Chapter 1529 — Are You Speaking for Him?

And afterward came the trial. Wei Zhao, fearing that Tang Yun and Gu Mengyao and little Shu would worry, said nothing to them of it, thinking only to wait until the trial was done before he got in touch with them again.

Who could have guessed that once the trial ended there would be a host of other troubles; and the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit was not to be had—how could Wei Zhao simply leave? And during the trial, lest the teams call one another by satellite phone, there seemed to be some interference upon Ice Snow Spirit Mountain; the phones had no signal here at all!

So even had Wei Zhao wished to reach Tang Yun and the others and explain his plight, he could not! Yet he could not leave either, and must wait until he returned before making contact again.

"Let us hope so..." Tang Yun nodded, though for all her words a thread of worry still clung to her heart...

...

Sun rose, sun set; another day passed.

The disciples patrolling near the Ice Palace changed batch after batch, yet Wei Zhao still stood at the gate of the Ice Palace, waiting for Elder Qing to persuade the Ice Palace Master to give him the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit!

Wei Zhao's heart was filled with bitterness and helplessness—the defeat a man feels before a cruel reality!

Wei Zhao's temper was proud and aloof; never in the past had he bowed his head to any power, not even before the Yu family, who had once been mightier than he!

But in this moment Wei Zhao had no recourse at all. The Ice Palace's might surpassed anything he had known, and he understood well that beneath such power, the only way to save Xiaoxiao was to bow his head!

What else could he do? Fight, and he could never win; seize it, and he could never take it—he would likely lose his own life here, and Xiaoxiao would be finished besides! So all that Wei Zhao could do was move the Ice Palace by his own stubborn devotion.

Laughable it might seem, yet it was his only way! Fortunately he bore the halo of first place in the trial; so long as he did nothing contrary to the Ice Palace's rules, the Ice Palace truly had no way to deal with him!

Surely they could not kill a man merely because he begged piteously for a cure for his sweetheart? Domineering as the Ice Palace was, it disdained to do such a thing; and even had it done so, none would have dared speak against it—but then who would ever dare come to the next Ice Palace trial?

If every trial-goer who came hoping to trade the Ice Palace for some treasure of heaven and earth were killed off simply because the thing he sought to exchange for was one of the Palace's own treasures, then what would the Ice Palace become? So Wei Zhao had taken the measure of this, and he simply squatted here, refusing absolutely to leave!

Whether shameless clinging would work, whether it held any hope, Wei Zhao did not know; what he did know was that if he turned and walked away, there would be even less hope! A Heaven Rank expert, it was said, could also heal the cold yin within Xiaoxiao's body—but whether such healing would truly succeed, Wei Zhao could not be sure.

It was only a scrap of miscellany that Old Man Wei had read in some ancient text; yet that the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit could heal Xiaoxiao had been verified by Zhang Liju!

And what made Wei Zhao most suspicious was this: Zhang Liju must himself have been a Heaven Rank expert. Since he could refine Qi Gathering Pills, and two of them still remained in the tomb, it showed that Zhang Liju had already broken through to the Heaven Rank and no longer needed to take them!

Otherwise, Wei Zhao did not believe a cultivator would leave such wondrous elixirs untasted and carry them into his tomb! As for the side effects of the Qi Gathering Pill, Elder Qing had said they did not exist in ancient times—so Zhang Liju had no reason whatsoever to refrain from taking them!

And if Zhang Liju was a Heaven Rank expert, then why had he not healed his friend himself? Why travel ten thousand li in search of the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit? This struck Wei Zhao as strange beyond reason; there must be something in it that he did not know!

Unless Zhang Liju did not know that a Heaven Rank expert could also cure the cold poison—but Wei Zhao felt this reason could not hold. With Zhang Liju's erudition and his wide web of connections, what Old Man Wei and he himself both knew, Zhang Liju could not possibly have failed to know.

So Wei Zhao guessed: might it be that a Heaven Rank expert's healing of the cold poison was inferior in effect to the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit? Or that after such healing, some defect would remain?

This too was why Wei Zhao had not chosen to give up. The future is unknowable; only the present may be seized!

"Palace Master, Ling Yi is still outside..." In the morning, when Xiao Qing came to see the Ice Palace Master, she said.

"Aunt Qing, why does it feel as though you are speaking for that Ling Yi?" Hearing Xiao Qing's words, the Ice Palace Master could not help laughing. "Could it be that you deliberately refrained from driving him off, letting him linger here, so as to move me?"

"This..." Xiao Qing, her heart thus seen through, grew somewhat embarrassed. "Palace Master, I only feel that this Ling Yi is a pitiable child, and I am soft-hearted, as you know..."

"Yes, I know... Had you not picked me up back then, I might long since have frozen to death in the streets..." The Ice Palace Master sighed. "Aunt Qing, I do not blame you. By rights, since you say so, I ought to help. But you know how much the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit means to our Ice Palace, so... if he cannot produce solid proof that he truly can find an alchemist, there is no way I can agree to it. Though I now hold the Ice Palace utterly in my grasp, there is still the Council of Elders after all. So long as it does not go against the Ice Palace's interests, my word is law; but should I do a thing contrary to the Ice Palace's interests, then even as its Master, the Council of Elders would overrule my command—though they would not lightly invoke that right!"

"I am a member of the Council of Elders too, so of course I know... But if an alchemist truly can be found, and you have the Ice Heart Jade Bone Pill, then you will have no need of the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit, and as for the Council of Elders, I can take charge of settling them!" Here Xiao Qing revealed for the first time her imperious air!

Before the Ice Palace Master she was respectful, yet more than that, kindly and doting; but in the Council of Elders, Xiao Qing was absolutely a figure who stood on equal footing with the Grand Elder! Even the Grand Elder dared not lightly contradict Xiao Qing's words!

This too was why the Ice Palace Master could, at so young an age, hold the Ice Palace wholly in her grasp. Without Xiao Qing's support, though the old Palace Master and the Supreme Elder had lent their strength in those years, it would never have gone so smoothly as it did now.

"Aunt Qing, I yield to you." The Ice Palace Master knew that Aunt Qing was determined to speak up for Wei Zhao.

...