Chapter 4051 — Reunion
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Meng Zhou's feud with Wei Zhao ran no less deep than their own, which made him a natural ally whose reliability was beyond doubt.
To their surprise, Meng Zhou—whose bearing had grown ever more bizarre and uncanny—merely listened to their account in full, then cursed them coldly with two words: "You idiots!"
Such undisguised contempt instantly wiped the color from Murong Zhen's and Kang Jingming's faces. They had always regarded themselves as far above Meng Zhou, and now to be looked down upon by this former underling of theirs—this was more than flesh and blood could bear!
Yet the moment their expressions changed, a savage, ferocious aura came bearing down upon them from above, crushing them until they could scarcely draw breath.
"You... you've already reached the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment?" Kang Jingming and Murong Zhen blurted out in unison, their faces stricken with shock. Never had they imagined that in so short a time this Meng Zhou could be reborn entirely, having broken through to the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment!
Back when Murong Zhen had first arrived at the Welcome Pavilion, her strength at the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage had made her peerless, and a mere Meng Zhou had been beneath her notice. Now, after only a few short months, the man had become a mid-stage Foundation Establishment expert whom she could only look up to.
Strength decided who held the right to speak. Had Meng Zhou still been at the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage, then for that one scornful remark alone Murong Zhen and Kang Jingming would have fallen out with him on the spot. But now he was a mid-stage Foundation Establishment expert whose strength completely overawed the two of them, and that changed everything.
However much it galled them, Murong Zhen and Kang Jingming could only swallow it for the time being.
Meng Zhou paid their shock no mind and went on with his contempt: "With the paltry strength you two have, you dared to kidnap Shangguan Lan'er and then try to pin the blame on Wei Zhao? That you're still alive and unharmed is nothing short of a miracle. And you still have the nerve to wonder how they found you? Even Shangguan Tianxia has taken the field in person—a figure of such vast power and reach, is it really so strange that he could track you down?"
Under that relentless tide of scorn and scolding, Murong Zhen and Kang Jingming were left red-faced and speechless. On reflection, this kidnapping of Shangguan Lan'er had been sheer possession by evil spirits, and their survival to this day was truly a stroke of great fortune.
"The idea of kidnapping Shangguan Lan'er was Miss Murong's from the very start—it had nothing to do with me..." Kang Jingming said, distancing himself. From first to last, all he had ever wanted was to deal with Wei Zhao; unlike Murong Zhen, he had no personal grudge against Shangguan Lan'er.
Murong Zhen was so mortified she could not speak for a long while. At last she set her face and said, "We've already come this far—what's the use of dragging all that up now? Rather than waste our breath blaming each other, we'd do better to think about how to deal with Wei Zhao next. That's what matters!"
"Hmph! Xu Lingchong's gone now, Meng Jueming's gone, and every backer we had has fallen. What the hell are we supposed to do?" Meng Zhou snorted in contempt.
Had this been the old Meng Zhou, now that his strength had surged to the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment he would long since have leapt out to challenge Wei Zhao, too impatient even to bother with schemes and plots—he would simply have wanted to crush Wei Zhao head-on and bask in the glory. But his nature had changed utterly; the foolish, simple-minded stupidity of the old days was gone, and in its place he had learned the two words: bide one's time.