Chapter 4395 — The Reason He Was Captured

"You! Ah..." Lu Bianren pointed at Wei Zhao and sighed, his heart brimming with gratitude even as he could not help blaming himself. "Back at the Welcome Pavilion, I had the title of Third Pavilion Master hanging over my head and still couldn't lift a finger to help you two. Now the tables have turned and I've become a burden, making you worry over me instead. My conscience simply won't let me rest easy."

"Now that's where you're wrong, Senior Brother Lu. We fellow disciples don't often find such rapport, and we rise and fall as one—we're our own people. When you vanished without a word, if we had simply looked the other way and done nothing—"

"That... well, that's true enough, but there was no need to take such a risk for my sake! What if you had gone and gotten yourself caught up in it too? Then I truly would be guilty of a crime no amount of death could atone for!" Lu Bianren said, still shaken by the memory.

"But didn't we both get out safely in the end? So long as the outcome is a happy one, that's all that matters. Besides, I came here to carry out a trial mission—I wasn't specifically looking for you. So put it out of your mind, Senior Brother Lu," Wei Zhao said with a smile.

"Very well." Lu Bianren nodded helplessly, though given his nature, how could he truly set aside so enormous a debt of gratitude? He simply buried it deep in his heart and locked it firmly away. Changing the subject, he asked, "By the way, how is Ku Zhongle doing now?"

"Senior Brother Ku has taken the position of Third Pavilion Master of the Welcome Pavilion, with Xiao Che, Qiao Hongcai, Li Zhengming and the others supporting him. There shouldn't be any problems," Wei Zhao replied.

"Ku Zhongle as Third Pavilion Master? Pavilion Master Yu Zhenyang actually agreed?" Lu Bianren was shocked all over again at this news.

The position of Third Pavilion Master of the Welcome Pavilion, no matter who ultimately took it up, had to be personally approved by Yu Zhenyang, the Pavilion Master of the Qingyun Pavilion. Ku Zhongle on his own could never have earned the esteem of a figure as great as Yu Zhenyang. It went without saying—the credit behind this must belong to Wei Zhao!

The look Lu Bianren turned on Wei Zhao could not help but carry a few more degrees of astonishment. As Pavilion Master of the Qingyun Pavilion, Yu Zhenyang's eye for talent was hardly inferior to Shangguan Tianxia's. That his own junior brother could command such esteem from even Yu Zhenyang—a heaven-defying genius indeed!

Had he known that Wei Zhao was not merely esteemed by Yu Zhenyang but was held in the highest regard by Shangguan Tianxia, Pavilion Master of the Chongtian Pavilion, and even treated on equal footing with Gongyang Jun of old, Lu Bianren would likely have been stunned into a dead faint on the spot.

"That's right, so the rest of us are all doing well. You needn't worry, Senior Brother Lu." Wei Zhao nodded, then asked, "But let's talk about you instead. How exactly did the Central Merchants' Association capture you in the first place?"

He had asked this question before, back in the dungeon. At the time Lu Bianren had not known it was Wei Zhao and had refused to go into detail, and Wei Zhao naturally had not pressed him—too many ears, too many mouths. But now there was no such worry.

"Junior Brother Wei Zhao, since you learned of my whereabouts from Pavilion Master Yu, then you must also know what I came here to do, don't you?" Lu Bianren answered with a question of his own.

"I know. You came under the pretext of a mission, Senior Brother Lu, and if I'm not mistaken, it must have been to search for news of Vice Pavilion Master Yao," Wei Zhao said with a nod.

"That's right. I made this special trip to Nanzhou precisely to investigate the whereabouts of Vice Pavilion Master Yao Lunzhen," Lu Bianren said, his gaze distant. "From what I know, he too disappeared in the waters around Nanzhou. And before that, he had actually come here to take part in a trial bounty mission organized by someone—to repair a formation."

"Repair a formation?" Wei Zhao was taken aback. This was the first time he had even heard Yao Lunzhen's full name, so naturally he knew next to nothing about the man. Curious, he asked, "So then, Vice Pavilion Master Yao was a formation master?"

On the Cloud Terrace Isles, compared with the highly revered art of pill refining, artifact forging was already considered an obscure trade—and as for formation masters, they were more obscure still, a subject that practically never came up in conversation.

In fact, looking across the five Cloud Terrace Isles, there were very few proper formations to be found, let alone formation masters. Even where formations existed, they were only the crudest protective arrays. As for intricate and ingenious things like teleportation formations, nine and a half out of ten were relics left behind from some unknowable age. To this day, Wei Zhao had never heard of anyone capable of constructing a teleportation formation.

"You can't exactly call him a formation master. In this day and age, those who can truly be called formation masters have all but died out. Vice Pavilion Master Yao has always been intensely interested in the subject and has devoted endless effort to studying it, but at most he could be called proficient—he couldn't personally lay down a truly ingenious, profound formation. When it comes to maintaining and repairing formations, however, he does have a fair bit of expertise," Lu Bianren explained.

"I see." Wei Zhao gave Lu Bianren a meaningful look. From the sound of it, this Vice Pavilion Master Yao Lunzhen and Lu Bianren were in fact the same type of person.

Neither had any great ambition, but both loved to ponder and study on their own—no wonder the two had gravitated together. After all, birds of a feather flock together.

"Vice Pavilion Master Yao's devotion to formations has reached the point of near obsession. Otherwise he would never have traveled all the way from the Northern Isle to Nanzhou just because he saw such a trial bounty mission. The reason goes without saying—it was to study that formation. They say it was an exceedingly rare and remarkable formation, though I couldn't tell you the specifics," Lu Bianren said with a helpless spread of his hands.

Wei Zhao nodded in agreement. As Vice Pavilion Master of the Qingyun Pavilion, Yao Lunzhen was already a personage of considerable standing; there was ordinarily no need for him to take part in any trial mission, nor would a man of his status set his sights on such a modest bounty. The only thing that could truly draw him was the formation itself.

"And then?" Wei Zhao pressed.

"After making inquiries far and wide, I finally managed to pick up a thread of a clue. The mysterious figure who posted that mission through the Northern Isle Cultivators' Guild had once appeared at the Central Merchants' Association. So I reasoned that this person was either an insider within the Association or had some connection to it," Lu Bianren recounted faithfully.

"That makes sense. The Central Merchants' Association rose to prominence overnight, and it gives off an air of utter mystery. It's only natural that they'd be involved in something like this," Wei Zhao agreed.

"Yes. The formation repair mission Vice Pavilion Master Yao took part in was located near the Moleng sea region here in Nanzhou, so I came to the Central Merchants' Association here to dig up information." Lu Bianren sighed and smiled bitterly. "Who could have guessed that I had only made a few casual inquiries—barely asked a couple of questions—before the Association's people seized me and threw me into a dungeon, where I've been held ever since."

(