Chapter 4540 — Shocking News
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
When you get right down to it, the better part of a year he had spent in the Southern Isle had been nothing short of spectacularly eventful.
Things he ought to have gone through and things he never should have, Wei Zhao had gone through them all, and his cultivation had been dragged kicking and screaming from the early Golden Core stage straight up to its present peak at mid Golden Core. He had stirred up more than a few grudges of life and death, and along the way made a friend in Qi Wenmo. All in all, it could be counted a job well done, and he was just in time to withdraw with a whole skin.
"That's so. With that old devil from the Western Hills' former sect holding Weihu City these days, it's a chancy place for you, Brother Ling, and going back to the Northern Isle will let you lie low for a while." Qi Mingyuan mulled it over for a moment, then nodded.
"Er—Brother Ling, are you sure you can settle your accounts going back empty-handed like this?" Qi Wenmo asked, a little worried. "Normally, a bounty like this—you'd have to bring back a head before it counts for anything, wouldn't you?"
A head to settle the account; that was the unwritten rule for countless sect missions. After all, bare words proved nothing. If Wei Zhao went back with his hands empty and said he had killed Wu Baoliang, what if nobody believed him?
Qi Mingyuan could not help knitting his brows at that. Wu Baoliang had indeed died at Wei Zhao's hands, but his head had not been cut off.
"That part's easy enough. If I'd quietly done away with Wu Baoliang in private, it would be hard to explain, true. But this time he was killed in full view, on the arena at the Southern Isle Escort Bureau's grand gathering, and everyone knows it was I, Ling Yi, who struck him down. Once I'm back, one small inquiry on their part and the whole thing comes out." Wei Zhao waved it off carelessly.
With his present standing in the Northern Isle's Sandie Pavilion, a figure whom Shangguan Tianxia, Pavilion Master of the Chongtian Pavilion, had publicly singled out for praise, and whom Yu Zhenyang, Pavilion Master of the Qingyun Pavilion, regarded with particular favor—unless someone had eaten bear's gall as a heart, who would dare make things difficult for Wei Zhao over a matter like this?
"That would be best of all." Qi Mingyuan and Qi Wenmo nodded together.
"I can't appear openly this time, nor can I take my leave of everyone face to face. I'll have to trouble the Chief Escort and Brother Qi to apologize on my behalf after I've gone," Wei Zhao said, entrusting it to them.
"Easily done, easily done. Everyone will understand—circumstances being what they are." Qi Mingyuan agreed.
"Oh, and one more thing I need to trouble Brother Qi with. Over at the Hong Merchant Guild there are too many people and too many eyes. It isn't convenient for me to go and take my leave of Steward Chai, so I mean to write a letter and have Brother Qi deliver it for me." Wei Zhao turned to another matter.
"No problem at all. It just so happens Steward Chai is invited along to tomorrow's dinner. A small favor, nothing more—leave it to me." Qi Wenmo was already thumping his chest and nodding, and at the same time setting out brush, ink, paper, and inkstone for Wei Zhao.
"Good." Wei Zhao took up the brush at once and bent over the desk, writing fast. No superfluous courtesies—only a few brief words of counsel and reassurance. It was enough that Chai Laoshi should know that Hong Zhong and himself were always watching over him.
He finished it in one breath, and had Qi Wenmo put the letter away. He meant to leave right then, but something else suddenly came to mind, and he turned solemn, addressing Qi Mingyuan and Qi Wenmo: "While I was on the Southern Isle this time I happened to learn something. Barring the unexpected, it will bear on the whole situation of the Southern Isle's seas, and I think the two of you had better be prepared for it in advance."