Chapter 4563 — No Retreat After All
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Unlike last time, Wei Zhao and the spirit bird were both now at the Nascent Soul stage, and reaching the swamp's surface proved far easier this time around. The ghostly thing connected their divine senses without a word, allowing Wei Zhao to perceive everything outside with perfect clarity.
As expected, two men were once again keeping watch from a tree fork not far from Five-Poison Swamp—only this time it was not the bald brute and the swarthy fellow he had seen before, but a different pair entirely. When he had observed their faces clearly through the ghostly thing's divine sense, Wei Zhao was struck dumb: they were two familiar faces again.
"Brother Yanji, those two bastards are really too much, aren't they? We've still got ten days before the shift change, but they slipped off early and left us to take the blame. Two months squatting out here was bad enough, and now we've got ten more days tacked on. It makes me mad enough to spit blood!" one of them fumed.
"Let it go, Old Guan. A man under another's roof must bow his head. We're the new hires at Dragon Boat Escort Agency—we don't have their deep roots, so taking a little loss is unavoidable. Just grit your teeth for now," the other replied, his face dark.
"Hah... back when we were at Heaven-Supporting Escort Agency, those two were nothing in front of us brothers. If they dared pull a face like that at me, I'd slap him halfway to the next life!"
"Hmph. If it weren't for that cursed Ling Yi, how would we have fallen this low? Driven to the wall, forced to throw in our lot with Dragon Boat Escort Agency, letting these snobs shit and piss all over our heads! So as far as I'm concerned, this posting is just perfect. I want a good, long look at the place where Ling Yi's bones will rot—and vent a little of this rage!"
"Right, right. Good riddance to the bastard. With us brothers standing guard here, even if he doesn't die, we can still let Old Zong deal with him. The moment that jade token shatters, he comes running—heh heh, and then we'll have done a great service!"
"Great service my ass. Do you even know what this place is? This is Five-Poison Swamp—even an immortal who jumps in has to report to the King of Hell. How many lives do you think Ling Yi has? He jumps in and comes out alive? Is this swamp his family's property? Hahahaha!"
The two men keeping watch above were, astonishingly, old acquaintances Wei Zhao had known since the very day he first arrived in the Southern Continent—acquaintances, moreover, with whom he had old scores to settle: Li Yanji and Guan Zhiyuan.
After the shameless, faithless deeds they had pulled back then, their reputations had been thoroughly ruined; by all rights, they should have found it near impossible to keep working in the escort trade. What Wei Zhao had not expected was that they would turn around and join Dragon Boat Escort Agency—that agency really did refuse to walk the beaten path. It took in any piece of garbage at all.
Then again, they already had a demonic cultivator holding down the fort, so a bit more trash hardly made a difference.
Wei Zhao clenched his fist, half-minded to go straight up and finish off these two bastards. But at the thought of the sensing jade tokens in their hands, he reined the killing intent back in. Just as the two had said, the moment the token shattered, the summons would come. If he truly drew the Old Sect of the Western Mountains down on himself, that would be anything but good for Wei Zhao.
With his current strength at the early Nascent Soul stage, he would not be as wretched in the face of the Old Sect of the Western Mountains as he had been before. But to pit this little strength against a mountain-opening-stage demonic cultivation titan was plainly wishful thinking; the end result could only be the same as before—flight into Five-Poison Swamp. And this time the Old Sect of the Western Mountains would personally stand guard over the swamp and never give him the slightest chance to escape.