Chapter 120

Chapter 120: Crisis Returns
Yu Zhao smiled shyly: “Sovereign Senior, you are really too polite. You’re making me feel embarrassed.”

Old Merman cursed in his heart: [If you’re embarrassed, then give it back! Damn it, cunning Human Race!]

He still did not understand how he had been talked into this.

Yu Zhao said: “Sovereign Senior, don’t worry. Since I’ve accepted your item, I’ll do my best to carry out what I promised you.”

“Not do your best, you must! You must!” Old Merman said angrily.

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Seeing how readily Yu Zhao agreed, Old Merman only grew more uneasy. He kept feeling like he had boarded a thief’s ship.

“Sovereign Senior, do you have any other instructions? If not, I should be leaving.”

Yu Zhao had only planned to come to the Nanming Sea to ask about Shui Qing Yue. She never thought she would end up staying here for a full month by accident.

Before the Cultivation World Grand Tournament, she still had to go to Marsh Forest and Greenwood Sect. She did not know if there was enough time.

When Old Merman heard that Yu Zhao was leaving, his eyes dimmed.

Although he complained about Yu Zhao all the time, deep down he quite admired her.

But he also knew that he and Yu Zhao were never people who walked the same path. Even if he forced her to stay a few more days, that was all it would be.

“Go. I’ll see you off,” Old Merman said heavily.

“No, that’s not necessary.”

Yu Zhao’s eye twitched. She sneaked a look at Old Merman’s mount.

Old Merman ignored her completely. He patted the shell under him, and one merfolk and one shell started to squirm forward again through the palace at a painfully slow speed.

Watching from behind gave Yu Zhao a headache. She hooked her finger slightly.

A gentle force lifted the shell up from below, and its speed immediately increased a lot.

Before they even reached the main hall, Yu Zhao smelled a faint scent of blood.

Sure enough, when she stepped into the great hall, she saw Zhao Xian and his wife Wang Zhen lying in each other’s arms, short blades buried in both their chests.

Zhao Xian’s features were twisted, his eyes wide open even in death.

Wang Zhen rested against his chest, a soft smile still on her lips. If her body were not ice cold and her breath completely gone, she would have looked like she was only asleep.

Boss Wu was dead as well. His chest had been dug open, and a bloody heart lay all alone a short distance away.

Lady Hua knelt on one knee on the ground. Her hand pressed to her waist and abdomen, and blood poured out from between her fingers without stopping.

Boss Wu’s iron axe lay on the ground beside her feet.

She lifted her head, completely ignoring the old merfolk. Her eyes locked onto Yu Zhao’s calm face, and she suddenly showed a mocking smile.

“When did you find out?”

“I knew from the very beginning.”

“Why? Boss Wu and I never contacted each other alone!”

“Exactly because you kept your distance from start to finish, it made people more suspicious.” Yu Zhao pointed at Boss Wu’s body on the ground and said, “When we boarded the ship, Boss Wu introduced you to us. From how you interacted, it was obvious you already knew each other well, and your relationship was not shallow. So why did you two pretend not to know each other afterward?”

“And that time on the ship when you used the chance to flirt with Ji Han Zhou, did you notice Boss Wu’s eyes? He wanted to kill Ji Han Zhou right then.”

From the moment she boarded, Yu Zhao had felt that the people chosen for the ship were strange.

The strong were too strong, and the weak were too weak.

The strong naturally meant the Long Family Three Brothers, and the weak meant the lone Boss Wu.

Once she learned that everyone on the ship had been gathered by Boss Wu, Yu Zhao had immediately guessed that he must have another helper hiding in the dark.

Judging from everything that had happened, that person could only be Lady Hua.

Lady Hua gave a cold laugh: “I thought our act was seamless. I didn’t expect you to see through it from the start.”

This treasure hunt in the Merfolk Clan Grounds had been planned together by Lady Hua and Boss Wu.

After Lady Hua got the map, she felt that going with only her and Boss Wu was too risky. So she went to find the Long Family Three Brothers and the couple Zhao Xian and his wife to share the danger.

If they returned empty-handed, then Zhao Xian and his wife and the Long Family Three Brothers would become their next targets.

As for Yu Zhao and Ji Han Zhou, they were an unexpected bonus. Since everyone was prey anyway, two more targets did not matter.

Lady Hua had never imagined that the plan she had prepared for so long would end up ruined in Yu Zhao’s hands.

She also had not expected that Boss Wu, who had been so loving and tender with her, had only wanted to use her. Under the temptation of the Heart Devil Seed, his first reaction had actually been to kill her and steal the treasure.

So in this life, every person she had trusted was wrong.

“Yu Zhao!” Lady Hua suddenly burst into loud laughter: “Losing to you, I have no regrets! Remember this! The one who killed me, Hua Zi Yan, is you, Yu Zhao! Not him! Not him!”

As soon as she finished speaking, Lady Hua let out her last breath.

Her body fell backward. Her arm slipped down weakly, and the wound she had been covering was exposed fully before Yu Zhao’s eyes.

It was a fatal injury that had almost cut her in half at the waist. The person who struck her had shown no mercy at all.

No wonder Lady Hua’s heart had turned to ashes, and she had said those words before she died.

“She’s also a pitiful one,” Old Merman sighed at the side.

Yu Zhao said calmly: “She is the one who got the map.”

Old Merman glared at her.

“So what? I wasn’t the one who killed her. If you have to blame someone, you can only blame their greed.”

Yu Zhao thought that over, felt it was true, and said nothing more.

“When you leave, remember to take them with you. Don’t dirty the Merfolk Race’s territory,” Old Merman said with disgust all over his face.

Yu Zhao answered softly. She put Lady Hua and the others’ corpses into her Storage Space, planning to deal with them after she went ashore.

“Eh, there’s one who isn’t dead yet.”

“This is my junior brother.”

Hearing the meaning in Old Merman’s tone, Yu Zhao quickly replied.

Old Merman curled his lip: “Take him with you. I’ll send the two of you out of here.”

“Many thanks, Sovereign Senior.”

Yu Zhao used her spirit power to lift Ji Han Zhou up.

Old Merman crossed his fingers and quickly formed several hand seals.

Right after that, a gust of wind rose beneath their feet, and a small whirlpool formed rapidly.

As the whirlpool spun nonstop, its pulling force grew stronger and stronger, and it stretched higher and higher, until in the blink of an eye they could no longer see the top.

“Don’t resist.”

Yu Zhao obeyed Old Merman’s words and relaxed her body. A powerful suction pulled her and Ji Han Zhou upward at high speed.

The palace shrank below them, and the color of the sea faded from dark to light.

Before long, their figures shot out from the sea one after another and landed back on the Dead Island where they had first arrived.

Her feet stepped onto hard rock, and she breathed in the familiar air. Yu Zhao’s brow finally relaxed. She still liked being on land the most.

“Yu Zhao, don’t forget your promise.”

Old Merman still sat on his shell, the deep wrinkles on his face full of solemnity.

Yu Zhao nodded seriously: “Yu Zhao will remember it.”

Old Merman waved his hand, signaling that Yu Zhao could go.

Yu Zhao took a small boat out from Boss Wu’s Storage Pouch and set it onto the sea.

Just as she was about to board, a huge mass of black clouds raced toward the island like lightning. The sky darkened in an instant, and a terrifying pressure fell from above.

Yu Zhao and Old Merman’s faces changed drastically.

The Nascent Soul old fiend had caught up!