Chapter 4972 — The Mortal Woman
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
At that moment the two of them were skulking atop the city wall, peering furtively down. Su Kesheng was more or less in one piece, but Bao Zuoliang was covered in wounds from head to toe, a truly wretched and bedraggled sight. All of this—reduced to such a sorry state—just for the sake of carrying word back to Chang Minghui. The thought of it was enough to make one's heart ache.
This time they had gone to such pains to incite so formidable an expert to deal with Wei Zhao, and yet Wei Zhao had come away completely unscathed. The outcome had left them both choking on a bellyful of bile; Bao Zuoliang's wounds had been suffered entirely in vain.
But Wei Zhao had already grown to such a terrifying height—what could the two of them do, however unwilling they were to accept it? Could they possibly dig up someone even more ruthless than Chang Minghui to deal with him?
Fortunately, Wei Zhao had finally left. That was the one piece of good news for the two of them; otherwise, they would have had to live in constant dread in Morning Star City from now on. If Wei Zhao ever caught wind that it was the two of them stirring up trouble behind the scenes, the consequences did not bear imagining.
Their worry was not unfounded. In fact, Wei Zhao had already guessed that they were the ones pulling strings in the shadows. After all, the two of them had vanished mysteriously on Thunder Plain Island, and hard on the heels of that, Chang Minghui had come hunting for him. Even if he had not caught the oddity of it at the time, he was bound to work it out afterward.
Wei Zhao gave the two of them a glance that was half smile, half something else, then departed from Morning Star City, showing no intention whatsoever of dealing with them.
It was not that he could not—it was that there was no need. In his eyes, the pair were nothing but clowns capering on a stage. They posed no threat to him, nor to Wang Xinyan and the others. By now, Morning Star Academy had all but been cultivated into his own personal power base; to speak of the insignificant Bao Zuoliang—even if his own father came in person, it would make no difference.
The journey passed without incident, and several days later Wei Zhao arrived at the domain of Xiangyun Academy.
He had rather fancied the notion that running into that great expert of the Western Hills again would have been interesting. And it was hardly impossible: evil cultivators were, as a rule, deeply vindictive. The great expert of the Western Hills had not dared enter Morning Star City, but there was every chance he had been lurking outside all this while, waiting patiently for his prey to stroll by.
As it turned out, though, Wei Zhao had been overthinking it. Months had passed since then. The great expert of the Western Hills had not been sitting idle with nothing better to do—how could he possibly have kept watch outside Morning Star City all this time?
Upon entering Xiangyun Academy, Wei Zhao quickly drew a crowd of passing disciples, who gathered round to gawk. He was not a disciple of Xiangyun Academy, true, but after that half-month-long revolving battle with Leng Rufeng, and then the business of the Road of the Giants last time, his fame here was in no way inferior to Leng Rufeng's own.
Being stared at and picked apart in broad daylight as though he were some rare panda left Wei Zhao momentarily speechless. He had no choice but to employ the Butterfly Microstep and flee into the newcomers' hall. Yet before he could even open his mouth to speak, an ice blade came cleaving straight at his face.
Aiya! Wei Zhao jumped in alarm. Without a second thought he flung up a hand, sending out the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams killing intent. A vivid, lifelike Eight Trigrams flood dragon, accompanied by a dragon's roar, coiled itself directly around the enormous ice blade overhead, shredding it to pieces in an instant, and wiping out the blade's mountain-thick force completely in one sweep.