Chapter 3868 — Spotting the Flaw

After a moment of stunned silence, the two men came back to themselves at the same time. Wei Zhao immediately went on guard. "What business do you have with me?"

Wei Zhao deliberately kept the question vague. He wanted to test whether the other man had seen through his identity, and, more importantly, what scheme lay behind his reckless appearance here today.

Yu Jiang studied Wei Zhao intently. In that fleeting instant just now, through the haze of his own startled perception, Wei Zhao had indeed borne some resemblance to the Lin Er he was searching for, and the discovery had filled him with delight. But now, staring at this wholly different face, the longer he looked, the less the resemblance seemed to exist, leaving him deeply perplexed.

Could it be that his expectations had been so intense that what he saw had been nothing more than an illusion? Yu Jiang felt a trace of disappointment. But illusion or not, judging by appearance alone was clearly insufficient. He would have to see what the next test revealed.

"Come with me. If you do not wish to, you can always try your luck." Yu Jiang spoke in a low voice, then turned and walked away.

Wei Zhao could not help frowning. Just as his earlier impression had suggested, this fellow was every bit as crafty and troublesome. Wei Zhao had tried to sound him out, only to have a vague, empty reply tossed back at him, one that yielded no useful information whatsoever.

And yet, why did this feel so much like the way senior students at a school in the mortal world would summon a junior student out to teach him a lesson?

Watching Yu Jiang's retreating back, Wei Zhao let out a quiet laugh. Without the slightest hesitation, he followed. Whether or not the other man had recognized him, there was no reason for him to cower before a mere Yu Jiang.

For the sake of the Xingmo Stone, Yu Jiang had racked his brains trying to drag him out into the open. But Wei Zhao, for his part, had hardly been any less eager to find an opportunity to silence him.

It looked somewhat risky, true. But when an opportunity came knocking of its own accord, Wei Zhao had no reason to let it pass him by. He still held a fatal weakness of his opponent in his hands. And quite apart from the fact that Yu Jiang was alone at the moment, even if he called Nan Tianguan over, Wei Zhao could throw that weakness into the open at the critical moment and still protect himself without fail.

Quietly following Yu Jiang, the two of them walked nearly two li before reaching the foot of a mountain that the other newcomers were unlikely to notice for some time. Only then did they stop.

"You can tell me now, can't you? What exactly did you want with me?" Wei Zhao made his expression appear slightly tense.

Of course, it was all an act. On the surface, he was merely a newcomer to the Welcome Pavilion, a nobody at the early Foundation Establishment stage. If Yu Jiang had summoned him out of nowhere and he showed not the slightest nervousness, that would have been far more suspicious.

"What did I want? You do not know what you have done?" Yu Jiang gave a cold laugh. He knew Nan Tianguan was watching from somewhere nearby, so he did not dare mention the Xingmo Stone. Instead, he decided to use a verbal feint to rattle Wei Zhao.

"Huh? What have I done?" Wei Zhao looked utterly bewildered. Then, as though suddenly realizing something, he said, "Could it be that Meng Jueming sent you to deal with me?"

The last time Yu Jiang had appeared alongside Xu Lingchong and the others, everyone had witnessed it. So from the perspective of an ordinary newcomer to the Qingyun Pavilion, Wei Zhao's question was perfectly natural.

"Meng Jueming? What nonsense are you talking about?" Yu Jiang was momentarily stunned.

He had no idea what grievance existed between Wei Zhao and Meng Jueming's group. Still, when Meng Jueming had introduced Wei Zhao to him last time, he had indeed spoken of him in anything but flattering terms. The hostility between the two sides had been obvious enough.

Besides, Yu Jiang was, after all, a dignified inner disciple of the Chongtian Pavilion, not to mention an expert at the middle Foundation Establishment stage. Meng Jueming, meanwhile, was merely a newcomer supervisor from the Qingyun Pavilion. What qualifications did he have to trouble Yu Jiang, of all people, to intervene personally on his behalf?

"Meng Jueming did not send you? Then why did you summon me here?" Wei Zhao asked, feigning shock and confusion.

Faced with Wei Zhao's question, Yu Jiang found himself hesitating instead.

If he had managed to trick some clue out of the other man just now, he could have attacked without the slightest psychological burden. But judging from Wei Zhao's reaction, there was not a single flaw to be found. He seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary newcomer to the Qingyun Pavilion, and that made things rather difficult.

After all, in Yu Jiang's view, even if everything Kang Jingming had said earlier was true, even if this Wei Zhao really was an alchemist who truly knew how to make dan-fire bombs, the odds that he was Lin Er had already dwindled to almost nothing.

For such a faint possibility, was it really worth attacking a newcomer from the Welcome Pavilion and taking on such an enormous risk?

Just as Yu Jiang hesitated, Nan Tianguan's voice suddenly rang in his ear. "Tell the boy that you are going to kill him. Then stop wasting words and attack him directly. Watch his reaction carefully."

Yu Jiang's heart jolted. He instinctively started to turn his head and look around, but after realizing what he was doing, he forcibly suppressed the impulse. Nan Tianguan was nowhere within his line of sight. The voice in his ear had been transmitted through the Thousand-Li True Qi Voice-Conveyance technique.

Naturally, it was not truly capable of spanning a thousand li. In practice, a distance of several li posed no difficulty at all. The technique did have one great advantage, however: once a target was locked on, only that person could hear the transmitted voice. Everyone else nearby would remain oblivious, even if they were standing less than a zhang away.

Nan Tianguan had overlooked one thing, though. Even if Wei Zhao could not hear the words he had sent to Yu Jiang, given the distance between Wei Zhao and Yu Jiang, Wei Zhao's formidable senses could still detect the faintest ripple.

Of course, it could not exactly be called an oversight. An ordinary cultivator's senses were nowhere near as keen as Wei Zhao's.

More importantly, Yu Jiang's instinctive turn of the head just now had already been an unmistakable flaw in Wei Zhao's eyes. Combined with the abnormal ripple he had just caught, it served as perfect corroboration.

There was someone else! Wei Zhao reached that conclusion in an instant. It was not difficult to infer that this person was very likely the second of the Three Southern Heroes of the Nan clan, the man Shangguan Lan'er had mentioned in her letter: Nan Tianguan.

From the very first moment he had seen Yu Jiang, Wei Zhao had harbored this suspicion. After all, Yu Jiang was merely an inner disciple of the Chongtian Pavilion at the middle Foundation Establishment stage. For him to dare come calling in broad daylight and make trouble for a newcomer of the Welcome Pavilion was suspicious in itself.

But if Nan Tianguan was following behind him, then everything made perfect sense.

As Wei Zhao's thoughts raced and he considered how best to respond to the situation, a powerful killing intent suddenly surged from Yu Jiang. "Boy, whether or not you are the person I am looking for, all I can say is that you are terribly unlucky. You are going to die today!" (To be continued...)