Chapter 4336 — Overwhelmed with Gratitude
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Ah, Young Hero Ling, you do not know. The cargo aboard this ship is the life-saving supply for every soul in our Fang Family Estate!" Fang Biwu explained. "In a few days comes our Heaven Sacrifice Day. Every year at this time, the miasma returns—thick and fiercely poisonous. Even those born and raised here must rely on Miasma-Resolving Pills to survive it, or the consequences are unthinkable: at best crippling, at worst death!"
"So severe?" Wei Zhao was startled. He had assumed the locals, baptized in the miasma since childhood, would have grown used to it.
"Worse than severe. The Miasma-Resolving Pills are the very lifeline of our entire Fang Family Estate. But some time ago we suffered an attack by spirit beasts, and the storehouse was destroyed along with everything else. With the Heaven Sacrifice Day drawing near, I had no choice but to spend a fortune commissioning the Hong Merchant Guild to buy the pills. The other goods were of little consequence—lose them and it is no great matter—but the Miasma-Resolving Pills could not be lost for anything. Had you not delivered them in time, Young Hero Ling, our five hundred souls..." Fang Biwu shook his head again and again, still shaken with dread.
Truth be told, these past days he had nearly gone white-haired with worry. If Wei Zhao had failed to deliver today, he reckoned he would have had to lead the whole Fang Family Estate in fleeing Xianpeng Island!
Yet though that would let them avoid the Heaven Sacrifice Day, it would inevitably mean contact with the outside world—and the outside was full of the vicious and the murderous, while they were mostly ordinary folk. Venturing out like that, he feared, would cost many lives.
And then, one cannot easily leave the land of one's birth. Unless there was no other choice, who here would willingly leave Xianpeng Island?
Having heard all this, Wei Zhao felt a bewildering tangle of emotions. Thank goodness he had run into those pirates; thank goodness he had not stood by and watched—otherwise all these people would have faced calamity, and that was several hundred lives!
Pirates were hateful enough, but the most hateful thing in this whole affair was still the man behind the scenes, Wei Zhaotong. This wretch would not even spare life-saving supplies, treating the several hundred lives of the Fang Family Estate as worth less than weeds—clearly his conscience had rotted away entirely. Such a scoundrel truly had no shred of humanity left.
Originally, even after being played for a fool by that bastard, Wei Zhao had not intended to single out this Wei Zhaotong, for the sake of his old friend Hong Zhong. After all, he himself had not suffered much loss; a warning would have been enough, and he could have turned a blind eye without harm. But now, Wei Zhao had changed his mind.
This time, if Wei Zhaotong was not made to pay a bitter price, Heaven itself would not tolerate it!
The people of the Fang Family Estate were all jubilant. Some were sent to unload the cargo from the ship, while Fang Biwu himself came out to receive Wei Zhao, ushering him into the Fang Family Hall and seating him as an honored guest.
To the whole Fang Family Estate, Wei Zhao counted as nothing less than a true savior. Without him, the entire clan would have faced utter ruin; so now, naturally, they received him with the highest honors.
Wei Zhao had not originally planned to stay long on Xianpeng Island, but he could not withstand the warmth of the whole Fang Family Estate and was dragged into staying two days; only after much persuasion was he finally seen off the island by all several hundred members of the clan together.