Chapter 3559 — A Heap of Loose Sand
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Their average strength was the weakest of the three circles, most of them only at the late Heaven Rank, few even at its peak, and those who had reached Great Perfection were rarer still than phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. No strength, no backing—a dozen or so of them stood there in slack disorder, and on the rare occasions they exchanged words it was in meek, subdued tones, without even the nerve to raise their voices. That was how feeble they were.
Yet even this little circle was split into several cliques, each going about its own business.
The miserable senior brother brought the two of them before the crowd and introduced them: "Fellow juniors, these two beside me are newcomers sent up from the mundane world, Wei Zhao and Xiao Che. They will be reserve disciples of our Azure Cloud Pavilion from now on. You might all get acquainted."
Wei Zhao was newly arrived. Though his strength surpassed everyone present, he was in no mood to show off. His chief purpose in coming to Cloud Terrace Island was to meet the peerless physician and pill sage Zhang Lifeng, not to compete with these people over anything.
So he and Xiao Che joined in greeting the crowd, but the crowd merely gave the two of them a cold glance, unwilling even to return the greeting, let alone strike up a conversation.
"Ha, you have all just arrived and do not know one another yet. It will be better in time." The miserable senior brother's face flushed crimson, and he forced a chuckle to cover his embarrassment.
Even he had not expected such coldness from these people, and what mortified him most was that he had let Wei Zhao and his companion see him made a fool of so soon. Whatever else, he was an outstanding disciple of the Welcome Pavilion's previous generation, appointed by the Azure Cloud Pavilion as a steward here—one of the Azure Cloud Pavilion's two steward senior brothers on the island! In future he would still be overseeing their daily cultivation, their assignments, and the distribution of cultivation resources. These people were giving him no face at all.
"Heh... it is nothing. There is plenty of time." Wei Zhao patted the miserable senior brother in understanding. He had already seen it: this miserable senior brother was a good man, but he commanded no authority, and his own temperament was hardly forceful enough. Even these newcomers did not buy his account—they simply saw him as a soft-hearted elder worth pushing around.
What rather puzzled Wei Zhao was this: he and Xiao Che were both fine hands at the peak Great Perfection of the late Heaven Rank, and only thus had they earned their passage to Cloud Terrace Island. So why was it that among the people before him, some were merely at the late Heaven Rank and had still made it here?
But such a question was not one to put in the present circumstances. Wei Zhao let it pass, resolving to ask once no one was around.
Just then, however, a man stepped out from the Azure Cloud Pavilion crowd—the only fine hand among them at the peak Great Perfection of the late Heaven Rank. His exact age was unclear; by his looks he was not yet thirty.
He walked up to Wei Zhao, sized the two of them up and down a few times, and said with scorn: "Sent up from the mundane world, are you? So even in a backwater like the mundane world, there are people who know a thing or two about cultivation—now that really opens my eyes. To make it to our Cloud Terrace Island's North Island must be fortune earned over eight generations of your ancestors!"
As the words fell, the other newcomers standing nearby burst into laughter. In this place they rootless wanderers were the lowest of the low, able only to murmur and defer and dare not speak up—but hearing this, they suddenly realized that they were not, after all, the very worst. There were people even lowlier than themselves!