Chapter 5017 — A Small County Town
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Walking for twenty minutes along a not especially wide road, Wei Zhao soon entered the county town's urban district, and the flow of people and traffic around him thickened accordingly. Gazing at this long-unseen scene of worldly bustle before his eyes, Wei Zhao could not help but feel as though a whole lifetime had passed.
Three years—though he had only been gone three years. In the mortal realm that might amount to no more than going abroad to study, hardly enough to stir much feeling; but he had gone to Cloud Terrace Island, utterly cut off from the world. Whether he could even return had been an unknown, and moreover so much had happened during those three years. It was inevitable that things had changed and people were no longer the same.
"Hah, at last I'm back." Wei Zhao stretched lazily, and his mood immediately improved a good deal. The tension of being hunted moments ago was entirely gone; instead there was a kind of warmth, as of coming home.
It was only a pity that this was not West Star Mountain, nor East Sea City—merely an obscure little county town.
Beep beep beep! A shrill horn suddenly sounded behind him, and an electric three-wheeled cart pulled up behind Wei Zhao. A middle-aged man's head poked out: "Where to?"
"What?" Having been away from the mortal realm so long, Wei Zhao did not react for a moment.
"I said, where to? Are you getting on or not?" the middle-aged man said with a frown, a cheap cigarette butt clamped between his lips.
Only then did Wei Zhao understand—so this was a little three-wheeled motorbike taxi. He quickly shook his head: "I'm not going anywhere."
"Then what the hell are you waving at me for? Too much time on your hands? Wasting my time!" The middle-aged man sped off cursing, the little three-wheeler weaving and darting through the traffic and the crowds, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye—a display of real technical mastery.
Wei Zhao stared dumbfounded, and only after a long while did he shrug with a bitter smile. This, indeed, was the mortal realm he knew so well.
He looked around at his surroundings. Though this county town was nowhere near as prosperous and developed as East Sea City, its downtown area was not bad at all—people coming and going, traffic bustling, the streets lined densely on both sides with all manner of shops. It was only that there were not as many towering high-rises as in the big city, and the surroundings were a little more cluttered.
Recalling the two men who had just been hunting him, Wei Zhao did not dare be careless. Right now he had to find somewhere to rest properly. Though the downtown here was crowded, if those two refused to give up and came after him, there was still a chance he would be discovered.
He was in a Primordial Spirit body now, and his body was to some extent a substantial existence, so in the eyes of ordinary people he was no different from a normal person. Whatever ordinary people could do, he could do too—but that was no guarantee of safety.
Ultimately he was still a Primordial Spirit body, and in the eyes of someone like Sun Baimei, who specialized in cultivating such arts, he was by nature a great big lightbulb. Even mingled among a crowd, he would be recognized at a glance. He had to find a safe place to hide first.
Wei Zhao glanced around, then found a secluded corner of a roadside park and recovered some of his physical strength and true qi on the spot. Just now, in order to save his life, his true qi had been all but exhausted—fortunately the jade pendant had come along this time as well; otherwise, merely replenishing his true qi would have been a great trouble, and without ten days to half a month there would have been no hope of recovering.