Chapter 4422 — The Inside Story
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
For any escort agency, such a fate was nothing short of annihilation. Once stripped of the Southern Continent Escort Alliance's protection, they would inevitably become prey for the pirates of the Southern Continent. They would not even know how they died, let alone find firm footing to run an escort business.
Of two evils, choose the lesser. Everyone was driven to desperation, left with no other choice. Since forfeiting was not permitted, they could only grit their teeth and force someone onto the field.
But in this way, for a contest that was so plainly a march to death, the various agencies no longer even bothered to hope for points. Instead, they took the very pragmatic approach of minimizing their losses as much as possible. Naturally, no one was willing to push out their prized agency experts to die, so what many agencies sent out this round was simply a rabble of the old, the weak, the sick, and the crippled.
The vast majority of these people had no real strength and no skills worth boasting of. Many had suffered grave injuries while escorting goods in their youth and still bore severe aftereffects; some were even gravely ill and at death's door. Rather than keep muddling along waiting to die, they might as well seize this chance to earn a bit of spirit jade for their families.
What was more, even if they did not wish to go at such a time, the agency would forcibly throw them out—go they must. If they made trouble now, they would die even more miserably afterward, so they had no choice but to accept their fate.
As with the first round, before the contest began, each agency had to submit its list of contestants to the panel of judges, after which it was publicly posted for all to see.
Thanks to their outstanding performance in the first round, Qi Mingyuan had been in high spirits. But when he took the registration form his son Qi Wenmo handed him and saw Ling Yi's name on it, he was instantly stunned. Without a word, he instinctively raised his hand to slap him—he was ready to fly into a rage on the spot!
"Are you out of your goddamned mind?!" Qi Mingyuan's fury erupted in an instant. He jabbed a finger at Qi Wenmo's nose and cursed. Had it not been for the other five agencies' leaders standing nearby, he would have been tempted to string Qi Wenmo up and give him a thrashing right then and there.
"Calm down first, Father, don't lose your temper." Qi Wenmo had known this would happen. He could only explain with a bitter smile: "No one else was willing to go. I was originally going to go myself, but Ling Yi said he was confident and insisted on taking the job. He even snatched the registration form and filled it out himself—I couldn't stop him."
"Couldn't stop him? You stop him anyway! This is a contest that's plainly a march to death. The man was kind enough to help us out of a tight spot, but we can't screw him over. Don't you understand even that much?" Qi Mingyuan glared at Qi Wenmo in anger, then said: "And you didn't have to go yourself either. Look at how other people do things—can't you learn a thing or two? Just pick some old, weak, sick, or crippled fellow to muddle through?"
"But even if they're old, weak, sick, or crippled, forcing someone out for something like this is far too damaging to morale, and it easily leaves a shadow in everyone's hearts. In the long run, that's terribly bad for the agency. Better that I go myself..." Qi Wenmo said with a frown.
Having received an elite education since childhood, he knew well that the will of the people was the key to any faction's success or failure. Once they lost the people's hearts, never mind that the Qingtian Escort Agency was only one of the newly promoted Five Great Escort Agencies—even a traditional powerhouse like the Four Seas Escort Agency would descend into the nightmare abyss of fragmentation. The price was too great; no one could bear it.