Chapter 4916 — I Never Meant to Kill Him
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Where'd this blind little runt come from? Get lost, before I—" the man in black finally cursed. His wrist turned, his saber flashed, and in the blink of an eye he had the short blade pressed to Wei Zhao's chest. "I'll count to three. Then you die."
Wei Zhao regarded him calmly. He had not wanted to meddle in others' affairs—after all, he had met Ni Caiyue only once, hardly enough to call friendship, and he was not about to make himself someone's shield for no reason. He was not the sort of fool who lost his legs at the first pretty face.
But now the man's curved blade was level with his own chest, and standing aside was no longer an option. Besides, when it came down to it, this girl Ni Caiyue was rather likable, and Wei Zhao was not yet the sort to stand by and watch someone die.
"Let's talk this over. What's going on here?" Wei Zhao said at once.
"Oh ho, big talk for a nobody. And just who the hell are you, that you'd speak to me like that?" The man in black stared a moment, then his vicious nature showed plain on his face. "One! Two! Three!"
As the last word fell, the man in black raised his hand without hesitation to cut Wei Zhao down—and just then Ni Caiyue burst out from behind him and threw herself in the way, crying, "Don't cut! Don't cut! This has nothing to do with him!"
Wei Zhao, who had been about to cripple the man on the spot, felt the corner of his mouth curl at that. So the girl had a bit of loyalty in her after all, silly as she was—not to have sold him out completely at a moment like this was rarer than rubies.
Seeing Ni Caiyue blocking the way, the man in black checked his blade, then looked back and forth between her and Wei Zhao with a look of astonishment. Stroking his chin, he sneered, "So that's why you ugly cow had to run this way—meeting your lover! Well then, tell me: did the two of you conspire to murder Brother Chang?"
"Ah?" Ni Caiyue was startled. She turned to glance at the bewildered Wei Zhao, then suddenly caught herself and waved both hands frantically at the man in black. "No, no, no! Not me! I never meant to kill him..."
"You what?" The man in black's gaze sharpened.
"Ah! No—I mean he probably isn't dead yet..." The more Ni Caiyue said, the more tangled it got, and she gave herself away before she had finished even two sentences.
Wei Zhao watched this spectacle speechless, his whole brow beaded with cold sweat. Only because he knew this girl's character and intellect could he keep from concluding that she had come deliberately to heap hatred on him.
Honestly, Wei Zhao had begun to feel sincere admiration for Ni Caiyue's master. Setting aside the matter of betrothing the girl to a wretch and a scoundrel like Chang Laiting, the mere fact that she had been able to train Ni Caiyue into a fine hand of the Mystic Ascension stage showed her to be a true master of her generation. Any ordinary teacher would long since have been wept into idiocy by Ni Caiyue's foolishness—there was no way they could have brought her to such a level.
In this, though, he did her an injustice. The girl was not so much stupid as simply innocent and utterly without worldly experience, which was why she seemed so muddled at crucial moments. Her actual intellect was sound enough, and as for talent in cultivation, Ni Caiyue was a genius of the first order—otherwise she could never have advanced to Mystic Ascension at such a young age.
"Hm? What do you mean, not dead yet? You ugly cow, speak plainly—did the two of you kill Brother Chang or not?" The man in black flew into a rage and made to cut her down on the spot.