Chapter 3929 — How Do You Figure That?

Of all the Qingyun Pavilion newcomers, the last to arrive was Murong Zhen. None of the other newcomers bore her any resentment for it—women always had certain privileges at times like these, especially a woman as alluring, seductive, and formidable as Murong Zhen.

When they caught sight of the spirit pet fluttering gracefully at Murong Zhen's side, every eye lit up in unison. Even these grown men could not help but gasp at first sight: what a dazzling, dreamlike butterfly!

With its wings spread, the butterfly was astonishing in size—a full zhang in body length and a zhang and a half across the wingspan. Its brilliant, eye-catching wings were dusted with countless glimmering flecks of blue light; at a glance it resembled a magnificent folding screen, enough to make the heart swoon.

"Butterfly Queen, let them see your charm," Murong Zhen ordered with a faint, not un-smug laugh.

At her words, the giant butterfly she called the Butterfly Queen rose fluttering into the air. With a slight quiver of its wings, motes of blue light drifted down like a dream, like a vision, as though a spirit of the immortals had descended.

"Careful—there's something wrong with those scale-powders," Wei Zhao warned in a low voice, and at once led Xiao Che and the others quietly out of the range of the drifting blue light.

The other newcomers, however, lacked his vigilance. One and all they remained lost in the Butterfly Queen's breathtaking beauty, unable to tear themselves away.

It was only a moment later that Meng Jueming, the strongest among them, finally sensed something amiss—for he suddenly discovered that his hands and feet would no longer obey him.

Over the past month, while the newcomers had been busy in the back hills subduing spirit pets, he had successfully broken through and advanced. He was now a fine expert of the mid Foundation Establishment stage, his rank far above everyone else present.

Murong Zhen's Butterfly Queen, gorgeous and dreamlike as it appeared, was in truth only of the mid Heaven rank. Given the vast gulf between them, it should by all rights have been all but impossible for it to affect Meng Jueming at all.

Yet at this very moment Meng Jueming's limbs were indeed numb and paralyzed. Even if he could still move with effort, it was slow and laborious in the extreme—and as for the other newcomers present, far weaker than he, they could barely stir at all.

Watching the crowd struggle in vain, unable to move no matter how they tried, Xiao Che, Qiao Hongcai, and the others exchanged glances, and the looks they turned on Murong Zhen and the Butterfly Queen now held a measure of dread. This thing truly was not to be underestimated.

"Murong Zhen, what exactly do you think you're doing?" Caught in the same trap as the newcomers before everyone's eyes, Meng Jueming felt he had lost face. His expression dark, he immediately rebuked her.

Having savored the newcomers' looks of utter horror to her heart's content, Murong Zhen covered her mouth and laughed prettily. "Don't worry, Senior Brother Meng. This is nothing more than a little joke this beauty has played on everyone. Within an hour the paralysis will wear off on its own, and there will be no aftereffects whatsoever. Rest easy, all of you."

At that, the newcomers breathed a collective sigh of relief—but Meng Zhou said anxiously, "Then what are we supposed to do for this hour? None of us can even move, so how are we going to hold the spirit pet battles?"

He had been looking forward to today for a long time, counting on his Blackback Staff Ape to cut down all comers and win him some proper glory and swagger. And now he was so paralyzed he could not even move—what swagger was left in that?

"I already told you it's a spirit pet battle—nobody's asking you to fight in person. What difference does it make whether you can move?" Murong Zhen eyed him mockingly and gestured around them. "Can't you see your spirit pets have all slipped away long ago? They weren't affected at all, so why shouldn't the spirit pet battles go on?"

"Uh…" Meng Zhou was struck dumb, quite unable to answer.

These spirit pets, whether strong or weak, had all sensed trouble early and retreated neatly to one side, just like Wei Zhao and the others. Only their masters had stood there like fools—and now that they had fallen into the trap, who was there to blame but their own stupidity?

Had anyone else played such a trick on him, Meng Jueming would surely have taught them a proper lesson, using it to establish his authority ahead of his coming promotion to one of the three Pavilion Masters. But the culprit was Murong Zhen—the capable ally he would certainly have to rely on heavily in days to come, and a woman who was, besides, his bedmate. He could only turn a blind eye and feign generosity and forbearance.

Since Meng Jueming said nothing, the other newcomers naturally dared not speak either. Meng Zhou might be short on brains, but where Murong Zhen was concerned, beyond drooling over her, he was in truth rather afraid of the woman.

And so it was that when the referee finally arrived, everyone in the field still wore the same constipated look of paralysis. Thus, amid this bizarre atmosphere, the spirit pet battles raised their curtain.

As stated before, the final score of this spirit beast examination was the sum of two parts: first, the spirit beast rank score; second, the spirit beast strength score.

The spirit beast's rank was plain at a glance and could be scored directly, while the spirit beast's strength had to be won entirely through its own performance in single-round elimination matches.

Such a set of rules, fair and reasonable as it looked at first glance, was on strict examination still rather flawed and wanting.

After all, not every spirit pet was a combat type. Take Wei Zhao's Heavenly Thunder Pig: in pure fighting strength it was utter trash, yet its peerless treasure-seeking trait meant its value far surpassed that of any ordinary combat spirit pet. Like Li Zhengming's Ghost Tiger, it was an existence of strategic value.

Yet under the rules of spirit pet combat, such strategic-grade spirit pets had virtually no chance of scoring high—a thoroughly infuriating state of affairs.

Still, since the higher-ups had laid down these rules, unfair as they might be, there was little room for complaint; one could only swallow one's discontent.

In the end, this was a world where the strong reigned supreme. So what if yours was a strategic-grade spirit pet? If your fist wasn't as hard as the next man's, then you had only yourself to blame—go find a grave and weep there.

Under the referee's supervision, the newcomers came forward one by one to draw lots and determine their opponents. Apart from Wei Zhao and a few others, everyone walked like a zombie—but at least they could just barely move now, so they needn't lose face!

"Jia One," Wei Zhao read the number on his wooden slip, then began searching among the crowd. At last his gaze fixed on one newcomer, and the corner of his mouth curved into a faint arc.

At the same moment, that newcomer also looked toward Wei Zhao, holding the matching "Jia Two" tag. This newcomer was none other than Cha Wu, widely reckoned the weakest of them all.

"Referee, sir, how do you figure this?" Wei Zhao asked, turning to the referee. This Cha Wu happened to be one of the four Qingyun Pavilion newcomers who had failed to subdue a spirit pet at all—there was simply no way he could take part in a spirit pet battle.