Chapter 4388 — The Secrets of the Hub
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
He had already been badly wounded before this, and now that the true-qi bomb had gone off, the scarred man could barely even stand. The way he looked at Wei Zhao was now one of trembling dread, and he no longer dared to run his mouth—if this vicious fiend gave him another dose of the same, he really would be reporting for duty on the road to the Yellow Springs.
"If I wanted to do you in, it would be as easy as turning my palm. So if you want to keep that little life of yours, don't get in my way." Wei Zhao's tone was flat and indifferent.
There was not a drop of exaggeration in those words. The true-qi bomb just now had been flawed in two respects: first, it had been condensed too hastily; second, it had not been blended with a pill-fire bomb. Had either been otherwise, then even a mid-Nascent Soul expert—even if the scarred man's vitality were stronger than most—would have been blasted into minced meat.
At these words the scarred man's neck stiffened, and he seemed about to talk back, but one glance from Wei Zhao and he shrank back in embarrassment, not daring to make another sound.
He had always prided himself on being a ruthless man. He had thrown his weight around on the outside, and after entering the dungeon he had done the same, remaining the undisputed tyrant of the prison throughout. He was the only one who bullied others; never had anyone dared to defy him. Even those few who lacked sense had been beaten into docility after a good thrashing.
Who would have thought that today a fiercer one would arrive—one whose strength surpassed his own, and, more to the point, whose strikes were savage and decisive. The scarred man could tell: this was a man who killed without blinking. Perhaps he did not slaughter the innocent as wantonly as the scarred man himself did, but this kind of man, who stayed silent until he struck, was all the more terrifying. He was truly not someone to provoke.
To suddenly kick against such a massive iron plate, to have his fine days of lording it over others end just like that, and to be beaten into such a sorry state—the scarred man was indescribably bitter. A wise man does not eat a loss before his eyes; faced with a fiend like Wei Zhao, even a villain of his caliber felt his heart quail. Had there not been so many people present to make losing face unbearable, he would long since have knelt there and begged for mercy.
"I want to ask you a few things, and I hope you'll answer truthfully. How did each of you get locked up in here, and how long have you been imprisoned?" As he spoke, Wei Zhao pointed at the scarred man and commanded, "You start. One by one, all of you."
Once again every gaze in the dungeon fixed on him. The scarred man's face crumpled with misery, and not daring to defy Wei Zhao's will, he propped himself up wretchedly and answered with his head hanging low: "This old—er, no, my name is Sun Hengbiao. I made my living as a pirate near the Demon Cold Sea..."
"A pirate?" Wei Zhao looked him over and asked, "Then how did you end up in here? Is the Central Chamber of Commerce really so conscientious that it sends people out specially to clean up pirates like you?"
In the waters around the Southern Continent, pirates of every stripe could be found everywhere. Since no unified power governed these seas or hunted them down, they could strut about openly. They could loudly discuss their cutthroat trade in the busiest market districts of a city and no one cared; people had long since grown used to it. So long as the robbing did not reach one's own door, no one would stir himself to meddle.