A Game of Strategy

"Venerable Yellow Sand, please have some tea!"

"Venerable Yinghua, would you like some fruit?"

In the Vermilion Clouds Palace, as soon as Venerable Yellow Sand asked Zhang Xuezhou a question, Zhang Xuezhou was instantly fired up as though he had been injected with chicken blood.

Spittle flew from his mouth as he began denouncing Hongku's many wrongs.

Several minutes into his account, Zhang Xuezhou also brought over a platter of fruit and some tea from beneath Venerable Lei's lecturing platform.

He served the Venerables tea and water, then offered them the fruit platter.

Only after passing it around did Zhang Xuezhou grab a piece of fruit and stuff it into his own mouth.

The tooth-achingly sour taste hit his tongue, and Zhang Xuezhou felt terrible all over. He quickly gulped down a large mouthful of tea.

"Venerable Lei has rather unusual tastes. We should just have some tea," Venerable Yinghua said.

"I bit into one of his Thunderclap Fruits years ago. It was so sour I wanted lightning to strike me dead right then and there," Venerable Yellow Sand said with a sigh.

"There's never been anything good to eat here!"

The other three Venerables were named Venerable Black Mountain, Venerable Weaver Emperor, and Venerable White Bone.

Compared to the sharp words he had aimed at Hongku earlier, Venerable Yinghua was more restrained now, while Venerable Yellow Sand sighed over the bitter experience he had suffered.

That prompted the other three Venerables to join in the grumbling.

Those three Venerables were older and had spent more time around Venerable Lei than the others. Venerable Yellow Sand's experience was nothing unusual; they had all fallen for it before as well.

"Ah~"

Zhang Xuezhou, who had bitten into the fruit without a second thought, had already twisted his face into a