Chapter 3923 — The Troublemaker Arrives
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
The only thing that left Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai helpless with frustration was this: the outer reaches of the back mountain stretched vast as a sea, and worse, they had never had the chance to agree on a meeting place with Wei Zhao beforehand. For just the two of them to try to find him was like fishing a needle out of the ocean—no easy task at all.
Fortunately, neither of them was foolish enough to devote themselves solely to searching for Wei Zhao. Aside from gathering the rare treasures and natural materials they came across along the way, Xiao Che also kept an eye out for the various spirit beasts they encountered. Qiao Hongcai might already have his spirit pet, but the spirit pet talisman was still clutched in his hand.
With Qiao Hongcai's Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle chick as the benchmark before him, Xiao Che's standards naturally could not sink very low. A candidate had to have strength, and potential besides, so ordinary spirit beasts no longer had much hope of catching his eye.
The back mountain teemed with spirit beasts, thick as hairs on an ox, but finding one that met both conditions at once—and that also fell within the effective range of a low-grade spirit pet talisman—was in truth no easy matter.
Unless Xiao Che followed Qiao Hongcai's example and set his sights specifically on the cubs of certain powerful spirit beasts, which would satisfy all these requirements. But the risk involved was one that his current strength could not bear at all.
Luckily, Xiao Che had always been even-tempered and was not one to chase quick returns. Even if he had not yet found anything suitable to his liking, he remained unhurried and unruffled. What fate has in store will come in time; what fate does not hold, do not force.
And so Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai drifted about the outer reaches of the back mountain. Yet beyond all expectation, instead of running into Wei Zhao, they were the first to collide with their sworn enemy—Meng Zhou and his gang.
At that very moment, the band of newcomers led by Meng Zhou was on high alert. Meng Zhou especially was so tense that cold sweat poured down him, and he scarcely dared draw a full breath.
There was no other reason: Meng Zhou was attempting to subdue a spirit beast—an excellent target that he had forced his gang to spend a full ten days before they finally found for him.
The Black-Backed Staff Ape, one of the exceedingly rare breeds among spirit beasts that were born with the ability to wield weapons. A full-grown specimen could reach above the early Foundation Establishment stage, and the one Meng Zhou had his eye on now was a near-adult that had just left the protection of its parents, with strength at the peak of the late Heaven Grade.
To Meng Zhou, this Black-Backed Staff Ape was a pie dropped straight from heaven—he doubted there was a spirit pet in all the world better suited to him. There was only one problem now: could the low-grade spirit pet talisman in his hand actually subdue this Black-Backed Staff Ape?
Li Zhengming stood nearby atop the tree canopy, watching coldly from the sidelines. Under Meng Zhou's direction, the Black-Backed Staff Ape had already been surrounded on all sides by their group, with nowhere to flee, and it had been badly wounded in many places, its initial ferocity and sharp spirit utterly gone.
To subdue a spirit beast at the peak of the late Heaven Grade with a single low-grade spirit pet talisman—the odds of success were not high. But if this Black-Backed Staff Ape had already lost the will to resist, then there was still every chance Meng Zhou would succeed.
Meng Zhou had already begun the subjugation. Barring any mishap, the result would emerge within the time it took to burn a stick of incense.