Chapter 1437 — Keep Your Word: Though Now Is a Time of Need, Wei Zhao Must Use Wu Chengtian to Protect Gu Mengyao, Shen Yushu, and Tang Yun, and Only by Doing His Utmost Can He Ensure Their Safety

Xuan Rank? The shock that tore through Wu Chengtian's heart was beyond all reckoning. He was already a fighter at the very peak of the late Huang Rank, and that alone had left him astonished and content. Could anyone really go, in a single day, from a man who knew no martial arts at all to one at the peak of the late Huang Rank? Wu Chengtian thought not—at least he had never seen it happen. Yet now, before even a full day had passed, after a mere night's effort, he had become precisely such a fighter. And that was still not enough; he was to ascend to the Xuan Rank besides?

Wu Chengtian felt his entire body trembling, thrilled beyond all measure. Back when he had acknowledged Ergoudan as his leader, there had indeed been an element of gamble in it: what he had been betting on was Ergoudan's external skill, hoping to learn a thing or two from him and so raise his own strength. He had never once imagined that his strength would indeed rise—but rise in the internal arts, not the external!

Yet before Wu Chengtian could even grow excited, he felt a mighty surge of true qi flood into his body. It detonated in an instant, growing even stronger! In that single moment his body swelled up like an inflated balloon!

"Ah—" Wu Chengtian let out a groan of agony, but in the very next instant he clenched his teeth tight. He had said long before that he could bear it; so now, rather than let Wei Zhao think less of him, he gritted his teeth and bore the pain, refusing to let a single sound escape.

Wu Chengtian's fortitude rather surprised Wei Zhao. On Wei Zhao's side, his own part was already complete; the rest was left to Wu Chengtian himself, and there was nothing further Wei Zhao could do to help. Whether he succeeded or failed would depend on Wu Chengtian's talent and fortune.

With the precedents of Chen Yutian, Qiu Lingshan, and the Mighty General before him, Wei Zhao was not this time worried that anything might go wrong with Wu Chengtian. This method of compressing energy to raise one's strength seemed, for the present, to be workable—at the very least, when breaking from the peak of the late Huang Rank into the Xuan Rank.

Wei Zhao, for his part, was not idle either: having raised Wu Chengtian's strength, he now found that dawn of the second day had already broken.

Voices reached Wei Zhao from beyond the door—it must be Qingbo and Gu Pengzhan. They had surely learned of his safe return from the young miss, and so had hurried over first thing in the morning.

He pushed the door open and stepped out, and there, just as he had expected, Gu Pengzhan and Qingbo were sitting on the living-room sofa, while Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had already finished dressing and getting ready, plainly preparing to set off for school.

"Uncle Chu, Qingbo—you're here." Wei Zhao nodded to them.

"Xiao Yi, hearing that you'd come home safe, Qingbo and I rushed over to see you," Gu Pengzhan said. "Though, from what Yaoyao tells me, you may be leaving again?"

"Yes, Uncle Chu. I have to go in search of the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit to cure Xiaoxiao's illness, and I'm afraid it won't be long before I set off," Wei Zhao said.

"Then how long will this trip of yours take? The college entrance exams are almost here—you'll surely miss them, won't you?" Gu Pengzhan asked.

"Uh... Uncle Chu, do you mean that once Yaoyao and the others are at university, I'm to go on staying by their side?" Wei Zhao blinked in surprise. If Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu went to university, they would certainly go to another city; staying in Songshan City was out of the question—after all, Songshan had only one medical university, and the two girls' ambitions plainly did not lie in medicine.

"Precisely. It's rare for Yaoyao to take such a liking to someone, and you know her character—she doesn't open up to strangers easily. So my proposal is this: you get into the same university as she does, and go on guarding her at close quarters!" Gu Pengzhan said.

The young miss's cheeks flushed slightly at Gu Pengzhan's words. She wanted to protest, yet did not want to protest; inwardly, she was of two minds...

Gu Mengyao had thought before about what would become of Wei Zhao once she and Xiaoshu went off to university. In her view, whether she willed it or not, this bond would probably end there. Wei Zhao was plainly no ordinary bodyguard, and she understood all too well that letting him serve as theirs was a waste of his talents. So she could hardly cling to him brazenly and make him protect her for the rest of her life, could she?

No feast under heaven lasts forever. Wei Zhao had already tendered his resignation once before; as things stood now, he was staying on only as a friend, with no obligation left to protect her, and there was neither a subordinate-and-superior nor an employer-and-employee relationship between them. So in Gu Mengyao's view, once she and Xiaoshu went to university and moved into the dormitories, there was naturally no way she could go on tying Wei Zhao down.

That wouldn't be realistic either. Wei Zhao had a life of his own, and a girlfriend of his own. Were every one of Tang Yun's dates from now on to drag her and Xiaoshu along? What would that make them? Or would it really come to what Xiaoshu had said—all of them marrying Wei Zhao?

Though Gu Mengyao was not all that resistant to the idea deep down, she still felt it wasn't quite right; besides, she clearly didn't even like Wei Zhao all that much—she had simply grown used to having him near. It was Xiaoshu who really liked him!

"Wonderful, wonderful!" At Gu Pengzhan's words, Shen Yushu immediately clapped her hands and cheered, sweeping away the very words Wei Zhao had been about to speak.

"That... doesn't seem quite right... I'm afraid I wouldn't make it in time for the exams either..." Wei Zhao considered for a moment and said, "Besides, when Yaoyao and Xiaoshu go to university, they won't be staying in this city, will they?"

"That's no problem. Yaoyao and Xiaoshu are sitting the college entrance exams only to prove what they can do. You needn't sit them—I have my means of seeing to it; you'd simply be enrolled as a self-funded student, which doesn't sound quite so impressive, that's all." Gu Pengzhan said. "If it worries you, then have Tang Yun apply to the same university as theirs."

Gu Pengzhan, it seemed, had read straight through Wei Zhao's thoughts, and said as much.

"Brother Arrow, you don't keep your word! Are you trying to go back on it?" Shen Yushu gave Wei Zhao no time to think, challenging him outright.

"Oh?" Wei Zhao started. "How am I going back on my word?"

"You promised me before—whoever changes is the Mighty General!" Shen Yushu said.

Hearing Shen Yushu's words, Wei Zhao was suddenly struck back to that scene when he had lost every scrap of his strength and tried to resign and leave...

"Then it's a deal! If your strength comes back—even higher than before—you have to stay in this villa forever and ever, keeping me and Sister Yaoyao company!"

"It's a deal!"

"Pinky swear!"

"Heh, very well!"

"Pinky swear, cross my heart—a hundred years without changing! Whoever changes is the Mighty General!"

It seemed he really had promised Shen Yushu that, once his strength recovered—or exceeded what it had been before—he would stay here forever keeping them company, and they had even sealed it with a pinky swear! At the thought, Wei Zhao couldn't help but smile ruefully: "Did you work this out in advance? Did you know I would get my strength back?"

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