This time, Manager Li did not lead Wei Zhao in circles either. Instead, he chose the shortest route. He knew that for a man of Wei Zhao's caliber, any so-called secret path into the Ice Palace was nonsense. With perception that powerful, trying to play games before him was nothing but asking for trouble.

Together, the two of them set off toward the Ice Palace.

"Up ahead lies the territory of the Ice Palace. Young Hero Lin, how about this—when we arrive, would you wait a while in the reception room by the gate? Allow me to go report to the Palace Master..." Manager Li was in a difficult spot. Since Bingtang had not come out to receive them, he dared not rashly bring Wei Zhao straight into the Ice Palace, and so he asked cautiously.

"Of course." Wei Zhao gave a faint nod. However one looked at it, Feng Xiaoxiao was the Ice Palace's vice palace master, and there was no need for Wei Zhao to treat it as a hostile sect. If the little miss Bingtang had another fit of her spoiled-princess temper, then let her have it. Wei Zhao would simply pretend he had not noticed.

"Thank you for your understanding, Young Hero Lin!" Manager Li let out a long breath of relief.

"Heh..." Wei Zhao smiled and said nothing more.

But when the two of them drew near the Ice Palace's gates, and Manager Li was just about to speak to Wei Zhao, an arrogant, overbearing figure appeared at the Ice Palace entrance with incomparable speed!

Wei Zhao, accommodating the pace of Manager Li—an expert of the Earth rank—was not traveling at full speed, and so that figure simply appeared there at the Ice Palace gates, seeming utterly unconcerned with Wei Zhao and Manager Li behind him.

"Who is that?" Wei Zhao's brows furrowed slightly. He thought to himself, there are still people in the Ice Palace who ignore its rules? He had never heard of any formidable male elder in the Ice Palace.

"Huh? You don't recognize him?" Manager Li was also rather puzzled as to where this sudden arrival had come from. When had the Ice Palace gained such a person? And he appeared to be quite a capable expert.

Wei Zhao, acting on first impressions, had assumed the man belonged to the Ice Palace, but Manager Li actually said he did not recognize him. Only then did Wei Zhao look closely at the figure who had already reached the Ice Palace gates ahead. And no sooner had he looked than he received a tremendous shock!

This man was actually an expert at the peak of the late Heaven rank! The same tier as Bingtang? And a man, at that? Then this man was likely not one of the Ice Palace's own, for the experts of the Ice Palace were not men but women. This person, by the look of it, was probably here with ill intent!

What puzzled Wei Zhao most was that the man's back seemed somewhat familiar, as though he had seen it somewhere before. Yet from the back alone, Wei Zhao could hardly judge where the man had come from.

"So you're saying this man is not one of your Ice Palace's people?" Wei Zhao halted and did not rush forward, intending to observe the situation first. After all, he had come to the Ice Palace on important business. If this man was here to make trouble, Wei Zhao would do well to plan how to respond.

Naturally, an expert at the peak of the late Heaven rank was not someone Wei Zhao took much to heart. What he feared was that this man might be a pathfinder, with others following behind him.

And no wonder Wei Zhao was suspicious. After all, for a single man to come to the Ice Palace looking for trouble was somewhat unrealistic. Bingtang herself was an expert at the peak of the late Heaven rank, and she alone could deal with any comer.

She might not be able to kill the intruder, but for that intruder to actually wreak havoc was equally unrealistic.

That was why Wei Zhao had decided to watch and see.

"Yes, I don't recognize him... Young Hero Lin, shall we go now?" Seeing Wei Zhao halt, Manager Li, not knowing his thoughts, asked in some puzzlement, "Are we not going on?"

"Since a guest has arrived first, we may as well wait. Who told him to run so fast?" Wei Zhao said mildly.

"This... very well!" Manager Li could not discern Wei Zhao's true meaning. His tone was flat, and it was impossible to tell whether he genuinely cared about propriety and was letting the guest go first, or was expressing displeasure at the guest for stealing a march on them.

Just as Manager Li was speculating, the expert at the peak of the late Heaven rank before the Ice Palace gates had already spoken: "Where is Bingtang? Come out at once and receive the envoy of the Five Luminaries Sect!"

The man's voice carried tremendous depth, and the moment he opened his mouth it boomed like a great bell, so that the entire Ice Palace could hear that resounding sound. In times past, Wei Zhao would have envied such a thing greatly, but in the present Wei Zhao's eyes, it was merely a petty trick.

Yet the words the man spoke made Wei Zhao's eyes sharpen, a flash of brilliance passing through them. The envoy of the Five Luminaries Sect? So this man was one of Ancestor Xuanchen's people? Wei Zhao was finally beginning to faintly understand why the man had looked somewhat familiar.

The man's attire and bearing were very similar to that of the group of bandits who had gone to the Dark Night Palace. But... was that all? The thought that had flashed through Wei Zhao's mind earlier had not gone in that direction. This sense of familiarity could only be a minor detail. What was the true reason?

Because the man's voice, too, was somewhat familiar to Wei Zhao!

In any case, there was no doubt this man belonged to the Five Luminaries Sect. Then those three bandits Wei Zhao had wounded and slain earlier were probably disciples of the Five Luminaries Sect as well. If so, Ancestor Xuanchen must be spitting blood—three of his disciples reduced to such a state by Wei Zhao's hand? One dead, two crippled?

After all, even within the Five Luminaries Sect, Heaven rank experts were not available in unlimited supply. Across the entire Upper Ancient plane, Heaven rank experts numbered merely in the double digits. Add those from overseas, from foreign lands, and so on, and there were probably only a hundred and some, not even two hundred. For the Five Luminaries Sect to lose three at once—how could that not pain them?

Bingtang was waiting for Elder Li to bring Wei Zhao to her. She was thinking about how she should respond if Wei Zhao brought up that promise about being her tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny husband. Hmm... if Wei Zhao raised it, then she would simply strike first, and let him know that rumors stop with the wise!

Conspiring with the Dark Night Palace to fabricate tales of slaying one expert at the peak of the late Heaven rank and crippling two others—who would believe such rumors? Even an expert at Great Perfection could not dispatch experts at the peak of the late Heaven rank so cleanly, could they?

So Bingtang did not quite believe it. Partly it was because she had once looked down on Wei Zhao, and partly because the whole affair was simply too incredible, beyond the scope of Bingtang's understanding—which was why Bingtang had not gone to receive Wei Zhao. RS

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