Chapter 1540 — It Seems Simple Enough
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
The Ice Palace Master had no choice but to steel herself and listen to Feng Xiaoxiao tell the story of her and Wei Zhao. Moving as it was, her mind was not on it at all; what occupied her now was how to keep Feng Xiaoxiao here.
"Xiaoxiao, you really have woken up!" Wei Zhao was overjoyed to see Feng Xiaoxiao so full of life.
"Wow, hubby Wei Zhao, you really came!" Feng Xiaoxiao jumped straight off the bed, ran to him in a few quick strides, and flung herself into his arms, hands and feet wrapped around him like a koala.
"Ha..." Looking at the lively Feng Xiaoxiao before him, Wei Zhao was overcome with feeling. Everything that had come before seemed like a dream, and Feng Xiaoxiao — it was as though she had never once been unconscious.
"Thank you, hubby Wei Zhao!" Feng Xiaoxiao planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. "Thank you for everything you have done for me. Xiaoxiao is so happy — even dying would have been worth it!"
Hearing this, the Ice Palace Master was struck dumb. I was the one who saved you, along with the Grand Elder — all right? Ever since you woke I have been trying to make nice with you, and you have been cold as ice; Wei Zhao shows up, and this is what I get?
Yet even as she stewed, the Ice Palace Master understood one thing: it seemed that persuading Wei Zhao was the key.
"Aunt Qing, does he understand what we of the Ice Palace intend?" the Ice Palace Master asked Xiao Qing, betraying nothing in her face. A Heaven-tier expert possessed a formidable ability: secret voice transmission, by which sound could be condensed into true qi and delivered to the very person meant to hear it. This was the legendary materialization of true qi — a feat only Heaven-tier experts could perform.
Such a secret art, however, consumed a great deal of true qi, and under ordinary circumstances no one would use it lightly. Only because they needed to discuss matters concerning Feng Xiaoxiao did the Ice Palace Master resort to it now.
"He knows, but he neither agreed nor refused," Xiao Qing replied, also by secret voice transmission.
"True qi voice transmission?" Wei Zhao frowned. Feeling the energy fluctuations nearby and observing the Ice Palace Master and Xiao Qing, he had a fair idea of what they were doing.
"You... you can actually detect it?" This time, the Ice Palace Master was genuinely startled by Wei Zhao.
Had Wei Zhao been a Heaven-tier expert, noticing that she and Xiao Qing were using secret voice transmission would have been nothing remarkable; some even more formidable Heaven-tier experts could intercept such transmissions and hear what others were saying. But Wei Zhao was only a Mystic-tier expert. However capable he might be, there was no way he could sense true qi that had been shaped into form — was there?
"I can detect it. I simply do not know what shady business you two are plotting," Wei Zhao said flatly, his gaze toward the Ice Palace Master turning less than friendly.
Wei Zhao was exceedingly sensitive to the fluctuations of true qi — perhaps because of the cultivation art he practiced. It was also the reason he could discern a person's true strength even when that person was not circulating an inner art or releasing true qi at all.
Otherwise, when a cultivator concealed his strength, his true qi did not leak out, and no other cultivator could possibly sense his power.
And when a low-level cultivator stood before a higher-level one, even if he released no true qi and secretly circulated his inner art with his true qi hidden away, the higher-level cultivator would still discover his true strength.
Only if the situation were reversed — the higher-level cultivator releasing no true qi, secretly concealing it while circulating his art — would the low-level cultivator fail to notice.