Chapter 3656 — Shangguan Lan'er

Channeling a steady stream of true qi into the Curl-Curl Bear cub to mend its injuries, Wei Zhao saw the little creature's color visibly begin to improve; after the time it took to burn a stick of incense, its eyes started darting about again, the old liveliness restored, and it cradled its round little head in its paws, gazing up at Wei Zhao with curiosity.

This little thing is actually pretty cute—it'd probably be a hit with the girls!

Wei Zhao chuckled at the sight. Seeing its spirit recovered meant its injuries were just about healed, so he immediately moved to withdraw his hand.

To his surprise, the moment the little creature felt the flow of true qi stop, it began whimpering in a panic and hurriedly clamped both plump little paws around Wei Zhao's hand, insisting he keep pressing it to its chest and refusing to let go for anything.

"You want me to keep feeding you true qi?" Wei Zhao was caught between laughter and tears.

"Whimper, whimper!" The little thing actually seemed to understand him and nodded vigorously.

Wei Zhao was hardly surprised by this. After all, the Heavenly Thunder Pig slumbering in his jade pendant space could not only understand human speech but even write to communicate with people. They were spirit beasts, after all—their intelligence was bound to far exceed that of ordinary wild animals, and many surpassed humans entirely.

Seeing the little creature latch onto his arm and refuse to let go, Wei Zhao had no choice but to indulge it. This reaction was hardly inexplicable—the little thing probably just found the infusion of true qi exceptionally pleasant.

"How did you get in here, little one?" Seeing it in such high spirits, Wei Zhao kept channeling true qi to keep it content as he asked.

"Whimper?" The little creature only looked bewildered, cradling its head in confusion for quite a while before finally shaking its head at Wei Zhao.

"You don't know either?" Wei Zhao was taken aback, but on second thought, remembering how it had been barely clinging to life, he understood—in that state, even if awake, it would have been numb to everything going on around it.

Wei Zhao then asked, "Then who kicked you in the chest and left that shoe print?"

He had noticed the print from the very start. Unless he was mistaken, that kick was likely the root cause of the little creature's severe injuries. And from the distinctive shoe print on its chest, a simple comparison was enough to deduce that the culprit who had kicked the little thing was a newcomer from the Welcome Pavilion—and crucially, the shoe size seemed about the same as his own.

Add to that the fact that the cave mansion's seal was still intact, yet this little creature had somehow appeared inside his cave dwelling—put all of it together, and if Wei Zhao still couldn't deduce that someone was deliberately setting a trap for him, then he would have to be far too dull-witted!

"Whimper?" The little creature thought for a moment, released Wei Zhao's hand, and hopped to one side, screwing up its face in a fierce, gnashing snarl. Then it leapt to the opposite side, imitated the way Meng Zhou had kicked it back then—"whimper!"—and delivered a flying kick. Then it hopped back to where it had been, retreated step by step until its back hit the wall, and finally collapsed sitting on the ground.

"Uh…" Wei Zhao was rendered speechless. The little thing had staged a rather vivid reenactment, but the problem was that it still didn't tell him who had kicked it.

"Can you write, then?" Wei Zhao asked, clinging to one last hope. If this little creature could write like the Heavenly Thunder Pig, it ought to be able to clear up his questions.

"Whimper, whimper!" The little thing immediately shook its head like a rattle drum. Back then its owner, Shangguan Lan'er, had wanted it to learn, but it had stubbornly refused—at its age there was hardly enough time for play, so how could it waste time learning to write!

"All right." Wei Zhao shook his head helplessly and gave up on getting the culprit's name out of it. Even so, he could basically infer that this whole affair was most likely connected to Meng Jueming.

The reason was simple: among all the Welcome Pavilion staff, anyone capable of breaking the cave mansion's seal and then restoring it exactly as before had to be at least a managing senior brother. The managing senior brothers of the other two pavilions bore him no grudge, so the only remaining suspect was Meng Jueming.

What Wei Zhao still couldn't work out, though, was this: what was the point of going to such lengths to dump this gravely wounded little creature in his cave dwelling? Could it be that the little thing's owner was so powerful that once he was framed like this, disaster would inevitably fall on him?

And while Wei Zhao was coaxing the little creature and playing with it, Meng Jueming, who had waited long in the Spirit Jade Hall, finally got what he wanted—Shangguan Lan'er arrived. This was the legendary granddaughter of the Heaven-Soaring Pavilion Master, a figure as exalted as a little princess throughout the entire North Island of Cloud-Tier Island.

The girl's face was exquisite and flawless as a figure from a painting; set off by a white dress, her aura seemed all the more fresh and ethereal, like a fairy wandering the mortal world, and every glance and smile of hers could stir the heart. Yet within that pure and lovely appearance lingered a rare trace of girlish artlessness—this was the little princess of the North Island, Shangguan Lan'er.

Before outsiders, Shangguan Lan'er always gave the impression of purity and docility, but those who knew her well understood that this was merely a façade—this girl could bare her fangs when she was truly roused.

Normally, wherever Shangguan Lan'er went, she was sure to be flanked by attendants and feted like the moon among the stars. But this time she had come to the Spirit Jade Hall alone, and the reason, naturally, was that her spirit pet often slipped into the Spirit Jade Hall to pilfer spirit jade; if word of it spread, it truly wouldn't sound good. Even if she wouldn't think of herself, she at least had to consider the image of her grandfather, Shangguan Tianxia.

From past experience, even if the Curl-Curl Bear cub slipped into the vast mining district, with so many guards watching all around, Shangguan Lan'er need only ask around a little to find it, so she wasn't worried. But this time was different.

Many of the guards outside said they had seen the Curl-Curl Bear cub slip in, but the trouble was that the guards stationed inside the mining district hadn't caught a single glimpse of it.

Now that was bizarre—those outside had seen it, yet those inside hadn't, and a thorough search of the entire corridor running through the Spirit Jade Hall failed to turn up the little thing. It couldn't have just vanished into thin air, could it?

Now Shangguan Lan'er was truly anxious. This was the spirit pet that had accompanied her for over a decade, with her almost from the moment she was born—laughing together in joyful times, grieving together in painful ones. No ordinary person could ever understand the bond between her and the Curl-Curl Bear cub.

Though Shangguan Lan'er was honored as the first princess of the North Island's Heaven Rank, exalted and feted by all, she had not a single friend with whom she could truly open her heart!