Chapter 4882 — A Gift for Qin Chan

"Now you're really going to make a name for yourself in the Eastern Continent. Two of the Three Fairies have fallen into your hands—heaven knows how many men are grinding their teeth and cursing you behind your back!" Huang Xiaotao said with a look of pure amusement.

"Ha, that's only because you're in the habit of masking your face, Xiaotao. Otherwise you'd be one of the Three Fairies too, and he'd have snapped up every last one of you," Wang Xinyan said, also finding it rather entertaining.

"Still, being the target of everyone's envy is no pleasant thing. You'd best be careful from now on—plenty of people in the Eastern Continent stop at nothing to get what they want, and they'll use any means imaginable," Huo Yudie said, glancing at Wei Zhao with some concern.

"Don't worry, I'm long used to it," Wei Zhao said with a chuckle, then added, "We can talk about all that later. Right now the priority is to get to the tribulation point and make our push for the Xuan Ascension stage."

"Agreed!" The three women nodded, exchanged a glance, and stepped into three adjacent tribulation points.

By now nearly everyone was in position, and the protective formations had opened one after another, leaving the onlookers outside with no way to interfere. Only then did Wei Zhao stride toward the tribulation point—but just then, a woman suddenly came following after him.

Wei Zhao turned and saw that it was Qin Chan. The two disciples she had been so close to had already entered their tribulation points, leaving her on her own. Recalling what he had witnessed earlier, Wei Zhao felt a degree of distaste for her, though he did not fall out with her on the spot. He merely frowned and said, "Something you need?"

"Master Lin, you know the people from Xiangyun Academy?" Qin Chan glanced cautiously around, and only after making certain no one else was nearby did she ask in a low voice.

Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback. He could not guess what she was driving at, but nodded all the same.

Delighted at the sight, Qin Chan avoided the eyes of the distant onlookers and swiftly drew a tiny, plain wooden box from her robes, handing it to Wei Zhao. Her face full of entreaty, she said, "If by some chance I do not walk out of this tribulation point, please, Master Lin, help me deliver this to a man named Jiang Yuechuan at Xiangyun Academy. This humble woman would be endlessly grateful."

"What?" Wei Zhao was even more bewildered. When he opened the box, his eyelid twitched involuntarily—inside lay two pills. One was an Infant-Condensing Golden Pill. The other was a Nurturing Origin Pill, and there were actually more of them than Jiang Yuechuan had given him!

Seeing Wei Zhao's strange expression, Qin Chan thought he meant to refuse, and at once dropped to her knees. "Master Lin, this humble woman knows the request is most presumptuous, but I truly have no other way. I beg you, Master Lin, to grant it—in my next life I will serve you as an ox or a horse to repay your kindness!"

Wei Zhao grew all the more astonished. From the look of her, Qin Chan seemed already to have resigned herself to death. He had never seen anyone attempt the Xuan Ascension stage with such a mindset.

What struck him as even more curious was that Jiang Yuechuan and Qin Chan had both, without any coordination, come to him to carry something for them. Did he really look that much like a courier?

Then again, it was hardly surprising—who else but him happened to have ties to both academies, and to be regarded by all as such an exalted figure?

Had it been an ordinary disciple of middling strength, no matter how trustworthy they seemed, Jiang Yuechuan and Qin Chan would likely never have dared ask for help so rashly. After all, whether the Infant-Condensing Golden Pill or the Nurturing Origin Pill, these were pills rarely seen in a lifetime—nine and a half out of ten ordinary people would have pocketed them for themselves. Only a man like Wei Zhao could look down on such paltry profit.

What truly astonished Wei Zhao, however, was something else. From everything he had observed along the way, this Qin Chan was plainly entangled with the two male disciples of Chenxing. If her heart had always been set on Jiang Yuechuan, then why had she done such a thing?

Wei Zhao helped her up from the ground. But before he could ask, Qin Chan, her eyes already red, said, "Thank you, Master Lin. If you see Jiang Yuechuan, tell him… tell him that I, Qin Chan, have done him wrong, and that he should cultivate well and find himself another Dao companion. I…"

Before she could finish, tears were already streaming down Qin Chan's face. Choking back sobs, she turned to enter the tribulation point.

Something stirred in Wei Zhao's heart. There was clearly more to this than met the eye!

He had taken her for the same sort of woman as Situ Qian. But now it seemed that was not the case after all. Had Qin Chan truly been that kind of woman, she would never have carried such a longing for Jiang Yuechuan even after taking up with other men!

One Infant-Condensing Golden Pill, one Nurturing Origin Pill—if sold, these two would fetch no small sum. Even if Qin Chan had no use for them herself, she could have traded them away, not only for an astronomical number of spirit jades but for all manner of exceedingly useful cultivation resources. After all, in the Yellow Rank Sea Region these two pills were highly sought after, the latter in particular.

Had she not been longing for Jiang Yuechuan, Qin Chan would never have produced these two pills. For any consummate Nascent Soul expert, this was nothing short of their lifeblood.

Still, this was plainly no place to ask such things. Wei Zhao hurriedly called her back. "Wait! What do you mean by that? Have you not made any preparations at all for the tribulation?"

True, the difficulty of pushing for the Xuan Ascension stage was immense, but so long as one had a Thunder Mystic Pill, one's life at least was assured. In fact, even without a Thunder Mystic Pill, so long as one had a life-saving pill such as a seventh-grade Great Return Pill, there was little cause for worry—there was no need at all to charge in with the fatalistic attitude Qin Chan displayed.

To be honest, though fighting with one's back to the river was much admired, such a mindset was hardly a good thing when applied to a breakthrough. A breakthrough called for water flowing into a channel, not for risking everything in a desperate gamble. Once one's mind grew too taut, one only fell into inferior habits, and the slightest misstep often led to consequences beyond imagining.

"No…" Qin Chan shook her head, her expression instead growing calm. "I have no Thunder Mystic Pill, nor any spare spirit jades to buy healing or life-preserving pills. So this attempt at the Xuan Ascension stage will be either success or death."

Wei Zhao was now all the more certain of his own reasoning. The two pills in his hand might not be enough to trade for a Thunder Mystic Pill, but they were more than sufficient to exchange for a seventh-grade Great Return Pill—and it should be an easy trade at that.

After all, in the period before each Trial of the Road to the Giants, Nurturing Origin Pills were in far greater demand than Great Return Pills. Once word got out, someone would come knocking within moments; there was no need to expend any effort at all.

She could plainly have done so, yet in the end she still chose to risk her life and leave them to Jiang Yuechuan. After all, to an ordinary consummate Nascent Soul expert, the value of one Nurturing Origin Pill plus one Infant-Condensing Golden Pill was all but infinite.

Wei Zhao was silent for a moment. Then he drew a deep breath and took out a Thunder Mystic Pill, handing it to Qin Chan.