Chapter 4031 — Wrath of the Pill Hall
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Wei Zhao had always been keen on such novelties. Even if he himself could not tell the true from the false, there was still some ghostly thing nesting in the space of his jade pendant — a thing that had lived who knew how many thousands or tens of thousands of years — and it could always make out a thing or two. Who knew but that he might carelessly pick up a treasure like the Star Ink Stone and make a killing?
Yet it was not only Wei Zhao who took an interest in these curious oddities; the others were all nursing the same hope of snatching up a bargain, especially Nan Tianxiong and his crew. With Yu Jiang among them — a man who had read every book under heaven — their knack for spotting hidden treasure far surpassed that of ordinary folk.
And while Wei Zhao was busy bidding and bargain-hunting against these people, Tianchan had already returned with the Pill Hall delegation to Central Island, escorting Zheng Tianjie's corpse.
When word of Zheng Tianjie's death came in, the normally quiet Pill Hall instantly boiled over. Zheng Tianjie's grandfather above all — Zheng Dongjue, vice-head of the Pill Hall — nearly fainted on the spot.
Zheng Tianjie was the only Golden Core expert among his grandchildren, and an alchemist besides, a man of boundless potential on whom great hopes had always been pinned, raised as the future successor. And now he had gone off to the Far North Island and come back a charred corpse. How was he to accept such a thing?
"Who did this?" Those words burst from Zheng Dongjue's hoarse throat like a howl from hell, and every disciple of the Pill Hall in the hall felt a chill run down their spines.
Apart from Zhang Lifeng and a few registered disciples, everyone else, under the aggressive glare of Zheng Dongjue, trembled with fear.
In the end, one of the elders who had led the party to the Far North Island was forced to step forward and explain: "Vice-Head, Young Master Zheng's death was not murder — it was... it was that last night, while refining pills, his furnace exploded and killed him."
"Furnace explosion?" Zheng Dongjue swept him a cold glance and roared in fury. "Tianjie was a fourth-rank alchemist of standing, and a Golden Core expert besides — and you tell me he died of a furnace explosion? You go and blow up a furnace, then, and let me see it!"
The elder shrank his neck and had no answer. And no wonder Zheng Dongjue reacted so; in truth, even these men had found it hard to believe at first. Only after repeatedly examining the scene and the corpse had they dared to reach the conclusion of death by furnace explosion.
"Hmph! This hall-master holds that your foolish conclusion is not to be trusted at all. Go and summon all the elders — this hall-master will reexamine the matter himself!" Zheng Dongjue snarled through gritted teeth.
As vice-head, with Zhang Lifeng absent, Zheng Dongjue was all but the final word in the Pill Hall. Even those elders of transcendent standing would not lightly contradict him, much less over so small a matter.
Seeing all the elders assembled, Tianchan's heart leapt into her throat. Every one of them was a personage of note on Central Island. Setting aside their status as top-tier alchemists, their strength and insight alike were far beyond the ordinary — and when it came to examining a matter like a furnace explosion, they were experts among experts.
Holding her breath, she watched the elders come forward one after another to examine the corpse, her heart more anxious than ever before, terrified that these people might detect some abnormality that should not be there.
Yet the conclusion the elders finally reached was the same as before: Zheng Tianjie had indeed died from a furnace explosion! R1152