Chapter 3826 — Enemies Are Bound to Meet
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Hong Zhong's words were somewhat inflated. Alchemists were indeed honored, but because their strength was generally feeble, in a cultivation world that revered the powerful they hardly deserved the words "boundless future." After all, monstrous alchemists like Zhang Lifeng, the Divine Alchemist and Sage Physician, who could reach the topmost ranks, appeared perhaps once in several hundred years.
Still, if those two top-grade Foundation Establishment Barrier-Breaking Pills last time had truly been refined by this Lin Er with his own hands, then those words fit him more than well enough.
Having spent so many years at the Hong Merchant Guild, Hong Zhong had his own store of wisdom when it came to handling people. Much as he now wished to know whether those two top-grade Foundation Establishment Barrier-Breaking Pills had come from Lin Er's hands, until their relationship grew deeper and more solid, he would not be so foolish as to press his luck with such a question. To learn this time that Lin Er was an alchemist was already quite enough.
"Young Hero Lin, please wait a moment in the private room. I will have someone prepare it at once." Hong Zhong handed the list to the servant waiting at the door. Since it involved dozens of kinds of spirit-herb materials, even though the Hong Merchant Guild stocked them all, it would still take a good deal of time.
Wei Zhao nodded. Having nothing else to do, he simply took the opportunity to wander through the Hong Merchant Guild from top to bottom. With so many treasures of heaven and earth worth astronomical sums, even if he had no intention of buying for the moment, it could never hurt to learn a little more about them while he had the chance.
Yet what Wei Zhao had not anticipated in the least was that, while he was idly wandering the Hong Merchant Guild, he would run into someone without the slightest warning—Yu Jiang.
As the saying goes, enemies are bound to meet. There at the corner of the display cabinets on the second floor, with no mental preparation whatsoever, the two of them came face to face, and for a moment both were struck dumb.
In Wei Zhao's expectations, since today was not an open day for the inner street, an ordinary inner-sect disciple of the Soaring Heavens Pavilion like Yu Jiang should not have been able to enter the inner street at all, much less appear in the Hong Merchant Guild.
Otherwise, if Yu Jiang had had the ability to come and go freely in the inner street, then last time, when they competed for the Star Ink Stone, he would not have had to wait for the inner street's open day to make his move, just as Wei Zhao had.
So although Wei Zhao had been especially careful and cautious earlier when entering the market district, especially while passing through the outer and middle streets, doing his utmost to avoid drawing the attention of anyone with ill intent—guarding precisely against the possibility that Yu Jiang had eyes among them—once he entered the inner street, that vigilance had unconsciously relaxed.
After all, in theory, this Yu Jiang truly had no qualification to enter the inner street; the odds of him appearing there were almost nil.
Yet Wei Zhao had forgotten one thing: Yu Jiang was not alone. He also had a master—Nan Tianyong, supervisory deacon of the Soaring Heavens Pavilion.
With Nan Tianyong's status and position, coming and going in the inner street was naturally no issue. Even so, he could not bring Yu Jiang in and out with him. The problem was that, like Wei Zhao, he held a spirit-jade card from the Merchant Alliance.
Of course, this spirit-jade card had not come from the Hong Merchant Guild, but from another top-tier guild of the Merchant Alliance. In truth, by Nan Tianyong's own strength and status alone, he was still a considerable distance from qualifying for such a card—but he had two elder brothers of far greater power, and this spirit-jade card had been borrowed from one of them!