Chapter 4686 — A Low-Grade Wretched Trial

Setting everything else aside, Wei Zhao's intimate behavior with Shangguan Lan'er earlier had been plain fact, and though his cultivation was only at the peak of the early Nascent Soul stage, anyone could tell from how he had faced the pseudo-human vine that his true strength was far from simple—at the very least, he could fight above his level. Add to that the wondrous method he had just used to draw out her poison, and every single one of these things was something no ordinary disciple of the North Island could possibly possess!

As the saying goes, a renowned master produces outstanding disciples. Someone like Wei Zhao could not, by any measure, have been trained by an ordinary cultivator; whoever could serve as his master had to be one of those unfathomable great figures, and on the North Island, the one who best fit that description seemed to be none other than Shangguan Tianxia!

"You can't really be, can you?" Huo Yudie's expression shifted, and she could not hide her astonishment as she asked.

"More or less." Wei Zhao smiled indifferently. He had never intended to hide such a thing, still less to use it to deceive Huo Yudie. Though there was no formal bond of master and disciple, in truth everyone in the North Island's Sandie Pavilion, from top to bottom, had long since regarded him as Shangguan Tianxia's personal disciple.

Even Shangguan Tianxia himself held much the same attitude—otherwise he would not pay Wei Zhao such attention, still less take the initiative to promote him. If Wei Zhao were to declare himself his personal disciple, his attitude would surely be one of tacit consent, and he might even play along and make it real.

"Uh, does that mean I've spoken it into being?" Huo Yudie was at a loss for what to say. She had only brought it up earlier to fob off Ren Zhongyuan and his lot; never had she expected it to actually be true. How very strange!

"That phrase isn't meant for good things, is it? Don't go bullying me just because I'm uneducated—I did properly attend university, after all!" Wei Zhao corrected her with a perfectly straight face. The claim was a little shameless: educated he certainly was, but all of it had been learned before his debut, and as for attending school, that had been nothing but a pretext—pure nonsense...

"University? Hmm, all right." Huo Yudie was taken aback for a moment, then her eyes swept over Wei Zhao from head to toe once more, as if she meant to see straight through every secret he carried. After a moment her eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh, right. You and Shangguan Lan'er are so close—she must be the fine match Vice Island Master Shangguan picked out for you, then. Say, if you let her find out you've been fooling around with other girls out here, do you think she'd fly into a rage and kill you?"

She spoke in a tone of pure gloating, as though she truly believed she had caught Wei Zhao by the weak spot. After all, marrying one's personal disciple to a junior of one's own clan, thereby binding the two sides more closely and reliably together, was a practice seen everywhere among the sects and schools of the Cloud Terrace Isles.

Shangguan Lan'er was the apple of Shangguan Tianxia's eye. If she were to marry, her match would either be a nephew or niece of some other top-tier magnate, or one of Shangguan Tianxia's personal disciples—there was no third option.

And this Wei Zhao, though infuriating at times, was undeniably outstanding in every respect—a rare fine match among ten thousand, and one who had the advantage of proximity. Shangguan Tianxia would certainly never let him marry another woman.

"No, she wouldn't. Why would she kill me?" Wei Zhao looked utterly baffled.

"Why wouldn't she? Of course she would—that's the most basic common sense! What woman would want her husband running around with another woman, least of all someone like Shangguan Lan'er, the little princess of the North Island!" Huo Yudie declared with absolute certainty.

"Heh. Then do you know why I went out of my way to join such a low-grade, wretched trial?" Wei Zhao smiled at her confident gaze.

"Low-grade? Wretched trial?" Huo Yudie was stunned. The West Island Trial was one that ranked among the finest of all five Cloud Terrace Isles, and this time the participants' strength was generally at the Nascent Soul stage. And earlier, a single pseudo-human vine had already left accomplished Nascent Soul perfect-stage experts like them in utter disarray—and he called this a low-grade, wretched trial?

"Of course. I could wipe out everyone here with a wave of my hand. Do you think I've got nothing better to do than come to a place like this and waste my time?" Wei Zhao's tone was half joking, but truthfully there was not a drop of exaggeration in those words—this West Island Trial genuinely posed no difficulty for him at all.

Given Wei Zhao's strength, the trial most suited to him and most valuable to him would have to be a perilous land open at least to experts of the Profound Ascension stage. Something like this, with not the slightest pressure, could hardly yield any great harvest—that would be sheer fantasy. If he could smoothly obtain the Lei Xuan Vine this time, he would already be content; as for breaking through in cultivation, the thought had never once crossed his mind.

"Uh..." Huo Yudie shot him a glare at that. His tone was certainly grand, and it still sounded like a joke, but from all that had happened before, she had a vague feeling it might actually be possible—this fellow was truly unfathomable. She could not help asking, "Then what are you doing here?"

"Because of Shangguan Lan'er. She said she didn't want her best friend marrying someone else, so I had no choice but to grit my teeth and come." Wei Zhao shrugged with a chuckle.

"Best friend? And who's her best friend?" Huo Yudie did not catch on at once. She froze for a moment, then it suddenly came to her, and she slapped her forehead. "Ning Xuefei?"

For the vast majority of male cultivators, the main purpose of this West Island Trial was not the rare treasures at all, but the contest for the West Island Princess. It was only because she herself was a girl that she had never taken the matter to heart from start to finish—only now did she suddenly remember that such a thing existed.

"That's right. Who else could it be?" Wei Zhao laughed.

"I'm dizzy..." Huo Yudie's gaze grew stranger still. She looked Wei Zhao up and down yet again, until he was on the verge of squirming, and only then did she speak slowly: "Tell me, isn't it only those very formidable great figures who get to have three wives and four concubines? And Ning Xuefei is the West Island Princess besides—even if a man married her, he'd have to make her the primary wife, wouldn't he? Could he really marry other women too? Wouldn't the people of the West Island go mad?"

"Aren't I formidable?" Wei Zhao replied half in jest, and as for the second question, he simply ignored it. It was indeed a very thorny problem, but so long as his strength was great enough, everything would resolve itself.

Put plainly, the West Island was an extremely traditional hereditary system, and the only one with the power to decide Ning Xuefei's marriage was Ning Shanghe! (To be continued...)