"You... how do you know that?!" Qin Yuanming blurted out instinctively. His induction into the Center had been an exceedingly secret affair; apart from Dr. Spectacles, Brother Dafeng, and Xue Jianming, who had recruited him, in theory no fourth person ought to have known. But judging from Wei Zhao's tone, the man seemed to know every last detail.

"The archipelago is only so big. Surely you don't think your tracks are that seamlessly covered?" Wei Zhao looked the man up and down. At first glance he seemed a rather honest, straightforward sort, quite deceptive in appearance, and a line popped into Wei Zhao's head unbidden: he had never expected that even a thick-browed, big-eyed fellow like this would turn traitor!

"I don't understand what you mean." Once he had regained his composure, Qin Yuanming cast a cautious glance around and found no one, yet he still refused to give up. Feigning calm, he asked in a low voice, "What exactly do you want?"

"Heh. Even at a time like this you keep up the act, determined not to leave any incriminating words behind. I truly admire that spirit of yours—you won't shed a tear until you see the coffin." Wei Zhao nodded, an expression of immense amusement on his face, and came just short of adding a jab about how this shameless look of his had quite the essence of Wei Zhao in his younger days.

"How interesting. And what if I refuse to conduct myself with restraint?" Wei Zhao laughed, utterly unruffled.

"Then don't blame your disciple for being rude." Before the words had died away, Qin Yuanming struck with no warning whatsoever, and his very first move was his strongest killing blow, held back by nothing at all. Had Xin Yi'an still been on the island, he would never have dared do such a thing—quite possibly Wei Zhao would indeed have cornered him beyond any way out. But Xin Yi'an was far away at the seabed spirit mine keeping watch, so he still had a sliver of a chance: so long as he silenced Wei Zhao before anyone discovered it, all would be done without a trace.

His body moved like a serpent. The speed Qin Yuanming unleashed in that instant was truly extraordinary, and in the blink of an eye he had pressed close to Wei Zhao's flank, using a whipping kick as a feint. The moment it drew Wei Zhao's attention, he immediately followed with an exceedingly well-concealed elbow strike—this was his proudest trump card. Once it landed, it could easily break through true qi defenses and crush an enemy's bones outright. The Bone-Crushing Kill.

It landed! Seeing Wei Zhao stand motionless, Qin Yuanming instantly assumed the man had been frozen in place by the suddenness of the ambush, and delight surged in his heart. So long as the first form of the Bone-Crushing Kill connected, he could immediately follow with the second, the third, the fourth, all the way until every bone in his opponent's body was ground to powder.

But just then Wei Zhao suddenly spoke: "Oh? The concept behind this move isn't bad at all, but used the way you use it, it's really... an utter mess!"

"Big talk!" Qin Yuanming sneered without cease. His elbow was now a hair's breadth from Wei Zhao's back, victory within sight—so this so-called junior martial granduncle was nothing more than this!

Yet in the final instant, Wei Zhao's body shifted to the right by an inch in an utterly bizarre fashion. Using a true qi ejection technique to open up a bit of distance, his whole body immediately became serpentine as well—eerily twisting, yet incomparably swift.

"This is..." Qin Yuanming was struck dumb on the spot, and an ominous premonition rose in his heart. Why did this movement technique look so familiar?

Before he could react, Wei Zhao had turned the tables and coiled around him, using a whipping kick as a feint, followed at once by an exceedingly well-concealed elbow strike.

Crack! Qin Yuanming soon heard the sound of his own ribs snapping, and his whole body was instantly drowned in searing pain. He collapsed powerlessly to the ground, and as he vomited blood he forced out with difficulty, "Bone... Crushing... Kill..."

"Which is exactly what I was saying. A martial art like this falling into your hands is a pearl cast before swine—don't you feel wronged on its behalf?" Wei Zhao spread his hands.

Qin Yuanming was instantly choked speechless. A moment ago he could still dismiss the man's words as big talk, but now the other party had watched him once and mimicked the Bone-Crushing Kill convincingly, with power far exceeding even his own original version. Where was the justice in such a thing?

They were clearly both peak Foundation Establishment experts of the same rank—so why was the gap in strength so vast? Qin Yuanming was on the verge of tears!

"Whether you beat me or kill me, just make it quick." Qin Yuanming fought down the urge to keep coughing up blood and, sprawled on the ground, said weakly. Though he had secretly been lured by Xue Jianming into throwing in his lot with the Center, now that death was at hand he did display a measure of backbone.

"If it were as simple as beating and killing, I'd have acted long ago. Why would I waste so many words on a traitor like you?" Wei Zhao glanced down at him from his height.

"Then what else do you want?" Qin Yuanming's heart went cold under that gaze, and the backbone he had shown a moment ago vanished into thin air.

"Nothing much—just a bit of research. It won't necessarily be a bad thing for you." As he spoke, Wei Zhao suddenly crouched and laid a hand on his head, and a stream of warm true qi poured into the other's body.

Qin Yuanming was scared out of his wits. Having true qi forcibly injected into one's body was in itself a desperately dangerous matter, and this was the most fragile part of all—his head. He did not dare move a muscle; otherwise, if the other's true qi veered even slightly astray, even if he did not die on the spot he would surely be reduced to an idiot.

But to Qin Yuanming's surprise, the true qi did not run wild or wreak havoc. Wherever it passed, it left an indescribably pleasant sensation, as though it were searching for something inside his body.

After a moment, the warm true qi burrowed into his dantian, and to Qin Yuanming's boundless shock it forcibly drove out the poisonous qi attached to that improved version of the pill!

This was the Center's chief means of coercing them all. From the very moment he had discovered the poisonous qi, he had been constantly trying to force it out and neutralize it. In fact, not only he but the rest of Xue Jianming's people had been doing the same—yet including even the strongest of them, Bing Wushuang, not one had been able to force out this deeply hidden poisonous qi, let alone neutralize it.

Yet who would have thought that a task of such difficulty, once in Wei Zhao's hands, would become so effortless? From beginning to end he had expended hardly any strength at all, plucking it out as easily as a cat catching a mouse...