Chapter 5115 — Farewell to West Star Mountain
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Not at all—Aunt Qing's cooking is far better than mine. I learned half my dishes from her. If I could cook half as well as she does, I'd be more than satisfied." Yu Yuanyuan smiled and exchanged a glance with Ergoudan. Her days now were spent at home doing chores, and occasionally she'd follow Ergoudan and the others out to the fields. She had seen the splendor of the world beyond, yet she preferred this simple, plain life. If she hadn't, she never would have ended up with Ergoudan in the first place.
"Aunt Qing's cooking is fine, all right—a pity I don't get to enjoy it..." Wei Zhao shook his head and sighed with a look of deep regret.
"What do you mean? Haven't you been eating Aunt Qing's cooking these past few days?" Yu Yuanyuan asked, puzzled.
"Brother Wei Zhao can't out-snatch his granddad, that's why!" Ergoudan explained, gulping down his food between words.
"A disgrace to the family name—I'm ashamed to let you see this." Wei Zhao thought Old Man Wei was a man with no sense of propriety at all. An old codger his age, and he could still snatch food from a junior with such nimbleness—not a shred of dignity about him.
"Pfft!" Yu Yuanyuan burst out laughing and covered her mouth. She had run over to the Lin house often enough to learn cooking from Aunt Qing, and Old Man Wei had always been thoroughly proper in front of the younger generation. She'd never imagined he had such a mischievous old-child side to him.
"Never mind, never mind, let's not dwell on such sorrowful matters. By the way, Ergoudan—has the gu poison's hold on you weakened a lot by now?" Wei Zhao changed the subject.
"No, it hasn't." Ergoudan shook his head.
"Then how is it that you spent three days in West Star Mountain and come out looking fresh as ever after fighting a skilled hand like Sun Baixu? In the old days, you'd have been drained and reaching for the spirit spring water by now, wouldn't you?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.
"Because I wasn't going all out," Ergoudan said, and the words landed like a thunderclap.
"What? You beat Sun Baixu half to death and you still weren't going all out? You didn't go all out against the blood-corpse worm either?" Wei Zhao was startled. He had been astonished enough to see that Ergoudan possessed such strength, and seeing him still lively as ever after the fight, he had assumed on instinct that the gu poison's influence had weakened. He never expected that this wasn't even Ergoudan's true strength!
The blood-corpse worm alone was a fearsome monster of no small order. Sun Baixu was a cultivator at the peak of Foundation Establishment. Wei Zhao had lent a small hand from the shadows, true, but the bulk of it had rested on Ergoudan's own strength. If that wasn't his full power, what would going all out even look like?
"No. I was holding back more than half my strength. Otherwise, if I went all out, my body would turn weak and feeble like I was sick, and I'd have to drink spirit spring water quick to ease it. That feeling's just too awful." Ergoudan still shuddered at the memory. It had happened plenty of times when he first started practicing his punches, and it had left him with a lasting mental scar, so no matter when, he instinctively held back—lest he repeat the same mistake.
"So if you really went all out, then whether it's Sun Baixu or the blood-corpse worm, I suppose one punch each would've finished them. Heh, you really are a monster, kid." Wei Zhao clicked his tongue in admiration.
"I'm not that strong, really." Ergoudan scratched his head, looking simple and honest.
"..." Wei Zhao was left speechless. True, from the perspective of Cloud Terrace Island, a mere peak Foundation Establishment cultivator hardly deserved to be called "strong." But this was the mortal realm! If word of what Ergoudan had just said ever got out, it would make people cough up blood in sheer fury.