Chapter 786 — Xiaoke's Boyfriend?

Wei Zhao silently set the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Technique circulating within him, and the energy it generated poured ceaselessly into Yu Xiaoke's body. Her injuries, however, were not really grave, and the demand was not great; Wei Zhao felt no dizziness or draining of strength, and before long color came back into Yu Xiaoke's cheeks.

The old woman's eyes went wide with astonishment. Wei Zhao had done nothing but hold Yu Xiaoke's hand, and yet Yu Xiaoke's condition was steadily improving? How could that be? It ran counter to all reason.

Suddenly a terrifying possibility came to the old woman... In her youth she too had suffered a grievous wound; not only had her martial arts been destroyed, her whole body had been left lingering at the edge of death. And her master, to keep her alive, had passed a lifetime's cultivation into her through the transfer of power.

After the transfer, her master's lamp had burned dry, and she had walked on to the end of her road.

The old woman had always been grateful to her master, and it was through this that she had come to understand that strange, almost unthinkable thing, the transfer of power. Could Wei Zhao be doing the same for Yu Xiaoke now, bestowing his cultivation upon her?

What exactly was the bond between Wei Zhao and Yu Xiaoke, that it could move Wei Zhao to do such a thing? A sacrifice like that was not something an ordinary friendship could account for. Were it herself, the old woman thought, if Yu Xiaoke's wound were beyond cure, she would not hesitate to give her own life to save the girl's — but that was only because she was Yu Xiaoke's master, bound to her by the deep bond between teacher and disciple.

Why, then, would Wei Zhao pay such a price? Could it be that Wei Zhao was the boyfriend of this child Yu Xiaoke? The thought struck the old woman, and she grew suspicious. If not that, then on what grounds would Wei Zhao sacrifice himself to save Yu Xiaoke? Was he a fool?

Once the idea took hold, the old woman grew all the more certain of her guess. Yu Xiaoke was eighteen this year, after all, and had reached the age for love. She herself had overlooked the matter and still treated the girl as a child, when in fact Yu Xiaoke was no longer little.

And the pressure Yu Xiaoke bore every day was simply too great. Supporting an orphanage all on her own was too hard, too exhausting; the comfort of affection might at least ease the burden a little.

Of course, the old woman's standards for Yu Xiaoke's boyfriend were strict indeed. But now, seeing Wei Zhao use his true qi to save Yu Xiaoke, she cast her doubts about his character aside at once. If he did not truly care for Xiaoke, who on earth would go to such lengths?

"Hoo..." Wei Zhao let out a long breath and released Yu Xiaoke's hand.

Yu Xiaoke's need for true qi was far smaller than Feng Xiaoxiao's, Gu Mengyao's, or General Weiwu's, so though Wei Zhao lost some true qi, it was to him no more than a drop in the bucket.

"There. She should wake in a little while." Wei Zhao let out a breath of relief. He had his own standards for how to conduct himself; just as he could help Qiu Lingshan solve her case, he could equally thwart Qiu Lingshan's attempt to seize Yu Xiaoke. "I'll be going now."

"What? You're leaving already?" Now the old woman was truly baffled. What baffled her was this, first of all: after saving Yu Xiaoke with his true qi, Wei Zhao's face was neither flushed nor his heart racing — and that struck her as extraordinary.

Such a thing admitted only two explanations: either Wei Zhao's strength far exceeded anything she could imagine, or what he had used was not true qi at all. And if not, then what?

The second thing that baffled the old woman was this: Wei Zhao had spent such effort to save Yu Xiaoke, and by any ordinary reckoning he ought to be waiting for her to wake, at which point Yu Xiaoke would surely be moved beyond all measure.

That was what ought to happen between young lovers, was it not? Yet Wei Zhao seemed not to care in the least.

"I have other business. I'll go on ahead." Wei Zhao nodded. "By the way, if Qiu Lingshan keeps making trouble for her and won't let it go, have her call me. This is my number..."

As he spoke, Wei Zhao wrote a string of digits on the calendar at Yu Xiaoke's bedside.

"Wait... may I ask, just now, when you treated Yu Xiaoke, was it true qi you used?" The old woman voiced the doubt in her heart.

"You could say that." Wei Zhao nodded.

"Your true qi — Yu Xiaoke can use it?" Though the old woman's strength was not high, she knew that between different schools' arts the similarity of true qi was next to nothing; it could not be shared between them. To force it into another's body would bring not benefit but great harm.

"She can." Wei Zhao said. "All right, I'll be off."

With that, paying the old woman no further heed, he turned and walked out of Yu Xiaoke's room.

Wei Zhao and Yu Xiaoke were in truth not well acquainted, and with the old woman he was even less so; and so, in the matter of helping Yu Xiaoke, what he had done so far already counted as very good indeed.

He helped her as he did because he greatly admired the girl. Though her life was bitter, she was cheerful, finding joy in hardship nearly every day. She stole so much money, yet never spent a cent of it on herself; she wore the cheapest goods off street stalls, and her room was as plain as plain could be — rusted iron window bars, a battered desk, not even a decent wardrobe. The one luxury in it all was probably the computer on the desk.

The big, boxy monitor had long since been made obsolete; the case was missing a side panel; the keyboard and mouse were of the oldest sort — yet all of them were wiped spotlessly clean. Someone must have thrown them out, and they had come to her as donations.

And as for the things indispensable to a young and pretty girl — cosmetics, a dressing table, a wardrobe — none were to be seen in Yu Xiaoke's room. On the desk, apart from a bottle of Dabao as skin care, there was only a tin of hand cream packaged in a shell, the kind rarely seen anymore.

Wei Zhao found it hard to imagine how the girl lived day after day. So much money — and she had never once been tempted.

As for a wardrobe, there was only a large cardboard box on the floor, holding a few scattered clothes — pitifully few. Apart from underthings, there were only two or three sets of outer clothes to change into. Truly pitiable.

So if he could, Wei Zhao would not begrudge Yu Xiaoke his help. It was not helping Yu Xiaoke alone, but every child in the orphanage.

When Wei Zhao came out of Yu Xiaoke's room, he saw the boy called Xiaoken lurking furtively not far off, peering around. Finding himself discovered, the boy gave up hiding and came out with a sheepish air. "Brother, I'm sorry. I misjudged you..."

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