Chapter 2021 — Relief

Wei Zhao rummaged around the kitchen, found whatever ingredients he could, cooked two dishes, and brought them over to Han Jingyi.

"Wei Zhao, thank you!" When Han Jingyi saw him arrive, she finally deigned to set down her tablet and ran out to help him carry the dishes. "Won't you come in and sit for a while?"

"No, thanks. You two eat, then get to bed early. I'll be off." Wei Zhao glanced at Han Jingyi's villa and saw that nothing new seemed to have been added inside; it was all the furniture and appliances that had come with the place.

Han Xiaochao sat on the sofa quietly reading a book, while Han Jingyi had probably been fiddling with her tablet just now.

These two siblings were strange enough, both the bookworm type, except that the sister's temperament was even odder than the brother's.

Wei Zhao glanced at Han Xiaochao's book: a textbook from a university economics department. Reading textbooks at home was normal enough. But Han Jingyi was actually using her tablet to work out some pill-refining formula, which struck Wei Zhao as utterly bizarre.

"Oh... all right then." Han Jingyi nodded, a little disappointed. "By the way, Wei Zhao, how is your research into pill refining coming along?"

"These past couple of days? I haven't had time to research it..." Wei Zhao answered honestly. Earlier he had been busy with the freshman gala performance; after that, once he had picked up Xu Shilan, they had been attacked again and again, and then he had broken through. He had not even had time to practice the fourth form of the Raging Fire Fist again, let alone refine pills.

"Oh... I see. I was hoping to discuss it with you!" Han Jingyi said. "Then once you have done your research, will you discuss it with me?"

"Sure." Wei Zhao nodded.

Han Jingyi seemed delighted to have his answer. She said goodbye cheerfully and went off to eat with Han Xiaochao.

Wei Zhao, meanwhile, returned to his own villa. In the living room, Gu Mengyao, Shen Yushu, Xu Shilan, and Cheng Yiyi were deep in lively conversation; from the sound of it, they were talking about what had happened yesterday.

Cheng Yiyi was beaming, her eyes full of admiration, and Wei Zhao walked in just in time to hear her say: "Yaoyao, Xiaoshu, I really envy you two, living with such an amazing bodyguard as Wei Zhao. If Sister Shilan and I ever stop singing, we would want to move in and live with you too!"

"Sure, then once you quit the music scene, move on over!" Gu Mengyao said with a laugh.

"Move over here? I am afraid some people would be hostile to us!" With that, Xu Shilan glanced at Shen Yushu with a smile. "Just now she was still needling Wang Xinyan..."

"I was not! I was only helping Brother Shield screen them..." Shen Yushu said, a little embarrassed, and hastily changed the subject. "Sister Shilan, you and Sister Yiyi seem to be on very good terms?"

"That is right. The two of us come from the same school, so to speak, and we hit it off especially well. Our usual tastes are much the same, so we are fairly close," Xu Shilan said with a nod.

"I owe it all to my senior sister's care; otherwise I could never have developed so well!" Cheng Yiyi nodded in agreement.

"Aren't you all going to bed soon? Tomorrow some of you have school and some have a plane to catch. Will you be able to get up?" Wei Zhao said, looking at the four of them chatting so happily.

"We're going, we're going right now..." Gu Mengyao checked her watch and only then realized how late it was. The freshman gala had ended after nine in the evening; dinner had pushed it past eleven; now it was past midnight. If they did not sleep now, they really would not be able to get up tomorrow!

So the four of them tidied up a little and went upstairs, while Wei Zhao returned to his room to continue consolidating the second level of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art.

There had been too much going on these past few days. Wei Zhao planned to find a chance to practice the fourth form of the Raging Fire Fist again. And now that he had already reached the peak of early Earth Rank, could he, besides the fourth form, also unleash the fifth and sixth forms?

Wei Zhao was full of anticipation! It was only that he had no solid block of time to work it out and practice.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Wei Zhao circulated the second level of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art. His strength at the peak of early Earth Rank was now basically stable. This breakthrough had held few surprises for him, a narrow escape at most. After all, he had been on the verge of breaking through for a long time; he had merely lacked the trigger to smash through his limit, and that trigger had happened to appear during battle!

What Wei Zhao felt thankful for was that this trigger had come at the very end of the fight, at the moment that decided victory and defeat. Had it come earlier, he would have been in real danger!

With an Earth Rank man in black watching him like a tiger, could he have broken through in peace? The whole group would probably have been finished. Just thinking about it made Wei Zhao's blood run cold.

But through this battle, Wei Zhao had actually discovered an advantage of his own: his lack of raw strength could be made up for through martial techniques! He was only an early Earth Rank fighter, yet by relying on the special qualities of his techniques, he had not been at a disadvantage even against a mid Earth Rank man in black.

His first form of the Raging Fire Fist was roughly equal to the second form of the man in black's so-called Frigid Snow Thorn! In other words, as long as Wei Zhao had plenty of stamina, he could fight above his level. This discovery both startled and delighted him!

He had thought that the advantage of fighting above his level, which he had enjoyed at the Mystic Rank, was gone for good. But unexpectedly, through Uncle Qing's martial techniques, he had regained that old edge. The fourth form of the Raging Fire Fist could already crush a mid Earth Rank fighter, which meant that against an opponent only one rank above him, Wei Zhao could crush them with ease.

As long as he unleashed the fourth form of the Raging Fire Fist from the very start, his opponent would have no way to respond! Only, what about facing a fighter at the peak of mid Earth Rank now? He hoped he could unleash the fifth and sixth forms of the Raging Fire Fist; then he would have the strength to put up a fight against the peak of mid Earth Rank.

But others were different. However formidable a martial technique might be, everyone's comprehension of it would deviate somewhat; no one could wield the Raging Fire Fist as though they had created it themselves, the way Wei Zhao did.

The Earth Rank man in black's Frigid Snow Thorn was in fact not weak either; it was just that he himself was too weak. His mental cultivation method had never been up to much to begin with, so the technique's power could never be fully brought out, and his comprehension of it was not thorough. That was why every form of his came out one grade weaker than Wei Zhao's.

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