Chapter 3659 — The Newcomer's Trial
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Forgive us, Miss Xie!" Meng Jueming and his companion nodded and agreed in a frantic hurry.
"All right, you two can go back. This young miss is off." Shangguan Lan'er immediately gathered up the little Curly Bear and hurried away. The Shangguan family's household rules were strict indeed, and the sky had already gone fully dark; if she lingered outside much longer and her family found out, she would surely catch another scolding.
Meng Jueming and the other watched Shangguan Lan'er's figure dwindle into the distance, then exchanged a glance and collapsed onto the ground like deflated balloons. That scene just now had frightened them both half to death!
If Meng Jueming had not reacted quickly enough to smooth things over, and if this young miss Shangguan Lan'er had not been so easy to fool, the business from today might well have been dug up, and then they would not even know how they had died!
"Cousin Jiu, that Curly Bear was clearly half-dead from my kicking, so how is it that the moment it got into that Wei Zhao fellow's cave, it was bouncing around as lively as could be, without a scratch on it?" Meng Zhou asked, still shaken and utterly baffled.
"I've been wondering about that myself. Could that Wei Zhao fellow heal it? That makes no sense. Even if he had top-grade healing medicine, it couldn't possibly work on a spirit beast like that, could it?" Meng Jueming was equally at a loss.
"Maybe this Curly Bear has some special constitution of its own, some self-healing ability?" Meng Zhou slapped his head.
"That's possible, I suppose. Curly Bears are exceedingly rare spirit beasts after all, and we don't know what innate talents they might have," Meng Jueming said with a thoughtful nod.
Compared with the absurd notion that Wei Zhao could heal a spirit beast, the guess that the Curly Bear possessed a self-healing talent was clearly the more plausible. After all, no ordinary person would ever imagine that the cultivation method Wei Zhao practiced was so peculiar that he could use true qi to heal others—even spirit beasts were no exception.
Meng Jueming heaved a sigh of regret. "That Wei Zhao fellow got off easy this time. Otherwise, if that Curly Bear had died in his cave, he'd have been unable to talk his way out of it, and Miss Shangguan would have slaughtered him for certain! What a pity—all that effort, undone at the last moment!"
"Even if he escaped disaster this time, with Cousin Jiu's scheming, finishing him off will be a simple matter!"
Meng Zhou fawned out this flattery, then said, "Tomorrow's the twenty-fifth—the day of the newcomer trial we talked about before. I don't know a thing about it, and I've got no confidence at all. I'm just afraid that when the time comes I'll slip up and lose to that Wei Zhao fellow, and then I'd be shaming you, Cousin Jiu. So you've got to give me some pointers in advance!"
On the twenty-fifth day of their first month after entering the sect, all newcomers took part in the newcomer trial. The purpose was to let promising newcomers seek a chance at a breakthrough in real combat before the first newcomer ranking tournament, so they could enter the Foundation Establishment tier as quickly as possible, stand out from the crowd, and become key figures for the Threefold Pavilion to cultivate in the future.
Yet although everyone knew the newcomer trial would begin the next day, no one knew the specific events, the rules, or where the loopholes might be. All anyone knew was that everything would be announced all at once before the trial began the next morning.
Meng Jueming chuckled. "You're an impatient one. Don't worry—it's not announced in advance, but the content of these newcomer trials is much the same every time. I've already prepared a cheat for you that's guaranteed to put you safely above everyone else. Taking first place will be the work of a moment."
"A cheat? Cousin Jiu, you're practically my second parent!" Meng Zhou's eyes lit up at once.