
At occasions like this, Meng Zhou—arrogant and self-important as he had always been—would invariably arrive early, surround himself with a great crowd of Azure Cloud Pavilion newcomers, and hold forth at length with his cronies, terrified lest he fail to become the center of attention.
This time, however, the moment Meng Zhou appeared, he needed to say not a single word: every eye in the hall was drawn to him as if by nature.
"My heavens! What's happened to him? Why is his hair all turned white?" Qiao Hongcai stared blankly at Meng Zhou and could not resist rubbing his eyes.
"That hair... I don't think it's dyed. It looks naturally white. Surely it isn't the legendary 'white overnight'?" Xiao Che said, equally disbelieving.
Wei Zhao shook his head slightly. "The hair is beside the point. Have you not noticed that the man's entire bearing has changed?"
At Wei Zhao's words, Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai finally caught on. Even the long-suffering senior brother said in astonishment, "Junior Brother Lin is right. Meng Zhou used to come across as a pure and simple fool—no real strength, no depth. But looking at him now, he's a different person entirely—sinister and warped, like... like..."
"Like a wounded beast—provoke it even slightly and it will exact a lethal revenge!" Wei Zhao's expression was placid, but inwardly he was thinking: just what manner of sinister pill is this Midnight-Noon Heart-Shattering Pill, to have turned Meng Zhou into another man in a mere ten days?
Had it merely transformed his strength, that would be one thing—a Foundation Establishment golden elixir could produce the same effect. But this Midnight-Noon Heart-Shattering Pill had changed the man's very temperament. It was simply inconceivable.
Over the past ten days, wave after wave of blood-curdling screams had issued without cease from Cave Dwelling No. 4 at the foot of the mountain. Meng Zhou was enduring inhuman torment nearly every moment, and at the midnight and noon hours each day his howls grew so heart-rending that they made one's scalp crawl. Small wonder that in a mere ten days the man had been warped into his present sinister, unearthly state.