Chapter 2849 — Trapped Again
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"It's nothing. If it hadn't thrown me down, I'd have jumped down to find you myself," Wei Zhao said. "We came here as a team. I couldn't very well leave you here all alone, could I?"
"Right—what happened to Zhang Naipao?" Yang Qiqi asked.
"I avenged you." Wei Zhao did not go into detail, but those five short words, he trusted, would be enough for Yang Qiqi to understand.
Sure enough, Yang Qiqi opened her mouth in astonishment. Wei Zhao's prowess had caught her somewhat off guard, though on reflection it was only to be expected—when had Wei Zhao ever not trampled his opponents underfoot?
"Mm..." Yang Qiqi nodded, but the thought of having failed to obtain a scale from the Five Fiends Dragon left her feeling rather disheartened, and her spirits sank.
Xiao Jiu's condition was growing worse by the day. It had not been so severe before, but over the past year it had deteriorated steadily, and Yang Qiqi had spent nearly all her time rushing about in search of medicinal ingredients and cures for Xiao Jiu.
Yang Qiqi's family was a large assassin organization, true, but only one of the foremost such organizations in the secular world. Had it not been for Xiao Jiu's illness, they would likely never have had any dealings with the world of cultivation. Yet now, to cure Xiao Jiu, Yang Qiqi had no choice but to step into an unknown realm.
"What's wrong?" Wei Zhao asked, seeing Yang Qiqi's expression suddenly turn grave.
"Nothing... It's just that in this trial, I didn't get what I came for..." Yang Qiqi said with a sigh.
"You wanted to get a scale from the Five Fiends Dragon?" Wei Zhao asked, a faint stir in his heart.
"Yes. I'd meant to have a proper talk with it, but it ignored me. I thought it was asleep, so I crept over to pluck off a scale—but it had only been feigning sleep to trick me. It seized me in one claw and flung me off the cliff..." Yang Qiqi said, somewhat dejected.
"Uh..." Wei Zhao thought Yang Qiqi's approach rather reckless, but if he had not crossed blows with the Five Fiends Dragon himself, who would ever have guessed how formidable it was? And Yang Qiqi had had no way of knowing the creature's true strength.
"Never mind. I'll think of another way." Yang Qiqi sat on the ground hugging her knees. She said so, but anyone could see the helplessness in her eyes.
"Does it have to be a scale from the Five Fiends Dragon?" Wei Zhao asked, his heart softening.
"Anything from its claws would do—it doesn't have to be a scale. But if I cut off a chunk of its flesh, wouldn't it fly into an even greater rage?" Yang Qiqi said.
"If it's something else from its claws, then how about this—will it do?" Wei Zhao drew from his robes the Five Fiends Dragon's claw he had collected earlier and held it out before Yang Qiqi.
"This is..." Yang Qiqi was slightly taken aback.
"It's a claw from the Five Fiends Dragon. I crossed blows with it earlier, and it wounded one of my friends with its claw—the claw snapped off in the process, so I kept it," Wei Zhao said.
"Ah?" Yang Qiqi was both startled and overjoyed. She had never imagined that a claw of the Five Fiends Dragon would be in Wei Zhao's possession. If so, then her trip for this trial had not been in vain after all? She reached out to take the claw from Wei Zhao, but then it struck her how precious the thing was, and that she could hardly take it for nothing. She hesitated: "I... I have nothing to trade you for it..."
"Then trade yourself," Wei Zhao said, straight-faced, suppressing a smile.
"Ah!" Yang Qiqi was stunned. She had not expected Wei Zhao to set such a condition, and did not know what to do: "C-could we change the terms? I could buy it on credit..."
"If you ran off, where would I find you?" Wei Zhao said.
"That..." Yang Qiqi fell silent. Indeed—if she ran off, where would Wei Zhao find her? The crux was that she truly wanted the Five Fiends Dragon's claw in Wei Zhao's hand. With it, there was hope for Xiao Jiu's illness.