Chapter 4961 — Zhuang Yifan's Little Scheme
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Once Liu Ziqi was seated, Wei Zhao immediately channeled true qi into her back to heal her wounds, while at the same time treating his own injuries. Neither of them was lightly hurt; Liu Ziqi in particular had not only been wounded but had expended a vast amount of vital essence, and her whole condition now seemed somewhat unsteady and hollow.
"Your true qi can actually heal wounds?" Liu Ziqi was startled to feel her injuries recovering swiftly wherever Wei Zhao's true qi passed. She had never seen such a rapid rate of healing!
"Mm. My true qi is rather unique." Wei Zhao nodded. Ordinarily such a secret should not be casually revealed to outsiders, but after tonight's battle, treating Liu Ziqi as an outsider would have been utterly heartless.
Simply because of one sudden request from him, Liu Ziqi had gone to risk her life in a bloody struggle against Chang Minghui, whose strength far outstripped her own. From this moment on, Wei Zhao regarded her as a true elder of his own—an elder to whom he could safely entrust his back.
"You really are a remarkable man," Liu Ziqi said with an involuntary smile, then changed tack: "That last step of your plan just now—you were hoping Zhuang Yifan would step in and kill Chang Minghui, weren't you?"
"Exactly. A pity it fell short at the final hurdle." Wei Zhao gave a somewhat dejected, bitter smile. From luring the enemy to laying the formation, everything before had gone perfectly. Yet that alone clearly would not be enough to kill Chang Minghui; whether the plan could succeed in slaying him hinged entirely on the last step—on whether Zhuang Yifan would act in time!
In truth, everything Wei Zhao had arranged beforehand came down in the end to making Zhuang Yifan act. Even the ambush site had not been chosen at random: it could not be too far from the League branch, or it would likely fall beyond the range of Zhuang Yifan's spiritual perception; nor could it be too close, lest Chang Minghui see that things were going badly and give up the pursuit. Only the spot he had chosen—neither far nor near—was just right.
By all reasoning, Chang Minghui and Liu Ziqi had fought at the ambush site for so long that the commotion was earth-shattering; the League branch could not possibly have failed to notice a thing. It was just a pity that Zhuang Yifan had, in the end, arrived too late, letting Chang Minghui escape calamity.
"Zhuang Yifan is no ordinary man, after all. Borrowing that great cleaver of his to kill someone is no easy matter." Liu Ziqi too felt it a shame. Though the reason Zhuang Yifan gave was perfectly reasonable, neither she nor Wei Zhao believed he could truly be so slow-witted. If they were not mistaken, Zhuang Yifan must have acted deliberately.
"Mm. I had assumed a man of his power and position would put profit above all else, and would in all likelihood seize this chance to take down Chang Minghui and thereby bring Dingcheng Town under his control. I never expected him to remain unmoved. The minds of such great figures really are impossible to fathom." Wei Zhao sighed.
In his thinking, the alchemy skill he had displayed earlier was already enough to make the other party eager to court him, especially since he had also put out word that he was striving to become a second-grade Mystic-rank alchemist. Were he in Zhuang Yifan's position, he would absolutely seize this chance to take down Chang Minghui and control Dingcheng Town, while at the same time reducing him to tears of gratitude—killing two birds with one stone. How could Zhuang Yifan fail to take the bait?
What he did not realize was that he had, in fact, been undone by his own doing. Had he been merely a first-grade Mystic-rank alchemist, Zhuang Yifan might well have made his move. But now, in name at least, he was an alchemist striving for the second grade of the Mystic rank—and that, on the contrary, made Zhuang Yifan abandon the notion.