Chapter 3635 — Public Guidance Day

"Then I have you to thank, Miserable Senior Brother," Wei Zhao said, delighted.

By his reckoning, if he wanted to secure the Starink Stone without a hitch, he had to beat the other contenders to it — like that inner disciple of the Soaring Heavens Pavilion he had seen earlier at the Hong Clan Trading Company.

True, the man might not be able to produce a thousand spirit jades at short notice, but to be safe, Wei Zhao thought it best to buy the Starink Stone before next month's market street open day. Otherwise he would have to wait another month, and a long night breeds many dreams, as they said. Right now he was desperately short of useless jade, and Miserable Senior Brother's offer was a gift of coal in the snow.

"Ha, what's there to thank me for? It's only three or four hundred pieces of useless jade, just sitting there gathering dust anyway. If it's of use to you, take the lot," Miserable Senior Brother said with a chuckle.

He had been saving that useless jade to trade for good jade at the Spirit Jade Hall, but it was of low value after all, no different from a mortal hoarding old newspapers to sell as scrap. That it could actually help Wei Zhao delighted him.

Meng Jueming was forever plying Meng Zhou with cultivation resources. He himself was a managing senior brother too — what was a little useless jade? It couldn't even match a single piece of good jade! So when Miserable Senior Brother saw how happy Wei Zhao was, he felt he was not so useless after all.

"That much? All the better," Wei Zhao said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Cheat artifact or not, the jade pendant space was still bound by the rules of reality, and a thousand spirit jades was no small sum. To most cultivators it was an astronomical figure they could never hope to reach in a lifetime, and even for Wei Zhao, gathering that much useless jade within a month was a formidable challenge.

Now that Miserable Senior Brother had wiped out a third of it in one stroke, the pressure on Wei Zhao eased at once. All that remained was to figure out how to use his own good jade to trade for other people's useless jade. Seen that way, gathering a thousand spirit jades in a month no longer seemed an impossible task.

And yet it was still a tough challenge. Without a plausible excuse, offering good jade of his own in exchange for other people's used-up useless jade would look far too suspicious and draw the attention of the curious, and that would spell trouble.

What Wei Zhao did not know was that even as he racked his brains over how to find people to trade with, his rival Meng Zhou was already, all unknowingly, solving the problem for him — so much so that in the days to come he would not need to lift a finger before the man came eagerly knocking with useless jade in hand.

When he realized it, Wei Zhao could only marvel from the bottom of his heart: the title of peerless good men so rightly borne by Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou was, indeed, well deserved!

Miserable Senior Brother accompanied Wei Zhao and the others all the way back to their caves. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly remembered something and clapped a hand to his head. "Oh, right — I nearly forgot to tell you. Tomorrow is the annual Public Guidance Day. Each of the Threefold Pavilion will send an elder over to the Newcomers Pavilion to instruct you new disciples personally. By the custom of past years, each of you may ask three questions. Go back tonight and think it over carefully — this chance is rare, so don't waste it."

The reason he had come over specially today, apart from wanting to see whether he could help Wei Zhao at all, was precisely for this. By rights, Meng Jueming always made such announcements in person, but Miserable Senior Brother simply could not trust the man's character, so he had come specially to tell Wei Zhao and the others himself.

Judging by the looks on Wei Zhao's, Xiao Che's and Qiao Hongcai's faces, he had indeed come at the right time.

Public Guidance Day?

Wei Zhao, Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai were all taken aback at once. From Miserable Senior Brother's tone this was a matter of great importance, yet Meng Jueming, the managing senior brother, had not breathed a word of it to the three of them. Most likely he had been only too glad to let them miss it outright — what a vicious mind.

They were limited to three questions each, but the respondents were great figures at the elder level of the Threefold Pavilion; their cultivation realms were, needless to say, far above the common run. To receive personal guidance from masters of such caliber was rare indeed — "one may encounter it but cannot seek it out" was no exaggeration at all!

For newcomers like Wei Zhao, if this opportunity were grasped well, the benefit could far exceed the pills and spirit jades they dreamed of day and night. A single phrase of guidance from such a person might save them decades or even a century of detours in the years to come. What a precious chance it was!

"Thank you for the reminder, Miserable Senior Brother," Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai said. They too had plainly realized how rare the opportunity was, for after voicing their thanks they hurried off with their spirit jades, eager to begin. Judging by their expressions, the two of them would be mulling over what to ask the whole night long.

Watching their jubilant backs, Miserable Senior Brother could not help but smile. Then he turned to Wei Zhao and said with weighty earnestness, "Junior Brother Lin, I know your strength, your talent and your temperament all far exceed the ordinary. But a chance to put questions to a Threefold Pavilion elder — once missed, you may never encounter it again in your whole life. So tomorrow you must make the most of it."

"Rest assured, Miserable Senior Brother. I know the weight of it," Wei Zhao said with a nod.

In truth, Wei Zhao had realized in that very instant that he, more than anyone, needed to seize this opportunity. Yet what he meant to ask about was not cultivation, which concerned everyone else, but a question more crucial and more important to himself.

When he saw the three of them appear, Meng Jueming's eyelid gave an unmistakable twitch, and he spat in disappointment.

He knew that, thanks to Miserable Senior Brother's meddling, the notion of making the three of them miss Public Guidance Day had been a bit naive, but still he could not resist a little spite. The fifteen spirit jades he had lost yesterday still had his heart bleeding, and if he did not find a chance to claw it back soon, his indignation would simply never settle!

Small fry like Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai hardly mattered. If he could find some way to make that sworn enemy Wei Zhao stumble on this Guidance Day, and best of all leave him with a lifelong regret, now that would be truly satisfying!

But such notions could only be savored in Meng Jueming's own head. To use the Guidance Day as a chance to trip Wei Zhao up, he would at the very least need a line to the Threefold Pavilion elders, and for a mere minor steward of the Newcomers Pavilion, that was nothing short of a fool's dream. RS