Chapter 4259 — Pressing On Through Hardship
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"This..." Guo Dengtao hesitated at once. The others, not having to take the lead, naturally had no objections, but he was the unlucky one. The corner of his mouth twitched. "Brother Chu, it's not that I'm unwilling, but I don't know the way. I've never been to this place, and I'm not familiar with your family's route map. Even following the map I'd easily get lost—never mind that up ahead I can't even see the path..."
"That's no trouble. I'll hold the rear and point out the direction to you at every turn, so you won't go wrong," Chu Bubai said with utter certainty.
"Well... all right then..." With matters put that way, Guo Dengtao could hardly refuse again, and had no choice but to steel himself and lead the way.
The group formed a single line: Guo Dengtao at the head, Wang Feng close behind him—no more than a step's distance—then Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, and last Feng Hongyu, with Chu Bubai holding the rear.
Guo Dengtao was cautious, every step trembling with care as though treading on thin ice, lest he fall into some deadly trap. But behind him, Chu Bubai issued directions every few steps, and so the group walked on through the dense fog for a full stick of incense's time, meeting with no mishap or danger at all.
Wei Zhao turned to look front and back. Though they were but a step apart, in that dense fog even such a short distance blurred a person's silhouette—proof enough of how outrageous the visibility was.
Yet what puzzled Wei Zhao more at this moment was Chu Bubai's deliberate arrangement.
Everyone knew that in a situation like this, he was plainly the most suited to walk first—not only because he knew the route map best and would not easily lose his way, but because he was a late-stage Golden Core expert, the strongest among them all.
True, a strong man was needed to hold the rear. But by any measure of danger and challenge, the one walking first faced the greater risk; should real danger arise, he could respond the faster.
With the shrewdness Chu Bubai had shown, he could not have failed to see this—yet he insisted on staying at the very back to hold the rear. Wei Zhao turned it over and over, and could see only two possibilities.
Either he thought the place dangerous, and so put Guo Dengtao and the rest in front to serve as cannon fodder, so that if anything happened he could flee in time—or he had some other design, some other intent. Just what ill purpose that might be, however, was impossible to say.
The moonlight was hazy; the layered fog that cut visibility to a single step; and within the fog, unknown presences half-seen and half-hidden, like will-o'-the-wisps yet not quite will-o'-the-wisps, more like ghostly shadows—together they made a scene of the utmost strangeness and ill omen.
The group scarcely dared draw a deep breath. Following Chu Bubai's directions from behind, they went on one after another, filing through the fog.
Had they been ordinary folk, catching sight now and then of ghostly shadows flickering around them, their hearts would by now have leapt from their chests. Fortunately they were all Golden Core experts, their wills far sturdier than ordinary people's; some tension and fear were unavoidable, but not enough to affect their actions. (To be continued..) R527