Chapter 5027 — Wasting Good Things

As it happened, just as Wei Zhao reached the entrance of the residential compound, he saw the aloof young woman coming back, carrying a large bundle of medicinal herbs—evidently for treating injuries.

So she had gone out to buy medicine. But why hadn't she gone into the city? Surely the countryside couldn't offer rare medicinal herbs that the city couldn't?

Wei Zhao puzzled over it privately, but the herbs were wrapped tight in yellow paper, and he could not tell what they were. He could hardly ask outright, so he merely nodded at the young woman as she approached—a greeting of sorts.

The tall woman glanced at him and nodded once in return, then walked straight into the compound, showing not the slightest inclination to speak.

Wei Zhao gave a helpless shrug and could only follow behind her in silence, still fiddling with his phone. Two chance encounters in one day—he had thought he might at least exchange a few words and sound her out, but the aloof young woman kept him at arm's length throughout. What was a man to do?

And so the two of them climbed the stairs in silence, one behind the other. Halfway up, though, the tall woman suddenly stopped for some reason. Wei Zhao was buried in his phone and didn't notice, and nearly ran straight into her.

She was tall to begin with, and standing a step above him as she was, had he actually collided with her, his face would have gone straight into her chest—and that would have been a fine mess indeed. Fortunately, Wei Zhao caught himself in time and stopped short, leaving less than ten centimeters between them.

At such a distance, it wasn't merely a matter of seeing her clearly—even the faint orchid scent of her body was unmistakable. Coming back to his senses, Wei Zhao felt rather awkward and quickly retreated two steps. "What is it?" he asked.

"Were you secretly photographing me? Do you believe I could kill you?" The tall woman glared at Wei Zhao viciously.

"Huh?" Wei Zhao was stunned. Following her sharp gaze, he looked down and—to his dismay—realized his phone was still set to video mode and had never been switched off. And since he had been fiddling with it the whole way up behind her, to any onlooker it must have looked exactly as though he were secretly filming the young woman.

Especially since she was wearing a skirt today that was none too long. From where he stood, his phone really could have caught a glimpse beneath her hem—no wonder she had misunderstood!

"This is..." Wei Zhao was instantly wronged beyond words and hastened to explain. If the aloof young woman concluded that he had been secretly filming her, then forget sounding her out in the future—he would be lucky if she didn't beat him senseless on the spot.

Unfortunately, she gave him no chance to explain at all, only warning him coldly, "You'd better behave yourself, or don't blame me for being unpleasant. Pervert!"

With that, the tall woman turned and walked off, leaving a deeply dejected Wei Zhao behind, smiling bitterly to himself. He had hoped to use these chance encounters to chat a little, and once they were on familiar terms, to ask about those Heaven-Realm experts. Instead, he had been mistaken for a pervert—how was he supposed to strike up a conversation now?

Still, he could hardly blame her. Who had told him to keep fiddling with his phone behind her, with the camera mode running? It would have been stranger still if she had suspected nothing at all.

He could only shake his head and smile bitterly in silence, waiting until she had gone into her room before continuing up the stairs to his own. Otherwise, if he followed too closely, the aloof young woman might again misunderstand and even attack him—and then things really would spiral out of control.

Back in his room, a rich medicinal aroma soon drifted over from across the hall—she was evidently decocting her herbs.

Wei Zhao might only be a dabbler, but he was at least still a Mystic-Rank first-grade alchemist. He hadn't seen these herbs earlier, but now a quick sniff told him exactly what they were.

"What a waste—what a sheer waste of such fine herbs. I wonder where the young woman got them. There's no way these could be bought on the open market; does she have some special channel?" Wei Zhao shook his head in puzzlement. From the smell alone he could tell—these were the ingredients for refining a peak fourth-grade Great Return Pill!

Even on Cloud-Rank Island such herbs could hardly be called exceedingly rare, but in this mortal world, where spiritual energy was thin beyond all measure, it would be no exaggeration to call them priceless!

Even with Wei Zhao's present connections in the mortal world, he could not easily obtain such things—yet the aloof young woman had merely gone out for a casual stroll and come back with them. Clearly she had channels of her own, perhaps even connections to other Heaven-Realm experts.

Breathing in the medicinal aroma, Wei Zhao, alchemist that he was, felt his heart ache. It was an occupational hazard; any responsible alchemist loathed such waste with a passion, and he was certainly no exception.

Still, from the young woman's point of view, it could hardly be called waste. She was no alchemist, after all, and had no alchemist friends to call on for the moment. What else could she do but boil the herbs and drink the decoction?

Only, boiling the herbs all together like this might have some effect, but it could not remotely compare to a peak fourth-grade Great Return Pill—not even a tenth of the efficacy. To call it a waste of good things was no exaggeration at all.

Had it not been for that misunderstanding, Wei Zhao might have offered to help her himself, using the opportunity to get closer and make it easier to sound her out. But now he had no such thought at all. What kind of reception he would get if he knocked on her door now, anyone could guess with the tips of their toes—and it certainly wouldn't be good.

Wei Zhao shook his head. It wasn't his money being spent, after all—why think so much about it? Waste of good things or not, so be it.

Over the next few days, all Wei Zhao had to do was concentrate on recovering his strength. The progress was not as good as he had hoped, but he still raised his cultivation to the great perfection of the Heaven Rank—considerably stronger than when he had first been projected here. At least now he need not fear ordinary Foundation-Establishment experts.

These days passed quietly enough, with no more "ghosts" coming to frighten anyone. The main reason was that Boss Huang couldn't find a suitable replacement on short notice. There was no shortage of local thugs and swindlers these days, but the vast majority were nowhere near as professional as the old man and the buzz-cut youth. Playing a ghost to scare people was a real test of acting skill—hire some unreliable fraud at random, and if he gave the game away halfway through, the joke would be on them.

Of course, even if Boss Huang did find a replacement, it would be useless against Wei Zhao. At worst he would scare them off again. The old man and the buzz-cut youth had already been frightened out of their wits; an ordinary swindler would fare even worse. Played with by Wei Zhao like that, he might well end up genuinely unhinged.

Beyond that, whenever Wei Zhao wasn't recovering his strength, he would spend a while each day at the food stalls. For him, this was the best place to learn what was going on in Xima City—any little ripple anywhere would soon be heard here, just as people often brought up the haunting of the house he had rented. (To be continued.)