Chapter 4916 — I Never Meant to Kill Him
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
It was only after he had scaled the cliff and made his escape that the ghostly thing finally released the vengeful spirit's primordial spirit entirely, saying with a meaningful air, "Consider this a kindness sown. Who knows—there may come a day when it proves useful again."
"Huh?" Wei Zhao was baffled. "This place can only be entered once. There'll be no coming back later—how could it ever prove useful again?"
"Heh heh. I once heard a rather unreliable rumor from the thunder dragon's own mouth—no telling if it's true. This Thunderclap Plain Island is not nearly so simple as it looks on the surface. We'll speak of it another time. I need to enter seclusion and nurse myself back properly, so don't come bothering me unless it's important," the ghostly thing said, deliberately trailing off.
"Fine." Wei Zhao shook his head helplessly and pressed no further. He had set out full of enthusiasm and was returning thoroughly deflated—after all that trouble he had not so much as glimpsed a single nurturing mystic herb. He was rather dispirited by now, and with mind and body both exhausted, he truly had no heart for it.
With a bitter smile he took stock of his ragged, filthy clothes, treated his injuries a little, and changed into something clean before beginning to search the basin for Wang Xinyan and the other two. They ought to be somewhere nearby hunting for nurturing mystic herbs—with luck, they might already have found something.
Yet he had not gone far when something stirred in his heart and he stopped short. A moment later he spotted, some distance off, the figure of a woman he half recognized, stumbling and lurching in his direction.
Wei Zhao looked more carefully, and once he made out her shape he gave a small start. The newcomer was none other than Ni Caiyue!
Her face was veiled, but her clothes, her figure, her whole bearing made it easy enough to tell—this was Ni Caiyue beyond any doubt. Hadn't this girl already left? What was she doing back here?
Ni Caiyue came practically tumbling and crawling the whole way, so flustered and bedraggled that she looked nothing at all like one of the Three Fairies. The moment she caught sight of Wei Zhao, delight lit up her face and she cried out, "Help, young hero! Someone's robbing me!"
Wei Zhao blinked at that, and then he saw, not far behind Ni Caiyue, a figure closing in fast—a ferocious-looking man in black robes, carrying one long and one short curved saber, one in each hand. The mismatched pair gave him an oddly incongruous, grotesque appearance.
Though Ni Caiyue stumbled at every step, she was after all a fine hand at the early Mystic Ascension stage, and her flight was swift. Within a few breaths she had reached Wei Zhao's side and ducked behind him without a word.
At the same time the man in black came racing up, and without so much as a glance at Wei Zhao he fixed his savage glare on Ni Caiyue and snarled, "You ugly cow—where's Brother Chang? Why hasn't he come back? And you, of all people, haven't a scratch on you? Let me search you right now and see whether you're carrying anything you shouldn't. That's the only way to prove you're clean!"
As he spoke the man in black sheathed his curved sabers and reached out with a lecherous hand to grope at Ni Caiyue. From first to last he never gave Wei Zhao the slightest consideration, as though Wei Zhao were a puff of air not even worth a second glance or a single question.
Wei Zhao had seen plenty of geniuses who looked down on all creation, but one quite so utterly dismissive as this was genuinely rare.
"Save me, young hero! Save me!" With admirable presence of mind, Ni Caiyue dodged back and forth behind Wei Zhao. She had simply stopped fleeing altogether and made a human shield of him.