Chapter 4249 — A Ready Consent
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
And once word leaked, even if no one in the Rufeng Forest came to contest it, once they succeeded and left, others would inevitably learn that they might be carrying infant ginseng. An innocent man is guilty for the jade he bears—the troubles that would trail after them could be reckoned even on one's toes.
So at present Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao had only two choices. Either they became one of them—only if all prospered together, bound by shared interest, grasshoppers strung on the same line, could the secret be kept from leaking.
As for the other choice, it could only be to silence them. The jianghu was a treacherous place; no matter what oaths Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao swore, the others believed only one thing—only the dead keep secrets. For that, even a man like Guo Dengtao would steel himself to kill.
In an instant they became the target of every eye, watched with such hungry intensity, and Chu Bubai had even deliberately blocked the only opening—one sign of refusal and it would be a turtle caught in a jar. The storm was about to break; Huang Xiaotao's palms broke out in a nervous sweat, and she turned to see Wei Zhao's stance.
Yet Wei Zhao remained utterly unmoved, calmly taking the measure of them all. Chu Bubai had won over Guo Dengtao and Wang Feng, and there was Feng Hongyu besides, so on the surface he held the absolute upper hand—but in Wei Zhao's eyes, this was not even worth calling a threat.
With him and Huang Xiaotao joining forces, Chu Bubai, a late-stage Golden Core expert, was no more than an ant to be crushed at a flick of the hand. Even if all of them attacked together, there was nothing to fear.
One combined strike of their Frenzied Fire Eight-Trigram Palms could instantly kill two of them, Chu Bubai included; another strike, and the rest would all be dead. There was no need at all to play along and feign compliance.
"Of course we'll join too," Wei Zhao said with a faint smile, nodding in good cheer. He truly had set his heart on this infant ginseng; since he was already here in the Rufeng Forest, he might as well follow Chu Bubai and see.
Whatever tricks Chu Bubai played afterward, the absolute strength he and Huang Xiaotao commanded was plain for all to see—it would not be too late to act then. For now, better to keep playing the pig to eat the tiger.
"Good—straightforward!" Chu Bubai visibly froze for a moment, then could not help saying with delight.
As it happened, though Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao had the lowest nominal strength among them, for some reason Chu Bubai was in his heart most wary of Wei Zhao. Whether it was the composed air Wei Zhao displayed, or that unexpected moment earlier when he had produced the spirit-jade card, both made him instinctively feel this man was not so simple, not one to be easily fooled.
Yet he had never expected Wei Zhao to agree so readily and directly—that genuinely caught Chu Bubai off guard. Still, all the better; it saved trouble.
Unless driven to it, he did not wish to turn ruthlessly on his teammates, for even if Guo Dengtao and Wang Feng said nothing, resentment would surely fester in their hearts, and in the operations to come it might well become an unforeseen variable. (Happy Lantern Festival! The School Beauty's Close-Range Bodyguard tribe has events—everyone can search for it via mobile QQ to enter the tribe, or via the public WeChat account yuren22.)
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