護花近衛 - 第4979章 被找麻煩 - 清風書屋

Watching the scene at the Middle Island docks, Wei Zhao could not help but sigh with feeling. The last time he had come to Middle Island, his horizons had been nowhere near as broad as they were now. Back then, he had naively assumed that Middle Island was naturally the supreme land, the very center of the Five Great Cloud-Tier Islands.

Now, however, it seemed to him that although Middle Island was indeed the center, it was only a center in the geographical sense. Its actual strength and standing were perhaps not much higher than those of North Island and West Island, and compared with the unfathomable Eastern Continent and the Southern Continent, where the spirit-beast clans made their lair, Middle Island still fell far short.

Put plainly, Middle Island had been chosen by the many merchant guilds as the seat of their headquarters solely because of its superb location—not because the strength here was anything formidable. Only the Eastern Continent, teeming with experts, was truly capable of representing the pinnacle of the Cloud-Tier Islands.

That said, although Middle Island's strength was far beneath that of the Eastern Continent, it was, after all, the headquarters of the major merchant guilds and the transport hub linking the four great Cloud-Tier Islands of east, south, west, and north. In terms of prosperity alone, it was in no way inferior to the great academy cities of the Eastern Continent—and perhaps even surpassed them.

Strolling idly through Middle Island's commercial district, Wei Zhao unconsciously arrived at the market street. With Tian Chan and Xue Li on his mind, the Heavenly Pill Pavilion was naturally his first stop.

As the master of the Heavenly Pill Pavilion, Wei Zhao felt rather ashamed at this moment. Counting the time since his last departure, it had already been more than two years, and in all that time he had not come back even once. He had truly been an absentee owner of the most thorough sort. Had the people in charge not been his own people, Tian Chan and Xue Li, the entire Heavenly Pill Pavilion might well have changed hands long ago.

Being such an absentee owner had made life easy for Wei Zhao, but it was Tian Chan and Xue Li who had borne the hardship. Though they had the patronage of Di Xingdao and his people behind them, the two of them were, after all, women, and establishing a foothold on Middle Island was no easy matter to begin with. On top of that, Wei Zhao was forever vanishing without a trace, so the pill supply often could not keep up, and the two of them had suffered no end of headaches over it.

That the Heavenly Pill Pavilion had held on to this day was due in the greatest part to Tian Chan and Xue Li. By comparison, what Wei Zhao had done for them was not much at all. Had he still felt no shame at this, one could only say he was too heartless and irresponsible for words.

Fortunately, he had finally returned to Middle Island this time, so he could make up for it somewhat. In truth, for the two women, his mere appearance was already a heaven-sent surprise.

Yet before Wei Zhao could reach the door, he saw from afar that the entrance of the Heavenly Pill Pavilion was thronged with people—a great crowd packed tightly around it in a wide circle. Wei Zhao was struck dumb on the spot. After all this time, was the Heavenly Pill Pavilion still doing such bustling business?

He recalled how, when the Heavenly Pill Pavilion had first opened, business had been extraordinarily brisk because of the various top-grade pills it had as its showpieces, exactly like the scene before him now. But even then it had not lasted long; within a few days the crowds had thinned. Could it be that Tian Chan and Ning Xuefei were such shrewd managers that, after more than two years of effort, they had thoroughly established the Heavenly Pill Pavilion's reputation?