Chapter 4435 — Stunned on the Spot
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Everyone had been holding back out of pride, reluctant to be the first to move, but now that someone had broken the deadlock, the pressure eased considerably.
Almost in unison, a great crowd surged three hurried steps forward, every face fixed eagerly on those treasure chests, as though terrified of falling behind, of there not being enough chests to go around.
Such undisguised desperation sent a wave of uproar through the crowd. Of the thirty-two escort agencies, several had been wiped out entirely in that instant—all ten of their escorts had "defected"—and the faces of those agencies' heads were now the picture of grief, ashen as though they had lost their own parents.
To be wiped out entirely like that had all but smashed to dust the reputation the agencies had painstakingly built. The heads of the various merchant guilds watching from the sidelines unanimously blacklisted these agencies; whatever their past, from this day on they would never dare work with them again.
Of the three hundred and twenty competing escorts in all, more than half had simply walked away in the space of a few moments—and even among those who remained, not all were truly loyal. Many still wavered between fifty thousand spirit jades and their duty, merely unable to make the choice just yet.
After a while, another batch of men, having wrestled and agonized, finally took their step.
"Those three bastards!" Qi Wenmo stared at the three escorts of his own agency, at the shameless way they clutched their treasure chests, and ground his teeth in fury, his face utterly black, longing to charge over and trample these ungrateful wretches to death.
All along, Qi Wenmo had presided over matters as the young master of the agency, and he had always treated the escorts under his command generously—especially for this Southern Continent Escort Gathering, where the bounty offered by the Skysupport Escort Agency had topped the entire field, higher even than the Four Seas Escort Agency's. And yet, for all that, three of them had still walked away in a single stroke!
The hardest thing in this world to command is the human heart, and that saying is not one bit false. Where there are men of towering honor, there are naturally men who forget their debts; and by comparison, the latter are often the more numerous.
"Brother Qi, there's no need for this," Wei Zhao consoled him from the side. "Whoever leaves now was never any good anyway. Their leaving may not be such a bad thing for the agency—had they stayed, who knows what trouble they might stir up later. Best to look at it that way."
"Brother Ling, you're right—not one of those who left is worth a damn. Still, I can't swallow this insult." Qi Wenmo remained indignant, though Hai Wuliang had already declared that no agency might settle accounts with competitors after the fact. However furious he was, he dared not truly do anything to those three.
Wei Zhao smiled and said no more. As things stood, the insult would have to be swallowed whether he liked it or not—unless some other outlet for his anger could be found.
In the end, the third round of the escorts' loyalty trial drew to a close. Thirty-two agencies, three hundred and twenty competing escorts—each had either walked away with fifty thousand spirit jades or stayed with a heart of pure loyalty. All had made their choice.
The Skysupport Escort Agency had lost three and kept seven, earning seventy points in the end. Compared with those small agencies that had been wiped out at the drop of a hat, such a result looked far better indeed—not perfect, perhaps, but at least passable.
Yet it was not only Qi Wenmo; even Qi Mingyuan's expression had grown darker and uglier by the moment.
Of the five great agencies, not one of the other four had lost a single man—all had turned in perfect scores of one hundred. Only the Skysupport Escort Agency had managed a mere seventy. Faced with such an awkward state of affairs, how could father and son possibly be pleased?