Chapter 4596 — Bowing and Scraping
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Ma Dangfeng, that new king of the Azure Cloud Pavilion and a Nascent Soul expert in his own right, actually styled himself a junior brother in the presence of Young Master Xu Lingchong!
This scene truly made jaws drop. Xu Lingchong was indeed a Nascent Soul expert, but in terms of strength, Ma Dangfeng was no weaker—and lately his star had been shining even brighter, had it not?
And if one spoke of status and position, Ma Dangfeng was now the second senior brother and steward of the Azure Cloud Pavilion's inner sect. Even if the Azure Cloud Pavilion was inferior to the Skyward Pavilion, how could the post of second senior brother of the inner sect possibly be inferior to chief senior brother of the outer sect?!
After much pondering, people could find only one explanation: Ma Dangfeng had his eye on Young Master Xu's deep background. The man had a grandfather who sat as a giant on the Council of Elders—that was the only thing about Xu Lingchong that Ma Dangfeng could aspire to.
But this explanation was still far-fetched. Remember, Ma Dangfeng was constantly being compared with Wei Zhao, and he himself seemed to take such comparisons very seriously—in every matter, down to the most trivial detail, he was determined not to be outdone by Wei Zhao. Yet Wei Zhao had never once bowed his head to Young Master Xu; on the contrary, it was Young Master Xu who had repeatedly bruised himself against Wei Zhao. So why had Ma Dangfeng now willingly become Young Master Xu's junior brother?
That alone might be forgivable. If Ma Dangfeng lowered his head only to Xu Lingchong, then even if the reasoning was a little far-fetched, in the end everyone would think it no great matter—after all, to each his own. Wei Zhao and Xu Lingchong had never gotten along; perhaps Ma Dangfeng and Young Master Xu had simply hit it off at first sight. That was not impossible.
But the problem was that Ma Dangfeng did not merely bow and scrape before Young Master Xu of the Skyward Pavilion—even before Meng Zhou, Kang Jingming, Zhong Yongliang, and the like, he was constantly fawning and flattering. By the look of it, he was plainly the lowest-ranked of their whole group. This truly left people unable to understand.
He was a Nascent Soul expert, after all. If pleasing Young Master Xu meant he had to kiss up to Meng Zhou and the others as well, was that not far too obsequious, far too lacking in the dignity of an expert?
And what surprised people was that Ma Dangfeng, who had always been so sensitive to street gossip, turned a deaf ear this time to the one-sided negative comments. The impression he gave was that he intended to go all the way down a dead-end road, determined to keep polishing the boots of Xu Lingchong and his gang to the very end.
One day, Xu Lingchong's circle gathered in full again. By now such a sight was nothing new to onlookers; these people met once every ten days, shutting themselves mysteriously in a small room with no telling what they conspired and discussed. In any case, every one of them emerged tight-lipped, never breathing a word to outsiders of what they meant to do—the very picture of unfathomable depth.
Stepping out the main gate of Xu Lingchong's residence, Ma Dangfeng nodded and bowed, seeing off Kang Jingming and the others with his eyes before returning alone to the Azure Cloud Pavilion. Though he was not the only Azure Cloud disciple in the group, Meng Zhou invariably stuck to Xu Lingchong like a shadow, eating and living with him, so naturally he had no business going to the Azure Cloud Pavilion when nothing required it.
Once back on the Azure Cloud Pavilion's grounds, the formerly bowing and scraping Ma Dangfeng immediately turned haughty and overbearing. Whoever he met, he wore the same lofty, gloomy expression, so that the Azure Cloud disciples dared only watch him from afar, and could resume what they were doing only after he had gone far away.