Chapter 3705 — A Promise Between the Two: Better to Bide One's Time Than to Tip One's Hand
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Then many thanks, Little Senior Sister." Wei Zhao was doing this, of course, to lull Xu Lingchong and his crowd. Otherwise, if they saw no results, they would keep cooking up one crooked scheme after another to make trouble for him, and he would never have a moment's peace. And he was still hoping for a quiet stretch of time to cultivate properly.
The crucial thing was that the intelligence supplied by Zhong Yongliang and Li Zhengming both mentioned, independently of each other, that Shangguan Lan'er was the reverse scale of Young Master Xu Lingchong. Push him too far, and he might well risk everything and send men to assassinate Wei Zhao outright—and then the trouble would be truly grave.
As formidable as Wei Zhao now was—a peak early-Foundation Establishment expert who could crush every newcomer in the Welcome Pavilion—out in the wider world he was still not much to look at. What if the men sent after him were mid-Foundation Establishment, or stronger still? Then no matter how wary and careful Wei Zhao might be, a single misstep could cost him his life!
"Well then, I'll be off." Shangguan Lan'er yanked Little Curly Bear off Wei Zhao's shoulder by force, said her goodbyes, and went on ahead; her steps were light and skittish, and she seemed to be in quite a good mood.
Perhaps because she suddenly remembered Wei Zhao's request, though, when she came out of the little grove, Shangguan Lan'er halted in her tracks, then deliberately acted out a furious, stormy parting. She played the part rather convincingly.
This Little Senior Sister of mine is actually quite innocent and adorable! Watching the girl's receding figure, Wei Zhao could not help smiling.
Yet although he had succeeded in drawing closer to Shangguan Lan'er, Wei Zhao had no intention of using her to climb the ladder.
After all, his chief purpose in coming to Cloud Terrace Island was to find Zhang Lifeng and heal his seven inheritor girlfriends, along with Yu Xiaoke, the pangolin, and the others. As for romantic entanglements, he had long since grown indifferent to them.
Moreover, given Wei Zhao's character, a base method like exploiting a young girl's feelings to curry favor with the powerful and achieve his ends was something he would not even deign to think about, let alone put into practice.
Word of the falling-out between Shangguan Lan'er and Wei Zhao soon reached the ears of Xu Lingchong and Meng Jueming. Xu Lingchong was overjoyed, and Meng Jueming was beside himself with delight. Plainly, their plan had "succeeded"!
Though this scheme had been tailor-made for a lecher like Wei Zhao, and Meng Jueming had been ninety percent certain it would take him in, actually seeing it succeed still sent him into raptures.
After all, Xu Lingchong had given him his word beforehand: as long as this business was handled neatly, he would speak to the higher-ups on his behalf, so that in days to come Meng Jueming could fill Lu Bianren's post and become the new third Pavilion Master of the Welcome Pavilion!
With Xu Lingchong's deep background, he need only persuade his grandfather Xu Yuanzheng—a towering figure seated on the Council of Elders—to put in a casual word, and no one would be able to compete with Meng Jueming for that trifling vacancy.
The only thing Meng Jueming had left to do was to use every means at his disposal to raise his own strength past the hard threshold of mid-Foundation Establishment before Lu Bianren was sent packing—and that was no difficult matter for him.
For one thing, he had been stuck at the bottleneck of peak early-Foundation Establishment for several years and had long since touched the barrier; for another, in his years as managing senior brother of the Welcome Pavilion, while being all things to all men and building his web of connections, he had also accumulated no small store of cultivation resources—with a little gritting of teeth, he could exchange them for a Foundation Establishment Barrier-Breaking Pill. RS