Chapter 3805 — First Impressions

What slightly puzzled Wei Zhao was this: he and Yu Jiang had crossed blades only once, back when he had finished buying the Star Ink Stone. Even if the man could retrace the route he had taken home and conclude that he belonged to Yingxin Pavilion, how could he be so sure that Wei Zhao was a newcomer rather than one of the pavilion's stewards?

After all, in that fight Wei Zhao had held back nothing of his peak early-Foundation-stage strength. Any sane man would have leapt to the conclusion that he was a steward of Yingxin Pavilion, and never once have considered a new recruit.

He read the letter through again, and when his eyes caught the words "Nan Tianyong, supervising deacon of Chongtian Pavilion," understanding broke over him at once.

The reason they had not gone looking into Yingxin Pavilion's stewards was presumably that they already knew the backgrounds of those newly appointed stewards—and even of high-ranking figures like Pavilion Master Hu Yunfeng—inside and out. Those names had been struck from the list before the search ever began.

Once every possibility that could be eliminated had been eliminated, whatever remained—however outlandish, however hard to credit—was usually the truth.

That Yu Jiang, having been made to eat such a bitter loss last time, should scour the world for him to settle the score was no surprise at all. What did surprise Wei Zhao was that the man had dragged in a master, this Nan Tianyong.

Facing Yu Jiang alone, Wei Zhao would have had little to fear even if he were found out. But add a Nan Tianyong—a man he had never met, and very likely a formidable one—and the affair grew rather thornier.

Shangguan Lan'er's letter had come in the nick of time. Without her warning, Wei Zhao could never have learned any of this in the short run; and if he let Yu Jiang and Nan Tianyong go on narrowing their sights upon Yingxin Pavilion's newcomers, something was bound to go wrong before long.

True, when he had dealt with Yu Jiang, Wei Zhao had worn the Thousand-Silk Mask as a precaution and moved as Lin Er from first to last, so even if Yu Jiang and Nan Tianyong were investigating Yingxin Pavilion's newcomers, they were unlikely to connect any of it to Wei Zhao in the near term.

Still, there was risk in the thing after all.

However well the identity of Lin Er was concealed, it could never be made seamless. If Yu Jiang and Nan Tianyong kept their eyes on it long enough, they would find some thread of evidence in the end; and the moment that false identity was exposed, Wei Zhao's troubles would be enormous.

He had already made enemies beyond counting within Yingxin Pavilion as it was: near at hand, Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou; farther off, Xu Lingchong and Kang Jingming; even a figure like Pavilion Master Hu Yunfeng was a natural-born foe whose stance was set against him. Add Yu Jiang, add Nan Tianyong, supervising deacon of Chongtian Pavilion—and how was he ever to get on in Yingxin Pavilion hereafter?

Great as Wei Zhao's strength was, it was great only by the measure of ordinary newcomers. With so many deeply connected and brutally powerful enemies fixing their eyes on him, Wei Zhao could not help feeling somewhat vexed.

Wei Zhao's principle had always been to flinch from nothing; but his chief purpose was to cultivate in peace, not to match wits and daring against this pack of people.

This was a crisis in earnest—one that seemed to lie far off on the horizon, when in truth it already stood at his doorstep. One careless step, and within a few days ruin might swallow him whole.

On receiving Shangguan Lan'er's news, Wei Zhao's first thought was that delay bred trouble: he must find some way to divert the attention of these two men as quickly as possible.

But how to divert their attention—there was the difficulty.

As things stood, Wei Zhao had no way to make contact with them at all; and even if a chance for a face-to-face meeting arose, by any ordinary logic the prudent course was to avoid it, never to step forward and seek them out.

Otherwise, at close quarters, he might well betray some flaw and walk straight into the snare. Once a cultivator reached the mid-Foundation stage, after all, his senses grew formidably keen; it would not do to be careless.

But if he had not even the chance to make contact with them, what was he to use to mislead them? This was plainly a paradox of his own making.

"I have it!" Wei Zhao pondered a moment, and of a sudden his eyes lit up.

In his present identity as Wei Zhao, he truly could not step forward and seek out Yu Jiang and Nan Tianyong of his own accord; and even if he did make contact, to make them shift their attention away from Yingxin Pavilion was simply unrealistic.

For in fixing upon Yingxin Pavilion, and upon its newcomers at that, they had by that very fact ruled out the other possibilities. From such a starting point, any attempt to mislead them was doubly hard—and if the traces of deception grew too heavy, he would only hand them a handle against himself.

Yet even if he could not turn their attention away from Yingxin Pavilion, Wei Zhao still had a way to make himself vanish from their sight—and to do it without leaving a trace.

The logic was simple: if he could contrive that they should be the first to rule him out among the suspects, then no matter how long they kept watch over Yingxin Pavilion afterward, no matter how meticulous their inquiry, they would never think of him again—because deep in their minds they would already have branded him impossible.

And to bring this about, the difficulty of the operation was not high at all. He need do only one thing: before they narrowed the circle of suspects, make them come and meet him of their own accord.

On the face of it, such a scheme was no different from walking headlong to his own death. And yet—the man who had fought Yu Jiang was Lin Er, and Lin Er and the present Wei Zhao wore two entirely different faces.

Before they had seen Wei Zhao's face, Yu Jiang and Nan Tianyong, piecing together the various rumors lately circulating about Yingxin Pavilion, would easily fasten upon Wei Zhao. And once Wei Zhao was matched to Lin Er, the results would only grow more alike with every step, until the identification was confirmed beyond doubt.

For the target was too conspicuous. The Lin Er they sought had peak early-Foundation strength, while this Wei Zhao of Yingxin Pavilion had only early-Foundation strength—but then, so long as a man set his mind to it, strength of that sort could be hidden well enough.

What was more, Wei Zhao had taken a full-force blow from a peak early-Foundation cultivator head-on in the endurance assessment, and recovered within moments—that alone could stand as proof of peak early-Foundation strength.

These were the flaws that bound Wei Zhao to Lin Er. Once the match was truly made and the guess confirmed in their minds, then even if they afterward discovered that Wei Zhao's looks differed from Lin Er's, they would inevitably veer toward thoughts of disguise or a human-skin mask—and in the end, the day his identity was exposed would still come.

So to let Yu Jiang and Nan Tianyong go on investigating in this fashion was a very dangerous thing for Wei Zhao.

The only way out of this crisis was to give them a preconception first.