Chapter 4772 — The Poisoning Incident
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
If that were all, it might still be bearable. The problem was that this poison qi might at any moment suddenly invade the heart meridian, and once the heart meridian was breached by the poison, death would not be far behind.
All the Eastern Continent disciples were gathered together, exchanging worried glances. In the space of those two hours, three disciples had already suffered damage to their heart meridians; only through Liu Ziqi's efforts had they barely clung to their last breath. Now their lives hung by a thread, and at any moment they might stop breathing altogether.
If a way was not found quickly to purge the poison qi from their bodies, the rest would inevitably meet the same fate. It was even possible that every Eastern Continent disciple aboard this ship was doomed.
Among them all, only Wei Zhao was unaffected. His constitution was impervious to a hundred poisons, and ordinary toxins had little effect on him. But no one else knew this, and they all assumed he had been poisoned as well. After all, even a titan of the academy like Liu Ziqi had not been spared—which showed just how formidable this poison was.
In an instant, the atmosphere aboard the ship grew tense in the extreme. Everyone looked warily at everyone else. For such a large-scale poisoning to erupt so suddenly, there was absolutely no way no one was pulling strings behind the scenes!
"Vice Principal Liu, I am certain there is a mastermind behind this affair. Only by finding him quickly can we hope to obtain the antidote!" Ren Zhongyuan immediately stepped forward and declared.
The others nodded one after another, each loudly clamoring for the culprit to be seized. With their own lives at stake, there was no room for the slightest hesitation or delay.
"You have a lead?" Liu Ziqi glanced at him with a slight frown. This whole business was strange from beginning to end, baffling beyond reason.
If someone truly had poisoned them on purpose, then how had they done it, and to what end?
If the goal was genuinely to kill, they could have chosen a far more virulent poison rather than give everyone time to react as they had now. Even if no one could cure the poison, that interval was more than enough to ferret out the culprit—was that not simply inviting trouble for oneself?
Thinking it over carefully, every link in this chain was steeped in an inexplicable oddity. But the crowd was now in a fever pitch of agitation; delay any longer and the situation could easily spiral out of control, and then it would truly be impossible to contain.
Liu Ziqi had no choice but to declare first that the mastermind behind the poisoning would be uncovered, if only to soothe the people's hearts.
"I do!" Ren Zhongyuan's categorical answer instantly lifted everyone's spirits. Then, with a show of doubt, he swept his gaze across every face in the crowd one by one before saying slowly, "I just noticed that only we Eastern Continent disciples have been poisoned, while every member of the crew is perfectly fine. Don't you all think that is the most obvious clue of all?"
"What do you mean?" Those whose minds worked a little slower had not yet caught on, but beside him Yi Xiaotian slapped his own head and said, "Brother Ren means the culprit put the poison in our food?"
"Exactly, that's precisely it!" Ren Zhongyuan now wore the wise and penetrating expression of one who saw through all things. Under everyone's gaze he drew out the moment to the fullest before explaining, "You should all know that although the crew and we Eastern Continent disciples share the same living quarters, there is one difference—they have their own separate mess hall. If the culprit had poisoned the water or used something like poisoned incense, the crew could not possibly have been spared. So the answer is obvious: the culprit put the poison in our food!" (To be continued.)