Chapter 3557 — Drawing Resentment

And besides, Wei Zhao had surely sent him here to go undercover, which meant he could not act rashly—all he had to do was get word back to Wei Zhao in time. So he merely put on an air of innocence and asked, "Senior Brother Xu, if the two of us go off with you, does that mean nobody's left to look after all the others?"

"Not at all. By convention, once our Chongtian Pavilion has finished picking its people, the rest get taken in by the other two pavilions." Xu Lingchong said this and glanced at Kang Jingming. "The Xuanji Pavilion only ever takes old men. That Wei Zhao you mentioned—since he's so young, he must have been claimed by the weakest of them, the Azure Cloud Pavilion. Heh heh, that place is famous as a shelter for worthless trash."

Grassroots loose cultivators never had much of a foundation to begin with, and since every batch of newcomers was what the other two pavilions had already picked over, the Azure Cloud Pavilion's recruits were the weakest of the weak in both strength and potential. Calling it a shelter for worthless trash was no exaggeration at all.

"A shelter for worthless trash? Then from now on we can push them around however we like?" Kang Jingming's eyes lit up at once.

"You don't have to wait for later—you'll get to push those good-for-nothings around in a little while. I'm rather curious to see just how proud that Wei Zhao of yours can be!" Xu Lingchong smiled a smile thick with meaning.

"Proud? He's about as proud as they come!" Kang Jingming put on a show of indignation. "Just earlier, when Senior Brother Xu came to collect us, that young fellow beside my brother Zhong Yongliang here wouldn't even spare Senior Brother Xu a glance—wouldn't deign to come up at all. Good thing brother Zhong Yongliang saw the light and came over to our side—otherwise he'd be headed for the trash shelter too!"

"Oh? So it's that boy. He doesn't look like much! When a man with real strength puts on airs, that's swagger; when a man without it does, that's just idiocy. In a moment I'll show you what a real idiot looks like!" Xu Lingchong nodded faintly, then turned to Zhong Yongliang. "But how did you come to see the light? You used to run with this Wei Zhao fellow?"

"It's a long story. He stole my woman, and he stole my underlings. I had nothing left—he even cut one of my kidneys out. If I wanted to survive, I had no choice but to play along with him. But it's all right now—with a backer as solid as Senior Brother Xu, what do I have to fear from a kidney?" Zhong Yongliang said, his face a picture of misery.

"Good heavens, you really are an unlucky one! Lucky you threw in with me—otherwise they'd have bullied you to death!" Xu Lingchong was a little contemptuous of Zhong Yongliang, but the man was one of his now, and he did have a way with words, so Xu Lingchong supposed he had accepted him.

As they spoke, the flying spirit beast had already come down on an open plot of ground. Before them stood a grand and imposing pavilion, and above its main doors, on a black background, three great golden characters proclaimed: Welcoming Pavilion.

People were already waiting before the gate. The instant the flying spirit beast touched down, a ring of them surged forward. At their head was a man with the white hair and youthful face of a sage, of imposing bearing—toward others he always carried himself with the air of an enlightened master, yet toward Xu Lingchong alone he was all bowing and scraping, fawning and flattering to the extreme.

"This is Hu Yunfeng, the pavilion master of the Welcoming Pavilion. The two of you may have been chosen by my Chongtian Pavilion, but until you succeed in establishing your foundation, you'll still be cultivating here at the Welcoming Pavilion. He'll be looking after you from now on." Xu Lingchong nodded at the approaching Hu Yunfeng as he made the introductions.

"Rest easy, Young Master Xu. As long as I'm here, the Welcoming Pavilion will never let these two junior brothers come to harm," Hu Yunfeng stroked his white beard and promised with a smile.

Though Hu Yunfeng was nominally the pavilion master of the Welcoming Pavilion, which sounded rather grand, in truth he was nothing more than the captain of a training camp for newcomers—not on the same level as the Chongtian Pavilion's Tri-Tier Pavilion at all. Never mind the pavilion master of the Chongtian Pavilion; even any random elder who stepped out of it was a great personage he had to strain every nerve to court and look up to.

And the reason he could now sit securely in the pavilion master's seat of the Welcoming Pavilion was precisely that he had the backing of a Chongtian Pavilion elder behind him. Toward Xu Lingchong, the treasured legitimate grandson of the Third Elder, he naturally had to curry favor in every possible way.

The post of Welcoming Pavilion master did come with a little grease for the palms, and he still hoped to keep it. Even if one day he reached the end of the road here at the Welcoming Pavilion, a promotion into the Tri-Tier Pavilion as a steward would still require formidable connections to make one's way.

"So it's the pavilion master himself! No wonder you have such an immortal air—the envy of all who see you. This little brother is called Kang Jingming, newly arrived, and I'll be counting on the pavilion master's kind care in the days to come," Kang Jingming said, laying the flattery on thick in the spirit of clinging to every powerful leg within reach.

He had already struck up a friendship with Xu Lingchong, that purebred second-generation cultivator, but Xu Lingchong was, after all, an inner-sect disciple of the Chongtian Pavilion and would not be stationed at the Welcoming Pavilion permanently. This pavilion master before him was the real target to lean on in the days ahead. To put it bluntly, how well he did at the Welcoming Pavilion from here on would depend entirely on whether this pavilion master chose to promote him.

If Kang Jingming could see this, so naturally could Zhong Yongliang. Not daring to be remiss, he hastened to chime in: "This little brother is called Zhong Yongliang. I won't boast of anything else, but I can certainly lend a hand where needed. Whatever tasks the pavilion master has in future, just say the word—this little brother will be there at your call."

"Well said, well said. You two junior brothers cut fine figures, and with a backer like Young Master Xu, your futures are boundless." Seeing how well these two understood the way of things, Hu Yunfeng was only too glad to go along and give them a push—it would please Xu Lingchong and win him two more loyal hands at once. Two birds with one stone.

You see, here at the Welcoming Pavilion, simply sitting in the pavilion master's seat did not mean his word was law—there were still two deputy pavilion masters behind him, eying his position like tigers.

If he wanted to keep his rivals in check and hold the pavilion master's seat securely, one key was to stay on good terms with a powerful backer like the Chongtian Pavilion elder behind him. The other key lay in how many loyal hands he could gather. More hands meant a louder voice, and only then could he truly be master in his own house.

And what delighted Hu Yunfeng most was this: for all that his strength was considerable now, before he had broken through to the peak of the late Heaven Tier and attained great perfection, he had been a premature greyhead, which was why he had cultivated that grandfatherly face. Here on Cloud-Tier Island, that was in fact a rather shameful thing—plenty of men with baby faces might well be older than he was! He really was not old; he had simply aged in a hurry.

But Kang Jingming had called him immortal and sage-like, and it sent him floating on air.