Chapter 1594 — Everyone Drinks Together

As Gao Xiaofu poured the wine, the jade pendant on Wei Zhao's chest emitted a faint warning signal, deepening Wei Zhao's conviction that something was afoot! Yet the feebleness of the signal also told him the danger ahead would be minor — nothing serious at all. Had it been otherwise, the pendant's warning would never have been this weak!

Wei Zhao raised his wine cup and gave it a delicate sniff. A fierce blast of alcohol assailed his nostrils! The alcohol content of this liquor was certainly far higher than the baijiu everyone had been drinking before! Wei Zhao glanced again at the bottle in Gao Xiaofu's hand — it looked no different from what everyone else was drinking. He understood at once.

Zhong Yongliang, it seemed, had truly run out of options for the time being, so he was resorting to a show of goodwill to trip Wei Zhao up — trying to get him drunk on high-proof baijiu! And the purpose of getting him drunk was painfully obvious: he wanted Wei Zhao to make a spectacle of himself.

As for whether there was anything wrong with the wine itself, Wei Zhao had not even considered it. By his own medical judgment, apart from its unusually high proof, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary about this liquor.

Swapping the wine for high-proof baijiu had been Zhong Yongliang's own idea! Although Zhang Naipao had assured him that the drug was colorless, odorless, and flavorless — undetectable to any practitioner below the Earth Tier — Zhong Yongliang was still afraid Wei Zhao might grow suspicious. So he had Gao Xiaofu replace the normal low-proof baijiu with the high-proof variety.

In Zhong Yongliang's view, Wei Zhao was no fool. Toasting him for no good reason would certainly arouse suspicion — or even outright refusal. But if they pulled a little trick, letting Wei Zhao think he was simply being deliberately messed with, then Wei Zhao might actually buy it.

It had to be said that Zhong Yongliang's intelligence now was on an entirely different level from before — he had already acquired the ability to think in reverse.

And so Zhong Yongliang succeeded! This was not due to any carelessness on Wei Zhao's part. Rather, the drug had been supplied by an ancient sect. However formidable Wei Zhao might be, his medical arts were merely the pinnacle of the secular world — he could be called a miracle doctor among secular aristocratic families. But among the Hidden Clans, even a common Medicine King could match wits with him.

And so Wei Zhao failed to detect anything else amiss with the wine. He raised his cup and said, "In that case, I'll drink this cup."

"Straightforward!" Zhong Yongliang bellowed with laughter, raising his own cup and draining it in one gulp right before Wei Zhao's eyes!

"Yongliang, I just saw that the wine in your cup was only half full — shouldn't you fill it up?" Wei Zhao did not drink. Instead, he remarked coolly.

"Huh?" Zhong Yongliang blinked in surprise. He truly hadn't noticed whether his own cup was half full or entirely full — "Then... I'll pour another cup?"

He was desperate to get that drugged cup of wine down Wei Zhao's throat as quickly as possible, and was therefore somewhat flustered — he would rather drink yet another cup himself! In fact, the cup he had drunk from earlier had been completely full all along. Wei Zhao was merely toying with him. Wei Zhao certainly wasn't going to drink high-proof liquor himself and let Zhong Yongliang off scot-free.

Wei Zhao had never been the sort to let others take advantage of him, so he intended to make Zhong Yongliang taste the high-proof liquor for himself as well — if anyone was going to get drunk, they would get drunk together. And besides, Wei Zhao would not get drunk at all. This level of alcohol content was worlds apart from the wine Wei Zhao's father-in-law brewed in his own backyard!

"Good. Xiaofu, top up Yongliang's cup. One look and I can tell — Yongliang is a man who drinks straight!" Wei Zhao said.

"What?" The bottle in Gao Xiaofu's hand was precisely the laced one. He had been planning to pour Wei Zhao yet another cup once Wei Zhao finished his — he never imagined Wei Zhao would ask him to pour for Zhong Yongliang instead!

And Zhong Yongliang was stunned as well. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn't exactly have Gao Xiaofu swap the bottle — that would be far too obvious, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that amount to an outright confession that he had laced Wei Zhao's wine?

Gao Xiaofu stood frozen, bottle in hand, caught between a rock and a hard place. Zhong Yongliang, however, gritted his teeth and reasoned: this resort surely had hostesses around — once he was done drinking, he could find one to help him flush it out. No real problem there!

With that thought, Zhong Yongliang said, "Xiaofu, what are you standing there spacing out for? Top it up, quick!"

"Ah — yes!" Gao Xiaofu nodded hastily and poured wine into Zhong Yongliang's cup. Just when he thought the ordeal was over, Wei Zhao spoke up again!

"Xiaofu, you and I have had our share of bad blood, haven't we? What better occasion than this — have a cup too. One cup of wine, and all grudges wash away!" Wei Zhao said.

"What?" Gao Xiaofu was at his wit's end. But seeing that Zhong Yongliang had already raised and drained his cup, what grounds did he have to refuse? With no way out, he could only pour himself yet another cup. Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, there was simply no chance of swapping the bottle.

And so the three men raised their cups. In a grand spirit of laughing away all old grudges, all three of them were poisoned...

Fortunately, the drug had a delay before it took effect. Until it kicked in, they felt perfectly fine — no different from anyone else. So Zhong Yongliang kept up his forced smiles, eating and drinking merrily with everyone at the table!

To be frank, one cup of high-proof liquor was nothing for a guy like Zhong Yongliang whose family owned a nightclub. This kid had been drinking since middle school — he wasn't going to get drunk that easily. And Gao Xiaofu, that faithful lackey, was a regular drinking companion as well. He wasn't drunk either.

But what the two of them were worrying about now was the poison in their systems. They needed to find a way to flush it out — quickly! Because the plan was still on for later. When Wei Zhao went to harass Gu Mengyao, they were supposed to "gather around and watch" in order to drag Wei Zhao's reputation through the mud!

The banquet ended, and Zhong Yongliang had someone hand out room key cards to all the classmates.

"We've just finished eating, and everyone's had quite a bit to drink. Go back to your rooms and rest for a while. Tonight at nine, everyone meet in the resort lobby — I've booked out the recreation room, and we can all go have some fun!" Zhong Yongliang said. "Xiaofu and I can't hold our liquor either, so we'll take our leave first!"

"No problem!" Everyone took their key cards and headed off. But Wei Zhao's card — it turned out to be for a three-room suite, shared with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu? This gave Wei Zhao pause. Everyone else was grouped by gender — boys with boys, girls with girls. What could Zhong Yongliang possibly mean by lumping Wei Zhao together with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu?

But by then, Zhong Yongliang and Gao Xiaofu had already gone far off!

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