Chapter 4772 — The Poisoning Incident
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Exactly, exactly—do unto others as they have done unto us. We'll make him swallow his own bitterness without being able to say a word!" Sun Baolu chimed in.
"Do unto others as they have done unto us? And how exactly do we do that? You two, come up with a plan for me." Ren Zhongyuan shot the pair an irritated glance and frowned. "This can't be dragged out. What if, once we reach the Eastern Continent, that brat and Ning Xuefei end up at some academy we can't predict—by then it'll be too late to deal with him. We have to strike before he gets off this ship!"
"Uh…" Li Yuzhou and Sun Baolu exchanged a glance, momentarily at a loss. It was easy enough to talk about such a thing, but actually coming up with a reasonable, workable scheme was not something that could be done on the spur of the moment.
"Isn't it just a matter of slandering him with empty words? The way I see it, it's actually not that hard. Brother Ren, have you forgotten? All the Eastern Continent disciples have to take turns on work duty aboard this ship—even the likes of us are no exception. That brat may carry the title of Western Island consort, but surely he can't be exempt either. After all, he's on his way to study at an Eastern Continent academy, so naturally he has to follow our Eastern Continent rules!" Yi Xiaotian said, stroking his chin.
"Right! As long as he's on work duty, we'll have our chance to frame him and let him taste what it's like to be unable to defend himself!" Ren Zhongyuan clapped his hands together in excitement.
"So that means you've already worked out what to do, Brother Ren?" Yi Xiaotian asked with keen interest.
"Naturally. Just sit back and enjoy the show. This time I'm going to drive this Western Island consort into a corner—heh heh!" A flash of murderous intent passed through Ren Zhongyuan's eyes. Though he dared not act openly on account of Liu Ziqi's intimidating presence, so long as he left Wei Zhao unable to defend himself, even Liu Ziqi would not be able to protect him!
The next day, just as Ren Zhongyuan and the others had anticipated, all the Eastern Continent disciples—Wei Zhao and Ning Xuefei included—were assigned to work rotations. Ning Xuefei's task was to scrub the decks alongside Huo Yudie and the others, while Wei Zhao was assigned to the mess hall, where his sole duty was to place the various dishes and delicacies into the immortal-stone jade pools.
The task was pure errand-running. There was no particular requirement for how the food was arranged, so long as people could reach it; it was neither strenuous nor difficult. Working alone, Wei Zhao finished the job easily in no time at all and called it a day.
At lunchtime, the Eastern Continent disciples came to the mess hall in twos and threes. Wei Zhao naturally went with Huo Yudie, Ning Xuefei, and the others, and on the way he passed Ren Zhongyuan and his group. To his considerable surprise, though, the fellow merely gave him a cold glance and did not come over to pick a fight. Had Liu Ziqi's words really frightened him off?
But what was the meaning of that faint, sinister smile at the corner of his mouth? Wei Zhao shook his head in puzzlement, a vague sense that something was off nagging at him—though for the moment he could not put his finger on what.
It was not until two hours later that Wei Zhao's foreboding finally became reality: every last Eastern Continent disciple had been poisoned!
The symptoms were exceedingly strange. There was only a faint, barely perceptible poison qi wandering through the meridians of their bodies, and beyond that, nothing unusual showed at all. At first glance everyone appeared perfectly normal; even circulating their true qi met with no obstruction. There was just one thing—by no method could this poison qi be expelled from the body.