Chapter 246 — A Rather Troublesome Choice

Hearing Wei Zhao's words, Sun Jingyan was instantly furious. Plenty of men were lining up to solve her troubles for her—Wu Chengtian, for one—and she had never even given them the time of day. She had come to Wei Zhao of her own accord, and now he was calling her a nuisance?

"Fine. I don't care anyway. From now on, whenever something comes up, I'm coming to you." Sun Jingyan had begun to play the shameless.

Wei Zhao said nothing more. If she wanted to come looking, let her. Whether he showed up would depend on his mood.

He had Sun Jingyan drop him at the snack street behind the school. Only after her car had completely disappeared did Wei Zhao turn and head back to campus.

At the designated hospital for the Songshan City Detention Center, accompanied by his lawyer, Zhong Yongliang met with Brother Black Panther.

"Brother Black Panther!" Seeing him wrapped head to toe in bandages, Zhong Yongliang couldn't help but be shaken. Brother Black Panther had actually been beaten into this state?

Black Panther gave a bitter smile. He had never imagined it either—that a man at the peak of the late Yellow Rank could be crippled like this, every meridian severed, reduced to something barely human, lying in a hospital bed in a living death.

Because of Black Panther's condition, he was not being held at the detention center itself, and so the ward contained no police—only the lawyer.

This much, Zhong Fabai could still arrange. A private meeting with Black Panther was no difficult matter for him.

"Young Master Zhong, you came..." Black Panther looked at Zhong Yongliang, a flicker of gloom crossing his face. "I truly underestimated him. I never thought Wei Zhao would be this formidable. He's like me—he's already reached the peak of the late Yellow Rank..."

"What? He's reached the peak of the late Yellow Rank?" Zhong Fabai was stunned, staring at Black Panther in disbelief. "Black Panther, are you telling the truth?"

"Boss, is there any need for me to lie about something like this?" Black Panther smiled bitterly. "So, boss, Young Master Zhong—before you have absolute certainty, I'd advise you both to leave Wei Zhao alone. You're no match for him..."

Black Panther's words were hardly pleasant to the ear, but honest counsel grates—this was a truth Zhong Fabai understood, and so did Zhong Yongliang. They truly were no match for Wei Zhao!

Zhong Fabai took it in stride; his connection to Wei Zhao was slight, and whether or not to move against the man was not something he had any strong feelings about. But Zhong Yongliang's expression shifted at once! Wei Zhao had become, in his eyes, an opponent that must be eliminated in this life!

The humiliation he had suffered that night had come at Zou Ruoming's hands, but Wei Zhao had been the one behind it! Even now the welts from the belt on his body still ached fiercely, and at the memory Zhong Yongliang clenched his fists. "Brother Black Panther, you don't know—the humiliation I suffered that day was no less than yours!"

"Ha? Young Master Zhong, you truly want to do away with Wei Zhao?" Brother Black Panther suddenly smiled, looking at Zhong Yongliang with an odd gleam in his eyes.

"I do! Brother Black Panther, do you have a good plan?" The moment Zhong Yongliang saw that smile, he knew Black Panther must have a way.

"I do, but..." Brother Black Panther glanced at the people in the room and stopped short.

"You, step outside for now!" Zhong Fabai waved a hand at the lawyer. The only outsider here was the lawyer. Though the man had long served Zhong Fabai, what Black Panther was about to say was surely a matter of the utmost secrecy—the fewer who knew, the better.

"Understood, boss!" The lawyer naturally said nothing more. Working for Zhong Fabai, he knew full well: do not listen to what should not be heard, do not pry into what should not be known.

Only after the lawyer had left the ward did Black Panther's face turn grave. "Young Master Zhong, if you want revenge on Wei Zhao, the only way is to raise your own strength! Make yourself stronger than the peak of the late Yellow Rank—only then can you kill him! Otherwise... the peak of the late Yellow Rank is not something a crowd can simply overwhelm. Send a pack of ordinary thugs to surround him, and it's nothing but throwing lives away, again and again!"

"Raise my own strength?" Zhong Yongliang was taken aback, then said, "Brother Black Panther, you mean I too can raise my strength to the peak of the late Yellow Rank, or even higher?"

"Exactly!" Black Panther nodded. "But to gain something, you must give something up... Once you cultivate the secret manual of my school, you can no longer touch women. Otherwise, at best your power will scatter; at worst, your life will be in danger!"

"What? No more women?" Zhong Yongliang was stunned. Damn it, he thought—the whole reason I want to kill Wei Zhao is that the brat is a stumbling block in my pursuit of Gu Mengyao. If I can't touch women anymore, what the hell is the point of killing Wei Zhao?

"Yes!" Black Panther said. "Back then, it was precisely because I couldn't endure that ascetic life of cultivation that I fled my school—and in the end I never amounted to much. What I carried away with me was only a short-term method for boosting one's strength, one that can swiftly raise an ordinary person to the middle-to-late Yellow Rank! I had a little martial foundation to begin with, so I was raised to the peak of the late Yellow Rank."

"If you already stand at the very peak of the late Huang stage, this secret technique can push you into the early Xuan stage—or even the middle of it. But it may only be used in extremis. Its effects last a mere month or two, after which your power collapses back to what it was, and five years of your lifespan go with it. So unless the moment is truly critical, it is of no practical use—and even if you reached the peak of the late Huang stage, exactly as I am, Young Master Zhong, you still could not take out Wei Zhao."

"Ah? But asking me to keep my hands off women..." To Zhong Yongliang, a life without women was hardly worth living. Suppose he did master the body techniques Brother Black Panther described, and it did let him kill Wei Zhao—if he could shed the power as easily as all that, fine. The trouble was that if something went wrong, he could very well lose his life in the process. That was a bit too close to the edge for comfort.

"Young Master Zhong, I have said all there is to say. I owed your boss a great kindness in years past, and so, before I go to prison, I am laying all of this out for you. What you decide from here is beyond my reach." Black Panther went on, "If you make up your mind, go to Chunxing Mountain. Say that Black Panther sent you. My eldest senior brother has since risen to sect master. I may be nothing but a cast-off disciple, but he will still grant me that much face."

"Chunxing Mountain? What mountain is that?" Zhong Yongliang blinked. His geography had never been much good, but he was quite certain he had never heard of such a mountain—let alone of any sect that might dwell upon it.

"I will draw you a detailed map," Black Panther said. "And if you have someone you trust absolutely, you may send him in your place. When he returns with the art in hand, he can help you kill Wei Zhao and settle your score—my score as well. That is the whole reason I am telling you this. I am hoping you will avenge me, Young Master Zhong."

"Someone I trust absolutely?" Zhong Yongliang frowned, his eyes narrowing as they darted about—and then a name surfaced in his mind. Yes! He could send him! In that instant Zhong Yongliang thought of Zhang Naipao.

Could there be a better candidate?