Chapter 4049 — The Deputy Island Master Who Practiced the Dao on Heaven's Behalf

Tracing the lineage back, Di Xingdao and Tian Chan actually sprang from the same bloodline; only, as early as a thousand years ago, Di Xingdao's branch had, through a special method and by a stroke of rare fortune, migrated to Cloud Terrace Island.

Yet they had always dwelt among the cultivator tribes, and no outstanding cultivator had ever arisen in the family; the clansmen's lifespans were much the same as ordinary folk's, so reckoning the generational ranks had become all but impossible.

By Di Xingdao's own account, it was entirely possible that Tian Chan's generation rank was in fact higher than his; but his years spoke for themselves, and it was only natural that Tian Chan should address him as a senior.

Di Xingdao and Zhang Lifeng were the closest of friends. After his qi deviation all those years ago, he had been recuperating here at the Pill Hall, though to little effect. The meridians within his body had long since shattered into hundreds upon hundreds of fragments; that he lived at all was nothing short of a miracle, and to rejoin those fragments was beyond even Zhang Lifeng's wondrous medical skill.

"I am no deputy island master. Do you think a madman like me could pass for one? There's no need to go clinging to the powerful and well-connected—no need to cling to me as kin, either. It won't do you any good, and it carries less prestige than being called Zheng Dongjue's granddaughter-in-law. Enough. Leave the medicine there and be on your way!" As ever, Di Xingdao did not open the door, and dismissed her out of hand.

Di Xingdao had once been the Deputy Island Master of Cloud Terrace Island, a peak figure who looked down upon all living things—true enough, but that was all in the past. Now he was nothing but a ruined man who could not even see to his own daily needs, and with that foul, mad temper of his, no one was willing to wait on him; people could not even be bothered to spare him a glance.

Tian Chan, however, showed not the slightest displeasure at this; she only shook her head helplessly and, setting the medicine down by the door, bowed respectfully. "Very well, then. Chan'er will come to visit you again in a few days. Chan'er takes her leave."

Inside the room, the disheveled Di Xingdao heard these words, and a strange, helpless light showed through his muddled eyes.

However mad he might be, a heart is still flesh and blood—and especially now, at the lowest, most wretched ebb of his fortunes. True feeling shows itself in adversity. Did he truly fail to see whether Tian Chan's care for him was sincere or feigned?

But what use was seeing it? He was a ruined man with every meridian severed, a wreck thrown out onto the street would rank below a beggar—what could he possibly do?

The room fell silent for a long while, and then suddenly Di Xingdao's nearly demented laughter rang out once more...

Emerging from Di Xingdao's room, Tian Chan could not help but feel heavy at heart. To come to Cloud Terrace Island and meet an elder of her own blood—what a blessing that should have been; yet Di Xingdao's present state left her no cause for joy at all.

She had not gone two steps when a young man in white suddenly came down the corridor ahead. His eyes lit up at the sight of Tian Chan, and with a beaming smile he greeted her: "Sister-in-law, you've been to see Old Tian again!"

At the sight of him, Tian Chan's gaze turned cold. A flicker of revulsion, forcibly suppressed, flashed across her face as she answered in an icy tone: "Yes."

This young man in white was named Zheng Tianshuo, a younger cousin of Zheng Tianjie. By rank, Tian Chan was obligated to call him brother-in-law.

Zheng Tianjie, once the object of such high hopes, had met a wretched death halfway through his prime, and rumor had it that Zheng Dongjue had begun to turn his eyes toward Zheng Tianshuo, intending to groom him to take Zheng Tianjie's place and become the future head of the Zheng family.

In terms of strength, Zheng Tianshuo could not remotely compare with Zheng Tianjie. Though he bore the halo of being Zheng Dongjue's grandson, the Pill Hall as a whole did not think much of him; he counted for little more than a marginal figure.

But things were different now. Zheng Tianshuo had been transformed overnight into the shining favorite before Zheng Dongjue's eyes, and at once he began to preen and swagger; he was riding high these days, very much in the mold of a second Zheng Tianjie.

None of this, however, concerned Tian Chan. Her loathing for the Zheng family came from the bottom of her heart; she did not even wish to exchange another word with him.

"Old Tian gave you a sour face again, I suppose? Sister-in-law, you're simply too virtuous for your own good. Anyone else would never consent to wait on a raving old man like that—why take the abuse for nothing? How about this: next time you go, let me accompany you?" Zheng Tianshuo went on, still smiling.

Tian Chan gave him a faint glance. "That won't be necessary. If there's nothing else, I'll be going back first."

With that, unwilling to spare him another moment, she stepped around Zheng Tianshuo and walked off without a backward glance.

Watching Tian Chan's lovely, graceful figure recede, a lewd gleam flashed unbidden through Zheng Tianshuo's eyes. Stroking his chin with one hand, he sneered, "Who are you pretending to be, a chaste widow? No matter—the more spirit a woman has, the more fun she'll be later. Nothing beats dumplings for eating, and nothing beats... heh heh, sister-in-law for playing!"

In Zheng Tianshuo's eyes, Tian Chan, in her present state as a widow, was already a duck cooked to the last feather—there was no thought of her flying out of his palm. Once he had securely seated himself as the young heir of the Zheng family, this ravishing sister-in-law would sooner or later submit beneath him.

The thought tickled him so that he burst out laughing, and inwardly he could not help praising his own cousin Zheng Tianjie—the man had truly died at the best possible time!

North Island, the Law Enforcement Hall.

Shangguan Lan'er had returned unscathed, and the perilous trap so plainly aimed at Wei Zhao had collapsed of its own accord; instead it was慕容 Zhen, the accuser, who now found herself in enormous trouble.

To step forward rashly was to court risk—she had felt that ominous premonition back when Kang Jingming first told her to denounce Wei Zhao. But at the time Shangguan Lan'er had been utterly uncooperative, Kang Jingming had made plain he would not show his face, and opportunists like Zha Wu were wholly unreliable; she had acted purely under duress, steeling herself to go in person.

And now look: the frame-up had failed and rebounded upon her. The ill omen had come true—Wei Zhao had sauntered off with Shangguan Tianxia, while she,慕容 Zhen, the whistle-blower, had become a prisoner, locked in a filthy, stinking dungeon, calling to heaven with no answer and to earth with no response!

At the mere thought of the Law Enforcement Hall's cruel and merciless methods,慕容 Zhen could not suppress a shudder of dread. A guilty conscience is frail to begin with, and she was a woman besides; however cunning and vicious she might be out in the world, once inside that sunless dungeon, the fear that clung to her day and night—given time, it would be no wonder if she frightened herself into madness!

Smooth talk though慕容 Zhen might have—claiming she had merely misjudged at a glance, that Wei Zhao had been absent from the Welcome Pavilion of late and the masked man's build so closely resembled his that in her panic she had mistaken the kidnapper for Wei Zhao—before the Law Enforcement Hall there had never been any such thing as a secret! (To be continued..) R752