Chapter 4153 — The Stratagem of Borrowing a Knife
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"But what if we don't strike ourselves—what if we borrow a knife and let someone else do the killing of Wei Zhao?" asked Ancestor Xuanchen. He was a thoroughly vicious man; when it came to dirty tricks he was a match for Kang Jingming—otherwise the two of them could never have been master and disciple.
"Borrow a knife to kill? Now that is a fine idea!" Nantian Jiguang's eyes lit up at once, and he turned to Si Haitao. "Shopkeeper Si, didn't you say you run the intelligence network? See whether there's anyone we can make use of!"
"I only run the intelligence network of the North Island, and I haven't yet sunk my fingers into Middle Island—I've merely skimmed some of the reports," Si Haitao said with a smile. Then: "But speaking of making use of someone—lately, apart from the Heavenly Execution Way, what's the biggest piece of news on Middle Island? Isn't it that core disciple of the Snow Sword Sect who was beaten into a cripple? The Snow Sword Sect is frantic for revenge. Could we not find a way to pin the blame on Wei Zhao?"
"Oh? What's this about? Tell us at once," Nantian Jiguang urged.
Until now he had been wholly fixated on contending for the post of Deputy Island Lord of Middle Island and had had no mind for gossip; as for Ancestor Xuanchen, he too had been in secluded cultivation until recently, emerging only on the very day Nantian Jiguang took office to lend him support—and after that a whole string of events had followed, leaving him even less chance to hear such street-corner tidings.
"Wei Shenjin, a core disciple of the Snow Sword Sect, had his meridians shattered some time ago and was reduced to a useless cripple. The one who crippled him was a martial brute by the name of Ling Yi. Where this fellow sprang from, no one knows, but he had already kicked up one storm before that: they say this brute Ling Yi eloped with a Snow Sword Sect serving girl named Xueli after carrying on an affair with her. The scandal set the whole city abuzz, and the Snow Sword Sect has already hunted him twice under citywide warrant. By now he's become a personage of no small renown here on Middle Island," Si Haitao explained to the two of them.
"So that's how it is." Nantian Jiguang nodded, but then frowned. "Yet what has that to do with Wei Zhao? The Snow Sword Sect is after the brute Ling Yi—surely we can't dump this on Wei Zhao just because the names sound somewhat alike. The Snow Sword Sect is not so foolish; they won't be used by us so easily."
"That may be so, but apart from this, there seems to be nothing else we can make use of—" Si Haitao had gotten only halfway through when Ancestor Xuanchen suddenly slapped his thigh, his eyes blazing, and cried out: "Aiyo, aiyo! This is a gift dropped from Heaven!"
"Oh? How so?" Nantian Jiguang and Si Haitao were both taken aback.
"That brute Shopkeeper Si just mentioned—his name is Ling Yi, correct? Do you know what alias Wei Zhao liked to use back when he was in the mortal world?" Ancestor Xuanchen said, his face alight with excitement.
"Could it be Ling Yi?" Si Haitao was startled. It suddenly came back to him that Wei Zhao had done exactly this sort of thing on the North Island—only then his alias had been Lin Er. Now that he had come to Middle Island, there was no telling but that he might be up to his old tricks.
"The very same—Ling Yi!" Ancestor Xuanchen nodded emphatically.
"Is such a thing possible?" Nantian Jiguang's eyes gleamed, but then he said: "Yet how are we to prove that Wei Zhao is Ling Yi? Even if he used that alias in the mortal world before, he could simply plead coincidence. On that point alone, it won't be near enough to persuade the Snow Sword Sect to serve as our hired blades."