Chapter 3599 — Pretend, Keep Pretending!

Senior Brother Tong was an old man, a disciple of the Mystic Pavilion. As one of the middling officials in the quality inspection office, he had never thought much of the people from Qingyun Pavilion. Yet after several encounters, he had developed a rather favorable impression of Meng Jueming, who was exceptionally good at handling people.

"Mine No. 10?" Senior Brother Tong could not help frowning in surprise. How could Mine No. 10 possibly produce eight pieces of good jade? Had he really read the name wrong?

But when he turned back and checked carefully, he found that Wei Zhao's name was indeed written on the basket, and that the eight pieces of good jade had indeed been taken from it. Even he could not help shaking his head in disbelief. "Eight pieces of good jade. They are indeed Wei Zhao's. No mistake."

"Er... Senior Brother Tong, are you sure all eight of those are good jade? Could you perhaps have overlooked something?" Meng Jueming persisted, still unwilling to give up. Beside him, Meng Zhou and the others wore expressions of utter disbelief, as though they had seen a ghost. Being defeated by Wei Zhao in a single move could still be explained away as a moment of carelessness. But now they had been outdone even at mining, and by a poor wretch assigned to Mine No. 10 at that. If word of this got out, would it not be humiliating beyond words?

"Overlooked something? Are you suggesting that your eye for identifying spirit jade is sharper than this old man's? Why not come in and have a look yourself?" Senior Brother Tong's face darkened at once. The favorable impression Meng Jueming had carefully cultivated through several deliberate attempts to ingratiate himself vanished in an instant because of that one remark.

"I would never dare! I am simply clumsy with words. Please do not take it to heart, Senior Brother Tong!" Meng Jueming hurriedly apologized again and again, almost wishing he could slap himself. To tell the head of the quality inspection office that he had made a mistake, and to do so in front of so many people, was practically the same as digging up the man's ancestral grave. He really must have lost his mind!

"Even if it is Mine No. 10, so long as one's luck is good enough, one can occasionally dig up some good jade." Senior Brother Tong shot him a cold glance before delivering his final verdict. "Wei Zhao. Eight pieces of good jade. Confirmed beyond doubt!"

Good heavens! What kind of world was this? A poor wretch from Mine No. 10 had actually managed to dig up eight pieces of good jade! How was anyone supposed to live with that?

The assembled newcomers looked at Wei Zhao, who remained as calm as drifting clouds and flowing water, with tears in their eyes and despair in their hearts. Then they turned to Meng Jueming, the senior steward brother in charge. Though none of them dared show it too plainly on their faces, every one of them was cursing inwardly. This was nothing like the script they had been promised!

They had thought that throwing in their lot with Meng Jueming, the senior steward brother in charge, was unquestionably the wise choice. But now look at what had happened. Meng Zhou and Li Zhengming, who had received Meng Jueming's special favor, had only six or seven pieces of good jade, while Wei Zhao, the poor wretch who had plainly been set up for misery, had managed to dig up eight!

They did not entirely believe that Mine No. 10 could truly have such an outrageous yield of jade. Still, one thing could be inferred with certainty: Wei Zhao's ability to mine so much good jade was unquestionably owed in large part to Senior Brother Kusheng. It was highly likely that Senior Brother Kusheng had chosen Wei Zhao's mining site for him, which was why the yield had been so astonishing!

Seen in that light, their decision about which side to join had perhaps not been quite so wise after all. Leaving everything else aside, at least when it came to mining jade, Senior Brother Kusheng seemed more reliable than Meng Jueming, the senior steward brother in charge!

After all, Wei Zhao was living proof, and Senior Brother Kusheng had hardly anyone under him. If they defected to his side now, they would surely receive the same special treatment as Wei Zhao. Even if they could not dig up eight pieces a day, surely six or seven was something they could count on!

By contrast, Meng Jueming, the ever-dominating senior steward brother in charge, already had the majority of the newcomers on his side. One more would hardly matter, and one fewer would hardly be missed. Even if they joined him, they might not receive much special treatment. In the end, they would inevitably fare far worse than Meng Zhou and Li Zhengming. Perhaps they would manage only four or five pieces a day, which would be scarcely any different from their present circumstances!

For a time, the newcomers who had already swung plainly toward Meng Jueming began wavering once more in the presence of Wei Zhao's living example. At the very least, they were no longer hurling insults at him with the same reckless abandon as before.

A pack of useless fence-sitters! Meng Jueming soon noticed what was happening, and his face turned livid with rage. He longed to hang the bastards up one by one and beat them within an inch of their lives. Compared with a clear-cut enemy like Wei Zhao, these wavering fence-sitters were even more hateful!

But with Senior Brother Kusheng lurking as a potential rival, Meng Jueming could only swallow his anger for the moment. If he lost his temper and drove this pack of fence-sitters into Senior Brother Kusheng's arms, then his days of comfort as the senior steward brother in charge would be over.

Unable to curse out these fence-sitting newcomers, Meng Jueming could only take Wei Zhao to task instead. He snorted. "Hmph. It was nothing but a stroke of dumb luck. What is there to be proud of? I will wager that tomorrow, our grandstanding newcomer will dig up no more than two pieces of good jade! Dumb luck does not last forever. If one could dig up seven or eight pieces of good jade every day, would it still be called Mine No. 10? The Spirit Jade Hall would have reassigned it long ago!"

"Cousin Nine is absolutely right! What is that saying again? Oh, yes: when a petty man comes into his own! I would very much like to see how long our grandstanding newcomer can keep feeling triumphant. I can hardly wait to see the look on this bastard's face tomorrow, when he is reduced to tears! Hahaha!" Meng Zhou chimed in from the side.

Seeing everyone looking at him with complicated expressions, Wei Zhao, who had been too lazy to speak, suddenly smiled. "Oh, if you say it was dumb luck, then dumb luck it was. You really hit the nail on the head. How could a wandering cultivator like me have made it to Cloudstep Island without some dumb luck? Perhaps I will get lucky again tomorrow. Perhaps I will be lucky every day..."

"Hahaha... Pretend! Keep pretending! Let us see whether you can still keep it up at this time tomorrow! We shall all wait and see whether this fellow really does have dumb luck every day!" Meng Jueming, Meng Zhou, and the others scoffed and rolled their eyes. Clearly, they had not taken Wei Zhao's words seriously.

They had already decided that Wei Zhao's eight pieces of good jade that day were a once-in-a-thousand-years fluke. After all, dead mines went largely unworked year-round, so it was not impossible for a few pieces of good jade to turn up every now and then. But what happened once could not happen again. How could anyone keep having such absurd luck? This bumpkin from the mortal world was no child of destiny. By tomorrow, he would inevitably be exposed for what he truly was!

Besides, even if Wei Zhao's luck was outrageously good, there still had to be spirit jade in the mine for him to find! RP