Chapter 4355 — Two Beautiful Girls

So it was that Wei Zhao lodged in the most luxurious guest chamber the Qingtian Escort Bureau could offer, and his daily duties consisted of nothing more than waiting for the news Qi Wenmo had men scattered everywhere to gather, cultivating at his leisure, and now and then letting his thoughts drift to Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao, wondering how the two girls were faring.

Out across the boundless sea, a treasure ship of colossal size was riding the wind and cleaving the waves, advancing at extraordinary speed yet steady as Mount Tai—a person standing aboard felt as secure as on dry land. More than that, riding such a giant treasure ship meant fearing neither wind nor wave nor sea beast; it was, in the truest sense, a leviathan of the ocean.

Such giant treasure ships had always been the exclusive emblem of the mightiest powers; ordinary sects and factions could never possess one, nor had they the right to. An existence of this kind, a strategic asset of the seas, could not simply be bought with sky-high sums of spirit jade—even with the wealth to purchase it, the sellers had no stock to sell you.

Upon the flagship among these giant treasure ships was carved the unified emblem of the Cultivation Academy, and two large characters stood out with particular boldness: Morning Star.

At this moment, upon the bow sat two beautiful young girls. The once-fierce sea wind, after passing through the giant ship's protective barrier, had softened into a gentle breeze that played with their long hair, while the tender afterglow of the setting sun at the horizon fell upon them, leaving two graceful silhouettes upon the deck—half real, half illusion, enough to intoxicate the beholder.

Aboard the giant treasure ship were all the instructors and disciples the Morning Star Academy had brought out this time, including the three titans of the Mountain-Opening stage led by Academy Head Ling Yuanqing. For safety's sake, however, the ordinary instructors and disciples were kept strictly confined to their quarters; barring special circumstances, they were never permitted to move about on their own.

Apart from a very few high-ranking members of the Academy and the crew operating the ship, the only two people presently free to walk the deck at will were Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao.

The two were not only personal disciples of the Divine Nun of the Eastern Sea; more crucially, their innate talent was shockingly, heaven-defyingly extraordinary. The entire Morning Star Academy regarded them as its hope for the future—their master the Divine Nun of the Eastern Sea doted on them, and Academy Head Ling Yuanqing doted on them too, so compared with everyone else they naturally enjoyed a great many privileges.

On this treasure ship, they could go wherever they wished whenever they wished. But let any other disciple—or even an Academy instructor—dare to wander about while the ship was underway, and they would be seized by the law-enforcement squad in a matter of moments: at best three years' confinement, at worst expulsion from the Academy, with no room for negotiation.

"So, Little Sister Xiaotao, so many things happened between you and Wei Zhao!" Wang Xinyan said with a sigh of wistful longing as she gazed out at the sunset.

Her time reunited with Wei Zhao before had been far too brief—they had barely met before being forced apart again—so there had been no chance to hear him tell of his experiences on Cloud Terrace Island. These past days, whenever she had a spare moment, she would have Huang Xiaotao recount tales of Wei Zhao, and only today had the telling finally come to an end.

"Yes, Sister Xinyan. Why don't you tell me about Wei Zhao's time in your mortal world?" Huang Xiaotao said, her face equally full of anticipation. Wang Xinyan wanted to know what Wei Zhao had gone through on Cloud Terrace Island, but she was just as eager to know what he had gone through in the mortal world.

Wei Zhao was a wondrous person: the more one learned of him, the less one could see through him. And the more curious one grew, the more it seemed he harbored stories that could never be fully told—stories that held one spellbound.

"All right. The first time I saw Wei Zhao was on a train—oh, a train is a kind of transport in the mortal world. I didn't know him then, but he left a deep impression on me!" As Wang Xinyan spoke, the corners of her mouth curved unconsciously into a lovely arc. Recalling that scene now, a warmth rose unbidden in her heart, brimming with memory.

"Why?" Huang Xiaotao could not help asking out of curiosity.

"Because on the train at the time, three men saw that Wei Zhao was dressed shabbily and looked so harmless, and decided he would be easy to cheat. So they set up a scam together, pretending to be quarreling over a prize won from a drink, and then proposed that if Wei Zhao gave them sixty thousand, they would give him the winning pull-tab worth eighty thousand—when in fact the pull-tab was completely fake," Wang Xinyan said with a smile.

"Ah, there are swindlers like that in the mortal world too? Someone fond of small gains really would fall for it—but Wei Zhao is not that sort of person. He definitely wouldn't pay them any mind," Huang Xiaotao said with absolute certainty. Even priceless treasures like the infant ginseng and the Star Ink Milk had not made Wei Zhao lose his head, let alone a paltry sum of mortal money.

"You guessed wrong! Wei Zhao actually agreed to them at the time. I even secretly tried to warn him, but he acted as though he hadn't noticed at all, and really did hand the money to those three men," Wang Xinyan said with a faint smile.

"What? No way!" Huang Xiaotao was instantly dumbfounded.

"It's true. Only, after Wei Zhao gave them the money, he took it back from them without anyone being the wiser—and three thousand extra besides. Those three men were kept in the dark by Wei Zhao the whole time; perhaps even now they still can't figure out how, when they had clearly succeeded, they ended up without a single cent on them," Wang Xinyan laughed.

Every time she thought of this, she could not help smiling. And to think she had once worried herself sick over Wei Zhao—never guessing that his skill gave him boldness, and that he had been toying with those three swindlers from beginning to end.

"Hehe, serves them right for being played by Wei Zhao. I knew Wei Zhao wouldn't fall for their tricks. Sister Xinyan, your first meeting with Wei Zhao was really so much fun!" Huang Xiaotao laughed until she could not straighten up. She was by nature somewhat shy, but perhaps because she and Wang Xinyan shared the same interests, when the two were alone together she had become far livelier and more cheerful than before.

"Yes. Looking back now, it all feels truly incredible. Sometimes when fate arrives, it changes a person's destiny in an instant." Wang Xinyan sighed with feeling. "I was just an ordinary girl; I never dreamed I could cultivate, much less that I would come to Cloud Terrace Island. It really is like a dream..."

"It's the same for me. If I hadn't met Wei Zhao back then, I don't know what I would be now—perhaps I would have died long ago in the Hu Cai Tian Wu Mountains, perhaps I would still be struggling alone, sunk in the agony of my ruined face," Huang Xiaotao likewise sighed.

Both girls had had the trajectory of their original fates abruptly altered because they met Wei Zhao; in that respect, the two were indeed rather alike.

"Yan'er, Xiaotao." A woman's voice suddenly sounded from behind them—it was the master of them both, the Divine Nun of the Eastern Sea. (To be continued)