Chapter 2369 — Who Sent You?

Poker Brother could only stammer, hemming and hawing, at a loss for how to explain.

"Where is Chen Xi?" Wei Zhao turned his gaze to the two men whose eyes had earlier betrayed a flash of delight. These two were almost certainly in league with the expert at the door, the one at the peak of the late Profound Rank. One of them was at the peak of the late Profound Rank, the other at the early Earth Rank—and the look on their faces when they saw him arrive was proof enough that they had been waiting for him all along.

"Chen Xi? She's already been lost to Mr. Pu Huotai, the Southeast Asian Gambling King." The Earth Rank expert smiled faintly and said to Wei Zhao, "There's nothing left for us here. We'll be going. Enjoy yourself, Mr. Pu!"

Wei Zhao now shifted his gaze to Pu Huotai and the unsmiling man in black behind him—and Pu Huotai gave him a jolt of alarm! The man was a cultivator, yet Wei Zhao could not see through his strength, could not tell what rank he was.

It was the first time Wei Zhao's golden finger had ever failed him like this. Even when he had faced the Heaven Rank experts of the Ice Palace, and the experts of the Tagan family, there had never been a slip. But this time, he had been thwarted by a Southeast Asian gambling king!

The man was indeed an internal cultivator, yet Wei Zhao could not gauge his rank. The man in black behind him, however, Wei Zhao could judge with perfect clarity: an internal cultivator at the peak of the late Earth Rank.

Wei Zhao frowned slightly and understood that the two men before him were formidable enemies—if it truly came to blows, it would be a nasty fight. And he could more or less conclude that Chen Xi had nothing much to do with these two at all; their involvement had been engineered entirely by Leader Zhu and his crew.

After a moment's consideration, Wei Zhao decided not to strike directly at Pu Huotai and his black-clad bodyguard, but to turn his spearhead on the two questionable men on this side.

"Who is your master? Who told you to bring Chen Xi here as a stake?" Wei Zhao asked evenly. "Tell me, or die."

"This..." The remarkably capable Earth Rank expert was named Zhao Guangshiliu. In his estimation, since Chen Xi was not in the room, Wei Zhao would surely search for her the moment he arrived—and Chen Xi now belonged to Pu Huotai, so any move Wei Zhao made would be against Pu Huotai. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Wei Zhao would aim straight at him the instant he walked through the door!

Of course, had Wei Zhao not known that Old Zhu was up to something and simply taken them for enemies of Chen Xi's father, he might well have been too impatient to bother with them and let them go. After all, his main purpose in coming here was to find Chen Xi.

But Wei Zhao knew these men were connected to Leader Zhu, so naturally he would not let them off. As for Pu Huotai, he was the one Wei Zhao regarded as of little consequence.

"Chen Xi is in the inner room of the box—she belongs to Mr. Pu now, it has nothing to do with us. It was Chen Xi's father who staked her to us. Don't come looking for us..." Zhao Guangshiliu was growing afraid. He knew full well how Wei Zhao had crippled Old Bi with a single move, so he did not believe he could stand against Wei Zhao.

"That's right, nothing to do with us, we'll be going... If you want to find someone, go find Mr. Pu!" said Zhao Qisi, the other man, at the peak of the late Profound Rank.

"What is your connection to Leader Zhu?" Wei Zhao did not answer them, but asked directly.

"What Leader Zhu? We don't know any—" Zhao Guangshiliu broke off and made to turn and leave the box. He had no desire to tangle with Wei Zhao; the longer he stayed, the greater the danger.

Zhao Qisi was of the same mind. In a situation like this, it should be a contest between Wei Zhao and Pu Huotai, and their proper course was to get out fast.

"Since you won't talk, then stay." Wei Zhao could not be bothered to waste more words. They were small fry; if they would not speak, so be it. In the end, the matter still had to be settled with Leader Zhu!

The next instant, Wei Zhao moved—still the first stance of the Wildfire Eight-Trigram Palm. Zhao Qisi was finished without the slightest power to fight back, without even resisting, without a single struggle; just like that, he was gone. In Wei Zhao's eyes, an expert at the peak of the late Profound Rank was as easy to kill as a chicken.

"You—" Zhao Guangshiliu had barely begun to speak when Wei Zhao's Wildfire Eight-Trigram Palm lashed out again, and Zhao Guangshiliu too died with his eyes wide open.

Even in death, neither could fathom it: the moment Wei Zhao appeared, why had he not gone to Pu Huotai to demand the girl, but killed them first? By their reckoning, Wei Zhao would surely rush to find Chen Xi upon arrival, and they, as the third party who had already lost Chen Xi to Pu Huotai, should have been able to clear themselves with ease!

But reality diverged from the ideal. Wei Zhao struck at them, giving them not the slightest chance to argue their case, and finished them with the force of a thunderbolt. Of course, Wei Zhao's ruthlessness also stemmed from the fact that Leader Zhu had once set a venomous snake on Chen Xi, which had left Wei Zhao with not one shred of goodwill toward Leader Zhu and his men.

Most important of all, though, Wei Zhao was killing the chicken to scare the monkey. Because his golden finger—that bug—let him see the strength of Pu Huotai's bodyguard, and because that same golden finger had failed to penetrate Pu Huotai's strength, Wei Zhao judged Pu Huotai to be a man hard to handle, and so, if he could avoid making an enemy of him, he would do his utmost to avoid it.

So Leader Zhu's men had not died unjustly at all. They had assumed Wei Zhao would clash with the Southeast Asian Gambling King Pu Huotai in complete ignorance—but Wei Zhao had done no such thing! Even Zhao Guangyin, even the old master Zhao, had thought Wei Zhao would go straight for Pu Huotai.

By any normal logic, what strength could a gambling king possibly have? Even with a bodyguard, that bodyguard could not be too powerful—the bodyguard of Poker Brother's daughter was merely a Yellow Rank expert. They had assumed Wei Zhao would have nothing to fear.

It was precisely this that the old master Zhao had meant to exploit, to make Wei Zhao strike at Pu Huotai and so achieve his aim of killing with a borrowed knife. But now—the killing had been done, only it was the Hidden Zhao family who had died by Wei Zhao's borrowed blade.

Having finished off the two cultivators, Wei Zhao looked as though nothing had happened. He turned to Pu Huotai and smiled faintly. "Mr. Pu, where is the girl called Chen Xi? She is my friend, and I hope you will let me take her with me."

Pu Huotai frowned, and in his heart began to surmise Wei Zhao's true strength.

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