Chapter 3705 — A Promise Between the Two: Better to Bide One's Time Than to Tip One's Hand

Shangguan Lan'er could not help feeling rather disappointed. Even Wei Zhao and Little Curly Bear themselves could not tell who the real culprit was; and though she was willing enough to stand up for Little Curly Bear, she had no idea whom to take her anger out on.

She eyed Wei Zhao twice, then suddenly her lips curved upward. "Seeing as you once saved Little Bai, I've decided to acknowledge you as my junior brother! From now on, don't go calling me 'young lady'—call me Little Senior Sister, understand?"

"Huh? Little Senior Sister?" Wei Zhao was struck dumb, and he studied Shangguan Lan'er with a most peculiar expression.

"Of course! I entered the sect before you did, so by the rules, shouldn't you be calling me Little Senior Sister?" Shangguan Lan'er shot him a glare of feigned ferocity, then said with a face full of smugness, "Come on, Wei Zhao, my dear little junior brother—say it once and let me hear it!"

Good heavens! This girl truly does whatever pops into her head!

Wei Zhao was speechless, but there was no faulting her logic, so he steeled himself and said, "L-Little Senior Sister."

Shangguan Lan'er broke into a radiant smile, then put on a grave, elder-sounding air. "That's a good boy. From now on, if you run into any trouble, come to me, understand? Your Little Senior Sister will stand up for you!"

Wei Zhao could only roll his eyes furiously. If a grown man like him truly sank to the point of needing a little girl to shelter him, then all these years of his would have been lived in vain—yet he could hardly contradict her to her face, so he simply nodded obediently and murmured his assent.

Strictly speaking, though, this Little Senior Sister's background was impossibly deep; her backing was far sturdier even than Xu Lingchong's, and she was in truth a rare and mighty thigh to cling to—one that might well prove useful in days to come.

With a natural bond like Little Curly Bear between them, after chatting and joking for a while, their relationship had imperceptibly drawn much closer. Shangguan Lan'er's status was peculiar, after all; apart from Little Curly Bear, she had scarcely a single true friend. Everyone else either kept a respectful distance from her or, like Xu Lingchong and his sort, harbored ulterior motives—true friendship was simply out of the question.

Today, however, she had found in Wei Zhao the feeling of a friend: no special designs, no flattery, just easy, comfortable talk of everything under the sun, utterly unrestrained. It felt genuinely wonderful!

Naturally, Shangguan Lan'er's fondness for Wei Zhao began to soar, and that little bit of hostility from the beginning had long since vanished into thin air.

Wei Zhao laughed inwardly. If Meng Jueming and his lot ever learned of this, he wondered whether they would cough up a mouthful of old blood and drop dead on the spot—their scheme had not only failed to sow discord, it had drawn the two of them a step closer. Truly, they had gone out for wool and come home shorn!

Seeing the sky deepening toward dusk, just before they parted, Wei Zhao suddenly spoke. "Little Senior Sister, I have a request."

"Just say it! Your Little Senior Sister will surely help you!" Shangguan Lan'er waved a small hand with heroic generosity.

Wei Zhao weighed the matter a moment, then said, "In front of others from now on, could you deliberately put on a show of despising me?"

"Why would I do that?" Shangguan Lan'er was struck dumb. Anyone else would have been falling over themselves to get close to her.

Wei Zhao smiled faintly. "Let me keep you in suspense for now. When the time comes, I'll tell you the whole story."

Shangguan Lan'er was, after all, a young girl at heart; seeing Wei Zhao look so mysterious, her interest was roused at once. "All right then! A favor for my little junior brother—your Little Senior Sister will surely help!"

"Then many thanks, Little Senior Sister." Wei Zhao was doing this, of course, to lull Xu Lingchong and his crowd. Otherwise, if they saw no results, they would keep cooking up one crooked scheme after another to make trouble for him, and he would never have a moment's peace. And he was still hoping for a quiet stretch of time to cultivate properly.

The crucial thing was that the intelligence supplied by Zhong Yongliang and Li Zhengming both mentioned, independently of each other, that Shangguan Lan'er was the reverse scale of Young Master Xu Lingchong. Push him too far, and he might well risk everything and send men to assassinate Wei Zhao outright—and then the trouble would be truly grave.

As formidable as Wei Zhao now was—a peak early-Foundation Establishment expert who could crush every newcomer in the Welcome Pavilion—out in the wider world he was still not much to look at. What if the men sent after him were mid-Foundation Establishment, or stronger still? Then no matter how wary and careful Wei Zhao might be, a single misstep could cost him his life!

"Well then, I'll be off." Shangguan Lan'er yanked Little Curly Bear off Wei Zhao's shoulder by force, said her goodbyes, and went on ahead; her steps were light and skittish, and she seemed to be in quite a good mood.

Perhaps because she suddenly remembered Wei Zhao's request, though, when she came out of the little grove, Shangguan Lan'er halted in her tracks, then deliberately acted out a furious, stormy parting. She played the part rather convincingly.

This Little Senior Sister of mine is actually quite innocent and adorable! Watching the girl's receding figure, Wei Zhao could not help smiling.

Yet although he had succeeded in drawing closer to Shangguan Lan'er, Wei Zhao had no intention of using her to climb the ladder.

After all, his chief purpose in coming to Cloud Terrace Island was to find Zhang Lifeng and heal his seven inheritor girlfriends, along with Yu Xiaoke, the pangolin, and the others. As for romantic entanglements, he had long since grown indifferent to them.

Moreover, given Wei Zhao's character, a base method like exploiting a young girl's feelings to curry favor with the powerful and achieve his ends was something he would not even deign to think about, let alone put into practice.

Word of the falling-out between Shangguan Lan'er and Wei Zhao soon reached the ears of Xu Lingchong and Meng Jueming. Xu Lingchong was overjoyed, and Meng Jueming was beside himself with delight. Plainly, their plan had "succeeded"!

Though this scheme had been tailor-made for a lecher like Wei Zhao, and Meng Jueming had been ninety percent certain it would take him in, actually seeing it succeed still sent him into raptures.

After all, Xu Lingchong had given him his word beforehand: as long as this business was handled neatly, he would speak to the higher-ups on his behalf, so that in days to come Meng Jueming could fill Lu Bianren's post and become the new third Pavilion Master of the Welcome Pavilion!

With Xu Lingchong's deep background, he need only persuade his grandfather Xu Yuanzheng—a towering figure seated on the Council of Elders—to put in a casual word, and no one would be able to compete with Meng Jueming for that trifling vacancy.

The only thing Meng Jueming had left to do was to use every means at his disposal to raise his own strength past the hard threshold of mid-Foundation Establishment before Lu Bianren was sent packing—and that was no difficult matter for him.

For one thing, he had been stuck at the bottleneck of peak early-Foundation Establishment for several years and had long since touched the barrier; for another, in his years as managing senior brother of the Welcome Pavilion, while being all things to all men and building his web of connections, he had also accumulated no small store of cultivation resources—with a little gritting of teeth, he could exchange them for a Foundation Establishment Barrier-Breaking Pill. RS