Chapter 1308 — Beaming with Joy
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
And then Qiu Lingshan thought of Wei Zhao. He was a man as well, yet the impression he left on her could not have been more different.
True, her first impression of Wei Zhao had been poor — but that poor impression went no further than a kind of indignation at him, the sort that made her want to pick a quarrel with him the moment she laid eyes on him; it was not the whole-hearted disgust that rose in her at the mere sight of someone.
Xie Yufeng, by contrast, was disgust, pure and simple. She did not wish to look at him one instant longer than she had to.
Thinking about it now, Wei Zhao could be terribly blunt, and he had no notion of how to please a woman, and yet she genuinely liked the way he spoke and the way he did things, without a trace of pretense.
The moment she thought of Wei Zhao, something in her would not stay calm. For reasons she could not name, she wanted to call him; even just to hear his voice would set her heart at rest.
Whether this meant she had fallen in love with Wei Zhao, Qiu Lingshan could not say; but she knew that ever since Wei Zhao had pulled her out of the basement at the kidney-harvesting syndicate's headquarters, her state of mind had changed. She had grown reckless, past caring what became of her — and at the same time, she had begun to cling a little to Wei Zhao.
The call connected, and suddenly she was nervous... What was she going to say to him? That she missed him? Say that out loud and she would most likely be rewarded with "brain-dead girl" or "little silly girl"...
"Hello? Little Song? Something the matter?" Wei Zhao's impression of Qiu Lingshan had been improving by degrees, and the two of them were friends now, so naturally he could not very well call her "brain-dead girl" or "little silly girl" anymore — yet "Lingshan" or "Shanshan" stuck in his throat, and calling her "Qiu Lingshan" straight out sounded too distant. So he had simply settled on "Little Song."
"Mm... sort of..." Qiu Lingshan was instantly delighted. So her standing in Wei Zhao's eyes had risen again: from brain-dead to slightly silly, and now she had successfully graduated out of the ranks of the idiots and become a normal girl. Not bad, not bad at all.
"What is it? Out with it, I'm driving!" Wei Zhao had just left the Overlord Fish Seafood Pavilion with Feng Xiaoxiao and was on his way back to school.
"It's like this... I told you before about the missing persons, didn't I? Lately a good many people, from all sorts of trades and all sorts of backgrounds, have been vanishing for no reason at all..." Qiu Lingshan said. "From what I've dug up, it should be an underground fight ring luring them in to fight for them. So I wanted to ask if you know anything about the underground black boxing scene?"
"No idea," Wei Zhao said on reflex, then caught himself. "Wait — what did you say? An underground fight ring?"
"Yes! You know about it?" Delighted, Qiu Lingshan pressed him at once.
She had sent people out to ask around as well, but not a whisper about any underground fight ring had turned up.
That was hardly surprising. An Liwen's underground fight ring had long since passed its initial promotional stage; it no longer needed any deliberate publicity. Every day the place was packed to capacity, and regulars brought in more regulars besides, so business only burned hotter and hotter. There was no need for advertising at all.
And since betting on fights was illegal to begin with, these people kept their mouths shut; they let nothing slip to anyone they did not know well. So it was entirely reasonable that Qiu Lingshan had found no thread to pull.
"I know of it. As for exactly where it is, let me ask around for you. Wait for my call," Wei Zhao said.