Chapter 4412 — Adapting to the Moment
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"I'll go too! Count me in!" The others, unwilling to be outdone, vied eagerly to sign up, each afraid the eight places would be snatched up by somebody else.
At the sight, Wei Zhao could not help but laugh. Money makes the devil turn the millstone—that saying was not one bit false. Any clear-eyed man could see that stepping onto such a contest was nine parts death to one part life, a high-risk trade that meant wagering one's own skull against the odds; yet before the lure of fifty thousand spirit jades, these men did not even fear becoming ghosts.
"Good! The escorts of my Sky-Holding Escort Agency are indeed men of surpassing courage—I knew I had not misjudged you. So then: all who wish to fight, sign your names with me first, and I shall choose the contestants from among you!" Qi Wenmo said with satisfaction.
The power of spirit jades was truly boundless. In the space of but a few short moments, more than ten escorts of the Sky-Holding Escort Agency had rushed to enlist, far exceeding the eight places the contest required, which gave Qi Wenmo no small room for deploying his forces.
The first battle bore directly upon the morale of the entire gathering to come; whether they could make a victorious start was of vital importance. If possible, every agency would send out its strongest hands—if not its hidden trump, then at least first-rate fighters of the agency. Yet here was one weighty precondition: these men must volunteer.
After all, unlike a sect, which holds absolute mastery over all that its disciples do, the bond between an escort agency and its escorts was one of pure hire and profit. Just as with an ordinary escort job, whether a man took the work depended entirely on his own will; the agency could neither compel him nor would it wish to.
A melon torn from the vine is never sweet. Setting aside whether the escorts would even heed the agency's bidding, even if they were forced reluctantly onto the field, they would only go through the motions and give no true effort—and in the end it would still be the agency that suffered.
Therefore, any agency that wished to achieve the best deployment of its forces could only do as the Sky-Holding Escort Agency did: tempt its escorts with profit to volunteer, and then choose from among them—only such selected hands would possess both strength and motive, and thus truly fight to the death for the agency's glory.
As the young master of the Sky-Holding Escort Agency, Qi Wenmo had always been the one to take charge of affairs in person, and so he knew the strength of these escorts like the palm of his own hand. His gaze swept one by one over the faces of the men who had signed up, and his mind was already made up—after all, these past days they had been cooped up in the inn making every kind of preparation, and such effort had not been spent in vain.
"Brother Ling, what do you make of it?" Qi Wenmo turned and asked Wei Zhao. Though his own judgment was settled, he must still weigh Wei Zhao's opinion—this man, after all, was the mighty trump he relied upon most.
"Ha, Brother Qi, you are the commander—how the troops are arrayed is your affair. Whomever you say should go, should go. Why come asking me?" Wei Zhao laughed.
With his strength, he was an utterly invincible presence at the Golden Core stage. To others this first round was nine parts death to one part life, but to him it carried no pressure at all; he could go or not go, entirely depending on whether Qi Wenmo made the arrangement. If there were too few men and he was needed to make up the number, Wei Zhao would not object in the slightest.
"Haha. One man's wit is short, two men's wit is long—Brother Ling, lend me your counsel as well, how about it? Brother Ling, are you interested in stepping up for a bit of sport?" Qi Wenmo laughed heartily. A contest like this really was, to Wei Zhao, no more than a bit of sport.