Chapter 3642 — Quite the Actor

Of course, as far as Wei Zhao was concerned, the more of these traps there were, the better. He could not have wished more fervently for Meng Jueming and his lot to come swindle him with complete confidence, ideally each one cheating him out of a hundred pieces apiece, so that he would never again have to rack his brains over how to earn spirit jade.

Wei Zhao's guess was not the least bit wrong. The man pulling the strings behind this whole affair really was Meng Jueming!

And the affair had begun a few days earlier. Meng Zhou, while boasting to the other newcomers, had carelessly let slip that he and Meng Jueming had once conned good jade out of Wei Zhao by trading him worthless scrap. Thus Wei Zhao became the laughingstock of the crowd, and at the same time the newcomers, whether they realized it or not, began to fix their designs upon him.

To trade a few pieces of utterly worthless scrap for a single piece of spirit jade brimming with spiritual energy—with a living treasure like that right here among them, what fool would not hurry over and help himself to a little profit? They would have been damned by heaven and earth if they hadn't!

To begin with, every newcomer had only the single piece of spirit jade that the Welcoming Pavilion had handed out, and Wei Zhao's own piece had long since been swindled away by Meng Jueming. There was no more fat left on him to skim, so even if the newcomers harbored such ideas, they had no choice but to keep them bottled up inside for the time being.

But things were different now. Just yesterday Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai had won fifteen pieces of spirit jade off Meng Jueming in a bet, and by any normal logic the spirit jade of two underlings would naturally end up in the hands of their leader, Wei Zhao. So overnight, the minds of every newcomer in Green Cloud Pavilion began to stir again.

Everyone was thinking of using the single worthless piece in his own hand to trade for the good jade in Wei Zhao's.

But Wei Zhao, after all, was no true idiot. Unless they could come up with a fitting pretext, these newcomers—however urgent their desires—could not for the life of them figure out how to go about it.

True, Wei Zhao was not exactly quick-witted, having been cheated out of good jade by Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou with worthless scrap, and to this day he still seemed none the wiser. But he was, after all, a ruthless sort who had defeated Meng Zhou in a single move, and these newcomers knew better than to provoke such a fearsome figure.

If they rushed in to cheat him without thinking it through and were seen through in the end, the consequences hardly bore thinking about—they might well get beaten within an inch of their lives!

Yet to have such a fine piece of meat set before them and be unable to take a single bite—the newcomers' hearts were clawed by a hundred talons. At last, unable to hold back any longer, someone finally went to Meng Jueming, the senior brother in charge, to beg for his help.

One led to another, and in the end it came to this: every other newcomer in Green Cloud Pavilion ran off to swear their loyalty to Meng Jueming. And this scene took place precisely after today's instruction day had ended, just as Lu Bianren was giving Wei Zhao and the others his private counsel.

Meng Jueming was, naturally, beside himself with delight. He had long been looking forward to such a spectacle, and now that the newcomers had come begging, he could hardly disappoint them. Not only did he supply each of them with a few pieces of worthless scrap, he even thoughtfully devised a pretext for every one of them.

As a matter of course, Li Zhengming—the first to defect to him after Meng Zhou—became the perfect candidate to test whether the scheme would work. And so the scene of Li Zhengming's visit came to pass.

"What do you mean, trade spirit jade? Isn't all spirit jade the same? What's there to trade?" Wei Zhao put on a look of blank astonishment.

Though he knew nothing of the details behind the scenes, he had more or less guessed the gist of it. Spirit jade was exactly what he was short of just now, and since the other man had come delivering jade to his door of his own accord, there was no reason for him to push it away—but the play still had to be acted out, or else he would rouse suspicion.

Li Zhengming pondered for a moment, then asked, "Those fifteen pieces of spirit jade that Senior Brother Meng lost to you yesterday—they're in your hands now, aren't they?"

"Is there some problem with that?" Wei Zhao answered the question with one of his own, neither confirming nor denying.

Li Zhengming took this as tacit agreement, so he marshaled his words and said, "It's like this. That pouch of spirit jade Senior Brother Meng gave you was public funds temporarily in his keeping. In his agitation he didn't notice and mixed things up. Now, it's not that he couldn't make it up out of his own private spirit jade, but you know as well as anyone, Brother Wei Zhao, that good jade comes in grades. The trouble is that this public fund is top-grade good jade, and Senior Brother Meng cannot, on short notice, lay hands on enough top-grade good jade to cover the account..."

Here Li Zhengming glanced at Wei Zhao, and seeing him unmoved, went on: "Once the higher-ups audit the accounts and find a discrepancy in quality, Senior Brother Meng will inevitably be punished. As a new disciple, I can hardly stand by and do nothing, so..."

This whole story was, of course, Meng Jueming's own invention. On first hearing it sounded perfectly reasonable, with no obvious flaw to pick at.

What was more, the top-grade good jade was real enough—only that top-grade good jade belonged to Meng Jueming himself!

"So you want to trade me back these spirit jade to curry favor with Senior Brother Meng?" Wei Zhao cooperatively picked up the thread.

Li Zhengming nodded again and again. "Exactly. So might Brother Wei Zhao be willing to part with them?"

Wei Zhao could not help laughing. Deliberately putting on a gloating expression, he said, "I can understand what you're saying, but this is Senior Brother Meng's own business from first to last. He made a mistake, so naturally he ought to be punished. What has that got to do with me? Besides, you said yourself that this is top-grade good jade—and you want me to trade it for ordinary good jade? You take me for an idiot?"

"Uh... Brother Wei Zhao, you misunderstand. I know this is asking a lot, so I won't let you come out the loser. How about I trade you two pieces of good jade for one piece of your top-grade good jade?"

"Well now..." Wei Zhao deliberately put on a look of being tempted, but still shook his head. "Your two ordinary pieces of good jade against my one top-grade piece—the values may be about the same, but it still doesn't do much for me. Don't forget that Senior Brother Meng has gone after me time and again. Since there's no obvious benefit, why should I help him? Go on, give me one good reason."

At that, Li Zhengming hesitated a moment, then gritted his teeth and said, "All right then, three pieces of spirit jade for one. Surely Brother Wei Zhao is satisfied now? Even if one top-grade good jade is worth two ordinary ones, at three for one you've absolutely come out ahead!"

Heh, this fellow knows a thing or two about acting himself!

Wei Zhao laughed inwardly. After pondering a moment, he finally nodded. "Fine then. It's a deal."

Purely in terms of value, a single piece of good jade was equal to a thousand pieces of worthless scrap. Setting aside all other considerations, three for one was a terrible loss for Wei Zhao—after all, the last time Meng Jueming came to "swindle" him, the rate had been at least twenty-five to one!