Chapter 4227 — Into the Tiger's Den
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"But… from what that man said, it sounds like he means to wait at Weihu City to catch us. Are we still going?" Huang Xiaotao still felt somewhat nervous.
"There's no other way. Even knowing the mountain is full of tigers, we can only walk straight into the tiger's den." Wei Zhao thought it over, and at last made his decision.
In their plan, Weihu City was to be the first stop after reaching the Weihu sea region, for it was the very core of the whole Weihu sea region: together with the several islands about it, it was the most flourishing and central gathering place of cultivators here, and the indispensable transit point for reaching any other part of the Weihu sea region.
Whatever an outsider came to the Weihu sea region to do—whether to gain first-hand, accurate intelligence or to replenish supplies—the first stop was invariably Weihu City. There was no way around it, whatever detours one took.
Yet from what Wei Zhao had learned, there were no unified powers or sects here. Merchant associations, mercenary companies, guilds and all manner of tangled factions were gathered together, among which a few were especially powerful, each going its own way as always—rather like those ancient sects of the secular world.
Whether that Poison Eye Mercenary Company of Cheng Qitian's was numbered among these most powerful factions, however, Wei Zhao did not know.
The Weihu sea region was utterly unlike the North Island, after all. On the North Island, the Three-Tiered Pavilion could stand for a thousand years unshaken; but in the Weihu sea region, even a power at its blazing zenith could be supplanted the very next moment—and that was a most commonplace thing.
In truth, even the most overweening of flourishing powers seldom held sway in the Weihu sea region for more than ten years. So here there were few great houses of old, and many newly risen lords.
And the North Island and the South Island lay far apart, their ties none too close: whatever faint rumor drifted across arrived long after the fact. Even the whereabouts of that Wu Baoliang, as updated by the Law Enforcement Hall—how reliable it was could in no way be guaranteed.
As for this so-called Poison Eye Mercenary Company—when exactly it had sprung up as one of these newly risen powers, whether within the past month or the past year, was all the more impossible to know.
Yet whatever sort of thing this Poison Eye Mercenary Company might be, a man of Wei Zhao's temper could never be cowed by the likes of a mere Cheng Qitian. He had braved a place as perilous as the Central Island, made his name there, and walked away whole—would he now fear this tiny, outlying corner of the Weihu sea region, fear a mere Poison Eye Mercenary Company?
"Oh, whatever happens, I'll follow your lead." Huang Xiaotao nodded. With one simple sentence from Wei Zhao, the unease in her brow vanished utterly into thin air.
As a young woman newly arrived and at once threatened by so powerful a local serpent, it would have been unnatural not to be afraid at all. But so long as she could stay at Wei Zhao's side, she would not knit her brows even to climb a mountain of blades or wade through a sea of fire. Wherever Wei Zhao went, that was her world; all else was passing cloud.
"Very well, then—let us go to Weihu City and have a look at this Cheng Qitian." Wei Zhao smiled faintly, and at once drove the spirit bird beneath them on toward Weihu City. (To be continued...)