Chapter 4496 — Smacked in the Face
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
"If you're so careful and cautious, then how come now, over some trifling bit of hearsay, you dare to call our Ling Yi a heretical cultivator?" Qi Wenmo scoffed from below the stage, sneering, "And your logic is complete nonsense. If he and Wu Baoliang were both heretical cultivators who escaped from the Sandie Pavilion of North Island, then why would they travel thousands of miles to this Southern Continent Escort Gathering to fight to the death? You think everyone's brain is waterlogged like yours?"
To be mocked to his face by a junior like Qi Wenmo sent Hai Wuliang into a fury, though in the end he swallowed it and did not strike directly, saying with ill intent, "This is a matter between heretical cultivators. If you want to know, you'll have to ask them yourselves. If I were to speculate, it's probably because he and Wu Baoliang cultivated the same heart method, so he killed him to silence him and conceal his identity as a heretical cultivator..."
"You slander him with bloody lies!" Qi Wenmo flew into a rage. Hai Wuliang was determined to nail the charge of heretical cultivation onto Ling Yi no matter what, ready to destroy a man's life with a few scraps of words—vicious and venomous, a heart deserving execution!
"Hmph, I say it's you who spouts nonsense, letting a heretical cultivator infiltrate the upper ranks of an escort agency without even knowing it, and now you still dare to openly shield him. Do you really think our Southern Continent Escort Alliance cannot deal with your one Qingtian Escort Agency?" Hai Wuliang glared with brows drawn, the very picture of righteous indignation.
At last Qi Wenmo could no longer contain his anger, and even his father Qi Mingyuan had both fists clenched. The whole of Qingtian Escort Agency shared a common hatred; at a single word of command they would have gladly come to blows on the spot. For a time Demon Cold Plaza was tense as the wind in a lonely pass, heavy with the sense of a storm about to break.
Just then, among the seats of the merchant association representatives beside the panel of judges, a man rose to his feet dead center, cleared his throat, and cut in loudly: "Would everyone hear me out for a moment?"
Every eye in the hall snapped to this man. Those with sharp eyes recognized him at once—was this not Chai Laoshi, the newly installed manager of the Weihu Branch of the Hong Merchant Association?
As the second-largest merchant association among the five Cloud-Tier Islands, the Hong Merchant Association was a power not to be ignored wherever it went. Men of business set store by harmony and profit; leaving aside the vast wealth at its own command, the mere web of powers and connections closely tied to it was enough to strike awe into anyone.
To offend the Hong Merchant Association was by no means simply to offend one merchant giant—it was all but to offend a whole host of top-tier powers, not a few of them masters who held entire islands in their grip.
So for all that Chai Laoshi was but the manager of one small Weihu Branch, his presence here represented the entire Hong Merchant Association, and his every word and deed represented its stance. Even Hai Wuliang did not dare slight this in the least, and could only lower himself to curry favor.
After all, including their own Four Seas Escort Agency, more than half the business of these Southern Continent escort agencies came from such merchant associations. The Hong Merchant Association, chief among them, was their golden patron—and if they failed to keep this great patron happy, what would they have to drink in the future but the northwest wind?