Chapter 2290 — Blending In

"Ah!" Wei Zhao's sudden appearance startled every adventurer present, and then they were both shocked and overjoyed. The tiger was dead, just like that? Their earlier call for Wei Zhao to come help had been no more than a desperate gamble, and they had never truly expected him to come at all!

And to think he had killed the tiger that had terrified them all so easily, practically without effort. It was simply too formidable!

For a long moment the band of adventurers did not stir, and then they broke into cheers. The injured adventurer who had been locked in combat with the tiger also spoke politely to Wei Zhao: "Many thanks for the rescue, Senior! This one is A Biao, captain of our band. You must be a cultivator, Senior, I take it?"

"By luck, I set foot on the Yellow Rank not long ago," Wei Zhao said mildly. He did not reveal his true strength, naming only the early Yellow Rank, which of course was more than enough to finish off this tiger.

"No wonder!" Admiration shone in A Biao's eyes. "A cultivator indeed, and only a cultivator can settle a troublesome matter so decisively the moment he lifts a finger! Senior, I truly cannot thank you enough!"

"A trifling effort." Wei Zhao waved a hand and said coolly, "That wound on your arm, are you not going to bind it?"

"Bind it, of course, right away!" A Biao grinned with a wry laugh. "The pain clean slipped my mind. Only when you mentioned it did I remember!"

With that, A Biao fished a bottle of Doctor Guan's wound medicine from another adventurer's pack behind him, sprinkled it on the wound, and wrapped the arm with gauze.

Wei Zhao noticed that A Biao's bottle was in fact the deluxe edition of Doctor Guan's wound medicine, and could not help a faint smile. It seemed these adventurers, though they lived each day on the edge of a blade, still had silver enough in their pockets, for even their wound medicine was the finest version available.

In truth, folk like them had no need at all for the costly deluxe edition; the ordinary version would have served perfectly well. After all, when these people were wounded, they had no cause to worry over scars the way women did. And besides, for a fresh wound, the deluxe edition was wholly unnecessary; the ordinary wound medicine would leave no scar either.

Naturally, Wei Zhao said none of this. The coin, after all, ended up in his own pocket.

"You are certainly out of luck, running into a tiger like that?" Wei Zhao steered the conversation without betraying a thing.

"Out of luck is right. We are not local adventurers; we came from elsewhere and know nothing of the mountain terrain. Ah, ill fortune, to be sure. We came this year for herbs, and before long we ran into this tiger, and lost a comrade besides. Truly a bad start." A Biao was eager enough to talk with Wei Zhao; cultivators, after all, were lofty, unattainable beings in the eyes of common adventurers like them. Even an early Yellow Rank expert stood high above, and when they chanced to meet one, they could only crane their necks and mumble a word or two while the cultivator paid them no mind. It was rare indeed for a cultivator like Wei Zhao to spare them more than a couple of words.

"In that case, what do you mean to do?" Wei Zhao nodded, pleased within. These people were not local cultivators, so there was a good chance they were his own countrymen. So long as they had little to do with Releida Town, Wei Zhao could rest easy.

"What else can we do? Go down the mountain. I am wounded, and several in the band are spent. If we linger and run into a fiercer beast, we have no strength left to deal with it!" A Biao said with a bitter smile.

"Is that so? Then it works out well. I have some other business to attend to, but my companion here is bound down the mountain. Let her go with you, so there is someone to look after her!" Wei Zhao said, as though pondering the matter.

"Of course!" A Biao agreed without a moment's thought. "But first we must lay our comrade to rest before we can descend."

"Let me help you with that!" Wei Zhao was genuinely worried they might carry a corpse down the mountain, which would throw off the count. Ordinarily the families at the foot of the mountain might not search too strictly, but now the Tagan Clan was watching, and even adventuring bands sent up by other families would surely be quietly checked and tallied.

"That would be wonderful! My thanks beyond words!" A Biao said gratefully.

For Wei Zhao, digging a pit in the earth to bury a body was the work of a moment. He casually used a branch to dig out a grave in a few strokes, while A Biao and the other adventurers laid their comrade to rest within it.

Adventurers like them, wanderers of the four seas, had no notion of returning fallen leaves to their roots. Where they died was where they were buried.

When that was done, Wei Zhao took his leave of A Biao and Sun Jingyan. As for anything more, he said nothing to A Biao. The more that was said, the more likely trouble would follow; better to say nothing, lest A Biao carry some burden of worry and let something slip.

After seeing Sun Jingyan and A Biao's party off, Wei Zhao found a place to hide himself for the time being and made his plans.

Wei Zhao did not mean to descend so soon. At the very least he would wait until Sun Jingyan had safely left the Ulonghot Mountains, and better still, returned to the border town, before he himself went down. That way he would have no misgivings; even if he ran into an expert, he could fling out the Heaven-and-Earth Net and take to his heels, and things would likely come out all right.

So Wei Zhao simply sat down on the ground, set the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art in motion, and began to cultivate...

A Biao led Sun Jingyan and the rest of the band down the mountain, only to find that at the mountain's foot several families and factions had jointly set up a checkpoint, searching adventurers going up and coming down with great rigor...

A Biao was no fool. On the contrary, to become the head of an adventuring band, he had to have a quick mind. Seeing this, he instinctively turned his head toward Sun Jingyan.

The appearance of Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan had been strange enough, and that Wei Zhao, a cultivator, should go out of his way to help a band of common adventurers was odd in itself. True, they had been in danger, but what made Wei Zhao so chivalrous as to step in? And with such a kindly manner besides?

More than that, the most important point: Wei Zhao had actually split off from Sun Jingyan, sending her down the mountain with their band while he himself did not descend.

Of course, had there been no checkpoint searching at the mountain's foot, A Biao would never have thought so deeply about it. But now, seeing those searchers, and recalling the strangeness of what had come before, A Biao began to understand.

Perhaps the ones these families and factions were searching for were none other than Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan! And Wei Zhao had set Sun Jingyan among their number precisely because their band had lost a member, and a woman at that, so that Sun Jingyan might take the dead woman's place.