Chapter 4614 — The Center's Attitude

His towering rage this time had its roots, in the end, in Wei Zhao. After a year and a half without seeing him, he had assumed he now stood far above Wei Zhao—never imagining that Wei Zhao's cultivation had advanced even more absurdly than his own.

Ma Dangfeng's account alone made it plain that a mid-Nascent Soul cultivator like him had not even been able to sound out the depths of Wei Zhao's strength; that proved him utterly worthless, and all the more proved how unfathomable Wei Zhao was.

This unforeseen outcome was a bucket of cold water dashed over the head of Xu Lingchong, who had been riding high of late. Had he not flown into a fury after that, it would have been strange indeed; Ma Dangfeng had simply had the bad luck to become his vent.

"Calm yourself, Bro Chong, calm yourself! This one knows he was wrong—please, cool your temper..." Fearing that Xu Lingchong in his wrath might do something to him, Ma Dangfeng scrambled off the stretcher despite his injuries, gritted his teeth, and half-prostrated himself before Xu Lingchong, knocking his head against the floor in apology.

At that moment he could have given himself fourteen thousand slaps across the face. Had he known it would end like this, then even with ten thousand times the courage lent to him, he would never have been so addle-brained as to challenge Wei Zhao!

On the way here he had been fixed wholly on the notion that Xu Lingchong would avenge him—how could he ever have guessed that this was how Young Master Xu would react?

Until now, Xu Lingchong had always carried himself with immense swagger; at every meeting he displayed the grand air of a man dictating the course of the realm. Ma Dangfeng had even naively believed that here on North Island, in the Sandie Pavilion, there was nothing Young Master Xu could not handle—after all, Young Master Xu not only possessed formidable strength himself, he had a mysterious backer propping him up from behind!

What he did not know was that Xu Lingchong could put on such swagger entirely because Wei Zhao was absent. Otherwise he would surely have reined himself in; the bloody lessons of a year and a half ago were still vivid before his eyes.

Xu Lingchong, his fury soaring to the heavens, pointed at Ma Dangfeng's nose and cursed him for a good long while, until at last his anger eased a little. He gave a cold snort: "Get lost."

"Ah? Bro... Bro Chong, spare my life! This one will never dare again—I swear to heaven, I have always served you with all my heart, Bro Chong, never with the least disrespect..." Ma Dangfeng nearly wet himself in fright, and at once clutched Xu Lingchong's leg, begging through streaming tears and runny nose.

By the rules of their organization, Xu Lingchong was his one and only direct superior, holding absolute power of life and death over him. Once Xu Lingchong told him to get lost, the organization would regard it as betrayal—and that meant certain death. By then, death itself might be a luxury; a life worse than death would be his only fate.

"What nonsense are you babbling? I told you to go home and tend your wounds—now get out of here!" Xu Lingchong said with a frown.

"Oh, yes, yes—thank you for your grace, Bro Chong, thank you for your grace!" Only then did Ma Dangfeng come to his senses; he kowtowed in thanks and fled, terrified that Xu Lingchong might weary of the sight of him and change his mind halfway—and then he would truly have no grave even to weep at.

Watching Ma Dangfeng stumble and scramble out of sight beyond the door, Xu Lingchong turned and exchanged a glance with the others, then sighed: "What do you think we should do now?"

He meant Wei Zhao, of course—a boulder pressing down on every one of them. For all that their strength was now far beyond what it once was, if they were to face Wei Zhao as they stood, none of them truly had the confidence—Xu Lingchong included. In every heart there crept an unavoidable sense of inadequacy.

"Young Master Xu, with our combined strength we need not necessarily fear that creature Wei Zhao, but the fact that he could so easily finish off Ma Dangfeng shows he is not to be underestimated. If we face him on our own, our chances of victory are uncertain. Perhaps we should first seek instructions from above?" Kang Jingming said after weighing the matter over.

"What do you think, Bro Meng?" Xu Lingchong turned to Meng Zhou. He might not take the others' opinions to heart, but Meng Zhou was different—his trust in Meng Zhou now surpassed that in anyone.

"Zhaoming has a point. Until we have sounded out the true depths of Wei Zhao's strength, we would do well not to act rashly." Meng Zhou's bearing had grown considerably steadier. He paused, then went on: "Besides, the higher-ups previously ordered us to gather information on Wei Zhao; this counts as completing that task, and it would be no bad thing to report in and ask for instructions at the same time."

"Fine, then it is settled." Xu Lingchong decided on the spot. Though dressing down Ma Dangfeng had vented a good deal of his anger, he still could not swallow the thought of simply leaving Wei Zhao be; better to use this as a pretext to report in and see whether the mysterious man might lend a hand.

Having written out the whole affair, cause and consequence, in cipher, Xu Lingchong released a spirit beast from the underground chamber—it looked like a vampire bat, tiny in body yet exceedingly swift. This was what the mysterious man had given him for communications; even a Nascent Soul expert would find it hard to intercept it mid-flight, so great was its safety.

Somewhere on North Island, the bat slipped silently into an underground chamber at a speed the eye could scarcely follow, when of a sudden its form was wrapped in a thread of true qi, faint as a trace and just as elusive, and the cipher note on its back fell straight into the hands of the black-robed mysterious man.

Reading through the contents, the black-robed man showed no particular surprise, as though he had long known of the matter. After musing for a moment, he rose and walked to another, more innermost chamber, where a woman sat—and before her stood, remarkably, a top-grade computer of a kind rarely seen even in the mundane world, apparently running some sort of computation.

"Miss Luan, this is the message Xu Lingchong has just sent. Please have a look." The mysterious man respectfully handed the note to the woman.

"Oh? He wants to deal with Wei Zhao?" The woman called Miss Luan curved the corners of her mouth slightly.

"Given all that has passed between them and Wei Zhao, such a thought is hardly surprising. But this time it was Ma Dangfeng acting on his own initiative—it seems he was frightened out of his wits by Wei Zhao's strength," the mysterious man said mildly.

"Only a year and a half in the Southland, and his strength has gone from the Golden Core stage to the Nascent Soul stage—he can even dispatch a mid-Nascent Soul expert with a single casual strike. It seems this Wei Zhao has found no small number of fortuitous encounters in the Southland. Truly not to be underestimated," Miss Luan said, her tone unfathomable.

"Then what is your meaning, Miss Luan?" the mysterious man asked, seeking instructions.

"Keep them under watch for now, and tell them not to act rashly. I have already told you about Wei Zhao—leave him alive; he may yet become a card in our hand, and when the time comes he could prove very useful. But if he dies now, that lot might well go mad, and Dr. Li would be in serious trouble." Miss Luan spoke lightly. (To be continued...) R752