Chapter 4339 — Framed
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
The steward had been assigning tasks to the crowd, and the escorts had all been eager to try their luck; judging by the look of it, this was a profitable job with little risk. But once Wei Zhao walked in, the hall suddenly fell silent, and every eye in the room snapped to him at once, each face wearing a complicated, knowing expression.
Li Yanji and Guan Zhiyuan especially—the moment they saw Wei Zhao, their faces changed in unison, and they exchanged an instinctive glance, a distinct flicker of panic in their eyes.
Wei Zhao cupped his hands to the crowd and was just about to speak when Li Yanji suddenly sprang out and, preempting him, pointed at Wei Zhao and bellowed: "You brazen traitor! Ling Yi, you actually dare to come back—truly beyond anyone's expectations! Everyone, seize this traitor, don't let him get away!"
"Right! For scum like this to show his face here is an insult to all of us. He must be caught and severely punished, to serve as a warning to others!" Guan Zhiyuan jumped in to echo from the side.
The rest of the crowd did not react as vehemently as the two, but the looks they turned on Wei Zhao were plainly full of contempt and disdain, some even tinged with hostility. Even so, if Li and Guan hoped to whip them into joining an attack, that was impossible. Everyone present was an old hand who had walked the jianghu for years—how could they be used as someone's spear so easily?
So it really was these two who were behind it! Looking at this melodramatic scene, how could Wei Zhao fail to understand? In an instant the whole chain of cause and effect clicked into place in his mind.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Wei Zhao gave a cold laugh, watching the two with an unreadable calm. Today he was going to sit back and see just how these two meant to play out their little drama.
"What's it supposed to mean? Hmph, your hide really is thick beyond all measure. After pulling such shameless stunts, you actually dare to come back—and act as if nothing happened?" Li Yanji sneered on and on, and to the uninformed outsiders watching, it looked as real as could be.
"Boy, let me tell you—here at the Qingtian Escort Agency, deserting in the face of battle is tantamount to treason, a capital crime of the first order. And what you did back then was far more than mere desertion. You served the tiger as its accomplice, dragged the good name of our entire agency through the mud, and forced us to pay an astronomical compensation. Hmph, a few of your lives wouldn't be enough to pay it back!" Guan Zhiyuan chimed in, righteous indignation thick in his voice.
Watching this, Wei Zhao curled his lip inwardly. These two had little strength and little nerve, but when it came to putting on a show, they were first-rate hands. No wonder so many people here had been taken in by them...
"Serving the tiger as its accomplice? Then by all means, tell me—just how did I serve the tiger as its accomplice?" Wei Zhao was not the least bit flustered or furious as the crowd had imagined. Instead, unhurried, he smiled faintly and countered, the look he gave Li and Guan that of a man watching two clowns caper—as though he did not take them seriously at all.
"You traitor, and you still dare to be so arrogant!" Li and Guan exchanged a glance, alarmed at heart. For the two of them, the best possible outcome was for a few words of provocation to make the filth stick, to goad this Ling Yi into lashing out in desperation—then the charge would be thoroughly nailed down, and in the ensuing chaos they could kill him and shut his mouth for good, tying everything up neatly with no loose ends.
...R1052