Chapter 3973 — Waiting Here
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
"Heh, that's people for you. If all they'd thrown out was worthless junk nobody wanted, no one would care. But the moment they realize they misjudged and tossed out something valuable, it's as though you'd carved a piece of flesh off their bodies—of course they won't let it go." Wei Zhao shook his head, then suddenly asked, "How did they find out they'd misjudged? Brother Wang, don't tell me you picked those things up right in front of them?"
Scrap King scratched his head again, embarrassed, and gave a sheepish laugh. "Truth be told, the fault lies with me. Brother Lin, you can see for yourself—a man like me can't stand to watch good things go to waste. When I saw them throwing away fine materials as though they were garbage, I couldn't help muttering a word or two under my breath. Somehow or other it got back to their ears, and that's why they came looking for me."
Wei Zhao was torn between laughter and exasperation at this. That was Scrap King to a tee. He remembered how, back when he had first done business with Chen Heihu, this same fellow had been unable to hold his tongue and had spoken up—and that was what made Wei Zhao change his mind on the spot and hold back the nine-tailed cloud-piercing leopard's forepaws and whip-tail.
So the root of the trouble lay squarely with Scrap King himself. If those people had learned that the junk they threw away was in fact treasure, and that someone had picked it up besides, there was no way they could have taken it calmly.
Any man with even a sliver of pettiness in him would inevitably come knocking to make trouble—and Scrap King, besides, was a soft-hearted coward who let himself be carved up however others pleased. Clearly, Scrap King's emotional intelligence was truly nothing to boast of.
"From the look of things, they must have come after you more than once. Brother Wang, why haven't you packed up and left this den of trouble? Why stay here in such a sorry state?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.
The wooden hut here had likely been burned down several days ago, and Scrap King's current charred, bedraggled appearance was certainly not the work of Wei Zhao's Frenzied Flame Fist from a moment ago. After all, that strike had been locked entirely onto those three men; as for Scrap King, he could at most have been grazed by the faintest wisp of the fist's intent.
If he was not mistaken, Scrap King's present condition was left over from when the hut had been burned. Anyone else would surely have found a chance to leave over the past few days; even if they could not rest easy and had to come back for a look, they would at least have cleaned themselves up—not be standing about in the state he was in now.
"Heh heh, wasn't I just afraid that if Brother Lin came, he wouldn't be able to find me? So I stayed right here and waited," Scrap King said with a guileless, straightforward look on his face.
Wei Zhao was speechless for a moment, and at the same time quietly moved. Merely to honor a single promise made to a stranger, the man had braved danger and stayed right where he was. In this day and age, people as utterly sincere as Scrap King were truly hard to come by.
"Brother Wang, you've been here the whole time? Then when they burned the house last time, they didn't discover you?" Wei Zhao could not help asking out of curiosity. Scrap King might be pitifully weak in actual strength, but Wei Zhao had sensed it a moment ago—his skill at concealment seemed rather impressive.
"That's right. Last time they couldn't find me, so they burned my house to vent their spite. The truth is, I was hiding right here the whole time—I just used the Calm Heart and Stilled Breath method, so ordinary folk like them couldn't sense me," Scrap King said with a complacent chuckle.
"The Calm Heart and Stilled Breath method?" Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback.