Chapter 4763 — Delusional Fantasies
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
Small as they were, blood bats were fierce spirit beasts not to be taken lightly—swift beyond all shadow and trace. A few of them working together could carry off the Thunder Profound Vine with ease, and unless they deliberately slowed, they were nearly impossible to detect, let alone intercept midway.
Yet although the skies above West Island fell within a surveillance zone, once one left that area, no West Island disciple would investigate—after all, many of the merchant guilds relied on spirit birds for short-haul transport as well!
Watching the blood bats finally ferry the Thunder Profound Vine away in safety, Xu Lingchong and Kang Jingming slumped back into their chairs and breathed out together. Ever since the trial results had come out, the two had been sitting on pins and needles, frightened nearly out of their wits.
The two of them had once spun fine fantasies: once Kang Jingming became West Island's consort, they could rest easy forever. But the moment Wei Zhao appeared, that dream shattered outright—now not only was there no consort's title to be had, even their basic personal safety had become a problem.
Any West Island disciple who happened to walk past, and the two of them had to brace themselves as though facing a mortal foe—after all, they had dug up West Island's immature treasure root and stem and carted it away, and their situation on West Island was now utterly wretched.
Nor was that all. While guarding against West Island's disciples, they even had to guard against their own people from North Island—Lan Tieshan and Gongyang Jun, for instance. If those two came forward in the name of North Island's higher-ups to demand it, would they hand it over or not?
Both were top-tier figures of the younger generation; refuse, and there would surely be no good end. But if they docilely handed the Thunder Profound Vine over and the mysterious figure's side then came down on them in blame, their fate would only be the more miserable.
"Young Master Xu, what do we do now? If those two really come demanding it..." Kang Jingming instinctively shrank his neck. Sending the Thunder Profound Vine away now meant they could answer cleanly to the mysterious figure's side, but as for Lan Tieshan and Gongyang Jun—if those two truly came knocking, there would be no explaining it away.
"They shouldn't. This Thunder Profound Vine is spoils we won in the trial ourselves—they have no grounds to demand it." Xu Lingchong shook his head with a grave expression, yet in his heart he was not the least bit sure.
The words were pure self-comfort. Had the Thunder Profound Vine come to them by proper means, North Island's higher-ups would of course have no reason to demand it—but the problem was that the two of them had dug up an immature Thunder Profound Vine root and all, whipping all of West Island into a fury, and North Island's higher-ups, by both sentiment and principle, had to give some accounting for it.
"But what if they do?" Kang Jingming glanced guiltily at the door. Now, anyone walking past outside set his heart pounding with fright.
"There is no what-if!" Xu Lingchong forced a show of toughness, though he could not hide his own unease, and added, "If they want the Thunder Profound Vine, there isn't any—just this one little life of mine. Let's see what they do about that!"
Kang Jingming nodded helplessly. They had smashed the pot and given up pretending it was whole—but with things as they were, there was no other choice; they could only do as Xu Lingchong said. Yet suddenly another, graver question occurred to him: "What if Wei Zhao comes to make trouble for us?"
"Damn it, then we can only fight..." Xu Lingchong said through gritted teeth.
"Young Master Xu, fight with what? He's Ning Shanghe's son-in-law now—he could send any random underling and they'd swat us flat..." Kang Jingming sighed.