Still, Wei Zhao had to admit that Han Jingyi's interruption could not have come at a better moment—it handed him exactly the excuse he needed to step down gracefully. Otherwise, he would surely have hemmed and hawed a while longer.

"Whoever backs out is a turtle and a scoundrel!" Right Panhu declared, with all the finality of a blade striking stone.

"Fine. The truth is, Jingjing just happens to be short a pill cauldron, and you insist on trading, so I suppose I have no choice." Wei Zhao sighed. "Jingjing, bring the cauldrons over."

"Here!" Right Panhu, terrified that Wei Zhao might change his mind, shoved the two pill cauldrons straight into Han Jingyi's arms the instant he heard the agreement. In Instructor Bai's class, after all, he was not afraid Wei Zhao would pocket the cauldrons and refuse him the materials—and if he did, Right Panhu would not mind lodging a complaint.

Han Jingyi carried the two cauldrons over, beaming with delight. Wei Zhao, meanwhile, opened the folder of textbooks he carried and drew out a stack of documents—none other than the copy Instructor Bai had transcribed for him, containing the oral formulas for the Dan Fire Condensation Method and the auxiliary mental formulas for pill refiners.

"Here it is. Take it." Wei Zhao handed the documents to Right Panhu. "Copy it once, then give it back to me. The original belongs to Instructor Bai—I have to return it to him."

"Of course, of course!" Right Panhu nodded again and again.

Taking the documents, Right Panhu could hardly wait to open them. But the moment he did, his expression shifted abruptly. He began flipping through the pages with feverish haste, and the faster he flipped, the uglier his face grew—until, by the final page, Right Panhu's complexion had turned a deathly iron-blue.

"Wei Zhao, you swindled me!" Right Panhu raged, beside himself. "This is the material Instructor Bai gave you?"

"It is. If you don't believe me, go ask Instructor Bai," Wei Zhao said mildly.

"You know perfectly well I can't go ask Instructor Bai!" Right Panhu's eyes fairly spat fire. His two pill cauldrons—true, the hidden Right family still had a few first-rank and second-rank cauldrons in reserve, but this was no way to squander them!

"Oh, and if you still don't believe me, you're welcome to come along when I return the material," Wei Zhao said, still mild as ever.

"That..." Hearing this, Right Panhu knew Wei Zhao was not lying to him—the material really had come from Instructor Bai. And what Instructor Bai had given Wei Zhao was nothing but a beginner's primer on pill refinement, not any kind of advanced technique at all!

When all was said and done, he, Right Panhu, had been duped—duped on a monumental scale! He had taken this beginner's primer in Wei Zhao's hands for some priceless treasure and paid two pill cauldrons for the privilege, only to receive a set of documents worth nothing at all!

"Wei Zhao, you knew perfectly well this was a beginner's primer for pill refiners, that it's worthless to me—so why didn't you warn me?" Right Panhu demanded furiously. "And you cheated me out of two pill cauldrons besides. Did you do this on purpose?"

"Right Panhu, are you brain-dead? I kept telling you not to trade, telling you the hidden Right family surely has no shortage of this sort of thing!" Wei Zhao frowned and gave a cold laugh. "And what did you say? That a thousand pieces of gold couldn't buy your willingness, that you were willing to trade with me! I told you trading with me would be swindling you, and you said not trading would be swindling you. You forced the trade on me—so what was I supposed to do?"

"That..." Right Panhu was struck dumb on the spot, unable to muster a single retort against Wei Zhao's words. Sullenly he muttered, "Then... I don't want to trade anymore..."

"Don't want to trade anymore? You say no and it's no? You've already read the whole thing, and only now you say you don't want to trade? Are you going to gouge out your eyeballs, or gouge out your brain, and wipe away everything you've already seen?" Wei Zhao curled his lip. "I don't have time for you. Aren't you going to copy it? If not, give it back."

With that, Wei Zhao snatched the documents back out of Right Panhu's hands, paid him no further heed, and left with Han Jingyi.

Right Panhu was beside himself with frustration. He felt he had suffered a loss of cosmic proportions. True, the two cauldrons were of no use to him, but even within the hidden Right family they were precious enough—to hand them over to Wei Zhao for nothing, who could possibly be in good spirits?

And yet, for all his chagrin, Right Panhu could not find a single argument to make. Thinking it over carefully, Wei Zhao had indeed refused him all along and even urged him not to trade; it was he himself who had pressed and pressed to make the exchange. So whom was there to blame?

Of course, Right Panhu did not for a moment believe Wei Zhao had been so kindhearted as to warn him off out of an overflow of sympathy. Wei Zhao had plainly been playing hard to get!

Otherwise, why hadn't Wei Zhao simply told him straight out that Instructor Bai's material was nothing but the most rudimentary beginner's mental formulas for pill refiners? Had he said so from the start, would he not have called off the trade? And once the exchange was made, Wei Zhao had simply taken the cauldrons and walked off without the slightest show of pity for him!

Clearly Wei Zhao had harbored ill intent, luring him, Right Panhu, step by step into the trap! That was why Right Panhu was so utterly miserable. But inside Instructor Bai's class, miserable or not, there was nothing he could do. Wei Zhao had neither robbed nor threatened him—the trade had been fair and square, free of any other considerations. Even if it were brought before Instructor Bai, Right Panhu would have no leg to stand on.

So Right Panhu had no choice but to swallow his broken teeth.

"Damn that bastard, Wei Zhao swindled me!" Right Panhu snarled. "May he die a miserable death—sooner or later I'll get even for this!"

Yellow Hair and Purple Hair did not dare speak out of turn just then. They bore some responsibility for Right Panhu's getting duped too—they had failed to see through the scheme and stop him in time—so now they were afraid Right Panhu might take it out on them.

"Calm yourself, Young Master Right. That Wei Zhao clearly had it all planned out, advancing step by step—there was no way to guard against him!" said Yellow Hair.

"Indeed, Young Master Right. All we can do now is learn from this bitter lesson. If anyone's to blame, it's Wei Zhao—he put on such a convincing act no one could tell truth from falsehood!" Purple Hair chimed in.

"You two—start thinking of a plan right now! A good one. I want to give Wei Zhao a taste of disgust! This can't just end here. Even if I can't get the cauldrons back, I'll make sure Wei Zhao pays something for it!" Right Panhu said. "Otherwise I won't be able to sleep at night!"

"Yes, Young Master Right, we'll think of something right away!" Yellow Hair and Purple Hair nodded hurriedly.

The three of them talked as they walked toward the Biology Department building. Right Panhu's good mood from his recent breakthrough to the Mystic Rank had vanished without a trace. When he got home, he would inevitably have to face his uncle's scolding—it might not be too severe, but his very first trade with another person had ended in failure, and that would always be a blot on his record.

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