Chapter 4644 — Two Tasks

"Hold me," Han Jingyi murmured, a faint blush rising to her cheeks.

Wei Zhao smiled and drew her into his arms. The two pressed close together, thick as lacquer, and for a long while they did not part.

"Hey, why are those two so prim? A lone man and a lone woman—shouldn't they be like dry kindling and a roaring flame? How can one hug and have done with it?" Ning Xuefei, princess of West Island though she was, lay flat against the crack of the research chamber's door with no regard for dignity at all, her face steeped in disappointment. She had been certain Wei Zhao and Han Jingyi would take their intimacy further; she had even dragged Shangguan Lan'er into crouching at the door with her all this time, and yet beyond clinging to each other the pair had done nothing whatsoever. Two blocks of wood, both of them.

"Feifei, you're terrible—you actually want to watch things unfit for the young! I can't stand you!" Shangguan Lan'er said with a look of scorn.

"Oh, is that so? Well, if Lan'er is so high-minded, could you maybe not shove me? Shoving so hard just to steal my spot..." Ning Xuefei glanced at Shangguan Lan'er, who was draped over her head, and pursed her lips, speechless.

The two girls had clean forgotten that Wei Zhao was a peak expert of the early Nascent Soul stage, his spiritual sense far outstripping others of his level. With the two of them peeking so brazenly through the door crack, even a fool would have noticed—let alone Wei Zhao.

The West Island Envoys' Residence was not far from the Island Master's Palace, a place set aside expressly for the lodging of envoys from every quarter. Xu Lingchong and Kang Jingming had only just settled in. For convenience in carrying out their mission, the two had deliberately requested to be placed in the same room, so that they might confer and act at any hour.

Xu Lingchong sat drinking tea, while Kang Jingming naturally stood to one side pouring it for him. Just then a faint red shadow slipped in through the window and landed squarely on the table before them. Both men's eyelids twitched—it was a blood bat.

Blood bats were the spirit beasts reserved for their internal communications. Bound beneath this one, which had appeared so suddenly, was a coded secret order—a message from the mysterious man himself!

Xu Lingchong and Kang Jingming exchanged a glance. Receiving such coded orders back on North Island had been nothing strange, but now, far away on West Island, to receive one here too—that was somewhat baffling. More to the point, they had only just settled in, and the coded message had arrived at once. Such precision in timing was truly staggering.

The two men looked at the blood bat on the table, exchanged another glance, and wore thoughtful expressions. But this was no time for speculation; Xu Lingchong reached out and took up the message. After reading the contents of the mission, his expression turned rather odd.

"What is it, Young Master Xu?" Kang Jingming asked, discreetly withdrawing to one side. At his level he was not permitted to read such high-grade coded orders—the Center's rules made the consequences of overstepping unthinkable, and he had not the nerve for it.

"See for yourself." Xu Lingchong tossed the message carelessly to Kang Jingming. The mysterious man had not required secrecy, and since the mission called for the two of them to carry it out together, there was no need for concealment.

Kang Jingming caught it hurriedly and read it over carefully. After a long while he looked up at Xu Lingchong and said weakly, "Young Master Xu, I don't understand it..."

"Ah—I forgot about that." Xu Lingchong smacked his forehead. Only then did he recall that the coded orders required special training to read; an ordinary person could never make sense of them, and Kang Jingming's rank was not high enough to have learned the Center's cipher.

Kang Jingming gave a sheepish laugh and could only hand the message back to Xu Lingchong, waiting to hear the rest.

"The higher-ups have assigned two tasks. The first is for us to find a way into one of West Island's trials and harvest from it a medicinal herb called 'Thunder Profound Vine.' That one is fairly ordinary—it shouldn't be too troublesome to carry out. But the second task is rather strange." Xu Lingchong pinched his chin thoughtfully.

"And the second task is?" Kang Jingming asked quickly.

"The higher-ups want us to do everything we can to keep Wei Zhao from growing close to the people of West Island—above all, to prevent him from befriending anyone of real power and standing. If such a tendency appears, we must use every means to sabotage it and absolutely must not let him succeed. Tell me, isn't that a strange task?" Xu Lingchong said, baffled.

The mysterious man had once warned him to his face not to move against Wei Zhao without authorization, or bear the consequences himself. And now this task had suddenly come down—plainly aimed at keeping West Island from becoming a source of support for Wei Zhao. What deeper consideration lay behind it, Xu Lingchong could not for the moment work out.

The crux was that he truly did not know how to go about this second task. As North Island's official envoy, Wei Zhao had every right to grow close to any West Island higher-up; no one could find fault with it. How was Xu Lingchong supposed to sabotage that?

He could hardly go around telling people that Wei Zhao was a cunning, treacherous sort, no good at heart. That would not only fail to work—if he truly did it, the first thing awaiting him upon his return to North Island would be an accounting from Shangguan Tianxia!

"That second task is right up my alley!" Kang Jingming's eyes lit up, and he spoke with sudden enthusiasm.

"Your alley? How so?" Xu Lingchong blinked.

"Heh, it's a little embarrassing to say, but with you here, Young Master Xu, I won't gild my own image. Have you forgotten, Young Master Xu, that what I do best is harm others without benefitting myself? Send me alone to accomplish some great deed and I might fail—but send me merely to ruin someone else's affair, and it's as easy as turning my hand!" Kang Jingming rubbed his hands excitedly. He had talked himself right to the brink of admitting he was good for nothing but mischief.

"Is that so?" Xu Lingchong's heart stirred, though he was still uncertain. "But you've crossed Wei Zhao plenty of times before, and I don't recall a single time you actually got the better of him."

"Uh..." Having his old failures laid bare to his face, Kang Jingming flushed crimson and scratched his head awkwardly. "That's mainly because the nature of it was different. Before, I always meant to take Wei Zhao on, and every time I underestimated his strength. This is different—we don't have to take him on at all, only stir up trouble and wreck his good fortune. That's much easier. When the time comes, I'll think of a way—I'm bound to trip him up!"

Seeing Kang Jingming so emphatic, and finding his reasoning somewhat sound, Xu Lingchong finally gained some confidence in him. He nodded. "Fine. You'll take charge of this affair. If you do well, I'll petition the higher-ups for merit on your behalf myself!"

"Thank you, Young Master Xu! I won't disappoint you this time!" Kang Jingming was overjoyed. R1152