Chapter 4885 — Better Safe Than Sorry
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
In the shadows, Su Kesheng lowered his voice and laid out his plan.
"Not bad, not bad at all—your mind works tight, kid. Without that, we'd have left a loose end this time for sure!" Bao Zuoliang's eyes lit up as he gave a furtive thumbs-up, then turned to the anxious man before him and said, "All right, seeing as your attitude is sincere enough, I'll grant you a lightning tribulation node."
The man's face flickered between hope and doubt.
"What? Truly? Thank you, brother! Thank you!" Overjoyed, the man hurried to step into the node—only to be blocked again by Bao Zuoliang.
Bao Zuoliang did not move aside.
"Hey now, isn't that a bit thick of you? You really think lightning tribulation nodes come free? Oughtn't you show some appreciation? If not, I'll hand it to someone else—a node this fine, others would kill for the chance!" Bao Zuoliang wore the look of a merchant holding out for a better price.
The crowd in the distance stirred at these words.
They had all seen the benefits of such a node; Bao Zuoliang and Su Kesheng had drawn down tribulation almost the moment they stepped in. Clearly these nodes were lively indeed—worth paying a price for.
"This…" The man hesitated.
At last he gritted his teeth and produced something—a small piece of infant ginseng.
Bao Zuoliang's gaze sharpened.
"That's more like it!" Bao Zuoliang's eyes gleamed. Nascent-condensing golden elixirs and the like were useless to him now, but infant ginseng was another matter—priceless, fit for refining all manner of fine things, not merely elixirs.
The other node was soon ceded to the onlookers as well—at no small cost, of course.
With the remaining node swiftly surrendered to the watching crowd—for a price, naturally.
Bao Zuoliang and Su Kesheng exchanged a glance.
When no one was looking, the two slipped quietly behind a great boulder, grinning darkly, making ready to deal with Wei Zhao.
Behind the rock, they waited.
By now Wei Zhao had spent a full day in preparation, and his condition had peaked; all was ready, and he need only await the tribulation. Yet unlike Bao Zuoliang and the others, he had no lightning-summoning banner. When tribulation came was a matter of luck. Though the clouds gathered thick above his head, ill fortune might well mean a wait of ten days or more—quite ordinary, that.
The waiting stretched on.
The waiting felt endless, yet Wei Zhao showed not the slightest inclination to let his attention wander. He had in fact sensed it earlier when Bao Zuoliang and Su Kesheng drew down their tribulation, but he had not troubled to look. At such a moment the lightning might fall at any instant; a single lapse could bring unthinkable consequences.
Then it came.
There! Wei Zhao's eyes flashed. In an instant he was wholly on guard, braced to withstand the tribulation—but he waited a full long while, and still there was no stir overhead at all.
Wei Zhao found it passing strange.
Endowed with a lightning-attribute spiritual root, he was exquisitely sensitive to the power of thunder and lightning. Just now he had distinctly felt a mighty bolt gathering to completion above his head, on the very verge of falling—so why, after waiting all this while, had it been forcefully choked back down?
He could make neither head nor tail of it.
To use an indelicate comparison, it was like being halfway through relieving oneself—the thing already out—only to have it abruptly and damnably forced back in. What devilry was this? Was the Thunder Lord holding it in for sport?
Of course it was no doing of any Thunder Lord.
If such a deity existed, he would doubtless be suffering greatly at this moment—this was hardly a withdrawal of his own willing. Someone was plainly shoving it back in by force!
And the hidden hands behind it all were, without question, Bao Zuoliang and Su Kesheng.