Chapter 3240 — Another Fine Treasure

"You flatter me, flatter me..." Wei Zhao, seeing not the slightest flicker of curiosity in the Sinister Ancestor, could not help feeling a little puzzled—did these men truly have no curiosity at all? Then he remembered the three of them were assassins, and at once his confusion dissolved.

Assassins, as a rule, do not pry into matters that have nothing to do with them. Take a man's money, spare him his troubles—why poke around in so much useless business? Curiosity killed the cat.

"This time we must thank you as well, Master Wei Zhao," said the Sinister Ancestor. "Had you not netted the old devil in that Heaven-and-Earth Snare, we truly would not have dared strike so lightly. As it stands, you saved us the trouble—no need for our own men to sweat over it; the job was done." He glanced toward the stairwell. "Shall we go up together and take a look?"

"Very well! I was merely in the right place at the right time—if anything, I should be thanking the three of you for making your move, for otherwise I truly had no way to deal with him." Though the other party spoke so courteously, Wei Zhao could not afford to be anything but polite in return; after all, this was a matter of mutual aid. And though he found the men of the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect remarkably loyal and upright, he dared not overstep.

When all was said and done, they owed him nothing. They were businessmen, and to have come this far was already more than decent.

The four of them climbed the stairs together, and there at the entrance of the dormitory building they came upon the Old Dean, Xu Shilan, Cheng Yiyi, and the pair Yu Xiaoke and Little Ken. Plainly they had long since seen Wei Zhao sitting in meditation on the ground below and had simply not gone over to disturb him.

And once the three ancestors of the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect appeared, there was even less reason to intrude. So the group had merely stood at a distance, watching Wei Zhao in silence.

Seeing Wei Zhao walk toward them apparently unharmed, the Old Dean and the others breathed a sigh of relief. A flicker of excitement and glad relief passed through the eyes of Xu Shilan and Cheng Yiyi—but Yu Xiaoke's heart was a tangle of quite another kind.

In truth, were Wei Zhao to die, one might call it a good thing for Yu Xiaoke: a clean end to it all, no need to fret over his pestering hereafter, no need to worry about what obstacles still stood between her and the Male Bandit. And yet Yu Xiaoke simply did not want anything to happen to Wei Zhao.

She did not like him, but she knew he was a good man—and he had come to grief trying to save the Old Dean. If so, Yu Xiaoke would never be happy again for the rest of her life; she even thought she might well remain a widow for his sake. A promise made was a promise kept. She did not consider herself any paragon of a girl, but neither was she one to go back on her word.

So when she saw that Wei Zhao was unharmed, Yu Xiaoke let out a breath of relief. This fellow was formidable indeed—truly blessed with great fortune and long life.

"Wei Zhao, are you all right?" Xu Shilan could not help asking as he came near, her eyes brimming with unconcealed concern. These past days she had been with Wei Zhao every day, and he had saved her any number of times; that she felt something for him was impossible to deny. Xu Shilan's heart had long since secretly inclined toward him, and now that her mother was found, she no longer had so many scruples.

Her career as a star had, in truth, been undertaken only to find her mother. Now that her mother was found, the thought of retreat had begun to stir in her heart. What gossip rags said no longer mattered to her. She liked Wei Zhao—that was simply that—and there was nothing to hide.

Only, Xu Shilan did not know whether she still had a chance. The thought alone felt like a small defeat. She was, after all, a great star—yet Wei Zhao seemed never to have regarded her as a celebrity at all. In his eyes, she was probably nothing more than an ordinary good friend.

"Wei Zhao, thank you..." Cheng Yiyi looked at him, guilt written all over her face, not knowing what to say. Wei Zhao knew she was an Earth Rank expert—but did Wei Zhao also know about the things she had done to harm Xiaohan?

Did he know, or not? Cheng Yiyi could not tell, and yet her heart was in torment. But often people are not masters of their own fate—is that not so?

Wei Zhao nodded, though his gaze did not linger long on Cheng Yiyi; he did not want Xu Shilan to read anything into it. He meant to have a talk with Cheng Yiyi once they were alone. So he turned instead to the Old Dean and said, "Old Dean, it's over now. Take them off to rest. This Grand Elder of the Black Horse Association was brought here by Feng Tianhu of the ancient Feng family—why he came looking for you, I imagine I need not spell out. As for Feng Tianhu, I will settle accounts with him. But as for what happened tonight, I ask that everyone keep the details to themselves."

Wei Zhao had not said it outright, but everyone present understood what he meant: his true strength. The rumor that Wei Zhao could kill a master at the great perfection of the late Heaven Rank peak in the blink of an eye—that was truly a rumor. Wei Zhao possessed no such fearsome power.

Had the men of the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect not stepped in today, Wei Zhao would truly have been at his wit's end.

"I understand." The Old Dean nodded gravely. "None of us will breathe a word—right, Xiaohan?"

"Right," Xu Shilan nodded.

"Then we'll go up and deal with the matter of the corpse; everything else can wait until tomorrow. Agreed?" Wei Zhao nodded and said to the Old Dean.

"Agreed." The Old Dean was tired too; he nodded and led Xu Shilan and the others off to rest...

Yu Xiaoke had stood to one side all this while without a word. Only when Wei Zhao turned to go did she suddenly speak up: "Wei Zhao... the thing I promised you—I will keep my word."

In that moment Yu Xiaoke made her decision: she would tell the Male Bandit. She had made up her mind. Wei Zhao was a good man, and she did not want to go on deceiving him about her feelings.

"What?" Wei Zhao blinked, feigning ignorance.

"No... nothing..." Yu Xiaoke's spirits deflated at once. Had Wei Zhao really not heard what she said earlier?

Wei Zhao went up the stairs together with the Bloody Garment Ancestor, the Yellow Springs Ancestor, and the Sinister Ancestor, and came to the doorway of that ruined room. The corpse of the Black Horse Association's Grand Elder lay quietly within.

Here was a tyrant of a generation, a cultivator of the highest rank, and here his life had ended. It was enough to make one sigh.

"The Heaven-and-Earth Snare... a pity it's single-use and can never be used again," Wei Zhao murmured with a sigh as he looked at the snare still wrapped about the Grand Elder's body. What a waste.

"Still, the old fellow had a fine treasure on him—compared to your snare, it's no worse, and maybe better!" The Sinister Ancestor pointed at the Black Horse Association's Grand Elder. These divine weapons of top-tier masters were all on record in the ancient world, and the Sinister Ancestor of the Bloody Garment Yellow Springs Sect knew them well enough.

"Oh?" Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback—and suddenly recalled his own true qi bomb, which had vanished without warning right before the Black Horse Association's Grand Elder's eyes! (Yu Ren's public WeChat: yuren22—please add it!)

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