Chapter 3414 — A Clue
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Then you came here for... cough, cough..." As he spoke, Meng Gaohai spat out several more mouthfuls of fresh blood. Though Wei Zhao had held back in his strikes, this early Heaven-rank expert was simply too feeble for his rank; even as he spoke, he was already fading fast.
Seeing Meng Gaohai in such a state, the others in the dormitory were aghast—the close-cropped man especially. He was beginning to regret having put on airs with Wei Zhao earlier.
"You're dying. I'll give you a choice: work for me, and I'll heal you. Or stay here and wait for death." Wei Zhao glanced at Meng Gaohai and spoke flatly.
"I... if you can really heal me, I'll submit, of course..." Meng Gaohai knew how grave his injuries were. He was on the verge of death—what choice did he have left? True, he could not leave this poison-refining base and spent every day refining poison, but who would want to die? Especially as the leader here, with people to wait on him—his life was comfortable, and all the more reason he did not want to die.
Now, even if he had to submit to Wei Zhao, he would still be second only to one and above ten thousand—a figure of no small consequence. So he agreed without the slightest hesitation.
"Good." Wei Zhao nodded, then glanced at the close-cropped man from before. "You come here too. Your leader has already yielded—surely you don't mean to defy me to the bitter end and wait to die?"
"No, no, absolutely not! Leader 9527, we'll all follow your orders from now on..." The close-cropped man's injuries were not especially severe, but he was still in a bad way. He scrambled over at once and swore his loyalty to Wei Zhao.
Meng Gaohai did not mind in the least. He himself had submitted—what right did he have to expect his underling's loyalty?
"Then I'll save your lives." With that, Wei Zhao circulated the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art and began repairing Meng Gaohai's and the close-cropped man's injuries, one on each side.
Though Wei Zhao had said he could heal them, neither Meng Gaohai nor the close-cropped man quite believed it. Their injuries were severe, after all—even the Lesser Restoration Pill was useless; only the Greater Restoration Pill would do. And if Wei Zhao had possessed a Greater Restoration Pill, it could never have escaped confiscation when he entered.
So they had only meant to humor him. What they never expected was that Wei Zhao would not feed them pills at all, but heal them with true qi! It was simply astonishing.
As they felt their injuries mending bit by bit, their admiration and awe for Wei Zhao rose from the bottom of their hearts.
Such is the world of cultivation: the strong are revered. If someone is only a little stronger, you may hate them in your heart and scheme to surpass them. But if they are so much stronger that it surpasses imagination, there is nothing left to hate—you can never hope to overtake them anyway, so you might as well submit obediently.
Their injuries were soon healed. Wei Zhao looked them over and said, "You're fully recovered now. You could also choose to feign submission and then secretly inform on me—tell the people of the poison-refining base that I was merely hiding my strength."
"We wouldn't dare..." Meng Gaohai shook his head hurriedly. "I, Meng Gaohai, am neither a faithless villain nor a brainless fool! Leader 9527, since you're strong enough to wound me gravely with a single move, dealing with the few guards of this poison-refining base will be child's play—and when that time comes, you'd surely settle accounts with me as well. I'd have to be out of my mind to do such a thing!"
"It seems you see things quite clearly?" Meng Gaohai's answer took Wei Zhao somewhat by surprise. His greatest worry had been that these men would shirk their work and inform on him, ruining his plan.
Not that he feared the people of this poison-refining base—they could never hold him—but his purpose in coming here was to find the Pangolin, so it was better to keep a low profile.